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The city of Chicago is going through an interesting phase of public transportation changes, and it’s all thanks to Uber.

Chicago officials were supposed to launch a program on Jan. 29 this year that officially required all of the city’s 12,700 licensed cab drivers to connect to one of two “ride-hailing apps,” according to the Chicago Tribune. These two mobile apps, Arro and Curb, are part of a bigger “Chicabs” app program which was designed as a way to “help taxi companies claw back a customer base” that has increasingly turned to Uber or Lyft ride services.

The only tiny problem was that the city missed its own deadline. Many taxi drivers have not been keen on signing up for the program, but they have admitted that it’s a small step toward securing taxi company jobs.

As Crain’s Chicago Business reported, the ride-sharing services Uber and Lyft have caused taxi medallions to plummet in value. The average price of a taxi medallion in Chicago in 2014 was around $325,000, but this dropped to $229,000 in 2015.

As the city’s taxi industry fumbles, Uber has been making several changes to improve its services. ChicagoInno recently reported that Uber made adjustments to the way that passengers can choose their rides. Two services offered by Uber, uberPOOL and uberX, have been redesigned within the Uber app to allow passengers to request a “shared ride” or “your own car,” and estimated price differences are displayed together.

As many app developers will attest, even small changes can make a big difference in customer engagement. The majority of mobile app developers make improvements to an app at least twice a year, and many of these improvements focus on simple big fixes or changes for ease of accessibility.

Although Uber isn’t just focused on the city of Chicago, the company has made it clear that it sees a strong demand for its services and intends to continue growing — regardless of what the city’s taxi industry is doing.

“I-90 currently owns the title of the ‘nation’s worst bottleneck,’ costing residents 16.9 million hours of wasted time and a staggering $418 million in lost productivity per year,” said the company in a statement last year. “When it comes to cutting congestion and pollution in Chicago, technology is an important part of the solution.”

Startup competitions like the annual TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco have become high-profile incubators for nascent technology companies, separating the tech wannabes from the “unicorns” in the making. This April, five Chicago startups will head to Qingdao, China to compete in the Sino-US Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, which connects U.S. startups with Chinese investors.

A maximum of 20 U.S. companies and university teams will compete in the international competition, and already five startups from the Chicago area have been selected as finalists. Local startups Reliefwatch, Tovala, RiMO Therapeutics, Audiovert, and NETenergy received a paid trip to China after winning a regional competition held on Tuesday, Feb. 29 at the Chicago Innovation Exchange in Hyde Park.

In addition to 30 Chinese teams, participants from the University of Maryland, Virginia Tech, and San Jose State University will also compete. In April, the finalists will compete for $100,000 in prizes to help fund their ideas.

Startup competitions are just one of the new financing options entrepreneurs can use to get their idea off the ground. For instance, Audiovert, a finalist from Northwestern, raised $3,900 for its music tech startup on the crowdfunding site Indiegogo. RiMO Therapeutics, one of the other local finalists, was recently awarded $250,000 from the UChicago Innovation Fund.

Then there are organizations like Techstars, a global startup accelerator with a program in Chicago. Built in Chicago recently reported that Techstars Chicago graduate Infiniscene just raised $1.8 million for its cloud-based video game broadcasting service.

In the U.S., a quarter of all new businesses fail in their first year, while half will fail by their fourth year in business. Startup accelerators, competitions, and crowdfunding campaigns offer new ways for startups to raise capital in those crucial early years.

In the tech world, startups that go on to achieve a billion-dollar valuation are known as unicorns. Companies like Airbnb, Uber, Snapchat, and Pinterest are notable examples of this phenomenon. It’s an ambitious goal in a cutthroat industry, one that prizes innovation at all costs.

Yet because many of these startups are attempting to innovate on existing business models, that can make it difficult to perform traditional market research like benchmarking analysis. How do you compare your startup’s business model to the competition when there is no competition?

