​These light-emitting "smart" tattoos could act as medical monitors

Light-emitting tattoos could indicate dehydration in athletes or health conditions in hospital patients.

Credit: Barsotti - Italian Institute of Technology
  • Researchers at UCL and IIT have created a temporary tattoo that contains the same OLED technology that is used in TVs and smartphones.
  • This technology has already been successfully applied to various materials including glass, food items, plastic, and paper packaging.
  • This advance in technology isn't just about aesthetics. "In healthcare, they could emit light when there is a change in a patient's condition - or, if the tattoo was turned the other way into the skin, they could potentially be combined with light-sensitive therapies to target cancer cells, for instance," explains senior author Franco Cacialli of UCL.
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Here's what happened when AI and humans met in a strawberry-growing contest

Do they really need the human touch?

Photo by Marc Fulgar on Unsplash
  • In Pinduoduo's Smart Agriculture Competition, four technology teams competed with traditional farmers over four months to grow strawberries.
  • Data analysis, intelligent sensors and greenhouse automation helped the scientists win.
  • Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies such as AI are forecast to deliver huge productivity gains – but need the right governance, according to the Global Technology Governance Report 2021.
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How one NY hospital system treated 128,000+ COVID cases

From making their own swabs to staying in constant communication across the board, Northwell Health dove headfirst into uncharted waters to take on the virus and save lives.

  • Preparing for a pandemic like COVID-19 was virtually impossible. Northwell Health president and CEO Michael Dowling explains how, as the largest healthcare provider in New York, his team had to continuously organize, innovate, and readjust to dangerous and unpredictable conditions in a way that guaranteed safety for the staff and the best treatment for over 128,000 coronavirus patients.
  • From making their own supplies when they ran out, to coordinating with government at every level and making sense of new statistics and protocols, Northwell focused on strengthening internal and external communication to keep the ship from sinking.
  • "There was no such thing as putting up the white flag," Dowling says of meeting the pandemic head on and reassuring his front line staff that they would be safe and have all the resources they needed to beat the virus. "It's amazing how innovative you can be in a crisis."
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How your social media data can become a ‘mental health X-ray’

In the future, you might voluntarily share your social media data with your psychiatrist to inform a more accurate diagnosis.

Credit: I-Wei Huang / Adobe Stock
  • About one in five people suffer from a psychiatric disorder, and many go years without treatment, if they receive it at all.
  • In a new study, researchers developed machine-learning algorithms that analyzed the relationship between psychiatric disorders and Facebook messages.
  • The algorithms were able to correctly predict the diagnosis of psychiatric disorders with statistical accuracy, suggesting digital tools may someday help clinicians identify mental illnesses in early stages.
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The incredible physics behind quantum computing

Can computers do calculations in multiple universes? Scientists are working on it. Step into the world of quantum computing.

  • While today's computers—referred to as classical computers—continue to become more and more powerful, there is a ceiling to their advancement due to the physical limits of the materials used to make them. Quantum computing allows physicists and researchers to exponentially increase computation power, harnessing potential parallel realities to do so.
  • Quantum computer chips are astoundingly small, about the size of a fingernail. Scientists have to not only build the computer itself but also the ultra-protected environment in which they operate. Total isolation is required to eliminate vibrations and other external influences on synchronized atoms; if the atoms become 'decoherent' the quantum computer cannot function.
  • "You need to create a very quiet, clean, cold environment for these chips to work in," says quantum computing expert Vern Brownell. The coldest temperature possible in physics is -273.15 degrees C. The rooms required for quantum computing are -273.14 degrees C, which is 150 times colder than outer space. It is complex and mind-boggling work, but the potential for computation that harnesses the power of parallel universes is worth the chase.
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