Saheli Sadanand
As the 2012 presidential campaign continues, we’ll only hear more and more repetitive statements about healthcare coverage plans. Lost in the partisan debate about Romney-care vs. Obama-care is a very immediate health concern: drug availability. As of last summer, almost two hundred drugs crucial for treating infections and several types of cancer were in limited […]
Sci-Tech
Saheli Sadanand
My first reaction to Michael Magdzik’s Jan. 17 editorial lamenting the science distributional requirement was one of anger. The poorly constructed piece hammers home the worst Ivy League stereotypes of entitlement and grade grubbing, making this proud ’07 Yalie cringe. Magdzik criticizes science classes for being full of grade-addicted pre-meds but then hypocritically admits that […]
Sci-Tech
Saheli Sadanand
Only a few things in life are certain. One is that the Detroit Lions will always lose on Thanksgiving. Another is that nothing can move faster than the speed of light — or so I thought. Two months ago, a group of scientists in Europe claimed they had made neutrinos — a neutral, near-zero-mass subatomic […]
Sci-Tech
Saheli Sadanand
As a kid I was petrified of beef. What if I ate a burger, got infected with mad cow disease and went crazy years later? While I was afraid of beef, foods like peanut butter, eggs, sprouts and cantaloupes were definitely not on my fear radar. But maybe they should have been, because all of […]
Sci-Tech
Saheli Sadanand
My Yale junk mail folder has become a black hole, and I suspect I’m not the only one with this problem. A few months ago, I received a few E-vites to parties. Or I would have, had the Evites been delivered to my inbox. Instead I was left to find out about these parties via […]
Sci-Tech
Saheli Sadanand
I don’t have an iPhone or any other kind of smart phone. I’ve been told by quite a few people to get one and, I’m not going to lie, some of those iPhone apps seem handy and the Android does look cool. But frankly I don’t want to become part of America’s newest epidemic: technology […]
Sci-Tech
Saheli Sadanand
Like most of you, I use Google a lot. I use it to find papers related to my research, I use it for e-mail and I use it to find that song that is stuck in my head. Last week while trying to think of a topic for this column, I decided to be meta […]
Sci-Tech
Jessica McDonald, Saheli Sadanand
As difficult as it may be to deny a drug to a desperate patient, controlled trials are the backbone of clinical science: We need them to answer the basic question of whether a drug works, and for which patients. Trials are not primarily designed to help the patients who participate in them, nor should they […]
Sci-Tech
Saheli Sadanand
The United States has a strange relationship with alcohol. On one hand, kegs and sangria pitchers are as much a part of college life as classes and exams. As we grow older, we keep drinking; we pair wine with dinner, beer with football. Yet not even a century ago, this country ratified the 18th Amendment, […]
Sci-Tech
Saheli Sadanand
Almost 50 years ago, President John F. Kennedy declared that by the end of the 1960s, the United States would put a man on the moon, and in 1969, the entire world watched as Neil Armstrong fulfilled Kennedy’s vision. Last Thursday, President Barack Obama made similarly bold promises before a wary audience at the John […]
Sci-Tech
Saheli Sadanand
Yesterday, President Barack Obama signed the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, finally putting an end to the interminable legislative battle over health care reform. One of the controversial initiatives in the bill is increased funding for comparative effectiveness research (CER), or large-scale, controlled scientific studies that evaluate which treatments are best for a given […]
Sci-Tech