Pilots, astronauts and workers in other high-risk industries follow rigorous safety checklists to help them avoid hazards. Checklists have shown potential to reduce risk in …
Month: February 2014
Mysteries of the heart: Stanford Medicine magazine answers cardiovascular questions
The heart is a paradoxical organ. It declares its presence with that distinctive thump thump, yet its moment-to-moment condition is really hard to decipher. But …
Study shows legal drinking age of 21 saves lives and reduces health risks for young adults
New research shows that a minimum drinking age of 21 is associated with a lower rate of drunk driving collisions among young adults, as well …
Stanford physician leading efforts to track emerging polio-like illness in California children
Jessica Tomei remembers the exact moment her daughter’s arm stopped functioning. It had been a rough week. Sofia Jarvis, Tomei’s then-two-year-old, had been sick with …
Huntington's therapy discovered at Stanford shows positive results in humans
There are definite perks to sticking with the same job for several years. For me, it means the chance to see the progression of research …
Grand Roundup: Top posts for week of February 16
The five most-read stories this week on Scope were: Top 10 reasons I’m glad to be in medical school: As part of our SMS Unplugged …
Paying kindness forward through infant-cuddling
My runner-up dream job is to snuggle infants at a hospital. (Second only to attending yoga teacher trainings full-time.) So I might have squealed a …
Transforming the rhythms of the heart into music
Back in 2000, jazz drummer Milford Graves received a Guggenheim grant and developed technology to record music based on the natural rhythms of the human …
Using motion-capture technology to identify movements that alter tissue in dancers
In a marvelous duet between humans and technology, the late choreographer Merce Cunningham used motion-capture sensors on dancers' bodies to record movement and project the …
Bright lights breed stronger emotions, study finds
The glow of a tubular fluorescent bulb beneath a plastic cover can feel... unflattering. But bright lighting can also influence emotions and decision-making. That's according …
Literature and medicine at life’s end
The traditional narrative in American medicine follows a “diagnosis and cure” storyline, with the narrative breaking down or becoming extraordinarily difficult when a cure is …
Weekends are happier for those employed or not, Stanford study shows
A freelancing friend calls her state between projects "funemployed" –at least at the start. But unless you're part of a community of like-scheduled beings, unemployed …
Damage to dead cell disposal system may increase heart disease
Think of it like taking out the garbage. That's the way Stanford researcher Nicholas Leeper, MD, explained to me the findings of his recently published …
New research scrutinizes off-label drug use
In the U.S., more than one in five drug prescriptions are for off-label indications. Better tracking of these unapproved uses could help medical researchers identify …
Insurance status might perversely affect the kind of trauma care you get: Stanford study
Given how much my health insurance checks eat into my income, I shouldn’t need to worry about the kind of trauma care I’d get if …
Stanford study finds Lyme disease among ticks in California parks
Hikers, beware: Ticks infected with the bacterium at the root of Lyme disease have been found roaming California parks, as described in a study to …