The fall issue of Stanford Medicine magazine came out a few weeks ago while I was on vacation (mostly in Germany, visiting relatives and gaining nearly 10 pounds thanks to my mother in law's terribly excellent cooking).
In case you missed it, here's the scoop: The fall issue is about mysteries. Medical mysteries. In the stories, readers follow physician-scientists as they use technologies to turn up clues unimagined in writer Arthur Conan Doyle's day -- a telltale quirk in a gene's sequence, for example, or a peculiar hormonal secretion. Nailing the disease culprits doesn't come easy, but the detectives are gaining on them.
The online edition of the magazine includes a couple of bonus items:
Audio of the full interview with physician/mystery author Tess Gerritsen, who uses her medical knowledge to terrify her readers: The doctor will scare you now
Video of what glia cells, the Rodney Dangerfields of the brain, are up to. Writer Bruce Goldman narrates, explaining why they deserve some respect: The brain's silent majority
Illustration by Shout