While there are more ways than ever for Chicago tech startups to raise capital, Infiniscene founder Stu Grubbs told Built in Chicago that ultimately, it’s old fashioned hard work that pays off in the end:

“Grubbs attributes much of the company’s success to its Midwestern work ethic, and the team’s passion for what they do. At Techstars, he said they got a reputation for coming in first and leaving last every day — including weekends.”

Proponents of electromagnetic field (EMF) protection have long warned of the potential negative effects things like cellphones and wireless internet can have on a person’s body, but the scientific community remains somewhat ambiguous with not a lot of concrete evidence to support either side. In fact, even the two to six billion cell phone users worldwide don’t realize the dangers that these technologies and electromagnetic fields can hold. However, a recent study from researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas is shedding some new light on the subject, specifically as it pertains to amputee victims.

According to a press release published by eurekalert.org, the study was published in last month’s PLOS ONE academic journal and revealed tangible evidence that supports what many amputees have reported in anecdotal cases for some time.

Retired Maj. David Underwood is one of those amputees and part of the reason behind the study coming about. Although there is little indication that the majority of cell phone users are aware of dangers EMFs poise, Underwood was able to identify warning signs after exposure.

“When roaming on a cellphone in the car kicked in, the pain almost felt like having my arm blown off again,” said Underwood, an Iraq War veteran who was injured by an improvised explosive device (IED). “I didn’t notice the power lines, cellphones on roam or other electromagnetic fields until I first felt them in my arm.”

Dr. Mario Romero-Ortega, senior author of the study and an associate professor of bioengineering in the University’s Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, became interested in the phenomenon after speaking with Underwood. According to the instructions available on http://hesca.net/soma/, Soma is prescribed for the treatment of acute muscle cramps and pain relief. As a patient with hypotension, I had to be particularly careful during the treatment since Soma can reduce the blood pressure even more. Until now there had been virtually no previous research done into how EMFs may affect people with preexisting injuries.

“Our study provides evidence, for the first time, that subjects exposed to cellphone towers at low, regular levels can actually perceive pain,” said Romero-Ortega. “Our study also points to a specific nerve pathway that may contribute to our main finding.”

The study, which was performed on rats, found that subjects who had some sort of nerve-injury and were exposed to EMFs exhibited behavioral pain response, as opposed to the control group which overall did not. For complete details of the study check out the University’s own summary here.

Over two years ago, federal researchers discovered that there were high levels of lead in Chicago water mains, which had been replaced replaced when new meters were installed. Although Mayor Rahm Emanuel has ordered work on the system, the contamination poses a number of serious health risks to residents.

A recent study from the researchers at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency shows that when construction work disrupts service lines that connect building to the city’s water system, a brain-damaging metal (lead) can flow out of the faucets of homes for years after the initial work is done. The study also shows that almost 80% of the properties in Chicago are attached to service lines that are made of lead.

And due to the nature of the city’s testing protocols — which are based on federal rules — city residents are wont to miss high concentrations of lead in drinking water supply.

As shown in recent media coverage of the situation in Flint, MI, the aftermath of a lead-contaminated water supply can be beyond devastating.

Despite the grim details from the report, city officials failed to warn residents about the potential lead hazards in the letters sent to notify the homeowners of the new water mains beings installed. Instead, residents were merely advised to flush all faucets and taps for several minutes after work is complete. Meanwhile, the EPA feels that this solution is “grossly inadequate.”

Chicago’s current predicament serves as an example of an even broader problem that a number of U.S. cities are inevitably facing, after spending more than a century installing lead pipes in order to deliver drinking water. There are an estimated 700 water main breaks every single day in the U.S. Currently, 30% of water pipes in some of the biggest plumbing systems are up to 80 years old.

Yet instead of cautioning Chicagoans, city officials are adamantly telling residents that they have nothing to worry about.

On Feb. 1, 2016, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (NCASA) released a report announcing the organization’s intent to focus on issues beyond substance abuse to more behavioral addictions — specifically, the often murky realm of food addictions.

