Imagine the Future of Health and Medicine: TEDMED 2012

April 11, 2012 | by

There’s one place where you can learn about the latest innovations in technology, science, health and medical research from some of the most influential thought leaders in their fields: TEDMED.

TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, is the world’s most famous conference on the ideas that shape the world. For the past three years, there’s been a special TED just for health and medicine — TEDMED — where passionate doers and thinkers go once a year to experience the power of new ideas, hear amazing and inspiring talks, meet innovative people, and leave transformed.

The annual TEDMED conference started today. TEDMED brings together 1500 thinkers and doers from a wide array of medical and non-medical disciplines. For the next three and a half days (April 10-13) at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., this uniquely diverse community will explore the ideas, innovations and challenges that will help shape the future of health and medicine for 300 million Americans … and the world.

TEDMED is hosting over 60 speakers this year, including Francis S. Collins, the Director of the National Institutes of Health; Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, President and CEO, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; Joel Salatin, Polyface organic farmer and author; and Ivan Oransky, Executive Editor of Reuters Health.

TEDMED has no agenda and no policy prescriptions. Instead, the organization seeks to serve the nation — and the world — by creating a safe place where people with very different ideas can come together to talk, to learn and to celebrate the amazing world we live in.

Bilinguals Switch Tasks Faster than Monolinguals

April 11, 2012 | by

Children who grow up learning to speak two languages are better at switching between tasks than are children who learn to speak only one language, according to a study funded in part by the National Institutes of Health. However, the study also found that bilinguals are slower to acquire vocabulary than are monolinguals, because bilinguals must divide their time between two languages while monolinguals focus on only one.

Bilingual

Gold Nanostars Target Drug Directly to the Cancer Cell Nucleus

April 10, 2012 | by

Nanotechnology, which offers powerful new possibilities for targeted cancer therapies, has been generating a lot of excitement in the cancer research community. Northwestern University scientists recently developed specialized nanoparticle that can deliver a drug directly to a cancer cell’s nucleus — an important feature for effective treatment [1].

Gold nanostars

Q&A: Can I Get the Flu From a Flu Shot?

April 9, 2012 | by

Question: I once got a flu shot and then came down with the flu afterward. Now I won’t get the shot anymore. Why did the shot give me the flu?

Woman getting the flu shot

Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosis Prevalence Continues To Increase

April 6, 2012 | by

According to an article in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a publication of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is higher than ever [1]. The CDC periodically surveys the prevalence of ASD, looking during each surveillance period at the percentage of 8-year-old children who have current ASD diagnoses. In 2000, a survey of children born in 1992 revealed that one in 150 had ASD. These numbers have been steadily climbing, such that the most recent survey — completed in 2008 and surveying children born in 2000 — indicates that one in 88 children has ASD. The numbers are even more disturbing for male children, who have an ASD prevalence of one in 54.

Autism awareness