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Android 14 Will Bring Support For Satellite SMS Starting With Pixel And Galaxy Phones, Will Require Supported Hardware

Safety first. I’ve read about tech saving lives and this is a step forward along with crash detection and AFib detection and more. Our phones are legit becoming rescue and medical devices. Any experience or thoughts?

The extent of satellite support is still not evident when it comes to smartphones, but I am really looking forward to seeing how Android 14 uses this feature. It is also important to understand that all Android phones are built differently, especially when it comes to manufacturers, and while Samsung might be the biggest, with the most amount of influence, it is possible that other companies won’t introduce the feature despite the latest version of Android supporting the feature.

Whatever the case might be, Android 14 is not far away, as the update will make its debut in October alongside Pixel 8 series. You can expect the Tensor G3 to have this support. In addition to that, new flagship phones are going to start popping up, which means that we will see some compelling hardware from a variety of companies and will perhaps also get a look at which phone does support satellite SMS and other satellite-based communication features and which doesn’t.

Satellite communication on phones is still a feature that has a long way to go, and I am glad that Android 14 is bringing it to the mainstream. Here, it is important to understand that we are going to get more and more features revolving around this type of communication, and I am really hoping that more Android OEMs fall in line so we can truly have a proper, streamlined technology at our disposal.

Smartphones as Medical Devices — The Future of Healthcare?

Since I was going to become a Dr before my TBI, or a scientist but there’s this and some devices and apps are pretty accurate. Like Samsung and Apple. Now there’s the Google Pixel, the Pixel watch and of course Fitbit and more.

The same devices used to take selfies and type out tweets are being repurposed and commercialized for quick access to information needed for monitoring a patient’s health. A fingertip pressed against a phone’s camera lens can measure a heart rate. The microphone, kept by the bedside, can screen for sleep apnea. Even the speaker is being tapped, to monitor breathing using sonar technology. Smartphones as medical devices could be the next big thing.

In the best of this new world, the data is conveyed remotely to a medical professional for the convenience and comfort of the patient. Or, in some cases, to support a clinician without the need for costly hardware.

But using smartphones as diagnostic tools is a work in progress, experts say. Some doctors and their patients have found some real-world success in deploying the phone as a medical device. However, the overall potential remains unfulfilled and uncertain.

Dr. Ross Uhrich, DMD, MBA — Program Manager, Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H)

Is Program Manager, Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H — https://arpa-h.gov/people/ross-uhrich/), which is focused on advancing high-potential, high-impact biomedical and health research that cannot be readily accomplished through traditional research or commercial activity, accelerating better health outcomes targeting society’s most challenging health problems.

Under the ARPA-H portfolio, Dr. Uhrich is responsible for the recently launched Novel Innovations for Tissue Regeneration in Osteoarthritis (NITRO — https://arpa-h.gov/engage/programs/nitro/) program which seeks to develop new ways of helping the human body repair its own joints, with the goal of revolutionizing treatment for osteoarthritis — a common and often very painful condition where bones and cartilage break down.

Dr. Uhrich joined ARPA-H in March 2023 from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC) and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, where he worked as a board-certified oral and maxillofacial surgeon and assistant professor of surgery. In addition to these roles, he spent 12 years with the U.S. Navy, finishing his tenure as a Lieutenant Commander.

Throughout his career, Dr. Uhrich has cared for thousands of members of the U.S. Armed Forces at various healthcare facilities, including the USS Gerald R. Ford, Naval Health Clinic Quantico, and WRNMMC, and served as an oral and maxillofacial surgery consultant to Congress. He also treated patients at Charleston Area Medical Center, R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, and Suburban Hospital.

Dr. Uhrich holds a doctorate in dental medicine from the University of Pennsylvania, an MBA from the University of Virginia, and completed his surgical residency at WRNMMC. He also has a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering from Yale University.

AI And SaaS Are Not Ready For Each Other—But That’s About To Change

Artificial intelligence today is spreading like wildfire. New and more powerful applications are emerging almost daily, and people are interacting with AI more in their everyday lives.

All of this is very exciting for modern enterprises, which have reinvented themselves as digital powerhouses post-pandemic. Still, digital transformations don’t happen overnight, and tech companies—and SaaS models in particular—were the saving grace of businesses sprinting to align their customer experiences with new consumer expectations and data-driven capabilities.

