Prevention
Latest
Circul+ packs an ECG sensor into its heart-tracking ring
An ECG in a device only slightly larger than a ring is a big achievement.
Students develop a smart bra for early breast cancer detection
Students from the Swiss university EPFL have developed a smart bra designed to detect breast cancer in its earliest stages. They believe it's the first piece of clothing that can be used for cancer prevention. They even claim that it's comfortable and that the tech is "nearly imperceptible."
Amazon and the NFL team up to create a 'Digital Athlete' simulation
Amazon's AWS and the NFL plan to use AI and machine learning to protect players. The partners announced today that they'll co-develop a "Digital Athlete" platform, which will create a computer simulation model of an NFL player. Using the computer simulation, they'll be able to test different game scenarios without putting actual players at risk.
DeepMind AI can predict kidney illness 48 hours before it occurs
Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) kills 500,000 people in the US and 100,000 in the UK annually, often because it's not detected soon enough. Researchers want to use AI to change that. DeepMind, the Alphabet-owned AI company, partnered with the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to develop an AKI prediction algorithm. In a paper published in Nature today, the partners share their findings that the algorithm can predict the presence of AKI up to 48 hours before it happens. The model correctly identified 9 out of 10 patients whose condition worsened to the point that they needed dialysis.
A generic HIV prevention drug should arrive in 2021
Pharmaceutical giant Gilead has agreed to release its exclusive patent to manufacture and sell the HIV-prevention drug Truvada. This means we could see a generic version of the pre-exposure prophylaxis (or PrEP) on the market earlier than expected. The news is seen as a win for individuals who may be at a greater risk of contracting HIV.
Logan Paul returns to YouTube with suicide prevention video
It has been a little over three weeks since YouTuber Logan Paul posted his now infamous Aokigahara forest video and aside from an apology, Paul has been largely silent on his channel. But today, Paul posted a new video, one that's quite different from his usual content.
Skill Mastery: Astral Shift
One of the early shaman survival cooldowns that you can get at level 15 is called Astral Shift. It isn't flashy or super awesome or anything. But an emergency damage reducer on a 2-minute cooldown could be just what you need to stay alive and continue DPSing (or healing). It doesn't reduce only magic damage. Nor does it reduce only physical damage. It reduces any damage! In case you feel two minutes is too long, you have some alternatives. Nature's Guardian is an effect that can kick in once every 30 seconds, which might potentially save you (although the next hit you take could be lethal). Stone Bulwark totem is another alternative that places a shield on you which refreshes and adds additional absorb amounts every five seconds after. The theme of the level 15 shaman talents revolves around survival and damage mitigation. Raiders may lean more toward Astral Shift, but I'm using the Stone Bulwark totem for the purposes of questing and leveling. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Carbon nanotubes used to more easily detect cancer cells, HIV
Cancer's not slowing its march to ruining as many lives as it possibly can, so it's always pleasing to hear of any new developments that act as hurdles. The latest in the world of disease-prevention comes from Harvard University, where researches have created a dime-sized carbon nanotube forest (read: lots of nanotubes, like those shown above) that can be used to trap cancer cells when blood passes through. A few years back, Mehmet Toner, a biomedical engineering professor at Harvard, created a device similar to the nano-forest that was less effective because silicon was used instead of carbon tubes. Today, Toner has teamed up with Brian Wardle, associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, who together have redesigned the original microfluid device to work eight times more efficiently than its predecessor. The carbon nanotubes make diagnosis a fair bit simpler, largely because of the antibodies attached to them that help trap cancer cells as they pass through -- something that's being tailored to work with HIV as well. Things are starting to look moderately promising for cancer-stricken individuals, as hospitals have already began using the original device to detect malignant cells and ultimately prevent them from spreading -- here's hoping it's qualified for mass adoption sooner rather than later.
Twitter adds 'Always use HTTPS' option, makes cyberterrorists FOF
One small checkbox for your mouse pointer, one giant leap for your Twitter account's security. The microblogging site that every techie knows, loves, and occasionally loathes, has added a new option to allow users to go HTTPS full-time. For the unenlightened among you, that means all your communications with Twitter can now be done over an SSL-encrypted channel, which massively boosts their resilience to external attacks. That won't protect you if you're careless with your password or leave your account logged in on computers other than your own, but at least you can sleep a little more restfully knowing that nobody other than yourself will be embarrassing you on the Twittersphere.
Criminal behavior prediction software to go live in D.C., Precogs union up in arms
We all know what happens when people start using supernatural forces to predict and prevent crimes, and we certainly don't want to go there. But software that predicts criminal behavior is already in effect in Baltimore and Philadelphia: while it won't send a SWAT team to a perp's door moments before shots are fired, it will algorithmically show which criminals are most likely to commit or be victims of certain crimes in the future. While the software is now being used to determine how closely parolees should be monitored for murder risk, law enforcement agents in D.C. are hoping to use it to detect the likelihood of lesser crimes as well. Forget all that gobbledygook about immigrants taking all our jobs--let's figure out a better way to keep algorithms from getting into the U.S. of A. [Photo courtesy Bryan Babich]
