Health and Medicine
Rebuilding bone
Adult stem cells hold promise for skeletal repair.
Feeding the diabetic brain
Ian Simpson studies how the brain gets and uses energy—and how diabetes disrupts that process.
Fat for Your Heart
You can't substitute Snickers for bananas, but Penn State nutritionists say having a little peanut butter on your apple is healthy.
Standing Fast
Do you see spots when you stand up too fast? Break out in a cold sweat, or even faint? Lawrence Sinoway says you may be suffering from lazy blood-vessel response.
Beyond Bandaids
Many small hospitals walk a thin line between profitability and closure, according to Rebecca Wells. She says their CEOs face tough decisions in this era of steeply rising health care and malpractice insurance costs.
Starved for Sustenance
Can you be obese and undernourished? According to Jenny Ledikwe you can. She says the issue isn't quantity; it's quality.
Where Iron and Immunity Intersect
Most of us are familiar with anemia, in which a lack of iron causes pallid skin, dizziness, and shortness of breath. However, fewer of us know what happens when the body gets too much iron.
How Disease Spreads
Ottar Bjornstad has been studying the history of contagious diseases, such as measles and smallpox, to develop a risk-map that will predict future travel patterns of epidemics. He believes this is especially important in an age faced with the threat of bioterrorism.
Modeling Emergencies
The threat to a community's health may not only be medically related, but may also involve the design of the treatment facility.
Four-Legged Exercise
You could say that LaToya Carson, a Penn State kinesiology major, runs a gym for rats, but that would completely undervalue the importance of her job.
Digging for Diseases
Odense , Denmark , home to one of the world's largest collections of skeletons, affords paleontologist Jen Wagner the opportunity to investigate the diseases of past generations through their bones.
Filling in the Gaps
In its late stages, breast cancer has an 85% chance of invading other tissues, the majority of these being either bone or lung. Once in the bone, the cancer can no longer be surgically removed.
Intelligence in Toothbrushing
According to Marti Sawyer, dental hygienist and part time Penn State student, the reason why certain teeth are cleaned poorly is because your right hand may not want to do the job of the left.
A Healthy Red
Free radicals, the reactive form of oxygen, attack the body's health in a number of ways, the worst leading to cancer or heart disease. Wine, whose high concentration of antioxidants reduces free radicals, may be beneficial to your health.
Dieting Italian Style
An in-depth look into Italian culture explores the complex relations between food, community, and health, while offering insight into the American diet.
Chicken Keel Yield
Chicken keel could be the answer to osteoarthritis, a condition that affects 2 million adults in the U.S.
On a Limb
Have you ever stepped on the scale and wondered just how much of that number was made up by the weight of your leg? Research in this area can be valuable to the study and restoration of movement in the elderly.
A Taste of Italy (July 2001)
What better place than Italy to study the science of food? In July 2001, our roving associate editor, David Pacchioli, joined Penn State nutrition professor, Claudia Probart, as she led a team of students through the markets, gardens, and restaurants of Rome. The object: To better grasp both the science of food and food's many-layered role in society and culture.