Quote of the Day: “Aim at Heaven and you will get the Earth ‘thrown in’; aim at Earth and you will get neither.” – C.S. Lewis
Photo: by Sau Rieng Nguyen, CC license, via Flickr
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If you have ever been disappointed by your lack of a green thumb, this cute little contraption may one day be the savior of your withering indoor plants.
The Hexa Plant is a six-legged robot that has been specially designed to care for the potted plant that it carries on top of its head.
Using light and heat sensors, the robot has the ability to carry its plant in and out of the daylight according to the plant’s sun exposure.
If the houseplant needs more sun, the Hexa will meander into the sunlight; and if the houseplant is getting too hot, the Hexa will crawl back into the shade.
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The Hexa Plant will even do a little dance when it senses that the plant needs to be watered.
The robot was developed by Vincross engineer and founder Sun Tianqi after he saw a dead sunflower sitting in the shadows at a nature exhibit back in 2014.
“Plants are passive. Eternally, inexplicably passive,” Tianqi wrote in a blog post. “No matter if they are being cut, bitten, burned or pulled from the earth, or when they lack sunshine, water, or are too hot or cold, they will hold still and take whatever is happening to them. They have the fewest degrees of freedom among all the creatures in nature.
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“However, for billions of years, plants have never experienced movement of any kind, not even the simplest movement. Their whole lives, they stick to where they were born. Do they desire to break their own settings or have a tendency towards this?” he continued. “I do not know the answer, but I would love to try to share some of this human tendency and technology with plants. With a robotic rover base, plants can experience mobility and interaction.
“I do hope that this project can bring some inspiration to the relationship between technology and natural default settings.”
Unfortunately, the Hexa Plant model robots are not for sale, though Vincross does sell a standard Hexa robot prototype.
That being said, the robots could open up an entirely new market for mechanical caregivers to watch over our household greenery.
(WATCH the robot in action below) – Photo by Sun Tianqi
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Construction workers have broken ground on what is being hailed as the nation’s first commercial-scale plastics-to-fuel plant.
Located in Ashley, Indiana, the new plant will utilize a state-of-the-art plastics-to-fuel process that sustainably recycles waste that has reached the end of its useful life – including items that cannot readily be recycled, like plastic film, flexible packing, styrofoam and children’s toys – directly into useful products, like fuels and wax.
Brightmark Energy, the San Francisco-based waste and energy development company responsible for the plant, say that the outputs of this technology could also be used to produce the feedstocks necessary for manufacturing plastic again, thus creating the world’s first truly circular economy technology for plastics.
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As Brightmark CEO Bob Powell welcomed attendees to the ceremony, he cited the need for paradigm-shifting recycling technologies like the process that will be applied in the new plant.
“This sustainable technology directly addresses an acute problem facing our nation: more than 91% of the 33 million tons of plastic produced in the U.S. each year is not recycled,” he said. “These products end up sitting in landfills for thousands of years or littering our communities and waterways. This technology offers a tremendous opportunity to combat a major environmental ill and create positive economic value in the process.”
The Ashley facility will be the first of its kind to take mixed waste single-use plastics and convert them into usable products at commercial scale. The facility will convert approximately 100,000 tons of plastics into over 18 million gallons a year of ultra-low sulfur diesel and naphtha blend stocks and nearly 6 million gallons a year of commercial grade wax each year.
The 112,000 square-foot-facility is also expected to create a total of 136 full-time manufacturing jobs once it is operational in 2020.
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Last month, Brightmark closed a $260 million financing package for the construction of the plant, which includes $185 million in Indiana green bonds.
Jay Schabel, President of Brightmark Energy’s plastics division, said: “Brightmark plans to develop dozens of additional plastics-to-fuel facilities across the United States, and these new locations will all be anchored by the facility we’re breaking ground on today here in Northeast Indiana.
“We’re pleased to have this opportunity to offer a solution to the complex problems our nation faces around plastic pollution,” he added.
Power Up With Positivity By Sharing The Good News To Social Media – File photo by Michal Manas, CC
When the Taiwanese government was threatening to demolish his beloved hometown, a retired war veteran managed to save the place with a paintbrush.