But AI is a different animal. Not only does it require huge sums of data, but it also requires a new approach to how that data is obtained and managed within the enterprise. Businesses expecting a simple “build it and leave it” experience with AI are in for a shock, and many will undoubtedly ask, “Can SaaS deliver AI at speed and scale?”

It’s Raining Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria

This is an educational video. It does suggest a bit of a solution and it’s a good reason to be careful about eating snow maybe or drinking rain water? I’m no expert but now I’m wary though I haven’t heard of anyone getting sick from doing so.

Bacteria are everywhere, including clouds, and the rain that falls from them. Not only can they survive the harsh environment and hitchhike across continents, they can share their genes, too. Including the ones that make them resistant to antibiotics.

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Sources:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969722083681?via%3Dihub.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/86/i15/Bacteria-Clouds.html.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6616856/
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https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/987590
https://nouvelles.ulaval.ca/2023/04/27/des-genes-de-resistan…e1d9292a65
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896972…ihub#s0080
https://theconversation.com/bacteria-and-viruses-are-travell…sky-142854
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5864199/pdf/413…cle_42.pdf.
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Food allergies impair growth among infants

Children with food protein-induced allergic proctocolitis experienced impaired growth during their first year of life, but this resolves as the disease resolves, according to a study published in Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.

Meanwhile, children with IgE-mediated food allergy (IgE-FA) experienced impaired growth after age 1 year, Rachael Rosow, BA, clinical research coordinator for pediatric food allergy at Massachusetts General Hospital at the time of the study and now a medical student at Frank H. Netter M.D. School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University, and colleagues wrote.

The 804 children followed from birth through age 2 years in the study included 134 (17%) who developed food protein-induced allergic proctocolitis (FPIAP), 50 (6%) who developed an IgE-FA and 15 (2%) who developed both.

Novel radiotracer demonstrates high diagnostic efficacy for obese patients with coronary artery disease

A novel PET perfusion radiotracer, 18 F-flurpiridaz, can diagnose coronary artery disease (CAD) in obese patients with a higher sensitivity and specificity compared to 99m Tc-SPECT myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI), according to research presented at the 2023 Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Annual Meeting. 18 F-flurpiridaz PET MPI obtained images at a lower radiation dose than 99m Tc-SPECT MPI and performed similarly in both obese and non-obese patients.

Obese individuals frequently have such as diabetes, high cholesterol, and that put them at higher risk of developing CAD. Due to these risk factors, imaging obese patients for CAD is very important.

“Due to their , it’s often hard to image ,” said Krishna Patel, MD, assistant professor of medicine and cardiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. “This can result in inferior image quality and diagnostic performance despite requiring a higher dose of radiation.”

PCP Visits Before Emergency Surgery Tied to Lower Mortality in Older Adults

“These findings suggest that primary care may be exerting a protective effect on postoperative morbidity and mortality,” wrote Sanford E. Roberts, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and co-authors in JAMA Surgery.

Of note, Black patients with PCP exposure had similar adjusted odds of in-hospital mortality relative to patients with no PCP exposure (OR 1.09, 95% CI 0.75−1.57), while white patients with PCP exposure had a 21% decreased risk of in-hospital mortality compared with the same group (OR 0.79, 95% CI 0.70−0.90).

However, at 30, 60, 90, and 180 days post-surgery, both Black and white patients who had visited a PCP had significantly lower adjusted odds of mortality compared with those who had not seen a PCP, with no significant differences in the interactions between race and PCP exposure for mortality.

AI Helps to Unveil the Genetic Basis of Human Skeletal Proportions

Using artificial intelligence (AI) to combine data from full-body x-ray images and associated genomic data from more than 30,000 UK Biobank participants, a study by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and New York Genome Center has helped to illuminate the genetic basis of human skeletal proportions, from shoulder width to leg length.

The findings also provide new insights into the evolution of the human skeletal form and its role in musculoskeletal disease, providing a window into our evolutionary past, and potentially allowing doctors to one day better predict patients’ risks of developing conditions such as back pain or arthritis in later life. The study also demonstrates the utility of using population-scale imaging data from biobanks to understand both disease-related and normal physical variation among humans.

“Our research is a powerful demonstration of the impact of AI in medicine, particularly when it comes to analyzing and quantifying imaging data, as well as integrating this information with health records and genetics rapidly and at large scale,” said Vagheesh Narasimhan, PhD, an assistant professor of integrative biology as well as statistics and data science, who led the multidisciplinary team of researchers, to provide the genetic map of skeletal proportions.

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