In some lighter news from from this week, Link NKY recently reported that the city of Covington in northern Kentucky will not impose a curfew on app-based electric scooters. The scooters, produced primarily by companies Bird and Lime, have become a prominent feature in tri-state metro areas over the past few years.
The Journal News, a local newspaper out of Butler County, Ohio, recently reported on a new research project at the University of Cincinnati. Focusing on patients who have lost their hearing due to non-cancerous tumors, the project is studying how a combination of art therapy and robotic companions, in this case a puppy, can help people cope with the depression and isolation that often accompany problems in the brain.
On March 4th, WCPO reported about a new project at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Using pediatric patient data, researchers are employing the world's second-fastest supercomputer, located at Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee, to analyze and predict mental health outcomes for patients with depression and anxiety disorders, including those who suffer from thoughts of suicide.
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) finally eased their masking guidelines, with the introduction of a new, color-based system for counties around the country. Each color code corresponds to a level of risk: green for low-risk counties, yellow for medium risk areas, and orange for those areas where COVID-19 infection rates are still comparatively high.
Around Christmas of last year, Cincy Magazine published a story about a pilot program that the Kroger chain of grocery stores had unveiled in Centerville. The Centerville Kroger Marketplace began using drones to deliver grocery orders in July of 2021. The chief technology officer of Drone Express; a drone manufacturer out of Monroe, Ohio, which has partnered with Kroger; had this to say about the program: "'Autonomous drones have unlimited potential to improve everyday life, and our technology opens the way to safe, secure, environmentally friendly deliveries for Kroger customers,...The possibilities for customers are endless—we can enable Kroger customers to send chicken soup to a sick friend or get fast delivery of olive oil if they run out while cooking dinner.
Everything has an app these days. From fitness trackers to parking meters, everyday technology that was once limited to simple analog mechanisms is now being integrated with algorithms and data bases. Toothbrushes are no different. So called smart toothbrushes have carved out a spot on the tech marketplace over the last few years, and this has many consumers asking if they should invest in this technological innovation.
In September, Science Daily covered a recently published study from a collaborative of researchers at the Universities of Pennsylvania and Indiana. The paper presented research about new technology relating to dental implants, relatively new dental appliances that replace damaged or diseased tooth roots with metal implants.
With news of the Omicron variant dominating headlines, it's time to assess how the COVID-19 virus and its variants have impacted people's oral health. According to a survey from the American Dental Association's Health Policy Institute, stress from the pandemic has caused an increase in the prevalence of a variety of oral conditions.
According to a recently administered survey from the American Dental Association (ADA), over half of dentists believe that intraoral scanners will be revolutionary tools for their practices in 2021. Intraoral scanners, along with other technologies we've covered here, are innovations that could make dental practices more profitable and more efficient.
Quick Announcement: Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, there will be only one post this week. We will return to our normal publishing schedule next week on Tuesday, November 30, 2021.
Virtual reality (VR) refers to technology that creates interactive, simulated environments.