97-year-old Huang Yung-fu is responsible for transforming the Nantun district of Taichung City into “The Rainbow Village” that now attracts throngs of visitors.
Prior to the village becoming one of the region’s most popular tourist destinations, the area had become increasingly run-down.
The area used to house over 1,200 families – but as more and more people moved away in search of better living conditions, Huang became the only person left in town.
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The government issued several statements threatening to tear down the remaining buildings, and Huang was heartbroken over the idea of losing his heritage.
So when Huang found himself surrounded by a dozen empty houses, he decided to pick up a paintbrush and enhance his surroundings with color.
Huang had not created any art since his father taught him to draw at 3 years old, but as he began to cover the buildings with animal doodles and designs, the senior fell in love with painting once more.
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He continued to decorate the walls of his neighborhood until it eventually caught the eye of local university students. The youngsters rallied behind “The Rainbow Grandpa” and demanded that the buildings be preserved.
Thanks to the students’ campaign, the town was protected – and Huang has happily continued to cover his community in color ever since.
To this day, Huang wakes up as early as 3AM so he can spend hours adding more detail onto his breathtaking murals.
(WATCH the BBC video below)
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A charming new survey of 2,000 American wine drinkers suggests that there might be more to the contents of your wine glass than just the color.
The survey, which was conducted in celebration of National Wine Day on May 25th, looked at the differences in personality traits between those who drink red wine and those who prefer white.
Commissioned by Coravin and conducted by OnePoll, the results revealed that white wine drinkers are more likely to be night owls, extroverts, and fans of punk music. White wine drinkers were also more likely to describe themselves as curious, sarcastic, and perfectionists.
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On the other hand, red wine drinkers were more likely to be introverts who enjoy traveling and watching Game of Thrones.
Furthermore, red wine drinkers were more likely to describe themselves as adventurous, humble, and organized. They were also more likely to identify as early birds, jazz fans, and “wine aficionados” (45% vs. 31%).
PROFILE OF RED WINE DRINKERS
• More likely to be a “wine aficionado”
• Early bird
• Introvert
• Prefer dogs to cats
• Listen to jazz music
• More likely to identify as adventurous, humble and organized
• Willing to spend slightly more per bottle ($40)
In addition to looking at the differences in personality, the survey also examined each groups’ knowledge when it came to drinking and tasting wine, as well as hosting and attending events.
It found that red wine drinkers had the knowledge to back up their claim of “wine aficionado” — they were more likely to know how to correctly hold a wine glass (73% vs. 65%), know what “tannins” are (53% vs. 45%) and know how long it takes for wine to oxidize (64% vs. 54%).
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They were also more likely to consider it a turnoff if a date wasn’t knowledgeable about wine (46% vs. 40%), and were willing to spend slightly more on wine — averaging $40 a bottle.
PROFILE OF WHITE WINE DRINKERS
• Less likely to be a “wine aficionado”
• Night owl
• Extrovert
• Prefer cats to dogs
• Listen to punk music
• More likely to identify as identify as curious, sarcastic, and perfectionist
• Willing to spend slightly less per bottle ($37)
The average respondent reported drinking four glasses of wine per week, and their favorite place to drink — regardless of wine preference — was found to be at home (72%). But 62% will forego drinking a glass of wine after work or with dinner because they don’t want to open a new bottle.
In addition to drinking in the comfort of their own home, the survey found that 49% of respondents enjoy drinking wine at events or gatherings more drinking at a bar.
While at an event, three-quarters will drink what everyone else is drinking, even if they’d prefer something else.
Read more fun stories about wine (like how to choose Orange wine on Halloween) on Good News Network.
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Quote of the Day: “There are seven things that will destroy us: wealth without work; pleasure without conscience; knowledge without character; religion without sacrifice; politics without principle; science without humanity; business without ethics.” — Mahatma Gandhi (unconfirmed)
Photo: by Michaela Loheit, CC license, via Flickr
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You can now enjoy dozens of beautiful European cities while kayaking along their waterways – and you can do it for free on one condition.
