--- title: Five Best: This Breakthrough Could Stop Glaucoma description: This breakthrough could stop glaucoma in its tracks, America’s fading role as a defender of free speech has consequences and more. canonical: https://time.com/5064284/this-breakthrough-could-stop-glaucoma-in-its-tracks/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-12-14T17:00:26.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:58:16.829Z article:section: Ideas og:title: This Breakthrough Could Stop Glaucoma In Its Tracks og:description: And four more of today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/5064284/this-breakthrough-could-stop-glaucoma-in-its-tracks/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Breakthrough Could Stop Glaucoma In Its Tracks twitter:description: And four more of today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # This Breakthrough Could Stop Glaucoma In Its Tracks by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Dec 14, 2017 5:00 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Dec 14, 2017 5:00 PM UTC **1\.** [**This breakthrough could stop glaucoma in its tracks.**](http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/11/06/potential-glaucoma-treatment/) By Yasmin Anwar at _UC Berkeley_ **2\.** [**America’s fading role as a defender of free speech has consequences.**](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-13/losing-faith-in-free-speech-has-consequences) By Leonid Bershidsky in _Bloomberg View_ **3\.** [**This is how air pollution could be impacting your teen’s behavior.**](http://news.usc.edu/132850/increased-air-pollution-linked-to-bad-teenage-behavior/) By Zen Vuong at _USC_ **4\.** [**Soft power cells — inspired by the electric eel — could be the future of implanted health devices.**](http://www.ns.umich.edu/new/multimedia/videos/25325-electricity-eel-style-soft-power-cells-could-run-tomorrow-s-implantables) By the _University of Michigan_ **5\.** [**This startup wants to make the CRISPR gene editing tool open source.**](http://fortune.com/2017/12/13/crispr-enzyme-free-inscripta/) By Sy Mukherjee at _Fortune_  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ Five Best: This Breakthrough Could Stop Glaucoma ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5064284/this-breakthrough-could-stop-glaucoma-in-its-tracks/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5064284/this-breakthrough-could-stop-glaucoma-in-its-tracks/"},"headline":"This Breakthrough Could Stop Glaucoma In Its Tracks","datePublished":"2017-12-14T17:00:26.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:58:16.829Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/5064284/this-breakthrough-could-stop-glaucoma-in-its-tracks/","keywords":["Five Best Ideas","Innovation","Pollution","health","free speech","gene editing"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/five-best-ideas/","name":"Five Best Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5064284/this-breakthrough-could-stop-glaucoma-in-its-tracks/","name":"This Breakthrough Could Stop Glaucoma In Its Tracks"}}]}] ```