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Eye Molds, Brain Phases, Microplastics, and Anomalous Gravity
This week’s science bits from SWTG
Marcus Gee-Lim
December 03, 2025
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This Can Fix Your Eyesight Permanently, Without Laser
Molds for the cornea. Credits: ACS.
A team of American researchers have developed a new way to reshape the cornea, the uppermost layer of your eye. Deformations of the cornea are responsible for the most common vision problems, such as near-sightedness, far-sightedness, and astigmatism. The cornea can be reshaped with lasers, but this procedure is not without risks and can result in vision artifacts such as seeing haloes. It also permanently thins the cornea, and that substantially limits the number of corrections that can be made to one’s eye.
The new method instead softens the cornea with electrical currents and then shapes it. Once the current is removed, it becomes hard again. The researchers put forward a proof of principle with rabbit corneas two years ago. They have now developed platinum molds for custom shaping, and are working towards applications in humans. More here. Video here.
This week’s episode of Science News is about a massive 7,000 kilometer-long gravitational anomaly recently discovered off the coast of Africa in data from a NASA satellite. The anomaly occurred from 2006 to 2008 and has now disappeared. What caused it? Let’s have a look.
Human Brain Goes Through 5 Phases, Researchers Find
Researchers from the University of Cambridge, UK, have found that the structure of the human brain changes significantly at specific ages, at approximately 9, 32, 66, and 83. After the phase of childhood, the brain improves efficiency until the early 30s, then remains reasonably stable in structure until the mid 60s, at which point it begins to decline in two steps. The researchers obtained this data from brain scans of more than 3,800 people, from which they extracted the connectivity of neurons. Paper here. Press release here.
200+ AI Side Hustles to Start Right Now
While you were debating if AI would take your job, other people started using it to print money. Seriously.
That's not hyperbole. People are literally using ChatGPT to write Etsy descriptions that convert 3x better. Claude to build entire SaaS products without coding. Midjourney to create designs clients pay thousands for.
The Hustle found 200+ ways regular humans are turning AI into income. Subscribe to The Hustle for the full guide and unlock daily business intel that's actually interesting.
Much of Microplastic Literature is of Low Quality, Review Finds
The new metalens. Credits: Menon Lab
The European Food Safety Authority has reviewed the literature on the release of micro- and nanoplastics from food packaging. They looked at a total of 122 studies and, in a nutshell, they found that the scientific literature is a mess and most of the studies are of low quality. “Many publications are affected by methodological shortcomings,” they write. They found no solid evidence supporting the idea that plastic slowly leaks from materials, e.g. into water bottles. Instead, they say, it seems that most of the microplastics which were identified in scientific studies come from mechanical abrasion. Paper here.
