Health News: Smartphones Quickly and accurately diagnoses disease ♦ Unsafe food ’growing global threat ♦ Predicting chronic pain in whiplash injuries

 Smartphones Quickly and accurately diagnoses disease and monitors treatment remotely Researchers from Florida Atlantic University and collaborators have identified a new biosensing platform that could be used to remotely detect and determine treatment options for HIV, E-coli, Staphylococcus aureus and other bacteria  

Unsafe food ’growing global threat Eating food contaminated with bugs leads to more than half a billion cases of illness a year, the World Health Organization warns. It says this "global threat" contributed to 351,000 deaths in 2010. Unsafe foods, for example undercooked meat, can cause 200 problems - from diarrhoea to cancer

Innovative strategies needed to address US transplant organ shortage As the United States faces transplant waiting lists that continue to grow longer over time, there is increasing debate about the proper way to incentivize living donations. Due to organ shortages, thousands of Americans are on transplant waiting lists for 5 or more years as their health deteriorate

Generous welfare benefits make people more likely to want to work, not less Generous welfare benefit levels make people who are not in employment more likely to want to work rather than less. "Many scholars and commentators fear that generous social benefits threaten the sustainability of the welfare state due to work norm erosion, disincentives to work and dependency cultures,". "This article concludes that there are few signs that groups with traditionally weaker bonds to the labor market are less motivated to work if they live in generous welfare states."

Predicting chronic pain in whiplash injuries While most people recover from whiplash injuries within a few months, about 25 percent have long-term pain and disability for many months or years. Using special MRI imaging, scientists identified, within the first one and two weeks of the injury, which patients will develop chronic pain and disability. This is the earliest these patients have been identified and will enable faster treatment. The imaging revealed large amounts of fat infiltrating the patients' neck muscles, indicating rapid atrophy.