HD Explorer, July 7th, 2015
The HD Explorer
The Health Data Exploration Project’s regular scan through the news.
News
What Aetna’s $37B acquisition of Humana could mean for digital health
After weeks of rumors, this morning health insurance company Aetna announced that it is acquiring rival Humana for $36 billion in cash and stock. Read more…
Google Is Developing An OS For The Internet of Things Called Brillo
Google is making a real time operating system for the Internet of things. And it isn’t doing it as part of Nest. Read more…
A Look Inside Silicon Valley’s Wild Biotech Accelerator IndieBio
Silicon Valley breeds the kind of people that create computers that fit in the palm of our hands, electric cars that can go hundreds of miles on a single charge and plans to launch tiny satellites across the globe to bring everyone in the world Internet access.
Read more…
A Firmer Grip on Cancer Diagnosis
Doctors and engineers from Johns Hopkins have developed a mechanical technology aimed at producing better data from biopsies. Rather than a few single-needle samples, the new approach gathers hundreds — even thousands — of samples from many sites. Dust-sized metallic “microgrippers” are set loose via an endoscope and spread uniformly into a hollow organ, such as the colon, esophagus or even hard-to-reach areas like the bile duct. Read more…
IBM Is Collaborating With Apple On Artificial Intelligence Health Program
Experts in health care and information technology agree on the future’s biggest opportunity: the creation of a new computational model that will link together all of the massive computers that now hold medical information. The question remains: who will build it and how? Read more…
ISS Benefits For Humanity: Hope Crystallizes
Enormous technological changes in medicine and healthcare are heading our way. These trends have a variety of stakeholders: patients, medical professionals, researchers, medical students, and consumers. They are important because of the impact they will likely have on all of us at one time or another. Read more…
Twitter helps uncover potential sleep disorders
Researchers from Boston Children’s Hospital and pharmaceutical giant Merck are mining the microblogging site to produce a “digital phenotype” as a baseline for identifying people suffering from sleep disorders. Read more…
Can big data help you get a good night’s sleep?
Large-scale computing power, combined with input from millions of fitness trackers, could help unlock the mysteries of our national insomnia. Read more…
Genomics pioneer Lee Hood: New startup could be the Google or Microsoft of ‘scientific wellness’
Dr. Lee Hood led the team that pioneered the automated DNA sequencer, helping to give humans unprecedented insights into our personal genetic makeup. He has been involved in the creation of more than 15 biotech companies, including Amgen, Applied Biosystems, and Rosetta. His impact on the biotech industry has been dubbed “The Hood Effect.” Read more…
Apple’s iPhone Is Powering A Massive LGBT Health Study
We don’t know as much as we’d like about the role sexual orientation and gender identity play in health and wellness. And though there’s a clear need for it, comprehensive medical research into the health needs of the LGBT population can be tough to find. Read more…
The FDA doesn’t want to regulate wearables, and device makers want to keep it that way
The Food and Drug Administration doesn’t want to take away your Fitbit.That was the philosophy the FDA broadcast earlier this year when it unveiled its “draft guidance” for low-risk medical devices, a non-binding proposal that described the agency’s thinking on regulation of devices like wearable fitness trackers. Read more…
Oura ring watches you while you sleep
Sleep and activity monitors have a lot of advantages, but aesthetics often isn’t one of them. Many look like exactly what they are and even ones that are incorporated discretely in watches aren’t very popular with people who don’t want to wear watches in bed. Billed as the “world’s first wellness ring,” the Ōura ring takes a sleep and activity monitor and hides it inside a piece of finger jewelry that makes the technology unobtrusive and unself-conscious. Read more…
Google Reveals Health-Tracking Wristband
Google Inc.’s life sciences group has created a health-tracking wristband that could be used in clinical trials and drug tests, giving researchers or physicians minute-by-minute data on how patients are faring. Read more…
The Struggle for Accurate Measurements on Your Wrist
Wearable devices are getting more advanced, but can today’s technology really measure our health? Read more…
Got a suggestion?
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