Smartphone prompts temporary blindness

Looking at your smartphone while lying in bed at night could wreak havoc on your vision. Two women went temporarily blind from constantly checking their phones in the dark, said doctors who are now alerting others to the unusual phenomenon. The solution: Make sure to use both eyes when looking at your smartphone screen in the dark. Dr. Gordon Plant of Moorfield's Eye Hospital in London said the temporary vision loss occurred because "it's taking [the eye] many minutes to catch up to the other eye that's adapted to the dark."

Antibody shows promise against HIV

A human antibody that has shown promise in protecting people against HIV infection has demonstrated the ability to suppress the resurgence of HIV for as long as 19 weeks in infected people who stopped taking their antiretroviral medications. In a letter in the journal Nature, scientists reported that in 13 people with HIV who discontinued their retroviral drugs, infusions of a neutralizing antibody called 3BNC117 staved off the expected rebound of the virus for more than a month instead of the typical 18 days.

Pill to treat all forms of hepatitis C is OK'd

The Food and Drug Administration approved the first pill to treat all major forms of hepatitis C. The combination pill, Epclusa, was approved for patients with and without liver damage. The new drug's broad indication could make it easier to use than other hepatitis drugs that are tailored to different viral strains or stages of liver disease.

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