Researchers at the Medical and Surgical Center for Retina have developed software that detects eye diseases such as diabetic macular edema using a smartphone. 

The technology was designed for general physicians who support the health system in Mexico to detect certain abnormalities without  an ophthalmologist and send the patient to the specialist.

It's obviously better and cheaper to prevent blindness rather than try to cure it so an app on a cellphone that just needs to focus on the eye is better in all ways. This is especially important in rural communities, where expertise areas such as ophthalmology won't be commonly available.

A milk-and ochre-based paint dates that may have been used by inhabitants to South Africa to adorn themselves or decorate stone or wood slabs has been dated to 49,000 years ago. 

While the use of ochre by early humans dates to at least 250,000 years ago in Europe and Africa, this is the first time a paint containing ochre and milk has ever been found in association with early humans in South Africa, said Paola Villa, a curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History and lead study author.

The milk likely was obtained by killing lactating members of the bovid family such as buffalo, eland, kudu and impala, she said.

The brains of people with recurrent depression have a significantly smaller hippocampus (the part of the brain most associated with forming new memories) than healthy individuals, according to a study of nearly 9,000 people called the ENIGMA study.

The researchers say this is the largest international study to compare brain volumes in people with and without major depression. It highlights the need to identify and treat depression effectively when it first occurs, particularly among teenagers and young adults. Using magnetic resonance imaged (MRI) brain scans, and clinical data from 1,728 people with major depression and 7,199 healthy individuals, the study combined 15 datasets from Europe, the USA and Australia. 

A study of nearly 1,000 teens found that sexually active obese adolescents were significantly less likely to use contraception than normal weight peers, putting them at higher risk of unintended pregnancy. Obese adolescents who did use contraception were also less likely to use it consistently, according to the paper. 

Researchers analyzed 26,545 weekly journal surveys measuring sexual practices and contraceptive use from a longitudinal study of 900 women ages 18-19 in Michigan. They examined the association between weight and sexual behaviors.

There is a paradox when it comes to guns in America. In states like California, gun ownership has doubled in the last 15 years while murder rates dropped substantially in that time. Today,
almost one in three US adults owns at least one gun, and owners are more likely to be white married men over the age of 55, hardly a high crime demographic.

Instead of being for crime, most guns are used for suicide - and even then fewer people commit suicide with guns in the US than do by hanging in Japan. Though Switzerland had always scoffed at the notion that guns cause crime - gun ownership is even higher there - similar results in more than one country dispel the myth that more legal guns lead to more crime or more murders.

A federal preschool program did more than improve educational opportunities for poor children in Mississippi during the 1960s - it created activists.