Scientists look to the sun for better-looking bionic eyes

​In great news for the vision impaired -- and style conscious -- scientists may have come up with a way to make prosthetic retinas work without the use of cumbersome and unsightly wires. The synthetic photoreceptors work by sending signals from a camera to an implant inside the eye. Currently, a multitude of wires are used to connect the implant to both the camera and an external battery, but a team of scientists at Stanford University is now experimenting with using low-intensity infrared light transmitted through photovoltaic cells, similar to a rooftop solar panel, to send information to the receptors. The team is currently trialing the technology on rats and the results are, erm, looking good.