The five most-read stories this week on Scope were:
The reefer connection: Brain’s “internal marijuana” signaling system implicated in very early stages of Alzheimer’s pathology: A-beta, a substance suspected as a prime culprit in Alzheimer’s disease, may start impairing learning and memory long before plaques form in the brain. Daniel Madison, PhD, is the study's senior author.
The hospital becomes a different place: pregnant in medical school: In the latest installment of SMS Unplugged, medical student Jennifer DeCoste-Lopez discusses the best and worst aspects of being pregnant while in medical school.
A new era for stem cells in cardiac medicine? A simple, effective way to generate patient-specific heart muscle cells: Joseph Wu, MD, PhD, and Paul Burridge, PhD, have devised a way to create large numbers of heart muscle cells called cardiomyocytes from stem cells without using human or animal-derived products, which can vary in composition and concentration among batches.
Stanford bioengineer develops a 50-cent paper microscope: Manu Prakash, PhD, assistant professor of bioengineering, has developed an ultra-low-cost paper microscope to aid disease diagnosis in developing regions. The device is further described in a technical paper.
Stanford microscope inventor invited to first White House Maker Faire: Bioengineering professor Manu Prakash, PhD, was invited to attend the first-ever White House Maker Faire to celebrate our “Nation of Makers” and to help empower America’s students and entrepreneurs to invent the future. Prakash showed attendees how to build a 50-cent microscope and a $5 programmable microfluidic chemistry set.
And still going strong – the most popular post from the past:
The mystery surrounding lung-transplant survival rates: A 2012 article in the San Francisco Chronicle offered a look at the challenges facing lung transplant patients and explored why a significant number don’t live beyond the five-year mark, despite improvements in survival rates.
