Medicine

Light is good for your health. Most notably, there are significant health benefits from vitamin D, which is produced in our bodies by the absorption into the skin of ultraviolet (UV) radiation. There are also dietary sources of vitamin D, but one of the best and most enjoyable involves simply sitting back and soaking up the sun's rays.

Researchers in Germany and the UK have devised a new method for the optical manipulation of microscopic particles and demonstrated it by rotating biological cells under a microscope^†.
 
 

It's hard to keep up with the ever-increasing number of ways in which light can be used to push on the frontiers of medical science. Here are just a few that have been reported on in recent days.

One treatment for abnormal tissue growths, including cancerous tumours, is to close off the vessels supplying blood to that region, thereby killing it off. In some parts of the body, such as the eye and the brain, this requires an extraordinary level of precision. Researchers in the UK, Canada and the US, have recently produced a photo-activated drug and demonstrated that it is able to achieve far greater precision than any existing techniques, without causing damage beyond the treated region¹.

Laser eye surgery is already a commonplace procedure, most particularly in the field of corrective vision, and now lasers have found a new application in ophthalmology as a treatment for eye cancer.