We have changed a lot. Our parents’ generation, at 60, they considered that old age. I’m in the middle of middle age.

A yet unidentified component of coffee interacts with the beverage’s caffeine, which could be a surprising reason why daily coffee intake protects against Alzheimer’s disease. A new Alzheimer’s mouse study by researchers at the University of South Florida found that this interaction boosts blood levels of a critical growth factor that seems to fight off the Alzheimer’s disease process.

According to the piece, like Henry Ford before him, Indian Doctor Devi Shetty has “used high volumes to improve quality” and “some studies show quality rises at hospitals that perform more surgeries for the simple reason that doctors are getting more experience.” Apparently, “in smaller U.S. and Indian hospitals, there aren’t enough patients for one surgeon to focus exclusively on one type of heart procedure.” It’s also notable that “by next year, six million Americans are expected to travel to other countries in search of affordable medical care.”

That’s an impressive claim, and it’s based on newly released data from his lab that shows the ability to turn human skin cells into liver cells. Read the full story here.

“A team at the Broad Institute, a Harvard-M.I.T. collaborative for genomics research, has devised a way of screening for drugs that attack cancer stem cells but leave ordinary cells unharmed.

The Broad team, lead by Piyush B. Gupta, screened some 16,000 chemicals, including all known chemotherapeutic agents approved by the F.D.A. The team reports in Thursday’s issue of Cell that 32 of the chemicals selectively targeted cancer stem cells. These particular chemicals may or may not make good drugs, but the screening system proves for the first time, the researchers say, that it is possible to target cancer stem cells with drugs that leave ordinary cells alone. Only one of the 32 chemicals is approved as a drug for cancer.”

The second money-saving tech to make headlines today is a new microchip that can tell doctors if their patients have taken their medicine. This would obviously be very helpful for psychiatric patients who often skip doses and then wind up hospitalized in costly care units. It would also be helpful for elders who have trouble remembering if they took their meds.

Although these research units are the first to announce their projects, I know that similar research developments are going on at other universities as well (UCSF is one). These two money saving techniques will soon be common.