Author: Sharon

The Washington Post
 Giffords faces long road to help her brain rebuild itself after Tucson shooting
 01/21/2011 Scientists now realize that brain reorganization after injury is far more common and extensive than previously thought. They also know that neuroplasticity depends to a great degree on what the brain is forced to do in the critical […]

Science News
 Tallying the caloric cost of an all-nighter
 01/19/2011 Researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder calculate that a full night of sleep helps the body conserve as much energy as is in a glass of warm milk. Recently, scientists had dismissed energy conservation as sleep’s most important mission. “Sure, there’s energy savings, […]

India Report
 Kidney gene linked to increased risk of heart failure
 01/19/2011 For the first time, scientists have discovered a key kidney DNA sequence variant that plays an important role in increasing the risk of heart failure. The DNA variant impairs channels that control kidney function, the researchers found. “It’s not a heart gene,” said […]

The Wall Street Journal
 Apple’s Jobs to take medical leave
 01/17/2011 Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said he is taking another medical leave. William Chapman, transplantation chief at Washington University in St. Louis, hasn’t examined Mr. Jobs personally, but said it’s possible that his neuroendocrine tumor has metastasized again. “It’s really difficult to cure the […]

USA Today
 Obama’s call for civility seen as right tone
 01/14/2011 President Obama’s warmly received plea for tolerance and temperance in the wake of last weekend’s massacre in Tucson has created an opportunity for him to change the tone of political debate in Washington and possibly advance his overall agenda. “What he has to make […]

The New Republic Jeff Smith: A rising political star until the FBI started asking about his past 1/13/2011 Missouri State Senator Jeff Smith, a thirty-something academic turned politician, was the brightest young star in the Missouri Democratic Party until a campaign violation upended his career and sent him to jail. As a Washington University political […]

Bloomberg Businessweek Obama in Arizona means moment to alter an image of ‘detachment’ 01/12/2011 In Arizona today, President Barack Obama will confront a moment of national pain that presents him with a chance to establish a new bond with the American people. Obama “has to walk a careful line in which he’s not accusing, but […]

Bloomberg News Neanderthal life expectancy is similar to that of early modern human 1/10/2011 The life expectancy for early modern humans was probably the same as that of Neanderthals, suggesting that humans didn’t have the survival advantage of living longer, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by […]

Miller-McCune
 Wind farms drawing noise complaints, opposition 01/06/2011 How and at what distances sound from these giant wind power turbines affects human beings has triggered a brush war in the search for renewable energy. Leading research in this area is Alec Salt of Washington University in St. Louis, who’s been experimenting with the hearing of […]

New York Times Is overeating an addiction? 1/5/2011 Many people tend to think that all obese people have to do to solve their problems is eat less and move more. Alcoholics, on the other hand, need treatment. But are the two disorders really all that different? A study published this week is not the first […]