Transplant Doctor Who Encourages Taking A Gamble On High-Risk Organ Donors Uses Himself As An Example

The Wall Street Journal: The Transplant Surgeon Needed A New Heart—Even If It Had Hepatitis C
Robert Montgomery is passed out, asleep on a gurney in a hospital gown. He’s just had a heart biopsy, his seventh since a heart transplant he received here at NYU Langone Health three months earlier. Dr. Montgomery isn’t just any patient. He is the director of NYU Langone’s Transplant Institute. And he didn’t receive just any heart transplant. It was from a heroin user who died of a drug overdose and had hepatitis C, a disease Dr. Montgomery subsequently contracted and has already recovered from. (Reddy, 1/28)

MPR: Take It From An ER Doc: ‘Don’t Challenge Nature’
If you won’t listen to your mother or the meteorologist that this week’s deadly temperatures demand great caution, take it from an emergency room doctor. …But getting to work, walking the dog or shoveling the snow are necessary for most of us, here are some best practices for keeping safe, keeping warm and keeping vehicles running during the polar vortex. (Nelson, 1/28)

Reuters: Apple Watch, Using Aetna Client Data, Wants To Help You Be Healthy
CVS Health Corp’s health insurer Aetna on Tuesday said it is working with Apple Inc on a new health app for Apple Watches that uses an individual’s medical history to set personalized health goals. Called “Attain,” the Apple Watch app will reward Aetna customers for meeting activity goals and fulfilling recommended tasks, such as getting vaccinations or refilling medications, with a subsidy toward the cost of an Apple Watch or gift cards for U.S. retailers. (1/29)

The Associated Press: US Nobelist Was Told Of Gene-Edited Babies
Long before the claim of the world’s first gene-edited babies became public, Chinese researcher He Jiankui shared the news with a U.S. Nobel laureate who objected to the experiment yet remained an adviser to He’s biotech company. The revelation that another prominent scientist knew of the work, which was widely condemned when it was revealed, comes as scientists debate whether and how to alert troubling research, and the need for clearer guidelines. (1/28)

The New York Times: Fighting The Stigma Of Mental Illness Through Music
When Ronald Braunstein conducts an orchestra, there’s no sign of his bipolar disorder. He’s confident and happy. Music isn’t his only medicine, but its healing power is potent. Scientific research has shown that music helps fight depression, lower blood pressure and reduce pain. The National Institutes of Health has a partnership with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts called Sound Health: Music and the Mind, to expand on the links between music and mental health. It explores how listening to, performing or creating music involves brain circuitry that can be harnessed to improve health and well-being. (Hollow, 1/29)

Stat: In Health Care, The Race Is On To Put Sensors In Your Gut 
First, health care entrepreneurs raced to claim the market to put an EKG on consumer’s wrists. Then came miniaturized glucose monitors and tracking devices inside chemotherapy pills. Now, the rush is on to tackle the most personally intrusive, and impactful, task of all: Embedding sensors all along your digestive tract. Around the world, researchers are developing ingestible sensors designed to help detect and treat everything from colon cancer, to minor indigestion, to Crohn’s disease, while potentially unlocking some of the biggest mysteries buried in the human gut. (Ross, 1/29)

CNN: More Screen Time For Toddlers Is Tied To Poorer Development A Few Years Later, Study Says
Among toddlers, spending a lot of time staring at screens is linked with poorer performance on developmental screening tests later in childhood, according to a new study. The study, published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics on Monday, found a direct association between screen time at ages 2 and 3 and development at 3 and 5. Development includes growth in communication, motor skills, problem-solving and personal social skills, based on a screening tool called the Ages and Stages Questionnaire. Signs of such development can be seen in behaviors like being able to stack a small block or toy on top of another one. (Howard, 1/28)

The New York Times: Why It Hurts To Lose Sleep
Veteran insomniacs know in their bones what science has to say about sleep deprivation and pain: that the two travel together, one fueling the other. For instance, people who develop chronic pain often lose the ability to sleep well, and quickly point to a bad back, sciatica or arthritis as the reason. The loss of sleep, in turn, can make a bad back feel worse, and the next night’s slumber even more difficult. (Carey, 1/28)

The New York Times: Seeking Superpowers In The Axolotl Genome
The axolotl, sometimes called the Mexican walking fish, is a cheerful tube sock with four legs, a crown of feathery gills and a long, tapered tail fin. It can be pale pink, golden, gray or black, speckled or not, with a countenance resembling the “slightly smiling face” emoji. Unusual among amphibians for not undergoing metamorphosis, it reaches sexual maturity and spends its life as a giant tadpole baby. (Yin, 1/29)

Los Angeles Times: Waterproof Workout Patch Studies A Surprising Source Of Info: Your Sweat
Elite athletes must listen carefully to their bodies during workouts and competition. Their muscles. Heart rate. And, sometime soon, maybe even their sweat. Scientists have created a soft, bandage-like device that collects and analyzes an athlete’s perspiration as they run, bike and even swim underwater. The sweat sensor, which researchers recently described in the journal Science Advances, could prompt its wearer to replenish fluids and electrolytes lost during a workout. (Greene, 1/28)