The five most-read stories this week on Scope were:
Gamers: The new face of scientific research?: The developers of EteRNA, an interactive online videogame designed to accelerate biochemists’ understanding of RNA, believe the “open laboratory” nature of online games might be a good scientific model.
Zebrafish: A must-have for biomedical labs: This entry links to a recent Vox article highlighting the usefulness of zebrafish in medical research.
Summer’s child: Stanford researchers use season of birth to estimate cancer risk: Partnering with Lund University, researchers here are using Sweden’s national registries for birth certificates and medical records to track how factors during gestation and soon after birth – called perinatal factors – affect cancer risks.
Ebola: A look at what happened and what can be done: "Ebola is unlikely to become a major problem in the developed world," Stanford law professor Hank Greely, JD, writes in this blog entry. "But… it seems increasingly likely that hundreds of thousands, and quite possibly millions, of men, women, and children will be struck down by this ghastly plague."
Stanford experts offer more information about enterovirus-D68: In this Q&A, Yvonne Maldonado, MD, service chief of pediatric infectious disease at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, and Keith Van Haren, MD, a pediatric neurologist, discuss the enterovirus-D68 respiratory illness and neurologic symptoms that might be associated with it.
And still going strong – the most popular post from the past:
What are the consequences of sleep deprivation?: Brandon Peters, MD, an adjunct clinical faculty member at the Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine, explains how lack of sleep can negatively affect a person’s well-being in this Huffington Post piece.
