Last week, the New York Times reported the first successful "limb reanimation" in a person with quadriplegia. Ian Burkhart, 24, had broken his neck as a teen in a diving accident. His spine was damaged at the fifth cervical vertebra, leaving him paralyzed from the shoulders down. Using nerve bypass technology that transmits his thoughts directly to his hand muscles, he has regained control over his right hand and fingers. This is the first time a brain-computer interface has been used to help an individual move his own hands.

To Succeed in the Digital Economy, Health Organizations Must Tap Digital Models That Place People First and Scale Expertise to Meet Demand, Accenture Report Finds Annual outlook predicts five converging digital trends that will shift how healthcare applies key innovations LAS VEGAS; June 16, 2016 – To succeed in the digital economy, health organizations will need to place people first and adopt strategies to scale expertise to meet changing demand, according to an annual report by Accenture (NYSE: ACN) released at the annual America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) Institute & Expo in Las Vegas. The industry report, Accenture Digital Health Technology Vision 2016, identified five digital forces that [Accenture predicts] will converge over the next three to five years to reshape healthcare delivery: Intelligent Automation; The Liquid Workforce; The Platform Economy; Predictable Disruption; and Digital Trust. The five digital forces Accenture identified and their likely impact on the healthcare industry are described below. The Digital Health Tech Vision 2016 from accenture Intelligent Automation According to Accenture, the health industry will increasingly embrace intelligent automation--powered by artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and augmented reality – to streamline basic tasks, such as collecting patient intake data, enabling clinicians to focus where their training and experience have the greatest value. Significant investments in intelligent automation are already underway, as Accenture's survey found that roughly seven in 10 health executives are investing more in machine learning and AI-related technologies than they were two years ago.

The idea that Snowden is still walking the American streets, virtually or otherwise, is infuriating to his former employers in the U.S.-intelligence community. Its leaders no longer make ominous jokes about wanting to put him on a drone kill list -- as former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden did in 2013 -- but they still vilify him and maintain that he did real harm to America's safety and international standing. While Snowden's leaks revealed the NSA's controversial and possibly unconstitutional bulk collection of domestic internet traffic and telephone metadata, they also exposed technical details about many other classified activities, including overseas surveillance programs, secret diplomatic arrangements, and operations targeting legitimate adversaries. The spy agencies warn that the public doesn't comprehend the degree of damage done to their protective capabilities, even as events like the Orlando nightclub massacre demonstrate the destructive reach of terrorist ideology. The fallout from Snowden's actions may have prompted a debate about security and privacy that even President Obama acknowledges "will make us stronger," but there has been no such reassessment, at least officially, of Snowden himself. He still faces charges of violating the federal Espionage Act, crimes that could carry a decades-long prison sentence.

It's called this because each CRISPR unit is made of repeated DNA base-pair sequences that can be read the same way forward or in reverse and are separated by "spacer" pairs. Think of it like an organic Morse code palindrome. With CRISPR we can now edit any genetic code -- including our own. In the three years since its advent, researchers have used CRISPR to investigate everything from sickle-cell anemia and muscular dystrophy to cystic fibrosis and cataracts. One group has even used it to snip off the cellular receptors that HIV exploits in order to infect the human immune system.

Federico Pirzio-Biroli, the founder of London VC fund Playfair Capital, is planning to move to Africa to become an angel investor there, and the fund is closing its coworking space at Warner Yard in Clerkenwell. Playfair Capital specialises in artificial intelligence and machine learning, and has invested in well-known startups such as restaurant app Dojo, DueDil, Vinaya, Stripe, Streethub, Hassle, and Stratajet. Pirzio-Biroli told Business Insider that he worked at NGOs in Africa before becoming a technology investor, so this is a logical move for him. He says that angel investing in Africa can make a big difference to economies there, whereas London is now flooded with early stage funding for technology startups. The Playfair Capital fund isn't going to close its doors completely - instead Pirzio-Biroli is handing over control to his remaining staff and preparing to become a limited, rather than general, partner. My decision to move to East Africa was made in November.

In the military world, fighter pilots have long been described as the best of the best. As Tom Wolfe famously wrote, only those with the "right stuff" can handle the job. Now, it seems, the right stuff may no longer be the sole purview of human pilots. A pilot A.I. developed by a doctoral graduate from the University of Cincinnati has shown that it can not only beat other A.I.s, but also a professional fighter pilot with decades of experience. In a series of flight combat simulations, the A.I. successfully evaded retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Gene "Geno" Lee, and shot him down every time.

Genpact (NYSE: G), a global leader in digitally-powered business process management and services, today launched its Neural Intelligence Platform that harnesses the power of artificial intelligence technologies, and brings middle and back office processing to the same level of digital automation as the front office to drive seamless customer journeys. Using a cognitive system powered by natural language processing, machine and deep learning techniques, the platform provides a versatile artificial intelligence-based capability that digitizes many business process solutions, including omni-channel management, contact center, account payable query management, and financial and accounting automation. The platform automates and improves processes, continually learns, and even can help anticipate customers' needs. Enterprises struggle to effectively integrate digital technologies into business processes that cut across the company to deliver the right customer experience. Analytics also must drive more upstream decisions around product design, customer sentiment, and distribution chain visibility.

"Think different" was an iconic tagline that helped define Apple for years. "A thousand songs in your pocket" was another solid slug that sold iPods and the idea of instant digital music. And then there was "Your intelligent assistant that helps you get things done by just talking." This exhausting mouthful, used by Apple's marketing chief Phil Schiller at Siri's reveal in 2011, fell flat. And it has framed how people have viewed the world's most recognizable voice assistant ever since.

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

Imagine a far flung land where you can catch a ride from the Jackie Chan bus stop to a restaurant called Translate Server Error, and enjoy a hearty feast of children sandwiches and wife cake all washed down with some evil water. If such a rich lunch gets stuck in your gnashers, you'll be pleased to know there are plenty of Methodists on hand to remove your teeth. And if by this point you've had enough of the bus, fly home in style on a wide-boiled aircraft. But whatever you do, please remember that when you land at the airport, eating the carpet is strictly prohibited. No, I haven't gone mad.