> A password-protected laptop containing personal information for 27,000 patients at Maryville, Tenn.-based Blount Memorial Hospital was stolen from an employee's home during a burglary on Aug. 25, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports. The hospital last week began notifying the patients impacted. Names, dates of birth, addresses and billing information were among the compromised information for 22,000 of the patients. Records for an additional 5,000 also contained Social Security numbers. Article
> Jerry the Bear, a stuffed teddy bear robot developed by Providence, R.I. startup Sproutel, helps diabetic children between the ages of 3 and 7 learn how to manage their disease, according to Health 2.0 News. Jerry was demoed at Health 2.0's annual fall conference in San Francisco earlier this month. Sproutel eventually plans to expand by creating similar tools for children with asthma, obesity and behavioral disorders. Article
> Next generation sequencing technology can be used to quickly and accurately identify diseases in skeletons, according to research published this month in the journal The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. For instance, researchers participating in the study were able to use hybridization capture technology to identify tuberculosis genes in a 19th century female skeleton. Abstract
And Finally… Bigfoot lives! Article