【推荐1】Hospice (临终安养院) services benefit only about one person in three who dies in the US. “There are still over one million Americans who die each year without receiving hospice services,” according to a report produced in 2003. And for most who do get hospice care, their time in hospice is so short that staff members often lack the opportunity to provide the best care for their physical and emotional needs.

There are several reasons that more patients do not go into hospice care earlier. One is that Medicare (医疗保险) doesn’t cover the cost of patients’ life-extending treatment if they enter hospice. Medicare also requires that the doctor referring someone for hospice care must declare that the patient is expected to die within six months. As a result, some doctors hesitate about making an early referral to avoid being accused of cheating. Finally, there are simply not enough hospice centers and services available to meet the needs of dying patients throughout the country.

Many patients still have some concern over how hospice works. The philosophy of hospice is to neither accelerate nor postpone death. As Dr. Matt Kestenbaum, a hospice director, put it: “We let nature take its course, and we give patients all the things they need to be comfortable.”

Dying “naturally” in hospice does not deny patients the treatment for common diseases like blood clots. Hospice expenses are automatically covered by Medicare and most insurers provide hospice coverage as well.

Choosing hospice care does not mean patients lose the services of their personal doctors. They can return to regular insurance benefits when they leave hospice care because their condition improves or they want a therapy the hospice does not provide.

One thing bothering doctors is that patients will lose hope if they go into hospice. But the goal should be to refocus hope on what might be realistically achieved in the time remaining. A patient who enters hospice can have the opportunity to spend quality time with family and friends and settle unfinished business.

【推荐3】Britain is launching the world’s largest ever clinical trial of the Galleri test, which picks up pieces of genetic code from DNA before symptoms such as lumps (肿块) appear. The test is a game-changer for early cancer detection, which can detect more than 50 types of the disease in the very early stages. It has been developed by GRAIL, a healthcare company focusing on early cancer detection.

National Health Service (NHS) chief executive Amanda Pritchard said, “This quick and simple blood test could mark the beginning of a revolution in cancer detection and treatment here and around the world. By finding cancer before signs and symptoms appear, we have the best chance of treating it and we can give people the best chance of survival.

NHS has sent out invites across the country offering the test to 140,000 people aged 50 to 77 with no cancer symptoms. Another 6,000 with suspected signs have been offered to speed up their diagnosis (诊断). Blood samples will be taken at mobile clinics in retail parks and community locations. Laboratory analysis produces a result in a fortnight. Each test costs € 620 but NHS has negotiated a discounted price. Half the participants will have their blood screened with the Galleri test right away and samples from the rest will be stored and tested in the future. This will allow scientists to compare the stage at which any tumours (肿瘤) are detected between the two groups.

“The Galleri test can not only detect a wide range of cancer types but can also predict where the cancer is in the body with a high degree of accuracy. Earlier trial results showed it can detect 68% of 12 deadly cancers,” Health Secretary Sajid Javid said. In England 56% of cancers are diagnosed at stage one or two. NHS aims to increase that to three quarters by 2028. If found early there are a broader range of treatment options available, which can be curative and are often less aggressive.

【推荐3】As popular as they are globally, selfie sticks (自拍杆) are being asked to stay away from more places. Now the Palace Museum has become cautious about the device (设备), too.

Museums take the lead

Out of safety concern, a number of museums took the lead earlier this year to ban selfie sticks in order to protect their artworks and visitors. Several major museums in other countries have said “no” to the device, including the Rome’s Colosseum, the Smithsonian museums in Washington and the National Portrait Gallery in the UK. More Chinese museums are joining the international trend as well, for example, the Nanjing Museum, which took the step last week.

Although the Palace Museum has not issued an official ban, the museum’s administration has recently warned visitors to be more careful with the device. If the device is used in crowded place or narrow area, the staff is likely to walk up and stop it. Selfie sticks are also advised to stay outside the exhibition area in the museum, as the stretchable (可伸缩的) device can be disturbing to other visitors and dangerous to the museum objects.

It is still a question whether sefie sticks will be challenged in more casual occasions like amusement parks, but the Tokyo Disneyland officially bans the use of selfie stick inside the theme park area.

The voices

The Louvre museum in Paris has not yet banned selfie sticks, but an action is expected to be announced in a few weeks. A leader of the museum told a foreign media his vexation: More visitors are waving the devices high in the air, and some of them are only few centimeters away from the famous original Mona Lisa.

“Museum photos are good for spreading the cultural messages, but we should pay attention to our ways,” said Cao Wei, a famous Sina Weibo blogger. “I support the museums’ actions on the selfie stick ban.”

【推荐1】Swimmers can drown in busy swimming pools when lifeguards fail to notice that they are in trouble. Now a company has developed an artificial intelligence system called Poseidon that sounds the alarm when it sees someone in danger of drowning.

When a swimmer sinks towards the bottom of the pool, the new system sends an alarm signal to a poolside monitoring station and a lifeguard’s pager. In trials at a pool in Ancenis, near Nantes, it saved a life within just a few months, says Alistair McQuade, a spokesman for its maker, Poseidon Technologies.

Poseidon keeps watch through a network of underwater and overhead video cameras. AI software analyses the images to work out swimmers’ trajectories(轨迹). To do this reliably, it has to tell the difference between a swimmer and the shadow of someone being cast onto the bottom or side of the pool.

It does the same with an image from another camera viewing the shape from a different angle. If the two projections are in the same position, the shape is identified as a shadow and is ignored. But if they are different, the shape is a swimmer and so the system follows its trajectory.

To pick out potential drowning victims, anyone in the water who starts to descend(下降)slowly is added to the software’s “pre-alert” list, says McQuade. Swimmers who then stay immobile on the pool bottom for five seconds or more are considered in danger of drowning. Poseidon double-checks that the image really is of a swimmer, not a shadow, by seeing whether it obscures(使模糊) the pool’s floor texture when viewed from overhead. If so, it alerts the lifeguard, showing the swimmer’s location on a poolside screen.

The first full-scale Poseidon system was officially opened at a pool in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. One man who is impressed with the idea is Travor Baylis, inventor of the clockwork radio. Baylis runs a company that installs swimming pools—and he was once an underwater escapologist(脱身杂技演员) with a circus. “I say full marks to them if this works and can save lives,” he says.