In exchange for two hours of kayaking, paddlers are asked to pick up floating garbage and trash along the way.
Greenkayak, the Denmark-based environmental nonprofit responsible for the service, provide participants with a life vest, paddle, kayak, trash picker, and bucket.
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Since the organization launched in 2017, over 10,000 people have collected 24,000 tons of trash.
“In Denmark, people hang out on canals and eat pizza and unfortunately see trash floating by,” Greenkayak co-founder told Tobias Weber-Andersen told USA Today about the platform’s inspiration. “You can’t take your shirt off and jump in, but you can get in a GreenKayak and make an impact.”
The service is currently running on dozens of waterways located across Ireland, Norway, Denmark, and Germany. If you want to join in on the fun, you can visit the organization’s website to book your boats and get started.
Make A Splash With Your Friends By Sharing The Good News With Your Friends – Photo by Greenkayak
Leonardo da Vinci produced some of the world’s most iconic art, but historical accounts show that he struggled to complete his works.
500 years after his death, researchers from King’s College London suggest the best explanation for Leonardo’s inability to finish projects is that the great artist may have had attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
In an article that was published this week in the journal BRAIN, Professor Marco Catani lays out the evidence supporting his hypothesis, drawing on historical accounts of Leonardo’s work practices and behavior.
ADHD is a behavioral disorder characterized by continuous procrastination, the inability to complete tasks, mind-wandering, and a restlessness of the body and mind. While most commonly recognized in childhood, ADHD is increasingly being diagnosed among adults including university students and people with successful careers.
As well as explaining his chronic procrastination, ADHD could have been a factor in Leonardo’s extraordinary creativity and achievements across the arts and sciences.
“While impossible to make a post-mortem diagnosis for someone who lived 500 years ago, I am confident that ADHD is the most convincing and scientifically plausible hypothesis to explain Leonardo’s difficulty in finishing his works,” said Professor Catani, who is from the college’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience.
“Historical records show Leonardo spent excessive time planning projects, but lacked perseverance,” he added. “ADHD could explain aspects of Leonardo’s temperament and his strange mercurial genius.”
Leonardo’s difficulties with sticking to tasks were pervasive from childhood. Accounts from biographers and contemporaries show Leonardo was constantly on the go, often jumping from task to task. Like many of those suffering with ADHD, he slept very little and worked continuously night and day by alternating rapid cycles of short naps and time awake.
Alongside reports of erratic behavior and incomplete projects from fellow artists and patrons, including Pope Leone X, there is indirect evidence to suggest that Leonardo’s brain was organized differently compared to the average person. He was left-handed and likely to be both dyslexic and have a dominance for language in the right-hand side of his brain, all of which are common among people with ADHD.
Perhaps the most distinctive and yet disruptive side of Leonardo’s mind was his voracious curiosity, which both propelled his creativity and also distracted him. Professor Catani suggests ADHD can have positive effects, for example mind-wandering can fuel creativity and originality. However, while beneficial in the initial stages of the creative process, the same traits can be a hindrance when interest shifts to something else.
Catani, who specializes in treating neurodevelopmental conditions like autism and ADHD, says: “There is a prevailing misconception that ADHD is typical of misbehaving children with low intelligence, destined for a troubled life.
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“On the contrary, most of the adults I see in my clinic report having been bright, intuitive children, but develop symptoms of anxiety and depression later in life for having failed to achieve their potential.”
“It is incredible that Leonardo considered himself as someone who had failed in life. I hope that the case of Leonardo shows that ADHD is not linked to low IQ or lack of creativity but rather the difficulty of capitalizing on natural talents. I hope that Leonardo’s legacy can help us to change some of the stigma around ADHD.”
Reprinted from King’s College London
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It can be scary for a 9-year-old boy to anticipate getting a heart transplant, but luckily for Ethann, he had hundreds of people to cheer him on before the operation.
Ethann is just one of 30 people in the world born with geleophysic dysplasia, a rare skeletal condition typically characterized as a form of dwarfism.
Since the youngster was recently preparing to leave school in order to undergo the transplant for his condition, the entire student population turned out in full force to encourage him.
