Yesterday on Scienceline, blogger Taylor Kubota explored a question I had never before pondered: If you've had plastic surgery, do you tell your kids? While the answer …
Month: December 2011
A family's grace in crisis
Minnie and Paul Narth have an unusual family. Six months into Minnie's pregnancy with their now-2-year-old son, she was diagnosed with an advanced case of …
Using brain scans to unmask the burn of cold pain
There's an interesting overview in Science today of a recent Swedish study that aimed to determinine how the thermal grill illusion tricks the mind. The …
iPS cells match embryonic stem cells in disease-modeling smackdown
Seizing on the serendipitous finding of a human embryo carrying a genetic condition known as Marfan syndrome, an all-star team of Stanford scientists led by …
New Stanford registry to track lymphedema in breast cancer patients
Increasing numbers of women are surviving breast cancer, but some of the therapies used to treat the cancer can cause a serious side effect: lymphedema. …
Stanford researchers reveal how mechanical forces contribute to scarring
When you get a cut, fibrous connective tissue replaces normal skin, sometimes leaving a visible scar. This process is called fibrosis, and it's a normal …
A guide to the social web for physicians
Late last night, Bryan Vartabedian, MD, posted the transcript of a recent pediatric grand rounds presentation he made on how technology and, more specifically, the …
Image of the Week: Breast cancer cells
Earlier this week we announced the new issue of Stanford Medicine magazine, a special issue devoted to cancer. In light of the new issue, this …
Grand Roundup: Top posts for the week of Dec. 4
The five most-read stories on Scope this week were: Can yoga help women suffering from fibromyalgia?: A study recently published in the Journal of Pain Research shows …
Tracking infectious disease outbreaks with satellite images of the nighttime sky
Researchers at Princeton are developing an unconventional way to use satellite images of nighttime lights to monitor seasonal population migration patterns and potentially pinpointing disease …
Boing Boing co-editor tweets, blogs about her breast cancer diagnosis
After two close friends were diagnosed with breast cancer, Xeni Jardin, co-editor of Boing Boing, decided its was time for her first mammogram. In a …
The impact of economic inequality on health care and health status in the U.S.
There is a thought-provoking essay by Donald Barr, MD, PhD, associate professor of pediatrics, in the Boston Review today discussing how rapidly rising health-care costs …
Unneeded cesareans are risky and expensive
Cesarean deliveries are over-used in California, and reducing the number of surgical births would save health-care dollars and protect women's health. Those are the conclusions …
Old blood + young brain = old brain
Maybe Ponce de Leon should have considered becoming a vampire. My just-out magazine article, "Old Brain, New Tricks: What Blood's Got to Do with It," …
The next technological revolution: How America is performing in biotech
In a fascinating Science Progress blog entry, Jonathan Moreno takes a stock of how America is performing in terms of its investment in the life …
Occupy the Future awareness event to take place at Stanford tomorrow
A series of teach-in style sessions inspired by the Occupy protests are being held on the Stanford campus tomorrow in an effort to increase awareness …