This week, Vancouver teens take top science honours, how you can get bionic eyes, how you can use your smartphone as a diagnostic tool to detect cancer, and where are all the aliens in outer space?

Vancouver’s smart science students

Last week, two Vancouver teens took top honours at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair held in Pittsburgh.

Raymond Wang received the Gordon E. Moore Award (named after this guy, who developed his famous Moore’s Law 50 years ago) for his work on how to reduce the transmission of pathogens in airplanes by changing how air flows through the cabin. Wang, who attends St. George’s School, gets US$75,000 as part of the award.

York House School student Nicola Ticea won $50,000 as one of two Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award winners. She invented a device to more easily diagnose HIV testing kit that requires only a drop of blood and provides results in an hour.

Bionic lens will gives everyone perfect vision

Optometrist Garth Webb is another smart person from the Lower Mainland. He seems to have developed a bionic lens. Webb showed off the lens, which would be implanted in a ten-minute procedure similar to how cataract surgery is conducted, to a group of ophthalmologists at a recent convention.

It’s already possible to get a lens replacement or implant, but the difference with Webb’s intraocular lens is that he claims it will improve a person’s entire range of vision, allowing them to see better up close as well as far away.

I can’t quite figure out exactly how the lens works, but sign me up.

Webb hopes to have the bionic lens approved and available within two years.

While we’re on the topic of eyes

Turns out that the cameras we’re all carrying around in our pockets can save lives.

The “red eye” phenomenon that we see from the light of flashes reflecting off the retinas of our subjects eyes is normal. And if you see something other than that it may indicate a problem.

In particular, when one eye has a white reflection, instead of red, it can be a sign of retinoblastoma, a rare type of eye cancer that affects young children. The technique is effective enough that the Childhood Eye Cancer Trust, a charitable organization in the UK, has a web page with information on what to look for.

We’re all taking pictures of our kids all the time, anyway. This is just something else to look for when you review the day’s photos.

Where are all the aliens?

So we know that the universe is huge, and we now know that it’s filled with stars and trillions upon trillions of planets. Statistically, if even a tiny percentage of those planets are supporting life, there should be lots of alien life out there.

That we haven’t any evidence of them is the basis of the Fermi paradox. And it’s the topic of the video below, which aims to lay out explanations for why we’re not already talking to aliens.

One hypothesis is that there’s a powerful, ancient race of aliens that eliminate civilizations that progress too far. Queue Douglas Adams.