Hundreds of kids, teachers, and police officers rallied together to throw Ethann a parade before his surgery – and the youngster was understandably delighted.
(WATCH the video below)
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Colorado has just become the first US state to pass legislation that puts a cap on the price of insulin.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill this week that will prevent pharmaceutical companies from charging massive sums of money for the life-saving medication.
Depending on their insurance coverage, diabetic Americans can be charged as much as $1,000 out-of-pocket for a month’s supply of insulin.
Now that the HB19-1216 bill has been approved, however, state residents will no longer be forced to pay more than $100 per month for the medication.
With insulin prices increasing by more than 1,000% over the course of the last two decades, the bill also demands the department of law “to investigate the pricing of prescription insulin drugs and submit a report of its findings to the governor” by November 2020.
The price-cap law is set to go into full effect on January 1st, 2020 – but with more than 400,000 Colorado residents living with type 1 and 2 diabetes, the legislation is being hailed as a trailblazing new stance against price-gouging.
(WATCH the news coverage below or our international viewers can check out the footage on the CBS News website)
Treat Your Friends To Some Positivity By Sharing The Good News To Social Media – File photo by Marco Verch, CC
It has been nine years since Cole Shinsky’s mother passed away – but after his recent encounter with a yellow butterfly, he believes that she is still finding ways to comfort him from the afterlife.
Shinsky’s mother always believed that she would return to the world as a yellow butterfly after she died. Because of his mom’s attachment to the lovely little pollinators, the college baseball pitcher has always been entranced by yellow butterflies – but he says that he has never been able to get very close to one.
That all changed on Mother’s Day when Shinsky was in the backyard of his aunt’s house in Fort Worth, Texas and she approached him with tears in her eyes.
“I was fishing off the dock at my aunt’s house and she started walking down to me with her hands cupped together,” Shinsky told The Dodo. “She said, ‘Guess who came to visit?’”
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At first, Shinsky could not figure out why she was crying – and then he saw the little yellow butterfly perched on the palms of her hands.
Upon holding her hands up to Shinsky’s arm, the butterfly crawled onto his sleeve.
Shinsky was so moved by the strange encounter, he walked into the house with the butterfly riding on his arm. The college student says that he has been going through such a rough time with school and baseball, he could not bear to say goodbye to the little insect just yet.
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After the butterfly spent several minutes on his arm and shoulder, however, Shinsky finally took it back outside where it stayed with him for several more minutes before flying away.
Needless to say, Shinsky was overwhelmed with gratitude for the strange encounter.
This is incredible... Mother passed away 9 years ago and she mentioned she’d be a yellow butterfly one day. For 9 years I have been mezmorized every time I see one but I have never been close enough to touch one. Today... this happened! Happy Mother’s Day Mama 💛 pic.twitter.com/DpF6CaQb4B
— Cole Shinsky (@coleshinsky) May 13, 2019
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Quote of the Day: “Defeat is a condition which one must accept in order to give it reality. I refuse to give it reality by accepting it.” – Walter Russell
Photo: by Kit, CC license, via Flickr
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A Canadian man who suffered a heart attack while he was vacationing in Florida was serendipitously saved by a stranger from his very own hometown.
In a strange twist of fate, Sandy MacNeill was walking down a street in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida right when Tom Reddon collapsed onto the sidewalk last month.
Reddon had just embarked on a quick warm-up walk with his friend when he suddenly fell to the ground, unconscious.
As Reddon’s friend called 911, two passing pedestrians ran to find someone who could perform CPR – and luckily, they managed to flag down MacNeill.
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Though MacNeill says that he has taken several CPR classes in the past, he had never actually performed the procedure on another person until Reddon.
In a “blur of adrenaline”, MacNeill performed nonstop chest compressions on Reddon until paramedics arrived on the scene five minutes later.
After being rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery, Reddon was successfully treated for cardiac arrest – and he says that he is apparently very lucky to be alive.
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“For my type of [cardiac] arrest, the success rate is not very high, so to have somebody there to immediately call 911, to do CPR and to have a hospital close by … and to have cardiac surgeons on hand to fix me up, I mean, it’s amazing that everything fell together so well for me,” Reddon told CBC.
