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.
season 1
The Glove by Chris Connolly
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.
Redesigning Aging by Martine Madill
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.
The Case of the California Drought by Mia Diawara
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?
Universal Flu Vaccine by Mia Diawara
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. (more…)
Nose Ecology by Chris Connolly
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. Treatments for Staph are available, yet ineffective at eliminating Staph from the nose.
Ultra Marathon Running by Joe Getsy
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.
The team sent a series of health-related questions to over 1000 ultra marathon runners, mostly in the United States. They compared the results to statistics that the Centers for Disease Control published about the general American population. You would expect that the runners would be healthier, right?
Baby Talk by Martine Madill
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.
Stanford SciCast 