Latest STANFORD Stories

New national center launches to infuse entrepreneurship and innovation skills into undergraduate engineering education Stanford, CA (PRWEB) September 14, 2011 Today the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (EPI.Center) launches operation to create seismic change in how undergraduate engineers are educated in the United States. The EPI.Center, based at Stanford University's School of Engineering, will serve as an education, research and outreach hub for the creation and...

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital have used a novel method for analyzing brain-scan data to distinguish children with autism from typically developing children. Their discovery reveals that the gray matter in a network of brain regions known to affect social communication and self-related thoughts has a distinct organization in people with autism. The findings will be published online Sept. 2 in Biological Psychiatry. While...

A team at the Stanford University School of Medicine has cataloged, down to the letter, exactly what parts of the genetic code are essential for survival in one bacterial species, Caulobacter crescentus. They found that 12 percent of the bacteria's genetic material is essential for survival under laboratory conditions. The essential elements included not only protein-coding genes, but also regulatory DNA and, intriguingly, other small DNA segments of unknown function. The other 88 percent...

Reconnecting severed blood vessels is mostly done the same way today — with sutures — as it was 100 years ago, when the French surgeon Alexis Carrel won a Nobel Prize for advancing the technique. Now, a team of researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine has developed a sutureless method that appears to be a faster, safer and easier alternative. In animal studies, a team led by Stanford microsurgeon Geoffrey Gurtner, MD, used a poloxamer gel and bioadhesive rather than a...

Organic semiconductors hold immense promise for use in thin film and flexible displays "“ picture an iPad you can roll up "“ but they haven't yet reached the speeds needed to drive high definition displays. Inorganic materials such as silicon are fast and durable, but don't bend, so the search for a fast, durable organic semiconductor continues.Now a team led by researchers at Stanford and Harvard universities has developed a new organic semiconductor material that is among the speediest...

(Ivanhoe Newswire) "“ Researchers have identified five inherited genetic variants that are strongly associated with aggressive, lethal prostate cancer. The discovery could ultimately lead to the development of a simple blood test that could be given upon diagnosis to determine which men should receive aggressive treatments versus a more conservative approach.A substantial number of men with indolent tumors "“ which have a low probability of progressing to clinically significant, lethal...

From Seattle to Sweden: First population-based study to demonstrate that inherited genetic variants play a role in prostate cancer progression and mortalityAn international team of researchers led by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has identified five inherited genetic variants that are strongly associated with aggressive, lethal prostate cancer. The discovery ultimately could lead to the development of a simple blood test that could be given upon diagnosis to determine which men...

Like fine chefs, scientists are seemingly approaching a day when they will be able to make nearly any type of tissue from human embryonic stem cells. You need nerves or pancreas, bone or skin? With the right combination of growth factors, skill and patience, a laboratory tissue culture dish promises to yield therapeutic wonders. But within these batches of newly generated cells lurks a big potential problem: Any remaining embryonic stem cells - those that haven't differentiated into the...

With the novel use of a technique that uses light to control brain cells, Stanford University researchers have shown that fragmented sleep causes memory impairment in mice.Until recently scientists have been unable to tease out the effects on the brain of different yet intertwined features of sleep. But these investigators were able to overcome that problem and come to their findings by using the novel method, known as optogenetics, to manipulate brain cells to affect just one aspect of...

New resources empower educators to bring classic literature and historical personalities to life. Silver Spring, MD (PRWEB) July 21, 2011 Discovery Education announces that Literature Guides and Biographies from Shmoop, a digital curriculum company that makes fun, rigorous learning and teaching materials, are now available in Discovery Education streaming PLUS. Shmoop's Literature Guides and Biographies are written by Ph.D. students from Stanford, Harvard, UC Berkley, and other top...