I had more fun than you might expect last week writing a press release about p-values, a perpetually misunderstood and mishandled statistical measure of significance that …
Author: Jennie Dusheck
Here be dragons: Hard-to-sequence sections of genome remain
Although the human genome has now been mapped using numerous techniques, some parts remain resistant to accurate sequencing, nearly as mysterious as parts of the world …
Take a breath: On tuberculosis and its diagnosis
Like a lot of people, I don’t read books and magazines at night before I go to sleep as much as I used to. Instead, …
Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin: Stanford researchers reflect on evolution
You might have thought this was Lincoln's birthday, or just Presidents' Day weekend, but today is also the 207th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birthday, otherwise …
Wounds too deep to heal: Study sheds light on which wounds may need special care
Kids heal fast; old folks a lot more slowly. We all know that. But what happens when wounds take far longer to heal than is …
At the heart of reproducibility lies the problem of transparency
Imagine recreating a recipe — say, your uncle Darryl’s BBQ sauce. Without a detailed recipe — including not only the list of ingredients but how …
A horse of a different color
Long before domesticated horses showed up with their striking chestnut, bay or spotted coats, wild horses stuck to the classic look of a dun coat …
Precision health: A blood test that signals need for antibiotics
Go to your doctor with a sinus infection and the first thing she’ll likely ask you is how long you’ve been sick. If it’s been …
The art of exploring the fecal-ome
The community of bacteria living inside our own guts is about as local an ecosystem as we’re likely to find. So you’d think navel-gazing biologists …
A dive into patient records uncovers possible connection between cancer treatment, Alzheimer’s
When we think of patient medical records, a lot of us think of billing and coding and maybe of health-care providers communicating with one another about how patients …
3,200-year-old woman comes to Stanford
Cameras clicked and media people cut in front of one another other with iPhones, trying to get a good shot, as a very old woman …
Locking the door on big-data risks to privacy
Until this week, you could have hacked into your rich Uncle Al's account at a popular family tree website, downloaded his genome and then gotten your …
A look at using smartphone apps for patient-centered research
The usefulness and power of mobile apps in research was one of the last topics at Medicine X yesterday. One of the panelists in the late-afternoon "Clinical …
How much Bisphenol A is okay?
A new study came out this week that happened to remind me of one of my pet peeves about certain biomedical studies -- choosing an …
The diagnostic odyssey
Imagine developing some odd symptoms, like a rash and an ache. You go to the doctor and she shrugs it off and says they are probably …
You know it when you see it: A precision health approach to diagnosing brain cancer
If you know which virus has made a person ill, as well as whether your patient responds better to drug A or drug B, you're …