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Countdown: NASA launch date for student space project nears

March 23, 2017

In 2018, NASA will launch into orbit a small satellite designed and built by a team of Brown undergraduates over the past six years.

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Study shows how brain combines subtle sensory signals to take notice

March 23, 2017

New research in eLife explains how the developing brain learns to integrate and react to subtle but simultaneous sensory cues — sound, touch and visual — that would be ignored individually.

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Medical school graduates celebrate Match Day 2017

March 17, 2017

Balloons dropped and champagne popped at the Warren Alpert Medical School when the clock struck noon and students found out where their medical careers will begin.

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New grant extends IMSD across all sciences

March 16, 2017

The Initiative to Maximize Student Development, which has increased the diversity of doctoral students in the life sciences and supported student achievement, will expand to serve physical sciences, engineering and mathematics.

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The run up to Match Day is a marathon, and it’s tilting uphill

March 13, 2017

The process by which medical students become residents has a very precise moment of culmination — noon on the third Friday in March — but the preparation takes months of hard work and expense that has been increasing over time.

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Student research success supported by unique Brown curricula

March 7, 2017

To lead a new paper in Health Affairs that describes the exceptional success of Costa Rica’s approach to primary care, student Madeline Pesec combined her own initiative and talent with Brown’s unique academic programs and alumni network.

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Brown celebrates brain science with slate of March events

March 6, 2017

The University will host several events for Brain Week R.I. this month, including the second annual Brain Fair; Mind Brain Research Day will follow less than two weeks later.

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Robot uses social feedback to fetch objects intelligently

March 6, 2017

By enabling them to ask a question when they’re confused, an algorithm developed at Brown University helps robots get better at fetching objects, an important task for future robot assistants.

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Brown computer scientist awarded Sloan Fellowship

February 28, 2017

Assistant Professor Tim Kraska wins a prestigious Sloan Fellowship for his work developing big data tools.

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New studies illustrate how gamers get good

February 27, 2017

Researchers led by a Brown University computer scientist used data from online video games to study what kinds of practice and habits help people acquire skill.

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Back after a century, for-profit medical schools could make impact

February 23, 2017

Long discouraged, for-profit medical education has established a renewed foothold in the U.S., leading a trio of Brown University scholars to examine in JAMA what that rise could mean.

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BrainGate collaboration makes advance in interface’s speed, accuracy

February 21, 2017

Three people with paralysis used the BrainGate brain-computer interface to type on a screen with unprecedented speed and accuracy, according to a new study published in eLife.

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Bringing evidence to health screening debates

February 19, 2017

At a talk and panel discussion in Boston the morning of Feb. 19, Brown University biostatistician Constantine Gatsonis discussed how big trials help us make sense of our many questions about cancer screening.

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Hogan to succeed Gatsonis as biostatistics chair

February 19, 2017

Constantine Gatsonis is the founding chair of Brown’s biostatistics department, but on July 1 he’ll step down and Joseph Hogan will take the helm.

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Biomedical research hub makes first pilot awards

February 17, 2017

Advance Clinical and Translational Research (Advance-CTR), a statewide partnership established last year to support collaborative medical studies that build on basic research, has awarded its first two Pilot Project grants.

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Dawn mission detects organics on dwarf planet Ceres

February 16, 2017

The discovery suggests that Ceres could once have had habitable environments.

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Researchers propose a new way to assess medication-based HIV prevention

February 15, 2017

Delivering on the promise of preventing HIV infections with antiretroviral medicines, or pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), requires thinking about PrEP as a nine-step continuum of preventive care, Brown researchers write in the journal AIDS.

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Brown researchers pitch landing sites for NASA’s Mars 2020 mission

February 7, 2017

A group of Brown planetary scientists will travel to California this week to make the case for spots they think would be ideal for NASA’s next Mars rover.

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Sickle cell trait may confound blood sugar readings among African-Americans

February 7, 2017

A routine diabetes test produces lower blood sugar readings in African-Americans with sickle cell trait than in those without, potentially leading patients to remain untreated or with a mistaken sense of blood sugar control, study finds.

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Research pushes concept of entropy out of kilter

February 2, 2017

Entropy isn’t well understood in systems that aren’t at equilibrium, but a new experiment shows a non-equilibrium phenomenon that actually depends upon entropy.

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With mini-vessels, mini-brains expand research potential

February 2, 2017

A new study shows that Brown University’s mini-brains produce networks of capillaries, an important anatomical feature for lab studies of stroke and other circulation-related brain diseases.

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An impulsive cognitive style comes with implications, researchers say

February 1, 2017

A new study finds a wide range of subtle but measurable tendencies in the thinking of people who would rather snatch a quick reward than wait for a bigger one.

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Practice makes perfect, and ‘overlearning’ locks it in

January 30, 2017

People who continued to train on a visual task for 20 minutes past the point of mastery locked in that learning, shielding it from interference by new learning, a new study in Nature Neuroscience shows.

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Climate models may underestimate future warming on tropical mountains

January 27, 2017

By reconstructing past temperature change on Mount Kenya in East Africa, a new study suggests that future temperature changes on tropical mountains might be underestimated.

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Earth’s orbital variations and sea ice synch glacial periods

January 26, 2017

Climate simulations show how changes in Earth’s orbit alter the distribution of sea ice on the planet, helping to set the pace for the glacial cycle.

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Grant advances work to improve hip fracture care

January 25, 2017

A new grant, co-led by Dr. Richard W. Besdine, will promote adoption of a care model in which geriatricians and other physicians co-manage care for older patients with hip fractures.

