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Researchers have created a way for a smartphone to "hear" a warning sign of ear infections — fluid buildup behind the eardrum. If it pans out, parents might one day check their tots' ears at home simply using a phone app and "stuff you have around the house — paper, tape and scissors," said one of the lead researchers, Dr. Sharat Raju of the University of Washington. (Neergaard, 5/15)

The app is still experimental and would require clearance by the Food and Drug Administration before it could hit the market. But early data, published Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine, suggest that the smartphone can perform as well as an expensive test in a doctor's office. While there are many thousands of health-related apps, this one stands out because it uses the phone's microphone and speaker to make its diagnosis. (Harris, 5/15)

The funnel is placed on the outside of the ear, at which point the app sends a bird chirp-like sound into the ear. Depending on the sounds that the app picks up in return, a machine learning algorithm built into the app is able to tell whether or not there is liquid in the ear. “It’s like tapping on a wine glass,” Chan said. “Depending on whether it’s empty or not, it’s going to sound different.” (Chakradhar, 5/15)

The brain is unsurpassed in its ability to pick out juicy tidbits and attention-grabbing voices against a cacophony of background noise. Hearing aids, however, stink at this “cocktail party effect”: Rather than amplifying a particular voice by selective attention, they amplify every sound equally. On Wednesday, researchers unveiled a possible solution — an experimental hearing aid that reads the mind. It uses artificial intelligence to separate the sounds of different speakers, detects brain activity that makes one of those voices stand out from the others, and amplifies only that voice before delivering the sound to the listener, they explained in Science Advances. (Begley, 5/15)