Scientists should refrain from studies that alter the genome of human embryos, sperm, or egg cells, researchers warn in a commentary published today in Nature. George Daley, professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology at Boston Children’s Hospital, is quoted.
Walk the halls of Hebrew Rehabilitation Center in Roslindale and you’ll be struck by what you don’t hear: the beep, beep, beep of alarms. Typically, care facilities attach alarms to beds and wheelchairs of patients considered at risk of falling. The pressure-sensitive devices have been used since physical restraints were outlawed in the 1990s. But do alarms really keep residents safer? Are they worth the price of leaving them in fear of making the slightest move, interrupting their sleep and that of their roommates, and driving nurses and nursing aides to distraction every time one goes off? Hebrew SeniorLife is a Harvard Medical School affiliate.
Harvard Medical School student Hena Ahmed coauthored this opinion piece that recommends addressing the rise of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hate in America with education paired with relationship building.
Stanford University researchers were stunned when they awoke Tuesday to find that 11,000 people had signed up for a cardiovascular study using Apple Inc.’s ResearchKit, less than 24 hours after the iPhone tool was introduced. C. Michael Gibson, professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, is quoted.
The six graduate disciplines that U.S. News ranks annually are evaluated on factors that include standardized test scores of newly enrolled students, employment outcomes for graduates, acceptance rates and other criteria. Harvard topped the “Best Medical Schools: Research” list.
Gout is a common form of inflammatory arthritis that afflicts about 8.5 million people in the United States with sudden, severe pain in knee and toe joints. Its nickname, the disease of kings, stems from an old belief that only those who could afford a rich diet would contract gout, but now it’s on the rise among the masses, too. But new research has found a positive aspect to gout: It may help protect against Alzheimer’s disease. Hyon Choi, professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, is the leader of the new research.
Modern European languages tend to share their names with the places they’re spoken. Swedish: Sweden. German: Germany. And so on. But where’d they come from before that? David Reich, professor of genetics, is quoted.
Increasingly, researchers are demonstrating that getting poor sleep, or too little sleep, can make us behave badly. Even a small loss of sleep can have a large negative impact. Charles Czeisler, Frank Baldino, Jr., Ph.D. Professor of Sleep Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is quoted.
Cholesterol-lowering statin drugs may slow down prostate cancer in men who are also taking medication to reduce their levels of male hormones, according to new research. Lauren Harshman, assistant professor of medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, is the study’s lead author.
