The Dangers of Hype: How a Bold Claim and Sensational Media Unraveled a Company

The Dangers of Hype: How a Bold Claim and Sensational Media Unraveled a Company

Magnetic resonance imaging of the brain.

(© Maxim Pavlov/Fotolia)


Keep Reading Keep Reading
Addison Nugent
Addison Nugent is a professional freelance journalist based out of Paris, France. Like so many Americans before her, she fell in love with the French capital at a young age and never left. She graduated from the Sorbonne's Master of the Arts literary research program with honors in 2016, and has since pursued a career in journalism. She has accumulated a diverse portfolio of published work that includes investigative pieces, in-depth profiles, historical deep dives, and tech news. Her work has been featured in such publications as OZY, Vice Motherboard, Atlas Obscura, Dazed Digital and Messy Nessy Chic.
Fetuses can save their mothers' lives

Stem cells from a fetus can travel to the heart and regenerate the muscle, essentially saving a mother’s life.

Adobe Stock

Story by Big Think

In rare cases, a woman’s heart can start to fail in the months before or after giving birth. The all-important muscle weakens as its chambers enlarge, reducing the amount of blood pumped with each beat. Peripartum cardiomyopathy can threaten the lives of both mother and child. Viral illness, nutritional deficiency, the bodily stress of pregnancy, or an abnormal immune response could all play a role, but the causes aren’t concretely known.

Keep Reading Keep Reading
Ross Pomeroy
Steven Ross Pomeroy is the editor of RealClearScience. As a writer, Ross believes that his greatest assets are his insatiable curiosity and his ceaseless love for learning. Follow him on Twitter
New implants let paraplegics surf the web and play computer games

Rodney Gorham, an Australian living with ALS, has reconnected with the world, thanks to a brain-machine interface called the Stentrode.

Rodeny Dekker

When I greeted Rodney Gorham, age 63, in an online chat session, he replied within seconds: “My pleasure.”

“Are you moving parts of your body as you type?” I asked.

This time, his response came about five minutes later: “I position the cursor with the eye tracking and select the same with moving my ankles.” Gorham, a former sales representative from Melbourne, Australia, living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, a rare form of Lou Gehrig’s disease that impairs the brain’s nerve cells and the spinal cord, limiting the ability to move. ALS essentially “locks” a person inside their own body. Gorham is conversing with me by typing with his mind only–no fingers in between his brain and his computer.

Keep Reading Keep Reading
Stav Dimitropoulos
Stav Dimitropoulos's features have appeared in major outlets such as the BBC, National Geographic, Scientific American, Nature, Popular Mechanics, Science, Runner’s World, and more. Follow her on Facebook or Twitter @TheyCallMeStav.