A new doctoral dissertation from the University of Vaasa, Finland, argues that healthcare cybersecurity will remain fragile unless technology, humans and organisational processes are treated as a single unified system. According to Doctoral Researcher Pius Ewoh, the healthcare sector needs socio-technical solutions rather than purely technical defences to protect patient data and maintain trust.

Described in a study published Dec. 8 in Nature Electronics, BISC includes a single-chip implant, a wearable “relay station,” and the custom software required to operate the system. “Most implantable systems are built around a canister of electronics that occupies enormous volumes of space inside the body,” says Ken Shepard, Lau Family Professor of Electrical Engineering, professor of biomedical engineering, and professor of neurological sciences at Columbia University, who is one of the senior authors on the work and guided the engineering efforts. “Our implant is a single integrated circuit chip that is so thin that it can slide into the space between the brain and the skull, resting on the brain like a piece of wet tissue paper.”

Getting enough sleep and staying active are two of the most important things we can do for our health, but new research shows that most people cannot simultaneously achieve recommended sleep and physical activity levels, so guidelines may need to be reconsidered to make them mutually attainable rather than forcing a choice between the two.

Brain development during the initial years is critical, shaped by both environment and caregiver behaviors. To clarify the causal relationship between maternal psychological distress and neuropsychiatric developmental delays, researchers in Japan analyzed data from over 82,000 mother–child pairs in a large-scale nationwide cohort. They found that distress within 1 year postpartum had stronger effects on the toddler’s neurodevelopment than prenatal distress, emphasizing the importance of continuous maternal mental health support before and after childbirth.

Secures core technology for high-resolution wearable devices through semiconductor transfer technology... Speeds up the commercialization of next-generation health monitoring devices. - Research results published in the prestigious international journal Materials Today.

A cross-disciplinary research team led by Professor Hongjie DAI (Sapientia Eminence Professor, Chair Professor in Department of Chemistry, Department of Mechanical Engineering and School of Biomedical Sciences, Director of The Materials Institute of Life Sciences and Energy (MILES)) and Professor Simon Ying Kit LAW (Chairperson and Cheung Kung-Hai Professor in Gastrointestinal Surgery, Chair Professor in Department of Surgery, the School of Clinical Medicine, HKUMed) at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) has, for the first time, successfully applied NIR-II (1000–3000 nm) fluorescence video imaging during esophagectomy – a complex surgical procedure involving the resection of a diseased or cancerous portion of the esophagus, where the most dreaded complication, anastomotic leakage, a gastrointestinal defect at the suture line between the esophagus and the gastric conduit, affects 10-30% of patients and leads to high postoperative morbidity rate and even death. In Hong Kong, about 30 patients have already benefited from esophagectomy performed with the aid of this new fluorescence imaging and video analysis technique, with highly promising outcomes to date.