Lifeboat Foundation

A Japanese startup at CES is claiming to have solved one of the biggest problems in medical technology: Noninvasive continuous glucose monitoring. Quantum Operation Inc, exhibiting at the virtual show, says that its prototype wearable can accurately measure blood sugar from the wrist. Looking like a knock-off Apple Watch, the prototype crams in a small spectrometer which is used to scan the blood to measure for glucose. Quantum’s pitch adds that the watch is also capable of reading other vital signs, including heart rate and ECG.

The company says that its secret sauce is in its patented spectroscopy materials which are built into the watch and its band. To use it, the wearer simply needs to slide the watch on and activate the monitoring from the menu, and after around 20 seconds, the data is displayed. Quantum says that it expects to sell its hardware to insurers and healthcare providers, as well as building a big data platform to collect and examine the vast trove of information generated by patients wearing the device.

Quantum Operation supplied a sampling of its data compared to that made by a commercial monitor, the FreeStyle Libre. And, at this point, there does seem to be a noticeable amount of variation between the wearable and the Libre. That, for now, may be a deal breaker for those who rely upon accurate blood glucose readings to determine their insulin dosage.

Astronomers have discovered unusual signals coming from the direction of the Milky Way’s center. The radio waves fit no currently understood pattern of variable radio source and could suggest a new class of stellar object.

“The strangest property of this new signal is that it is has a very high polarization. This means its light oscillates in only one direction, but that direction rotates with time,” said Ziteng Wang, lead author of the new study and a Ph.D. student in the School of Physics at the University of Sydney.

“The brightness of the object also varies dramatically, by a factor of 100 and the signal switches on and off apparently at random. We’ve never seen anything like it.”

The opening scene of a brief online documentary by Chinese state-run media channel CGTN shows jaywalkers in Shenzhen getting captured on video, identified, and then shamed publicly in real-time. The report is supposed to highlight the country’s prowess in artificial intelligence, yet it reveals a lesser-known truth: China’s AI isn’t so much a tool of world domination as a narrowly deployed means of domestic control.

On paper, the US and China appear neck and neck in artificial intelligence. China leads in the share of journal citations — helped by the fact that it also publishes more while the US is far ahead in the more qualitative metric of cited conference papers, according to a recent report compiled by Stanford University. So while the world’s most populous country is an AI superpower, investors and China watchers shouldn’t put too much stock in the notion that its position is unassailable or that the US is weaker. By miscalculating the others’ abilities, both superpowers risk overestimating their adversary’s strengths and overcompensating in a way that could lead to a Cold War-style AI arms race.

Our planet is in crisis.

From increasing storms, wild fires and extinctions, to the pollution of our water and the possible failure of our food systems, we are on the brink of a disaster of epic proportions.

Continue reading “Can We Save Our Planet. Creating A Future We Can All Embrace” »

Exclusive: UK scientist says giving booster jabs rather than sharing doses equitably will cause hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s proposed changes to recommendations for using low-dose aspirin to prevent a first heart attack or stroke closely align with guidelines from the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association.

Aspirin is a blood thinner & can help head off heart attacks and strokes by preventing clots from forming in the blood vessels that lead to the heart or brain.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s proposed changes to recommendations for using low-dose aspirin to prevent a first heart attack or stroke closely align with guidelines from the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association.

“Star Trek” actor William Shatner, 90 will be the oldest person to go to space on the upcoming Blue Origin flight.

There is no other space project currently in the works that gets more attention than the Starship. The next generation of spacecraft coming from SpaceX, the one that is meant to take us to the Moon and even to Mars, has eclipsed pretty much everything else, from the ill-fated Boeing Starliner to the upcoming Artemis I launch.

The National Nanotechnology Initiative promised a lot. It has delivered more.

facebook Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email.