Should coma patients live or die? Machine learning will help decide.

In some cases, all it takes is a major blow to the side of the head. When somebody falls into a coma, they lose all motor functions. It's notoriously difficult to determine their future state -- will they ever wake up again? Chinese neurologists at the Academy of Sciences and the PLA General Hospital in Beijing are working hard to develop a tool that can help doctors assess exactly that. But they've got a technological advantage generations of doctors before them didn't: machine learning.