Have patients inquired whether there are monsters eating away at their eyes? They may have if they recently travelled outside of the US. Parasitic eye infections are relatively uncommon in the US, but they are a significant cause of eye problems throughout the world. Americans who travel abroad to lands where eye parasites are common are at high risk for developing monsters in their eyes.
Don’t blink—surgically implanted eyeball jewelry takes body piercing to a whole new level. It was developed in the Netherlands 10 years ago, slowly made its way to Los Angeles, and recently arrived in New York. The technical medical term for eyeball jewelry is extraocular implant. Eye surgeons at the Netherlands Institute for Innovative Ocular Surgery created the cosmetic procedure where a tiny piece of jewelry (which they market as “JewelEye”) is inserted under the surface of the eyeball for decorative purposes. The institute’s website says that the implant is completely safe and does not affect visual performance, mobility, or other ocular functions.
In the fictional universe of Star Trek exists a device called a VISOR. Its a thin apparatus worn like a pair of sunglasses by the blind to artificially provide them with a sense of vision. VISORs can detect electromagnetic signals and transmit them to a users brain through neural implants in their temples. However, instead of seeing the world as human eyes do, someone wearing a VISOR is able to see infrared and ultraviolet light and beyond. When the fictional technology of the VISOR was conceived, it was far from becoming a reality, but today, a device very similar to this is already being used by blind patients.
The human race is relatively young. The universe is estimated to be approximately 13.8 billion years old, but Homo sapiens have only been in existence for the last 200,000 years. To put that into perspective, humans are less than 0.002% the age of the universe, or rather, a blip in time. And although our species may be in its infancy, humans have already greatly advanced technologically in the short time that we have walked the earth. Once we developed a written language, we were able to begin efficiently passing on our knowledge extra-genetically from one generation to the next. It is the coalescence of this knowledge that made man into the distinguished being that he is today.
“Round eye.” It was once a derogatory slang term Asians would use at times to refer to Westerners, but particularly, it applied to Americans. Now the term “round-eye” has taken on a whole new meaning in Asian culture and is associated with more than a touch of envy and beauty. How ironic that an Asian woman’s almond-shaped eyes, thought to be mysterious and alluring to many Western men, are now considered an ugly deformity in some Asian cultures, most notably in Korea and China, where the Western look is now coveted.
