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Excess Time Indoors May Explain Rising Myopia Rates
Nature reports that an unexpected factor may be behind a growing epidemic of nearsightedness: time spent indoors. From the article: Because the eye grows throughout childhood, myopia generally develops in school-age children and adolescents. About one-fifth of university-aged people in East Asia now have this extreme form of myopia, and half of them are expected to develop irreversible vision loss.
This threat has prompted a rise in research to try to understand the causes of the disorder — and scientists are beginning to find answers. They are challenging old ideas that myopia is the domain of the bookish child and are instead coalescing around a new notion: that spending too long indoors is placing children at risk. “We're really trying to give this message now that children need to spend more time outside,” says Kathryn Rose, head of orthoptics at the University of Technology, Sydney.
What the fuck? How the hell is something as dumb as what "nukenerd" just wrote on Slashdot?! I know the standards here have dropped over the past few years, but what "nukenerd" wrote is abysmally dumb.
As far as the eye is concerned, the light came from the mirror. That's the last physical object to have touched the light before it entered the eye. Thus that is what the eye will focus on: the mirror.
Let me give you an example that you'll be able to relate to. "nukenerd", when you're on Folsom Street and sunlight reflects off of a glistening penis, your eyes aren't focusing on the sun, millions of miles away. Your eyes are focusing on the penis that's a few inches from your face.