It was my second year of high school and I was talking to a childhood friend. When I asked if she was taking any music …
Month: July 2015
A look at the MyHeart Counts app and the potential of mobile technologies to improve human health
Keynote talks and presentations from the 2015 Big Data in Biomedicine conference at Stanford are now available on the Stanford YouTube channel. To continue the …
Graphic medicine takes flight
A recent blog post on Somatosphere sparked my interest in the role that comics can play in the study and delivery of health care, an …
A behind the scenes look at the Stanford-ABC News Fellowship in Media and Global Health
Since arriving at Stanford, third-year medical student Michael Nedelman has pursued his passion for film by producing a number of documentaries, including projects about LGBT …
Using CRISPR to investigate pancreatic cancer
Writing about pancreatic cancer always gives me a pang. My grandmother died from the disease over 30 years ago, but I still remember the anguish …
Stanford researchers analyze California’s new vaccine law
What do California, West Virginia and Mississippi have in common? Stumped? Thanks to a recent law signed by California Gov. Jerry Brown, these three states …
Questionnaire bests blood test at identifying patients with risky drinking behaviors
As many as half of the patients who visit the emergency room with traumatic injuries have alcohol in their bloodstream, and roughly 10 percent of these patients …
Are donor hearts getting wasted?
I wrote a press release recently on a study that showed a high percentage of donated hearts were not being used, raising concerns that some …
Living with a partner boosts your health
Partners help. They help with daily activities like dishwashing and dog-walking, but they also provide the all-valuable emotional support needed to cope with everything from …
HIV study in Kenyan women: Diversity in a single immune-cell type flags likelihood of getting infected
When it comes to immune cells, "it takes all kinds" isn't too bad a description of what makes for the best composition of our fighting …
DNA damage seen after CT scanning, study shows
Using new laboratory techniques, Stanford scientists have been able to get a closer look at what happens inside the cells of patients undergoing medical imaging …
A new insight into the brain chemistry of autism
For several years now, scientists have been testing the hypothesis that one particular hormone, oxytocin, plays a role in autism. It seems logical: After all, …
Draining the cancer swamp
There's an old adage that applies to many difficult situations that we face in life: When you're up to your armpits in alligators, it's difficult …
Genetic study supports single migratory origin for aboriginal Americans
In a long list of hypotheses going back decades, researchers have tried to explain the peopling of North and South America as a series of …
Are iron, and the scavenger cells that eat it, critical links to Alzheimer’s?
If you've been riding the Alzheimer's-research roller-coaster, brace yourself for a new twist on that wrenching disease of old age. In a study published in …
Stanford study of mental illness in incarcerated teens raises policy questions
Mental illness is an even bigger problem for jailed teenagers than experts previously realized. That's the take-away message from a Stanford study, publishing today in …