On March 2, 2016, a spacecraft landed in Kazakhstan. The spacecraft carried American astronaut, Scott Kelly, and Russian cosmonaut, Mikhail Kornienko who were returning from a 340-day mission aboard the International Space Station. During their time in space, the two astronauts completed such feats as orbiting Earth 5,440 times, traveling 143,840,000 miles in space and witnessing over 10,900 sunrises and sunsets. In addition to this, Kelly conducted three spacewalks and Kornienko participated in one. The astronauts also performed a variety of experiments to learn about the effects of spaceflight on the human anatomy. Since the trip has ended, Kelly has retired and is now enjoying life with his family among other things. However, he still must go through extensive testing for a few months to provide researchers with a better understanding of the human body in space. They willl then compare the results to Kelly's twin brother.

About two million people each year end up in the ER because of concussions. However, more go unnoticed, which could gateway into life-long effects like chronic headaches, memory loss or depression. Even if they are checked, the treatment is based on guesses by doctors of the trauma. However, a simple blood test created by Dr. Linda Papa may be able to detect concussions for up to seven days after the incident. The test looks for high levels of glial fibrillary acidic protein which are in the glial cells surrounding the neurons of the brain. When head injuries occur, the proteins are released into the bloodstream and remain there for up to seven days. Doctors are then able to accurately diagnose a concussion even if the patient is not examined immediately after the injury. To guarantee the accuracy of the test, the team conducted several blood tests on over 600 patients, about half of which had been diagnosed with concussions. The rest of the adults had no brain trauma. The test showed the more severe an injury, the more concentration of GFAP as well as another brain protein, UCH-L1. This is very beneficial as patients will often wait out the symptoms. As pioneering as this is, we may be introduced to a handheld version which could be able to test the proteins in a matter of minutes.

Computers will be able to detect boredom and react to it. That sentence sounds like it has been pulled straight out of some sci-fi movie. However, this fiction could become reality. This doesn't mean they'll be able to read minds. Created by Harry Witchel, the computer tracks subtle and constant involuntary movements which occur when people are in front of a computer or even a television. The thought behind this is that the level of movement is correlated to how engrossed a person is in what they are doing. If you are highly interested, you will move less. Witchel and his team tested their theory exposing people to both stimulating and boring items. Their movements were monitored and, as thought, the involuntary actions decreased radically when the subjects were interested in what they were doing. The scientists are hoping that after this success, they can use this technology to enhance the digital learning experience so the learning can be tailored to student's needs.

In this new age of technology, the fact that computers are becoming increasingly smarter is quite evident. Although, they lack the creativity of humans, Google's AlphaGo computer algorithm beat multi world champion Lee Se-dol, at the ancient Chinese game, Go. The reason this caused quite a stir is the fact that the game is extremely intricate with innumerable possibilities and moves. Due to this, it was believed that a machine could not calculate all the possible outcomes and therefore, never be able to outdo a human. However this perception changed in March 9 - 15, when the penultimate matches were held. AlphaGo's stunned everyone with its decisive win in four of the five games. Experts worldwide have mixed opinions on the algorithm's impressive powers, their opinions about it are mixed. Some view the technological advancements as dangerous while others see them as benign. Personally I believe, superficially, the changes will be good but late on, these could turn sinister. Computers could become powerful enough to overpower humans, resulting in a scenario quite similar to the sci-fi and action movie the Matrix.