Bio Saga Blog - A Chronicle of Life Sciences & Informatics

Mayo Clinic is extending its brand across the country. This time, it is offering a free personal health record on the Microsoft HealthVault platform. The Mayo Clinical Health Manager , as the PHR is known, will provide not only a secure place to store medical records online, but also guidance from Mayo experts that will be tailored to the information contained in that PHR. If you are a 50-year-old man with diabetes and hypertension, for example, you will receive information about how you should take care of those conditions and the tests you should receive. Initially, Mayo Clinic Health Manager will include tools and features that help consumers manage pediatric and adult wellness, immunizations, pregnancy and asthma. Forthcoming features will help users with type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, and/or high blood pressure. According to Mayo’s press kit , PHR users will be able to “transfer data directly into [a] Mayo Clinic Health Manager profile from a wide range of providers, devices...

The Google Datasets Project Comes to An End Google will shutter its highly-anticipated scientific data service in January without even officially launching the product, the company said in an e-mail to its beta testers. Once nicknamed Palimpsests, but more recently going by the staid name, Google Research Datasets, the service was going to offer scientists a way to store the massive amounts of data generated in an increasing number of fields. About 30 datasets — mostly tests — had already been uploaded to the site. The dream appears to have fallen prey to belt-tightening at Silicon Valley's most innovative company. "As you know, Google is a company that promotes experimentation with innovative new products and services. At the same time, we have to carefully balance that with ensuring that our resources are used in the most effective possible way to bring maximum value to our users," wrote Robert Tansley of Google on behalf of the Google Research Datasets team to i...