Scientists Create Algorithm That Uses Routine Eye Scans to Identify Heart Attack Risk With Accuracy of 70%-80%:
Scientists have developed an artificial intelligence system that can analyze eye scans taken during a routine visit to an optician or eye clinic and identify patients at a high risk of a heart attack. Doctors have recognized that changes to the tiny blood vessels in the retina are indicators of broader vascular disease, including problems with the heart. In the research, led by the University of Leeds, deep learning techniques were used to train an AI system to automatically read retinal scans and identify those people who, over the following year, were likely to have a heart attack. During the deep learning process, the AI system analyzed the retinal scans and cardiac scans of more than 5,000 people. The AI system identified associations between pathology in the retina and changes in the patient’s heart. Once the image patterns were learned, the AI system could estimate the size and pumping efficiency of the left ventricle, one of the heart’s four chambers, from retinal scans alone. An enlarged ventricle is linked with an increased risk of heart disease. With information on the estimated size of the left ventricle and its pumping efficiency combined with basic demographic data about the patient, their age, and sex, the AI system could predict their risk of a heart attack over the subsequent 12 months.
Researcher makes magnetic reconnection breakthrough that may help predict space weather:
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain
A West Virginia University postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Physics and Astronomy has made a breakthrough in the study of magnetic reconnection, which could prevent space storms from wreaking havoc on the Earth's satellite and power grid systems. The researcher, whose name is Pyun Shi, is part of the PHASMA Project and has experimented with laser-based diagnostics and plasma to better predict how the universe works. For his experiment, Shi uses a laser-based diagnostic to probe plasma. Laser beams are directed in the diagnostic and the light scatters off of electrons. The way the light scatters gives insight into how fast the electrons are moving and since the plasma is more than 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, the lasers allow for measuring particles without using a probe or a thermometer which would melt at such high temperatures. The research will give greater insight into how fast electrons move within space, which can help predict events such as solar flares and ultraviolet emission increases that threaten satellite systems, astronauts, and even power grids on Earth. Through the facilities provided by the PHASMA project, all of the measurements can be made three-dimensional which will make it much easier to predict these events on a more realistic scale.
Ancient Homo sapiens took talent for cultural creativity from Africa to Asia:
Discoveries at this site in southern Africa indicate that a small, relatively isolated human group developed cultural innovations between 92,000 and 80,000 years ago. Alex Blackwood, A. Mackay ET AL/NATURE ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION 2022
Creativity runs deep in human evolution. Stone Age people steered their cultures through some inventive twists and turns as far-flung groups of Homo sapiens independently learned to cope with harsh African environments and unfamiliar Asian settings, two new reports suggest. It was previously believed that only closely located resource-rich coastal communities were responsible for most of the tool and creative innovation of our species. However, due to finds away from the coasts of Africa (at the Varche River site VR003) many innovations such as water containers made from eggshells, terrain-specific tools, and other innovative inventions found this has been called into question. Some of these inventions had been made as far as 105,000 years ago (the ostrich egg water container) and typically settled around the 92,000-80,000 year range in largely isolated and low-density communities. This was further supported by a second study that examined the Nihewan Basin, which is far inland in northern China, where pigment use was found in rock fragments recovered from the pit. The fragments were found to be over 9,000 years older than the oldest recorded pigments found in China at about 40,000 years old. More tiny tools that resembled the ones found in the African study were also found to be from a similar time period compared to the pigmented rock.
Sources:
Researcher makes magnetic reconnection breakthrough that may help predict space weather (phys.org)
Ancient Homo sapiens were more culturally creative than once thought | Science News