As well as being World Book Day March 6 is also World Glaucoma Day, an attempt to raise awareness of a disease that affects 500,000 people in the UK alone. The disease causes progressive damage to the optic nerve and eventual blindness.

Researchers at London’s Moorfields Eye Hospital have developed a new test that can diagnose the disease much earlier than standard tests. What’s more, it uses a computer program to diagnose the illness, so is cheap, portable and may soon be downloadable from the internet.

The program was developed by Vis Viswanathan, and measures the ability to detect small movements.