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Hypertension – also known as high blood pressure – is a growing problem. Recent statistics indicate that 46 percent of American adults (or more than 100 million individuals) suffer from hypertension. In hypertension, the arteries become smaller and tighter. As a result, the heart has to work harder to push blood through a smaller space. If left untreated, hypertension causes physical damage to the arteries, heart and the rest of the body. It can ultimately lead to stroke or heart attack.

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What is DNA and how does DNA work to make us who we are?

In recent years, DNA testing has become incredibly popular with the increase in accessibility thanks to kits like Ancestry.com and 23andMe. These kits sequence your DNA and promise to link you to your long-lost ancestors from across the globe.

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Imagine yourself at one of the coolest, wildest parties ever. I’m talking about one of those loud, crazy, intense parties where whatever could happen, does happen, and there’s just so much stimulation you could burst.

Now, imagine this same mind-blowing rager happening in your brain.

This stimuli overload is an example of what is happening in the brain of a person with epilepsy. In other words, “Someone with epilepsy has too much activity going on in their brain,” said Rebecca Hauser, a doctorate student in UAB’s Graduate Biomedical Sciences program.

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“Thirty-seven who saw murder did not call the police”

Though this statement may seem absurd now, this news made the front page of the New York Times on March 27, 1964. This incident led to a critical study, which showed this may have been caused because of something now commonly known as the Bystander Effect. The Bystander Effect is in simple terms diffusion of responsibility – a person is less likely to intervene in a situation if more people are present. The more people who witness a misdeed may feel that someone else will help the victim so they do not have to take up the responsibility to act in the situation.

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Think about the last time you asked your friend for a favor. Depending on what you were asking for, you may have felt a bit awkward, and it may have been a hard ask. Now, imagine asking for not just a favor, but something bigger. Imagine asking your friend to donate you a kidney because you have kidney failure and cannot survive without dialysis or a transplant. It is a huge ask, but also a lifesaving gift.

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The word “cancer” is a term everyone knows. Whether you’ve known somebody with cancer or have powerful images of hospitals and patient hair loss, we can all identify with the word, and the disease. There are 18.1 million new cases of cancer a year, and over half a million cancer-related deaths. The grave mortality of this disease is one far too many people are familiar with, and why the race to finding effective treatments is so important.

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All of us have walked at some point during this day, maybe from our bed to the bathroom or from the parking lot to our workplace. For many of us, walking to and from places is a time to catch up with social media or listen to our favorite podcasts, making it a mundane and unexciting task of our daily life.

Now, take a moment to reflect where you last walked. Did you notice how easily you navigated the terrain, the steps and the people and objects? It might surprise you to know that though walking might appear very simple, there are many complex functions performed by our musculoskeletal system to help us walk.

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Most of you would be familiar with the novel "The Notebook" by Nicholas Sparks; there is also a movie based on that story. It is about a couple and their battle with Alzheimer's. The woman falls prey to this disease, and we go on a journey of how not only the woman with the disease suffers but also all her loved ones. The woman loses all her memory, her ability to think and perform basic daily tasks. She also exhibits changes in her behavior/personality and has a lot of confusion orienting herself to what time she is in and where she is.

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Imagine. You wake up in your bed on a warm, spring morning. Grey early morning sunlight filters through the blinds and your nose pick up on the smell of freshly brewed coffee. But, something is wrong. Your body, particularly your hands, wrists, and ankles, are in excruciating pain. You call a loved one to help you out of bed, even to brush your teeth. This is what life is like for someone experiencing severe rheumatoid arthritis.

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Children’s of Alabama is adding a surgical resident and Ph.D. student to its repertoire of award-winning research scientists. Raoud Marayati, M.D., is putting up a fight against the villain behind pediatric liver cancer’s biggest enemy: metastatic hepatoblastoma.

Hepatoblastoma is the most common liver cancer in children and typically diagnosed within the first 5 years of life. When this type of tumor spreads throughout the body, these children are sick and are bound to receive chemotherapy (or something like that) for most of their pre-school years. The prognosis for these young children is poor and new treatment therapies have not been developed in more than 20 years. Working in the research lab of Elizabeth Beierle, M.D., Marayati is out to change that.