Stanford Scicast

A new study published by Stanford Researchers heralds safe, life-saving body implants that never run out of power. For more information visit stanfordscicast.wordpress.com

Antibiotics are a powerful, life-saving treatment against bacterial infection, but recent research by Denise Monack and her colleagues at the Stanford School of Medicine suggests that in some cases antibiotics may actually amplify the problem they are intended to solve. For more information visit stanfordscicast.wordpress.com

What if the easiest way to prevent suicides has been under our control all along? A Stanford Suicide Prevention Research Laboratory experiment led by Rebecca Bernert, PhD showed that participants who reported poor sleep had a 1.4 times greater chance of death by suicide within ten years than participants who reported sleeping well. For more information visit stanfordscicast.wordpress.com

Many of today’s environmental issues revolve around measuring and conserving precious resources. Some resources, like groundwater, are difficult to monitor since they are located meters below the Earth’s surface and are invisible to the human eye. However, researchers at Stanford University are exploring the use of satellite imagery to measure groundwater contained in aquifers. For more information visit stanfordscicast.wordpress.com

What images come to mind when you think of “agriculture”? Can you imagine a field that stretches for miles? A small family farm located far away from the bustling streets of the world’s biggest cities? Well, think again. A recent study by Stanford professor Eric Lambin shows that there is an increasing trend of urban agriculture. For more information visit stanfordscicast.wordpress.com

You can’t have day without night, land without sea, or a protected species without a protected ecosystem. A group of Stanford scientists would suggest you must protect a threatened species as well as the ecosystem in which it lives. For more information visit stanfordscicast.wordpress.com

Computing speeds have become faster and faster in the last few decades, but soon they may go at the speed of light. Fiber optics, which uses light to transmit data, has already revolutionized internet connections, but Stanford researchers may have found a way to integrate this technology into computers themselves. For more information visit stanfordscicast.wordpress.com

Imagine you are preparing for a day at the beach. You may check the weather report, and scout out nice restaurants beside the water. However, most people do not check what’s actually in the water. Each year, millions of swimmers get illnesses like stomach upsets, rashes, and respiratory infections from high levels of contaminants and harmful bacteria in the water. Listen to find out what Stanford scientists are doing to solve this problem. For more information visit stanfordscicast.wordpress.com

In this final episode from season 1 of the Stanford SciCast, Joe Getsy speaks with Stanford’s Dr. Hank Greely about the promise and implications of bringing extinct organisms back to life. For more information visit stanfordscicast.wordpress.com

The population of people age 65 and older in the U.S. accounted for 13 percent of the total population in 2010. By 2030, that number is projected to represent nearly 20% of the total U.S. population, and, for the first time in human history, people age 65 and older will outnumber children under the age of 5. This changing demographic has important implications for policy, the economy, and society as a whole. For more information visit stanfordscicast.wordpress.com

In today’s athletics, fractions of a second and miniscule differences in performance can be the difference between winning a competition or not. Athletes exhaust themselves in the training room trying to out perform each other, while slowly approaching their bodies’ limits. Some athletes resort to using performance-enhancing drugs in order to transcend these limits: a choice with obvious health, ethical, and legal consequences. For more information visit stanfordscicast.wordpress.com

For several years, California has been struggling through the most severe drought in the state’s recorded history. In January 2014, California Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought State of Emergency, calling on California residents to reduce water consumption as much as possible as we wait for desperately needed rain. So, where is the precipitation? For more information visit stanfordscicast.wordpress.com

It happens around this time every year. Millions of Americans come down with the flu. This is partially because there are numerous strains of influenza, and health authorities can really only make an educated guess as to which strains of the flu we should prepare to vaccinate against each year. What we need is a vaccine that can protect against all the strains of the virus. We need a Universal Flu Vaccine. For more information visit stanfordscicast.wordpress.com

When it comes to exercise, is more always better? That’s what Stanford professor Eswar Krishnan and his team investigated in their study of the most intense runners around—ultra marathon runners. Regular 26.2-mile marathons just don’t cut it for these extreme athletes. For more information visit stanfordscicast.wordpress.com

If you are currently picking your nose, you may want to stop and listen up. For many years, we have known that Staphylococcus aureus, more commonly referred to as Staph, resides within our noses. Normally Staph is harmless, but if it reaches the bloodstream it can have life threatening effects like sepsis and heart valve damage. For more information visit stanfordscicast.wordpress.com

Think all of that goo-goo gaga baby talk is useless? Think again. A new study in Psychological Science by Stanford psychologist Anne Fernald revealed that infants with greater exposure to child-directed speech learn new words and sharpen their verbal skills more quickly, resulting in benefits for vocabulary learning. For more information visit stanfordscicast.wordpress.com