Apple Watch ECG capabilities arrive for users across Europe and Hong Kong

Apple’s latest-generation Apple Watch doesn’t just have a curved display and a new industrial design, one of the major features of the Watch when it launched last year were its advanced health-tracking capabilities, particularly in regards to heart health and AFib detection. Those features arrived in the US in December, but users abroad have had […]

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Our 9 favorite startups from Y Combinator W19 Demo Day 2

Heathcare kiosks, a home-cooked food marketplace, and a way for startups to earn interest on their funding topped our list of high-potential companies from Y Combinator’s Winter 2019 Demo Day 2. 88 startups launched on stage at the lauded accelerator, though some of the best skipped the stage as they’d already raised tons of money. […]

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Here’s a sneak peek at HBO’s Elizabeth Holmes documentary, The Inventor

The story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos has inspired quite a bit of content, including a NYT Best Seller, an ABC podcast, a movie starring Jennifer Lawrence, and now an HBO documentary directed by Going Clear director, Alex Gibney. The documentary is called The Inventor: Out For Blood In Silicon Valley. The tech world was […]

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VCs have growing appetite for “AgriFood”

Venture investors are pouring billions of dollars into feeding their hunger for food and agriculture startups. Whether that trend line is due to enthusiasm for the sector or just broader heavy investing in the VC space is much less clear. According to a recent report published by AgFunder – a VC and investing marketplace focused […]

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A nanoparticle injection is all it takes to let these mice see in infrared

I know it’s everyone’s dream to see outside the wavelengths allotted to our visual systems. Well, as usual, mice have gotten there first, with the help of some clever scientists. By injecting specialized light-tweaking nanoparticles into a mouse’s retina, that mouse is suddenly and clearly able to perceive near-infrared light — suggesting the same could be possible for us, assuming you don’t mind a needle in the eye.

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Biotech AI startup Sight Diagnostics gets $27.8M to speed up blood tests

Sight Diagnostics, an Israeli medical devices startup that’s using AI technology to speed up blood testing, has closed a  $27.8 million Series C funding round. The company has built a desktop machine, called OLO, that analyzes cartridges manually loaded with drops of the patient’s blood — performing blood counts in situ. The new funding is […]

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Work on world’s first CRISPR gene-edited babies declared illegal by China

Chinese authorities have declared the work of He Jiankui, who shocked the scientific community by claiming he successfully created the world’s first gene-edited babies, an illegal decision in pursuit of “personal fame and gain.” Investigators have completed preliminary steps in a probe that began in November following He’s claims and say they will “seriously” punish the researcher […]

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Sophia Genetics bags $77M Series E, with 850+ hospitals signed up to its “data-driven medicine”

Another sizeable cash injection for big data biotech: Sophia Genetics has announced a $77M Series E funding round, bringing its total raised to $140M since the business was founded back in 2011. The company, which applies AI to DNA sequencing to enable what it dubs “data-driven medicine”, last closed a $30M Series D in fall 2017. […]

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As market shifts, Atlas Venture closes a $250 million fund to support its breakaway biotech bets

Atlas Venture, the Cambridge, Mass.-based early-stage, biotech-focused venture firm, has for the first time raised an opportunity fund designed to help it support its most promising, maturing portfolio companies. The $250 million fund, announced by the firm this morning, is pretty well-timed, as these things go. Though the public markets have bounced back a bit […]

View More As market shifts, Atlas Venture closes a $250 million fund to support its breakaway biotech bets

Bumblebees bearing high-tech backpacks act as a living data collection platform

There’s lots of research going into tiny drones, but one of the many hard parts is keeping them in the air for any real amount of time. Why not hitch a ride on something that already flies all day? That’s the idea behind this project that equips bumble bees with sensor-filled backpacks that charge wirelessly and collect data on the fields they visit.

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DeepMind claims early progress in AI-based predictive protein modelling

Google -owned AI specialist, DeepMind, has claimed a “significant milestone” in being able to demonstrate the usefulness of artificial intelligence to help with the complex task of predicting 3D structures of proteins based solely on their genetic sequence. Understanding protein structures is important in disease diagnosis and treatment, and could improve scientists’ understanding of the human […]

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