As heart disease continues to be one of the major causes of death in Iowa, UI Health Alliance has joined with a team of health-care officials throughout the state to offer affordable mobile heart screenings to detect heart disease and stroke.

Watch out, infection. University of Iowa researchers have created a probe that can identify staph bacteria before symptoms appear. The probe is noninvasive and is expected to be cheaper and faster than current diagnostic techniques. Results published in the journal Nature Medicine.

A new UI study found that low bone density affects the entire skeleton, including bones in the skull that house the organs for balance and hearing, meaning those already prone to fractures due to low bone density are also prone to falls.

Sheila Baldwin won’t attend the Big Event as assistant vice president of development for the UI Children’s Hospital; instead she’ll celebrate and congratulate fellow Dance Marathon alumni on a record year of a tradition they started 20 years ago.

A $1.5 million gift from University of Iowa alumnus Norman E. Johnson and his wife, Barbara J. Johnson, of Naples, Fla. and Franklin, Tenn., will benefit two areas within UI Health Care—the Department of Otolaryngology in the Carver College of Medicine, and the new UI Children’s Hospital.

Small businesses in Iowa are less knowledgeable than larger businesses about the Affordable Care Act, according to a new study conducted by the UI's Public Policy Center, in collaboration with the Iowa Department of Public Health, the state Health Insurance Marketplace Interagency Workgroup on Health Care Reform, and the UI College of Public Health.

Keeping secrets from a loved one can put an emotional wedge in the relationship and change the way we communicate says Tamara Afifi, UI communication studies professor: "When we have a secret and mull it over, we develop stress and it makes our body sick."

The UI's Dr. Ignacio Ponseti spent 50 years trying to get doctors to accept his nonsurgical club-foot treatment; it wasn't until parents began spreading the word via Internet support groups that the method became standard.

The UI's William Field, who studies the health effects of radon but did not participate in a new study suggesting that energy efficiency measures trap more radon in homes, says testing a home for radon is essential.

Until cars can drive themselves, drivers will find themselves benefiting from advanced safety information systems, some of which are just around the corner and being studied by researchers such as University of Iowa's Mark Schall, a doctoral student in the UI College of Engineering.

Officials at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics will offer a new Spanish course this spring for the medical staff to better accommodate the growing Latino population in Iowa.

UI vehicle safety researcher Dan McGehee supports the proposal to upgrade distracted driving to a primary offense because, he says, while things like food and pets can draw your attention away from the road, cell phones do it more often, and for longer amounts of time.