June 28, 2011

Health Care to Rebuild Rwanda

Guest Post by NCCU Summer Intern Chanel Laguna

More than a decade after a genocidal war devastated Rwanda, the Government of Rwanda and the Ministry of Health have a vision for rebuilding the country's health care system. They are looking for academic medical center partners to assist in the effort.

June 16, 2011

Cancer Genomics Points to New Approach

The Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation Institute at Duke kicked off its new annual lecture June 15 in the biggest way imaginable: Bert Vogelstein,  a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Johns Hopkins University, is simply the most-cited scientist in the world. (That's a measure of how much other scientists refer to his work in their own papers.)

February 14, 2011

Statistical Research on Health Care in Kenya

“Malaria counts for 40 percent of the hospital visits in most areas of Kenya,” Duke Global Health Institute  researcher Nathan Smith said during a Friday, Feb. 11 talk.

February 9, 2011

Tigers and helicopters and refrigerators, oh mom!

Mothers can be tigers, helicopters or soccer moms. But no stereotype was perhaps ever as biting as “refrigerator mom”.

December 17, 2010

Sidewalks of skin cancer

New, high resolution images suggest that the location and amount of skin pigments could tell pathologists whether a mole has turned cancerous.

Skin cells contain two kinds of pigments or melanins: pheomelanin, which is reddish or yellow, and eumelanin, which is dark and brownish.

December 1, 2010

I Need to Understand You Better

Back in the day, your doctor told you what the treatment was going to be, sometimes without even telling you the diagnosis, because they didn't think you could handle it. 

Today, doctors are encouraged to go almost entirely the other way by offering 'patient autonomy' -- you know, lay out the jargony pile of facts and let the patient decide what's best for themselves.

November 2, 2010

Lasers in focus

Definitions don’t seem to come easy to scientists. Consider Pluto’s planethood, or the question of what constitutes life. More recently, the definition debate has even stymied how to describe a laser.

May 18, 2010

College Substance Abuse is a Lot More Than Alcohol

Guest post from Jamese Slade, NCCU Summer intern

Underage drinking and drug use may not be a big deal to most college students, but these behaviors can have effects that will last a lifetime.