It wasn’t until later when the two Canadian men were reunited that they realized that they were both from Fredricton, New Brunswick.
“It’s freaky,” Reddon told the news outlet. “We got along famously well, and I think we’ll get together when we get back in Fredericton over a craft beer or two and talk about life and stuff.”
(WATCH the interview below) – Photo by Charlotte Reddon
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This installment of the Science of Kindness is reprinted with permission from Envision Kindness.
Once a month, I volunteer at a meal center to help serve food to people who are in need. Despite the many other things that I need to do, I really look forward to meeting and serving the patrons, even if only briefly.
Although my motivation begins with wanting to help others and be grateful for what I have been given, it is joy that helps bring me back when I am very busy. I first noticed this some time ago: at the end of our shift, after the kitchen and dining room have been cleaned up, I would experience a lightness of being; a sense of satisfaction and reconnection to purpose. It just feels good.
Allen Luks coined the phrase for this feeling as “the helper’s high”: the sense of euphoria that can be experienced soon after helping someone else. Luks defined two phases—the first characterized by that uplifted, euphoric mood; the second by a longer-lasting sense of calm. The greatest effect (the high) was observed in helping strangers.
A few years ago, as I was researching how kindness affected health, I came to learn that volunteerism was associated with a markedly lower risk of dying. Depending on the study, the decrease in death rates ranged between 20 to 60% or so.
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For perspective, this is hugeAfter water filtration and chlorination were introduced early in the 20th century as a means of providing clean drinking water to the masses, death rates from contaminated water only dropped by about 15 to 20%.
The observations on volunteering come from epidemiologic studies that follow various populations over time. They are notoriously complex because of how people experience a lot of what are called “confounding variables”—different things happening at the same time. For example, people are getting married or divorced, getting or losing jobs, maybe quit smoking, maybe eating and exercising better. With scientific variables like these, it can be hard to sort out cause and effect. That is, maybe people who volunteer live longer simply because they are healthier and able to volunteer. Or perhaps they have the financial resources (don’t have to work two jobs) to allow them more time to volunteer.
Since scientists can try to adjust for these different life events, however, studies generally report that the effects of volunteering remain after these adjustments with reasonable consistency. Following them over time also supports this idea—that volunteerism reduces death. One recent and large European study found that self-reported health scores were significantly better in volunteers than non-volunteers—the difference in scores equivalent to about 5 years of aging.
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How could volunteering decrease the risk of death? There are several factors at play. The first, and likely most significant, is decreased symptoms of stress and uplifted mood. Multiple studies have provided evidence that volunteering is good for depression, well-being, and social networking, among other effects – which is all entirely consistent with Luks’ observations and my own microcosmic experience. Secondly, people who volunteer regularly also make more effort to take care of themselves, as demonstrated in visits to their doctor for preventive health care.
Finally, people who volunteer may be more physically active, as seen in the Baltimore Experience Corps Trial, a study of the effects of volunteering in older adults. In that study, women (but not men) had a significant increase in walking each day compared to those who did not volunteer.
To try to tie this together, volunteering likely exerts its positive health effects by connecting people to others and to an activity that they find meaningful. Achieving connection, purpose, and meaning is critical to attenuating stressors of life—particularly loneliness. Since stress is a major cause of disease, especially heart disease, the ability to quench the need for connection, purpose, and meaning can bring about beneficial and salutary changes for people. And when there is purpose and we are connected to others, we take care of ourselves.
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Most have heard the ancient wisdom that giving benefits the giver more than the receiver. An excerpt from Proverbs speaks to this point by saying: “A generous man will prosper, he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.” If we look at that solely from a materialistic perspective, the concept is hard to fathom. But if we look at it from a spiritual and now biologic perspective, it totally makes sense. Even many years ago, our predecessors understood this point without modern scientific techniques.
About 25% of the US population volunteers – so what do you think would happen if we could make that number even higher?
If you can’t volunteer right now but you still want to get that good feeling, try looking at the images of kindness, compassion, and love on the Envision Kindness site – because we now know that even simple images of kindness can inspire similar sensations of euphoric “helper’s highs”.
