Israeli Tech Cuts Prescription Errors Saves Lives.

A new study , recently published in the Journal of American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA), by Harvard Medical School shows that software developed by Israeli startup MedAware helps reduce prescription errors, potentially saving the lives of patients. Ra’anana-based MedAware has developed software that uses algorithms and machine learning based on data and patterns gathered from thousands of physicians who treat millions of patients. The data are used to identify and give alerts about prescription errors in real time. The company says its self-learning, self-adaptive system is proven to dramatically reduce healthcare costs while improving patient safety.The Harvard study analyzed records from almost 800,000 patients to assess the efficacy of MedAware’s software. The report found that MedAware’s technology identifies errors otherwise undetected by current systems in use, minimizes the risks arising from fatigued doctors who are used to getting false alerts from current systems, and reduces prescription errors with high accuracy. The study showed that MedAware’s technology sets a new standard for prescription alerts and patient safety vis-à-vis traditional safety systems, which only detect a fraction of actual errors, and are not geared up to identify random or complex errors, like prescribing a medication used only in pregnant women for an elderly person. adapted

Israel’s 3D Printing Industry Is Paving The Way To The Future.

The future is here. The ability to create a three-dimensional object using a simple printer is a reality in today’s world. Merely three decades after 3D printing was invented, Israel is already the manufacturer of roughly 40 percent of all 3D printers worldwide,the prices of these printers vary depending on their intended use and the quality, but many of them can now be purchased by anyone for use at home. A consumer 3D printer costs a few hundred dollars, a professional printer – up to $1 million, but beyond their prices, the applications of 3D printing are very broad, used today to create anything from objects like toys and clothes, to sophisticated medical equipment. Physicians are already using these printers to create anatomy mock-ups, so they can get the clearest view possible and know exactly where to cut once in surgery. They also use them to create medical devices that can match the exact need of any patient at a fraction of the price in a fraction of the time. Medical professionals are even looking for ways to create live tissue on 3D printers, which could one day, hopefully, eradicate the need for donors. The Israeli company, Syqe Medical, is using 3D printing for medical marijuana purposes. Its Syqe Inhaler is a 3D-printed device used to inhale medical cannabis. In addition to being healthier for your lungs, the Syqe Inhaler can distribute the dosage of medical marijuana with a higher accuracy than a standard medical marijuana cigarette, according to the company. Marijuana cigarettes make it difficult for doctors to accurately measure how much marijuana to distribute. explore

How to turn cow manure to biofuel.

The San Joaquin Valley has become America’s breadbasket over the past few decades. Products including pistachios, almonds, citrus, stone fruit, cotton, and grapes are grown here and distributed all over the United States and are exported around the world. The agricultural waste creates a solid biofuels pipeline and eliminating these waste, especially cow manure, is becoming expensive and of course, problematic for the local environment.The recent launch of the Calgren Ethanol Plant is a step in helping California meet its clean energy goals while addressing the San Joaquin Valley’s terrible air pollution. The plant, according to the coalition of companies that built the facility, will churn cow manure into bio-ethanol which can then be blended with conventional gasoline. The process starts with a nearby dairy, Four J Farms. Cow manure from the 1,800 milk-producing cattle will flow down a pipeline to the Calgren plant. The manure is then deposited into the DVO-designed digester that is 16 feet deep and insulated with concrete to prevent any leakage from entering local groundwater. Bacteria that naturally occur within cows’ digestive tracts are added to the manure, when is then stored and churned there while it is kept at a consistent warmth of 101.5°F (38°C). The three-plus weeks the manure is kept at that temperature is to guarantee any pathogens would be killed off, including E. coli. The result is a system that works almost exactly like a cow’s digestive system. When the clean fuel is culled from the manure, moisture is also extracted and then recycled so local farmers can use it to water their crops. The by-product that remains at the end of the process, which emits almost no smell and has a consistency of moss, is then trucked back to Four J Farms, where employees then scatter it to use as animal bedding. Steve Dvorak, President of DVO, said that one cow alone creates about 100 to 130 cubic feet of biogas a day, or the equivalent of 65,000 BTUs or 6 kilowatt-hours daily,thus there is enough organic waste (in California) to power 2 to 3 million homes or to generate 2.5 billion gallons of clean, ultra-low carbon transportation fuels. source

Humans must merge with machines or become irrelevant in AI age.

