The digital state of play

Two new studies developed algorithms that can identify patients who are at risk of acquiring HIV and may benefit from preventive care.

Digital technology is an intrinsic part of almost every area of life. How can we ensure that developments in this field, especially those that rely on artificial intelligence (AI), meet all our ethical, legal and technological concerns?

In a prospective study of children playing tackle football, researchers find minimal changes in neurocognitive outcomes - and any changes were not correlated to number or severity of head impacts.

Penguins, Asian elephants and many other animal species live in the zoos of Saarbrücken and Neunkirchen. As they come from different continents, blood is regularly taken from the animals to check their health.

Badri Roysam, chair of the University of Houston Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is leading a $3.19 million project to create new technology that could provide an unprecedented look at the injured brain.

Signal researchers have developed a mobile phone app that can measure impaired breathing. The results can lead you to determine whether you have a respiratory disease. In the future, this invention can also help people suffering from asthma or allergies with remote care and self-care. The mobile measurement tool is an easy, fast and cost-effective alternative to expensive hospital examinations.

About one in ten people in southern India is diabetic. Around one in three suffers from a so-called diabetic retinopathy (DR), a disease of the retina caused by diabetes. Untreated, DR is often the cause of visual impairment and blindness. However, many of those affected have symptoms only in the late stages of the disease.

Treating physicians need information about the molecular subtype of the tumor if they are to provide targeted therapy for colorectal carcinoma. A research team from University Hospital Zurich and the University of Oxford have now developed a method to predict the molecular classification of colorectal cancer from digital pathology slides.

Losing a limb, either through illness or accident, can present emotional and physical challenges for an amputee, damaging their quality of life. Prosthetic limbs can be very useful but are often expensive and difficult to use.

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories identified the weakness and notified the software developers. The issue has also been fixed in the latest release of the software. While no attack from this vulnerability is known, the National Institutes of Standards and Technology recently described it in a note to software developers, genomics researchers and network administrators.