Interested in learning more about the science of kindness and its role in your life? Visit EnvisionKindness.org to learn more.
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People might assume that a group of drunken young men wandering the city streets at 3AM is a recipe for trouble – but not these lads.
After an evening of revelry in Boston, England, three friends were getting ready to chow down on some late night kebabs when they saw a mangled bike rack that was in need of repair.
Since the young men were all avid bicyclists, they knew that the rack had been damaged by a car that had reversed into the metal bar several weeks previously. Even though the damage had already been reported to the city, it had not yet been repaired.
So the party-goers took it upon themselves to try and fix it with their own bare hands.
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CCTV footage shows the young men collectively pulling on the rack with all their might. For 13 minutes, the friends can be seen trying different angles and tactics to bend the bike rack back into shape.
Finally, with the help of two more young men, they manage to pull the metal bar back to its original place.
Onlookers cheer as the men, who were all 24 and 23 years old, high-five and rejoice in their victory. The footage was later uploaded to the internet by the city and the five good Samaritans were praised for their public service.
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“The feedback we have had has been ridiculous. Random people have sent us messages saying well done. Its come as a bit of a shock,” one of the men told The Daily Mail in 2013. “We did it at the end of a night out, we had all probably had too much to drink and thought it would be a good idea and didn’t think anymore of it afterwards.
“There was a big cheer at the end. It was great,” he added.
“At one point five were pushing and pulling. To look at the bike rack now you would hardly know it had been damaged,” Peter Hunn, Boston Borough Council’s safety officer, told The Mail. “The night-time economy is not all about bad lads doing bad things.”
(WATCH the video below)
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Rather than making children scrounge up tuition money for an education, this innovative new school in India has been asking their pupils to pay for their classes with plastic waste.
LISTEN to the inspiring story told on the radio by our GNN founder (in the Good News Guru podcast below) or READ the full story below…
Every week, students attending the Akshar School are required to line up and “pay” for their classes using grocery bags filled with at least 25 pieces of plastic waste that they collected from around their homes and communities.
Parmita Sarma and Mazin Mukhtar, the married couple responsible for the trailblazing little school, were inspired to launch the initiative after they witnessed their students being forced to endure the acrid smell of burning plastic wafting into their classrooms.
That’s because prior to when the school was opened in June 2016, local families and village communities in the state of Assam commonly burned plastic waste as a means of keeping warm and fueling fires.
Now, rather than endangering the atmosphere and health of the students, the plastic is being collected and recycled at the school’s own recycling center.
The school then recycles the trash into Ecobricks by compressing about 40 pieces of garbage into a single plastic bottle. This tree planter (pictured below) is just one of the structures that the students have made out of Ecobricks, and it was made using 200 plastic bottles and 4,000 plastic packets.
Furthermore, the school’s older students can work part-time jobs at the recycling center as an additional source of income.
According to Forbes, the school now hosts over 100 students between the ages of 4 and 15. Since the school’s creative curriculum has attracted more and more students to enroll, Mukhtar and Sarma plan on working through the Akshar Foundation to open another 100 schools over the course of the next five years.
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As a means of encouraging aviation enthusiasts to pursue their passion, a Canadian airport has installed holes in their wire fencing so photographers can more easily take pictures of airplane traffic.
The Quebec City Jean Lesage International Airport, which is the 11th busiest airport in the country, recently set up 10 different “planespotting” locations around the perimeter of their airport based on their popularity with airplane photographers.
In addition to giving photographers a clearer shot of the air traffic, the holes in the fencing are also surrounded by metal frames to prevent lens scratches.
After collaborating with Quebec-based planespotting community YQB Aviation to identify the photography hotspots, the airport’s Facebook page unveiled the location of their first panel last week.
“These panels will be strategically positioned all around the perimeter of the airport to offer a variety of views on the runways and the tarmac,” wrote the airport Facebook page.
“The first sign was installed this morning at the threshold of Runway 29 and the others will be ready for next week,” they added. “Happy planespotting!”