Billionaire Elon Musk is known for his futuristic ideas and his latest suggestion might just save us from being irrelevant as artificial intelligence (AI) grows more prominent. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said on Monday that humans need to merge with machines to become a sort of cyborg. "Over time I think we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence," Musk told an audience at the World Government Summit in Dubai, where he also launched Tesla in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). "It's mostly about the bandwidth, the speed of the connection between your brain and the digital version of yourself, particularly output." Musk explained what he meant by saying that computers can communicate at "a trillion bits per second", while humans, whose main communication method is typing with their fingers via a mobile device, can do about 10 bits per second. In an age when AI threatens to become widespread, humans would be useless, so there's a need to merge with machines, according to Musk.continue

Global pet trade and spread of infectious disease.

The exotic animal trade is a multi-billion dollar industry, and the US is the world’s leading importer. While the US government is on the alert for well known animal-transmitted diseases, there is no mandatory health surveillance for most animals coming though US ports for commercial distribution.

 Live animal imports could bring new diseases into the US and infect endemic wildlife, with devastating consequences as, for example, was seen with the worldwide exposure of amphibians to Chytrid fungus which resulted in the decline of more than 200 species. 

 The legal commercial exotic animal trade is a booming enterprise that ships ornamental fish, mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians around the world. 

These pets, livestock and other animals can carry unexpected infectious diseases from their homelands. If these non-native species escape or are released to the wild, they can create epidemics among susceptible endemic wildlife. 

 Four US agencies oversee live animal imports, but there is currently no systematic screening for disease in most live animal imports. The majority of animals processed through American ports for the pet industry fall under the aegis of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which has no authority to conduct health inspections. 

 Livestock imports are regulated by the US Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), with oversight by the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection. Species known to carry certain diseases (rabies in dogs, or tuberculosis in monkeys, for example) are monitored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

 According to a 2010 report from the US Government Accountability Office, a lack of interagency collaboration creates gaps in health surveillance that could leave native wildlife and people exposed to disease. 

These risks could potentially be enormous. A single fungal disease, Chytrid, for example, devastated more than 200 amphibian species worldwide.

 A related pathogen, Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans, originating with the Asian salamander trade, wreaked similar havoc on native populations in the Netherlands and Belgium. 

If this fungus gains a foothold in the US — a salamander biodiversity hotspot — experts fear entire species could be wiped out. continue

How to stop brain cancer—with rabies.

A ruthless killer may soon help brain cancer patients. The rabies virus, which kills tens of thousands of people a year, has a rare ability to enter nerve cells and use them as a conduit to infect brain tissue. Now, scientists are trying to mimic this strategy to ferry tumor-killing nanoparticles into brain tumors. So far the approach has been shown to work only in mice. 

If successful in people, these nanoparticles could one day help doctors send treatment directly to tumors without harming healthy cells. The rabies virus, transmitted largely through the bites of infected animals, has evolved over thousands of years to hijack nerve cells, which it uses to climb from infected muscle tissue into the brain. 

That allows it to bypass a major hurdle: the blood-brain barrier, a selective membrane that keeps out most pathogens that travel through the bloodstream. But the barrier also prevents treatments—like cancer drugs—from reaching infected cells, limiting options for patients. To get around this problem, scientists are looking to the virus for inspiration. Already, researchers have packaged cancer-fighting drugs into nanoparticles coated with part of a rabies surface protein that lets the virus slip into the central nervous system. continue

Veterinarians and global health .

The World Health Organization recently declared that the Zika virus is no longer a global health emergency, other diseases are growing more threatening each day. Leptospirosis, a bacterial disease transmitted through infected animal urine claimed dozens of human lives in the Caribbean in 2016., or cysticercosis, a disease contracted from the pork tapeworm, Taenia solium, that causes hundreds of thousands of people to suffer seizures. It's no coincidence that these diseases are transmitted by animals as nearly 60 percent of all human diseases are and such illnesses kill over two million people each year. Today's veterinarians aren't merely tasked with giving Fido his shots as they're asked to serve as public-health warriors, leading the attack against diseases of zoonotic nature. The lives and livelihoods of millions of people depend on them receiving the proper training. Mosquitoes have caused deadly diseases for generations such as dengue fever that affects up to 400 million people annually while malaria strikes another 200 million. The blood-sucking pests aren't the only source of threats. Dogs transmit 99 percent of rabies which without prompt treatment, the disease is nearly always fatal for people. Animal-borne diseases can also infect local economies. Lets look at the Zika virus, which causes birth defects in babies. The latest outbreak hit over 61 countries and as the virus spread, tourism in affected areas dropped precipitously. Consider Miami's $24 billion tourism industry, because of Zika, the price of plane tickets to Miami dropped 17 percent in August, a sign of depressed demand. One local restaurant owner reported losing 70 percent of his customers. continue