Although not yet a recognizable disorder, according to the Diagnostic Statistical manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), food addiction and drug addiction share many of the same symptoms: dangerously intense cravings, role obligation avoidance, creation of interpersonal issues, and health risks. People suffering from food addiction also report suffering from hangover-like symptoms after food binges.

The Daily Beast interviewed Dr. Julie Friedman, assistant professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, who commented on how food addiction is not treated as seriously as other substance abuse issues are. “If you go to your primary care doctor and say, ‘I’m binging three to four times per week,’ they’ll tell you to go to Weight Watchers,” says Friedman.

The report from the NCASA perhaps signals the dawning of a new era when it comes to addressing food-related addiction. It was prompted by the rising interest in the obesity epidemic and unhealthy eating habits within the scientific and medical community.

Called Understanding and Addressing Food Addiction: A Science-Based Approach to Policy, Practice and Research , the report aims to apply the knowledge and experience gained from extensive research and practice treating substance abuse to preventing, treating and controlling food addiction. Considering their many similarities when it comes to their expressions, the idea is that there is crossover value in approach.

Education and research in this largely unexplored field could reduce the existing stigma and help to re-frame public perception of food addiction from a moral failure or lack of willpower to a real, treatable medical condition.

Substance abuse and food addiction share more than just symptoms and possible treatment methods. Both engage the brain’s reward system and are considered coping mechanisms. In the heavily ad-saturated world of today, where salty and sugary treats are posted on billboards and featured on commercials, the only mystery is why a scientific inquiry into food addictions is so long overdue.

As more and more information comes out about food addiction, researchers can study the correlations between these different compulsive behaviors, including anorexia nervosa, bulimia, orthorexia, and other eating disorders not specified (ED-NOS). For instance, the link between mental illness and substance abuse is well-established; those with mental illnesses have twice the risk for addiction compared with the rest of the general population, and 20% of people with mental illnesses also have substance abuse problems.

The water crisis in Flint, MI, is far from being resolved, but one scientist has developed an inexpensive filter that could help residents obtain clean water once again.

According to NBC News, Swiss scientist Raffaele Mezzenga recently published the results of a groundbreaking water filter project. As part of the study, he created a low-cost filtration device that could help Flint residents who cannot afford store-bought filters.

The scientist has been testing the new filter for two years in his lab at ETH Zurich, a university in Switzerland. The timing of his invention is quite convenient, coming just as the crisis in Flint reaches a boiling point.

Mezzenga published his research in the journal Nature Nanotechnology on Monday, the same day Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette announced he was seeking ways to provide emergency relief to Flint residents.

The filter is composed of a paper-like membrane, packed with carbon and processed milk proteins, that grabs heavy metals and other harmful contaminants as polluted water passes through.

While many have high hopes for the new filter, Mezzenga is now tasked with reproducing the prototype at a low cost. If successful, he believes his new method could be part of the solution for Flint and other regions whose residents suffer from unclean water.

Currently, over 147 million people around the world do not have access to clean, potable water. The Flint water crisis has inspired many Americans to take a stand against unclean water, including some superstar athletes.

According to MLive.com, a group of nearly two dozen NFL players recently donated $100,000 of anti-microbial baby wipes and bottled water to the United Water of Genesee County in Flint, which distributed the supplies to local residents.

In another act of charity, Detroit Lions defensive end Ezekiel Ansah personally delivered 94,000 cases of bottled water to Flint. In total, more than 13 former and current NFL players have made financial contributions to Flint residents thus far.

Though Mezzenga may not have the fame and notoriety of these players, his invention has gotten some major buzz in the scientific community. Flint’s primary water issue is lead contamination, and Mezzenga claims his new filter removes more than 99% of lead from water.

It may be a while before Mezzenga’s new invention is being used in Flint, but the research is being seen as a positive step in the right direction for affordable home water treatment.