If you’re already gearing up to hit the runways, the airport also released a map of where the next nine panels will be located.
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Quote of the Day: “The earth laughs in flowers.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Photo: Copyright 2019, GWC
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Quote of the Day: “We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.” – Joseph Campbell
Photo: by SJKen, CC license via Flickr
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Part of the reason why lung cancer is so deadly is because it’s difficult to diagnose – but this new artificial intelligence program from Google has proven to be a potential lifesaver.
According to a new study from Google and Northwestern Medicine, their newly-developed deep learning system was able to outperform radiologists in detecting malignant lung nodules.
If the system becomes more widely available in a clinical setting, it could enhance the accuracy of early lung cancer diagnosis, which could lead to earlier treatment and thousands of lives saved.
The deep-learning system was compared against radiologists evaluating low-dose chest computed tomography (LDCT) scans for patients, some of whom had biopsy confirmed cancer within a year.
In most comparisons, the model performed as good as – and in some cases, even better – than radiologists.
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The system also produced fewer false positives and fewer false negatives, which could lead to fewer unnecessary follow-up procedures and fewer missed tumors.
The paper was published in Nature Medicine earlier this week.
Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related death in the United States, resulting in an estimated 160,000 deaths in 2018. Large clinical trials across the United States and Europe have shown that chest screening can identify the cancer and reduce death rates. However, high error rates and the limited access to these screenings mean that many lung cancers are usually detected at advanced stages when they are hard to treat.
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Deep learning is a technique that teaches computers to learn by example. The deep-learning system utilizes both the primary CT scan and, whenever available, a prior CT scan from the patient as input. Prior CT scans are useful in predicting lung cancer malignancy risk because the growth rate of suspicious lung nodules can be indicative of malignancy. The computer was trained using fully de-identified, biopsy-confirmed low-dose chest CT scans.
“Radiologists generally examine hundreds of two-dimensional images or ‘slices’ in a single CT scan, but this new machine learning system views the lungs in a huge, single three-dimensional image,” said study co-author Dr. Mozziyar Etemadi, a research assistant professor of anesthesiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and of engineering at McCormick School of Engineering.
“AI in 3D can be much more sensitive in its ability to detect early lung cancer than the human eye looking at 2D images,” he added. “This is technically ‘4D’ because it is not only looking at one CT scan, but two (the current and prior scan) over time.
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“In order to build the AI to view the CTs in this way, you require an enormous computer system of Google-scale. The concept is novel but the actual engineering of it is also novel because of the scale.”
The novel system identifies both a region of interest and whether the region has a high likelihood of lung cancer.
The model outperformed six radiologists when previous CT imaging was not available and performed as well as the radiologists when there was prior imaging.
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“The system can categorize a lesion with more specificity. Not only can we better diagnose someone with cancer, we can also say if someone doesn’t have cancer, potentially saving them from an invasive, costly and risky lung biopsy,” Etemadi said.
Google scientists developed the deep-learning model and applied it to 6,716 de-identified CT scan sets provided by Northwestern Medicine to validate the accuracy of its new system. The scientists found the artificial-intelligence-powered system was able to spot sometimes-minuscule malignant lung nodules with a model AUC of 0.94 test cases.
Shravya Shetty, technical lead at Google, said: “This area of research is incredibly important, as lung cancer has the highest rate of mortality among all cancers, and there are many challenges in the way of broad adoption of lung cancer screening.
“Our work examines ways AI can be used to improve the accuracy and optimize the screening process, in ways that could help with the implementation of screening programs,” added Shetty. “The results are promising, and we look forward to continuing our work with partners and peers.”
The authors caution that these findings need to be clinically validated in large patient populations, but they say this model may assist in improving the management and outcome of patients with lung cancer.
“Most of the software we use as clinicians is designed for patient care, not for research,” Etemadi said. “It took over a year of dedicated effort by my entire team to extract and prepare data to help with this exciting project.
“The ability to collaborate with world-class scientists at Google, using their unprecedented computing capabilities to create something with the potential to save tens of thousands of lives a year is truly a privilege.”
Reprinted from Northwestern Now
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