The five most-read posts on Scope this week were:
Image of the Week: A model of HIV: This week's image comes from the 2010 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge, which appears in the Feb. 18 issue of Science. This arresting (and haunting) model of HIV took first place in the competition.
Stanford psychiatrist explores how people's online personas affect their real-world lives: A recent story in the San Jose Mercury News features the work of Stanford psychiatrist Elias Aboujaoude, MD, and discusses his new book Virtually You: The Dangerous Powers of the E-Personality.
Patients with rare diseases share their extraordinary stories: This week, the company Inspire posted a compilation of narratives written by patients living with chronic illness. The moving stories offer insight into the daily struggles and small victories of the estimated 25-30 million Americans living with a rare disease.
Stanford's Sean Mackey discusses recent advances in pain research and treatment: Chronic pain, which affects more than 70 million Americans, not only compromises patients and their families' quality of life but also has important societal and economic impacts. In this entry about a 1:2:1 podcast, Mackey talks about how pain fundamentally alters the nervous system and about the latest advances in pain research and treatment.
ScienceRoll: What happens when pharma companies edit Wikipedia? A summary compiled by Bertalan Mesko, MD, on the conflict of interest issues that arise when employees of pharmaceutical companies edit Wikipedia pages.
