Week in review: Pinterest redesign, scleral mystery, stroke predictors

A weekly roundup of ophthalmic news from around the web.

Pinterest just rolled out a new app, designed with visually impaired people in mind. The company spent more than a year reworking its app based on feedback from people with eye conditions ranging from macular degeneration to complete blindness. The new app boasts user-friendly colors and fonts, special markings around buttons and menus, and—most importantly—compatibility with Voice Over and Talk Back. Co. Design

This isn’t another scleral tattoo mishap: When a 70-year-old man realized the whites of his eyes had taken on a blue hue, he turned to doctors for help. Eye exams revealed normal vision and no sign of disease. The culprit? An antibiotic called minocycline that he’d been taking for 15 years to treat inflammatory arthritis. His case appeared last week in the New England Journal of Medicine. LiveScience

Retinal imaging could potentially stave off stroke, according to new evidence that abnormalities in the retinal microvasculature — due to arteriovenous nicking, focal arteriolar narrowing, retinal micro-aneurysms or retinal hemorrhage—increase the risk of ischemic or lacunar stroke. The findings, presented last week at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting, came from an analysis of 10,468 individuals who were enrolled in a large NIH-funded study. MedPage Today

A new vlog highlights the daily lives of legally blind people. The Low Vision Specialists of Maryland and Virginia launched the series to show how a local man with retinopathy and legal blindness navigates the workforce. PR Web

Skiers and snowboarders need a lesson in UV protection, warn vision scientists from the University of Liverpool. They asked participants to apply sunscreen to their faces, then used a UV-sensitive camera to snap before and after photos. Areas covered with sunscreen appeared black—and the delicate skin around the eyelids and the inner corner of the eye often remained unprotected. Researchers stress the importance of wearing UV protective eye gear on the slopes.  EurekAlert!
*Image credit: University of Liverpool