This is scientific Americans 60 second science. I'm Karen Hopkins. This will just take a minute.

Nothing says over-educated egghead like a pair of coke bottle glasses. But even cliche sometimes hit the nerd on the head,

because a new study finds that nearsightedness is linked to the number of years

spent in school.

The findings can be viewed in the journal Ophthalmology.

In the past century, the prevalence of myopia,

science speak for being able to see only what's right in front of you,

has been on the rise.

So much so that it can't all be blamed on geeky genes.

To nail down the potential environmental influences, researchers focused on the classroom.

They gave eye exams to nearly 5,000 German subjects in a project called the Gutenberg Health Study.

The researchers found that individuals with 13 years of education

were more myopic than those who didn't get past primary school, and more than half

of those with a university degree could use a set of specs compared to less than a

quarter of the folks who quit after high school or secondary school.

All that learning takes a lot of reading, which itself is associated with near-sightedness.

Or the near-sighted may gravitate toward pursuits easier to see, like hitting the books.

Either way, seems that being a good student may not require great pupils.

Thanks for the minute.

For Scientific Americans 60 Second Science, I'm Karen Hopkins.