An increasing number of everyday devices such as car keys, smart phones and even medical implants need protection from hackers. The encryption method PRESENT is the smallest cipher for such cost and energy constrained applications.

In the past few years, researchers at the University of Helsinki have made several breakthroughs in discovering how the brain of preterm babies work, in developing treatments to protect the brain, and in developing research methods suitable for hospital use.

Laser light in combination with certain drugs - known as photodynamic therapy - can destroy cancer tumours, but is today used mostly to cure skin cancer. The reason that internal tumours are not treated with the method is that the technology does not exist to check that the precise amount of light is administered.

A Mexican drugmaker aims to snap up the consumer products company Prestige Brands in a deal valued at almost $850 million. Genomma Lab, based in Mexico City, offered $16.60 per share for the U.S.-based company, which makes household cleansers, contact lens solutions, and over-the-counter remedies such as Compound W wart remover.

Prestige said it was surprised by the offer, made by Genomma without an initial approach to management. "We are puzzled by Genomma Lab's decision to go public without any attempt to first engage in discussions with, or make a proposal to, the board of directors of Prestige Brands," the company said (as quoted by Reuters).

Genomma said it's looking to expand internationally with the Prestige deal. But analysts were a bit skeptical, not only that the offer would go through, but also that the acquisition would be a good fit, Reuters notes. "In our opinion, the synergies from this deal are not clear," Banorte Ixe analyst Raquel Moscoso wrote to investors.

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With pharma's biotech buyouts increasingly light on up-front cash and heavy on milestone payments, investors are collecting less money from M&A deals. Only 24% of milestone money actually changed hands in deals made from January 2005 through December 2009. Report

It wasn't exactly a surprise, Johnson & Johnson's ($JNJ) choice of Vice Chair Alex Gorsky to succeed William Weldon as CEO. Gorsky has been one of the two apparent front-runners for the job ever since he and Sheri McCoy were elevated to their current roles in December 2010. But McCoy was considered in some circles to be the favorite for the top job. And Gorsky's appointment raised questions even as analysts hailed him as "the natural choice."

Gorsky has spent most of his business career at J&J, apart from a four-year stint running Novartis' North American pharma business. So he's an insider, a known quantity, and one  investors are familiar with, Miller Tabak's Les Funtleyder told The New York Times. Funtleyder considered Gorsky to be the lead horse in his race with McCoy. "There is a comfort level with him," Funtleyder told the NYT. What's more, he's seen as a "force for stability," Bloomberg notes, going on to quote Wells Fargo analyst Lawrence Biegelsen: "We do not anticipate significant changes in J&J's strategic direction under his leadership."

Gorsky has also been running the device side of the business since 2008, and he's been in charge of supply-chain and quality processes since he took the vice chair's role. As Bloomberg points out, these jobs make him well acquainted with J&J's long series of recalls--including a particularly ugly one involving DePuy orthopedic implants. One of The Wall Street Journal's sources suggested Gorsky's supply-chain expertise may have helped tip the balance in his favor. Gorsky "has more of an operations background," the source told the WSJ. Plus, he helped engineer the acquisition of devicemaker Synthes, J&J's biggest deal ever.

Gorsky's insider status and device experience aren't uniformly seen as pluses, however. The news of his appointment broke alongside a NYT story about internal emails discussing safety issues with a DePuy hip system, the latest in an ongoing litany of questions about the division's handling of device problems. Not only has DePuy instituted a very expensive hip-implant recall, but it also faces thousands of lawsuits over those hip replacements, as well as vaginal mesh implants, Bloomberg points out.

At least one analyst said the devices division has seen "challenging" times recently, but Gorsky hasn't been to blame. Still, Erik Gordon, a University of Michigan business professor, told both the NYT and Bloomberg J&J's choice of an insider, while traditional at the company, may not be the best move at a time like this. Bringing in someone "from outside the team that led the company into so much trouble" would demonstrate a break with the recent past, he said. "I think it's a big mistake," Gordon told the Times.

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Special Report: Johnson & Johnson/Synthes - Top 10 medical device deals of 2011

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