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As U.S. scrutinizes joint replacements, study finds no way to predict risk

January 25, 2017

The federal government started a program that penalizes hospitals for readmission of joint replacement patients within 90 days, but a new study finds there is no good index for assessing that risk.

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Ubiquitous but overlooked, fluid is a source of muscle tension

January 24, 2017

The cellular fluid in every muscle fiber appears to play a key but previously unacknowledged role in the mechanics of muscle stretch, according to a new study by Brown University biologists.

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Brown names new academic director for Healthcare Leadership program

January 18, 2017

Dr. Peter Hollmann will serve as the new academic director of the Executive Master of Healthcare Leadership program at the Brown University School of Professional Studies.

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Whether our speech is fast or slow, we say about the same

January 17, 2017

Fast talkers tend to convey less information with each word and syntactic structure than slower-paced speakers, meaning that no matter our pace, we all say just about as much in a given time, a new study finds.

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Paper examines potential — for better or worse — of ‘in vitro gametogenesis’

January 11, 2017

In Science Translational Medicine, three experts discuss the implications of a lab technology — already far along in mice — that could allow for the creation of fertilized embryos using sperm and eggs derived from non-reproductive body tissues.

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Brown researcher, psychiatrist wins White House science award

January 10, 2017

Dr. Eric Morrow, a Brown University faculty member specializing in neurodevelopmental biology and autism treatment, won the nation’s top honor for a young scientist.

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Hospitals in Medicare ACOs reduced readmissions faster

January 9, 2017

The Accountable Care Organization model of paying for health care appears to help reduce hospital readmissions among Medicare patients discharged to skilled nursing facilities, a new study suggests.

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Medicaid expansion linked to better care quality at health centers

January 9, 2017

In the first year of Medicaid expansion, four out of eight quality indicators at federally funded health centers improved significantly in states that expanded Medicaid compared to non-expansion states, according to a new study.

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Sea sponges offer clues to how human-made structures can resist buckling

January 4, 2017

Brown University engineers looked to nature to find a shape that could improve all kinds of slender structures, from building columns to bicycle spokes.

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New stroke treatment proves effective, both medically and financially

January 3, 2017

Using a device to remove a stroke-causing clot in conjunction with clot-busting drugs is more cost-effective, in the long run, than using the drugs alone, a new study reports.

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Child asthma emergency visits drop after indoor smoking bans

December 26, 2016

Fewer children visited emergency rooms for asthma problems in the three years after cities banned indoor smoking than in the three years before, according to a new study.

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Are Uber drivers entrepreneurs?

December 21, 2016

A case study created by Brown undergraduates as part of an entrepreneurship class investigates the entrepreneurial aspects of the ridesharing platform’s driver model.

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Galápagos waters illustrate ecological drama of climate change

December 21, 2016

Brown marine biologist Jon Witman and students have spent much of 2016 in the Galápagos Islands, continuing years of chronicling the complex and dramatic ecological changes wrought by the increasingly volatile El Niño – La Niña cycle.

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RNA pathway plays key role in health, lifespan, fly study shows

December 21, 2016

The piRNA pathway was thought to be most active in the reproductive organs of animals, but researchers have discovered in the common fruit fly that the pathway also operates in a non-reproductive body tissue, playing a vital role in maintaining health and lifespan.

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Famine alters metabolism for successive generations

December 12, 2016

A famine that afflicted China between 1959 and 1961 is associated with an increased hyperglycemia risk not only among people who were born then, but also among the children they had a generation later.

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Celebration in Stockholm: Kosterlitz receives Nobel Prize

December 10, 2016

Brown physicist Michael Kosterlitz stood on the most revered stage in all of science to receive his medal for the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics.

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Research offers clues about the timing of Jupiter's formation

December 9, 2016

The new study shows that Jupiter had probably reached its present day size by about 5 million years after the first solids in the solar system formed.

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Blood-borne HPV antibodies indicate head, neck cancer prognosis

December 8, 2016

A new study in JAMA Oncology finds that the presence of particular antibodies of human papillomavirus in blood serum are reliable indicators of five-year head and neck cancer survival.

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New compound targets TB bacterium’s defense against the immune system

December 5, 2016

Developed by chemists at Brown University in conjunction with colleagues at MIT and Cornell, the compound could enable a new drug strategy for treating tuberculosis.

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Video: Kosterlitz meets with President Obama in the Oval Office

December 1, 2016

Obama congratulated four American 2016 Nobel Laureates on their "amazing work."

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Brown’s influential biomechanics X-ray technology grows ever more powerful

November 30, 2016

Two recent papers describe the latest ways that XROMM technology, which has spread to dozens of similar research facilities worldwide, enables studies of human and animal motion in previously unseen detail.

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Quantum obstacle course changes material from superconductor to insulator

November 30, 2016

The research could help scientists better understand how defects can affect the quantum behavior of materials.

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Nobel Prize festivities to kick off with D.C. event

November 29, 2016

A week before heading to Sweden to receive the Nobel Prize, Brown physicist and 2016 Nobel Laureate Michael Kosterlitz will meet President Obama and participate in a discussion at the Swedish Embassy in Washington, D.C.

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To improve disaster response, New England medical experts confer at Brown

November 29, 2016

When a storm or an attack happens, New England’s emergency physicians will be better prepared and able to share resources because of a recently formed society, which will meet at Brown on Dec. 1.

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