Tag Archives: Stanford

Profiles: Stanford Physicist Robert Byer, 77, Helped Develop “Most Stable Laser In The World”

November 21, 2019 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

From a Stanford University News article:

Byer also helped develop the quietest, most stable laser in the world, called the diode-pumped YAG laser. YAG lasers are today found in everything from communications satellites to green handheld laser pointers, which Byer co-developed with two of his graduate students and cites as one of his favorite inventions (he had joined Stanford in 1969). YAG lasers also form the main beams of the gravitational wave-detecting instrument, LIGO, which in 2015 achieved the most precise measurement ever made by humans when its antenna detected the tenuous spacetime fluctuations generated by two colliding black holes 1.3 billion light-years away.

Robert Byer was 22 years old when he first saw the light that changed his life.

One summer morning in 1964, Byer drove the hour from Berkeley down to Mountain View for a job interview at a California company called Spectra Physics. He walked in to find an empty lobby but could hear clapping and cheering in the back of the building. After politely waiting for several minutes, he followed the commotion to a darkened room filled with men whose jubilant faces were illuminated by a rod of red-orange light that seemed to float above an instrument-strewn table

Health, Reviews, Studies

Heart Disease: Stents, Bypass Surgery Provide No Benefits To Stable Patients In Large Funded Trial

November 16, 2019 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

From a Stanford Medicine online release:

“For patients with severe but stable heart disease who don’t want to undergo these invasive procedures, these results are very reassuring,” said David Maron, MD, clinical professor of medicine and director of preventive cardiology at the Stanford School of Medicine, and co-chair of the trial, called ISCHEMIA, for International Study of Comparative Health Effectiveness with Medical and Invasive Approaches.

“The results don’t suggest they should undergo procedures in order to prevent cardiac events,” added Maron, who is also chief of the Stanford Prevention Research Center.

Patients with severe but stable heart disease who are treated with medications and lifestyle advice alone are no more at risk of a heart attack or death than those who undergo invasive surgical procedures, according to a large, federally-funded clinical trial led by researchers at the Stanford School of Medicine and New York University’s medical school.

The trial did show, however, that among patients with coronary artery disease who also had symptoms of angina — chest pain caused by restricted blood flow to the heart — treatment with invasive procedures, such as stents or bypass surgery, was more effective at relieving symptoms and improving quality of life.

Health, Reviews, Technology

Medical Podcasts: New Stanford Hospital Uses Technology To Stay “Future-Proofed”

Audio November 14, 2019 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

From a Stanford Medicine online article:

“A simple example would be copper and fiber wires. When you’re putting wires in a new facility, it’s easier to put in many more than you need that moment because putting them in 5 years from now or 10 years from now is quite hard. Something like 85 percent of our copper wires and fiber optic cables are dark right now because we know we’re going to need them in the future.”

When you consider the fast pace of technological advances today, you wonder how do you go about building a new hospital and keep the technology relevant for 10, 20 or even 50 years? I put that question to Stanford Health Care’s technology wiz Gary Fritz. He told me:

“We try to do something we call future-proof the hospital. We tried to make design decisions and technology decisions that allow us to move to the current or the next generation technology as easily as possible.”

Culture, Science, Studies

Science & Civilization: The Genetic History Of Roman Empire Revealed (Phys.Org)

November 7, 2019 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

From a Phys.org online article:

There was a massive shift in Roman residents’ ancestry, the researchers found, but that ancestry came primarily from the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East, possibly because of denser populations there relative to the Roman Empire’s western reaches in Europe and Africa.

The next several centuries were full of turmoil: the empire split in two, diseases decimated Rome’s population and a series of invasions befell the city. Those events left a mark on the city’s population, which shifted toward western European ancestry. Later, the rise and reign of the Holy Roman Empire brought an influx of central and northern European ancestry.

Scholars have been studying Rome for hundreds of years, but it still holds some secrets—for instance, relatively little is known about the ancestral origins of the city’s denizens. Now, an international team led by researchers from Stanford University, the University of Vienna and Sapienza University of Rome is filling in the gaps with a genetic history that shows just how much the Eternal City’s populace mirrored its sometimes tumultuous history.

Diet, Sleep, Studies

Health Studies: Better Diets Reduce Side Effects Of Sleep Deprivation

October 13, 2019 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

From a Stanford Medicine online release:

In a study published online Sept. 10 in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, Hamidi, along with other Stanford researchers, examined survey results on sleep and nutrition from 245 Stanford physicians and found that a better diet is associated with reduced side effects of sleep deprivation.

Physicians face significant barriers to eating well at work due to long hours, a heavy workload and limited access to healthy meals, snacks and drinks. The findings of this study suggest that by providing healthy options at work, employers could help reduce the brain fogginess, difficulty concentrating and irritability caused by poor sleep among health care providers. And, as a result, help improve patient care.

“Potential mechanisms for the effect of diet on cognitive performance include regulation of hormones, neurotransmitters, and blood flow as well as reduction of oxidative stress and inflammation. The effects of diet on sleep quality have been attributed to the role of dietary factors in regulation of peripheral circadian clocks and to the synthesis of hormones and neurotransmitters that are involved in sleep regulation.”