Medical school costs soaring

When the challenges facing the medical industry come up, one doesn’t normally think of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. But he illustrated a stark reality awaiting would-be doctors when he testified beforeCongress that his son ison pace to graduate from medical school with a whopping $400,000 in loans Continue reading

NASA Getting into the Asteroid-Moving Business

Dissatisfied with the current state of the solar system, NASA is looking to do a little remodeling.The space agency is angling to capture a small asteroid and drag it closer to Earth for human exploration, the Associated Press reported April 6. The Obama administration’s proposed budget for 2014 will include $100 million to kick off the project, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Science and Space, told reporters. Continue reading

The Technology of Massive Open Online Courses

Experts in artificial intelligence are leaving academia to bring online learning to the world. But their most radical ideas are still on hold. Dropouts: Artificial-intelligence researchers Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller left academia to start an online-education company. Continue reading

Big Government, Bad Policy, and Rising Health-Care Costs

Call it the war on supersizing. Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to restrict the size of New Yorkers’ soft drinks. He’s been on the vanguard of public health policy before, with a 2002 indoor smoking ban and a trans-fat fight in 2006 Continue reading

Genetic pathway of rare facial malformation in children pinpointed

ScienceDaily (May 3, 2012) Researchers at Seattle Children’s Research Institute and their collaborators have discovered a pair of defective genes that cause a rare congenital malformation syndrome that can make it impossible for the child to breathe or eat properly without reparative surgery. In a study led by Michael L. Cunningham, MD, PhD, medical director of the Seattle Children’s Hospital’s Craniofacial Center, a research team pinpointed two genes known as PLCB4 and GNAI3 in a genetic pathway that affects children with auriculocondylar syndrome (ACS) Continue reading