from the everyone-switch-to-the-VT220-theme dept.
Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Why might reading make myopic?
It is known that myopia develops later when children are more outside before school and are exposed to bright illumination. What exactly makes them myopic when they start reading at school is still not fully understood.
[...] There are cells that respond mostly to brightness in the center of the receptive fields and darkness in the periphery (ON center cells), and cells that respond preferentially when the center is dark and the periphery is bright (OFF center cells). During our normal daily visual experience, both types are similarly stimulated. But what happens during reading of text?
Software was developed to quantify the relative stimulus strength for ON and OFF cells for various visual environments. The software showed that dark text on bright background stimulates mainly OFF cells (Figure 1 A), while bright text on dark background stimulates mainly the ON cells (Figure 1B). It was known from earlier experiments in chickens and mice that stimulation of ON cells tended to inhibit eye growth while stimulation of OFF cells tended to increase eye growth.
[...] Using optical coherence tomography (OCT) it is possible to measure the thickness of tissue layers in the living eye with very high resolution (micrometer range). The layer behind the retina, the choroid, is of particular interest since it has earlier been shown in chickens, various species of monkeys and children that changes in choroidal thickness can predict future changes in eye growth. When the choroid thins, the eye typically starts growing, when it thickens, eye growth is inhibited and no myopia will develop.
Alleman, Wang and Schaeffel asked their subject to read dark text on white background or bright text on dark background. Already after 30 minutes it was found that the thickness of the choroid either decreased (when reading standard text) or increased when reading text with inverted contrast (Figure 2). One would therefore expect that dark text on bright background would stimulate myopia development and bright text on dark background would inhibit myopia. Simply inverting text contrast is therefore strategy to inhibit its development. This is easily achieved on computer screens and tablets but certainly more demanding when it comes to printed books.
Reading and Myopia: Contrast Polarity Matters (DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-28904-x)
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 28 2018, @06:47PM (2 children)
why might reading make stupid?
(Score: 5, Touché) by requerdanos on Sunday October 28 2018, @07:22PM
Reading might be trying out the makefile for myopic, for example, or perhaps reading has made some changes to the source code and wishes to build and test.
There are many possible reasons why reading, or anyone, might make myopic, or anything. The make utility is very versatile.
It's also possible that reading's first language isn't English. Reading's second, third, and fourth languages probably also aren't English. Perhaps reading only speaks a set of non-English languages plus "whatever Google Translate spits out".
(Score: 2) by chewbacon on Monday October 29 2018, @01:21AM
Me fail English? That's unpossible!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 28 2018, @07:06PM (5 children)
The world doesn't need any more idiots who cannot even use basic English.
God damn I am sick of scum like you who spew your illiterate idiocy all over the web.
(Score: 5, Funny) by requerdanos on Sunday October 28 2018, @07:24PM (4 children)
There are more students of English, at varying ability levels, than there are people who speak English as a native language.
No need getting upset about it--they are learning your language so you don't have to go to the effort of learning theirs. Just say "thank you" and move on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 28 2018, @07:41PM (3 children)
People who are still learning English are not well served by English-language editorial positions being held by those who cannot into English.
(Score: 3, Touché) by requerdanos on Sunday October 28 2018, @08:17PM (2 children)
You seem to believe that an editor who posts an article from Universitäts Klinikum Tübingen in Germany entitled "Why might reading make myopic?" as "Why might reading make myopic?" is somehow, by some measure, deficient in language skills, when any test, whether cursory or thorough, would determine that each and every word of the original article's title has been preserved here.
For some people, this conveys the strange word ordering of TFA. Of course, not everyone caught that.
That TFA's own title for itself is odd in word choice is curious, I suppose, but perhaps you were unaware that the editors here do not go out to the various sites and choose the titles for their articles.
From this confusion, your drawing the conclusion that unrelated persons cannot into English makes others embarrassed for you.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 28 2018, @11:10PM
"From this confusion, your drawing the conclusion that unrelated persons cannot into English makes others embarrassed for you."
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Don't be embarrassed for me, just drink some drain cleaner, and you'll feel better.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 28 2018, @11:43PM
Editor, noun: one who edits.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 28 2018, @07:07PM
If it wasn't for it being easier to make dark inks and light paper we'd never have touched the ridiculous black-on-white shit which people seem so in love with.
For anyone who hasn't noticed yet, both Youtube and Reddit have dark themes available which don't blind you with light from everywhere except the content.
(Score: 5, Touché) by darkfeline on Sunday October 28 2018, @10:19PM (1 child)
Incontrovertible proof that dark themes are better than light themes, and hence why programmers that use light themes are generally inferior.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 5, Funny) by RamiK on Monday October 29 2018, @09:45AM
Or, quite literally, blind to their own mistakes. :D
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @03:20PM (1 child)
For how many years I have preached the gospel of light-on-dark, only to be ignored, reviled, or persecuted.
Turns out it's also a good idea for other reasons I hadn't even conceived. Suck it, myopic heathens!
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday October 30 2018, @09:45PM
It is really difficult to get light on dark. My optometrist recommends light on dark.
In the old old days I could just set my orange monitor to inverse video -- oh wait a minute. In the old days they always were light on dark. It was only later that they became dark-on-light by default.
When I ended up with a colour monitor I tried setting my browser to ight on dark. i just set the default foreground to white and the default background to black. But there were a huge number of sites that overruled the default foreground without overriding the default background. Maybe their elegant dark indigo text looked good on white, but it was nearly unreadable on a black background. I had to give up.
Are there any systematic techniques to achieve light on dark, or is it just a separate hack for every system, subsystem or website I use -- that is, when anything can work at all.