New Study Looks at Peer Pressure and Implications for Preventing

The above article is from HealthNewsDigest.com. The article points out that “friends’ substance use is one of the most powerful influences that lead adolescents to use themselves.” However a three-year Weill Cornell Medical College study found that students with “competence skills had a long-term […]

The brain is one of the most profound networks we can study and implements information cascading in a unique framework. The brain is a network of many neurons that provide one-way signals to each other, similar to the linear model presented in class. Neurons signal other neurons to fire by releasing neurotransmitters at […]

This recent article in the Globe and Mail describes a new social network being cultivated online: DNAancestryproject.com, a network that links people based on their related genes. This website is being run by Genetrack Biolabs, Inc., a DNA testing lab that has, until now, primarily focused on paternity testing and legal investigations. Those interested in […]

Modern medicine and technology has undeniably made great advances for us–those lucky enough to enjoy its benefits. We now live longer and healthier lives, no longer needing to worry about many once-deadly diseases. We are able to screen ourselves and even our potential children for genetic illnesses. We are so optimistic about medicine that […]

Natasha Collins graduated Cornell in 2005. She was accepted to Yale medical school and planned to attend after spending time in Qatar to teach chemistry to college students, but was diagnosed with leukemia during the summer of 2006. Natasha has been bravely fighting the disease ever since with the support of her friends […]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/business/yourmoney/25proto.html?ex=1173243600&en=66a8673994e7a9d5&ei=5070 
 
This article describes recent quorum sensing research in bacteria and its connection with social networks.  Quorum sensing is the ability of bacteria groups to communicate and coordinate behavior through signaling molecules and pathways.  This phenomenon is what enables bacteria colonies to accumulate enough bacteria to act, developing infections, illnesses, and biofilms.  Studying quorum sensing has […]

There have been many discussions in INFO204 lectures related to measuring the relative connectedness of individuals in a social network. Most of these have been in an employment context; e.g., the increased importance of a person who connects two different workgroups together, or the fragmentation of a group due to the presence of two […]

Warnings Over Privacy of U.S. Health Network
The link above is an article from The New York Times by Robert Pear that raises several important questions about privacy issues in social networks. The Bush administration has a strong interest in creating a large electronic database of private health information that would be shared by different health […]

The tightly knit village community is an element with which people from urban and suburban communities may be unaccustomed. Washington Post writer Shankar Vedantam describes the healing power of strong social ties for schizophrenia patients in such communities. Vedantam tells the story of a woman who recovered from schizophrenia thanks to “an embracing […]