Week in review: Bees, basketballs, bulging white mass

A weekly roundup of ophthalmic news from around the web.

It can’t be …. it just can’t BEE. But it actually happened: Four bees flew into a Taiwanese woman’s eye while she plucked weeds at a graveyard. What she mistook as flecks of dirt were ant-sized sweat bees, feasting on the tears streaming from her swollen eye. By the time she arrived at Fooyin University Hospital, Dr. Hong Chi Ting told the BBC, “She couldn't completely close her eyes. I looked into the gap with a microscope and saw something black that looked like an insect leg. I grabbed the leg and very slowly took one out, then I saw another one, and another and another. They were still intact and all alive.” Worse things have happened, though: The Atlantic describes 6 eye-threatening insects that make sweat bees seem mild.  BBC, New York Times

Alcon debuted this week as an independent, publicly traded company. With the spinoff, Novartis’ ophthalmology division will refocus efforts on breakthrough treatments, data science and disease monitoring platforms. Alcon will pursue devices for surgical and vision care. Alcon

If you’ve never seen a corneal keloid, you’re not alone—fewer than 100 have been reported during the century since the lesions were first identified. So when a 74-year-old man presented with a bulging white mass where his pupil and iris should be (shown above), doctors described his case in JAMA Ophthalmology. The lesions usually occur in young patients, but in this case the man noticed a corneal scar after cataract surgery that gradually thickened over the next 6 months. Surgons removed the lesion with a #57 ultrasharp blade and continue to follow his recovery. JAMA Ophthalmology

When Stephen Curry’s shooting stats drooped this February, the basketball superstar decided to stop squinting and give contacts a try. “It’s like the whole world has opened up,” Curry, who has keratoconus, told Sports Illustrated. The Warriors point guard saw his 3-point field goal percentage increase from .378 in February to .433 in March. Sports Illustrated

New York Times columnist Frank Bruni went to bed seeing the world one way, and woke up seeing it another. His brush with non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy cost him the vision in his right eye and invoked fear of losing his left-eye vision, too. Now Bruni is taking a leave from his column to write a book about the experience. Stay tuned! New York Times