Here's a feel-good story that will lift your spirits. Over at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford, patients are working with volunteers from Hewlett-Packard and DreamWorks …
Month: August 2014
Exploring the conscious (and unconscious) brain in every day life
The first time I fainted, I was seven. I passed out while racing my fellow second-graders across the playground. One minute, I was leading the …
Tiny fruit flies as powerful diabetes model
Fruit flies in your kitchen are unquestionably annoying. But the next time you're trying to bat one out of the air around your too-ripe apples …
New medicine? A look at advances in wound healing
When you’re located in Silicon Valley, it’s easy to catch “start-up fever.” The quest to develop something new – a technology, technique, or test – …
Non-invasive technique uses lasers and carbon nanotubes to provide view of blood flow in the brain
When researchers want to explore the brain of living animals, they have two options: surgically remove part of the skull, a procedure that can alter …
Pump up the bass, not the volume, to feel more powerful
As any seasoned athlete or fitness fanatic knows, a meticulously curated playlist is key when staying focused before a big game or getting through a …
Sherry Wren, MD – a surgeon’s road home
When I first met Stanford surgeon Sherry Wren, MD, I immediately liked her. The affinity was probably due to the fact that we're both from …
Stanford Health Policy forum on organ-donation crisis now available online
The latest Stanford Health Policy Forum, which focused on ways to end our country's organ-donor shortage, is now available online. More than 100,000 Americans currently need …
Behind the glass window: Experiences in an infant follow-up clinic
SMS (“Stanford Medical School”) Unplugged was recently launched as a forum for students to chronicle their experiences in medical school. The student-penned entries appear on …
A prenatal partnership that benefits patients, medical students
Over on the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford blog, writer Julie Greicius highlights an elective program at Stanford's medical school that fosters personal connections between …
Countdown to Medicine X: How to engage with the "no smartphone" patient
When I saw the full agenda of the upcoming Stanford Medicine X conference, the name of one of the panels - "The 'No Smartphone' Patient" …
Stanford’s brightest lights reveal new insights into early underpinnings of Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer's disease, whose course ends inexorably in the destruction of memory and reason, is in many respects America's most debilitating disease. As I wrote in …
Stanford research clarifies biology of oxytocin in autism
For years, scientists have been trying to sort out the role oxytocin plays in autism. The developmental disorder affects one in 68 U.S. children, causing …
Parents' heroic effort help 12-year-old daughter receive a new heart and lungs
Fewer than 10 children received a heart-lung transplant in the United States last year. One of them was 12-year-old Katie Grace Groebner, who was diagnosed …
NPR highlights Google's Baseline Study and what it might teach us about human health
Late last month, my colleague reported on Stanford partnering with Google [x] and Duke on a research study to better understand the human body. On the …
Surprise discovery links cancer protein with developmental disorder
Scores of scientific discoveries — including dynamite, penicillin, and heaps of others — were accidents. Fiddling around in the lab and wa-zam, there’s a cure …