Archive | November 2011
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Breaking the Cycle of Violence
By Matt Wood More than 1.25 million children in the United States, or one in every 58, suffered some kind of neglect or physical, emotional or sexual abuse in 2005-2006. Such maltreatment interferes with normal development and can lead to a host of psychological disorders and behavioral problems as they become adults, particularly aggression. A […]
Texting: A Doctor in Your Pocket?
Texting has grown from technological fad to a primary route of communication popular around the world. With cell phones in the pockets of people of all incomes and ages, the quick, no-frills conversations enabled by texting have made almost everyone more proficient with their thumbs. Due to such impressive ubiquity, people in health care are […]
Dr. FAQ: Stefano Guandalini and Lara Field on Celiac Disease
By Matt Wood Celiac disease is an inherited autoimmune disorder that affects the digestive process of the small intestine. When a person who has celiac disease consumes gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye and barley, the individual’s immune system responds by attacking the small intestine and inhibiting the absorption of important nutrients into the […]
Professionalism and Ethics, Day Two: Prize and Prejudice
Even in the court of ethics and medical professionalism, there’s nothing wrong with the occasional honor or award. On day two of the conference, the Maclean Center awarded its first Prize in Clinical Ethics and Health Outcomes – at $50,000, the largest such prize in the ethics field – to John Wennberg, the Peggy Y. […]
The Many Faces of Medical Professionalism
Every patient wants their doctor to be a professional. But the broader concept of “medical professionalism” is not a cut-and-dry matter, as it opens the door to debates over how physicians interact with politics and society, the regulation of doctors’ ethical and legal behavior, and the role of the physician in the new world of […]
The Controller of Hippos and Yorkies
How does an organ know when to stop growing? It may sound like a riddle, but it’s a serious biological question with the potential for grave consequences. During development, an organism grows from a single cell up to trillions of cells. If that growth process overshoots its goal and doesn’t stop generating new cells, the […]
Lonely Hearts, Disrupted Sleep
Loneliness has had a tough run of late, with a growing body of research blaming it for everything from high blood pressure to heart disease to depression and cognitive decline. The research group of John Cacioppo, director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago, has been among the leaders […]
A Tiny Turntable and a Nano-Portal
When scientists picture the miniature machines that live inside cells, they often have to settle for indirect evidence and a bit of imagination. Proteins on the nanoscale – one million times smaller than a millimeter – can’t be seen with your typical microscope, so scientists turn to electrical measurements, genetic mutations, and chemical assays to […]
A Story of Climate Change Told Through Seashells
By Matt Wood Sometimes scientific discoveries happen by accident. Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity when a uranium rock he left wrapped up in a drawer with some X-ray equipment imprinted itself on a photographic plate. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin when he noticed that mold growing in a staphylococcus culture was killing all the bacteria around it. […]
