Seismic SCOTUS rulings, part 1.
Even if you’ve been living under a rock, you know the U.S. Supreme Court handed down some controversial decisions last week. On Thursday, in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Court struck down a century-old New York law that restricted the carrying of guns outside the home, a decision that will expand the right to carry into states that have been more restrictive, including California. “The Court reversed its earlier language by announcing that the core of the Second Amendment is the right to have a gun within reach for self-defense, whether it is inside or outside the home,” said law professor John Donohue, an expert in gun law, in Stanford Law’s Legal Aggregate blog. A new paper he co-authored “underscores that large cities in the states affected by today’s decisions will experience a noticeable increase in violent crime in the decade following the move to permissive gun carrying,” Donohue said, and highlights two costs that the authors believe have been overlooked: an increase in gun thefts and the impairment of police effectiveness in solving crime due to dealing with a more armed public. He adds that states seeking to increase gun safety might lean into the decision’s wording. “The decision in Bruen frequently references the rights of ‘law-abiding, responsible citizens,’” he said. States might consider whether more complete background checks “could be used to determine whether an individual is in fact someone who should be characterized in this fashion.”
And part 2.
In speaking about another major Supreme Court decision—the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturns the reproductive rights cases Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey—law professor Jane Schacter drew a link to Bruen. “We see an aggressive Court that is imposing on the country dramatic change in doctrine and policy,” she said in Stanford Law’s Legal Aggregate blog. “What stands out to me is how starkly we can see the effects of originalism in the form that is practiced by today’s majority,” she said, adding that the Dobbs decision prioritizes the original meaning of the 14th Amendment, which was ratified more than 70 years before women gained the right to vote. “As the joint dissent pointedly observes, the 14th Amendment was written and ratified by those who did not see women as equals and had no thought of protecting either the autonomy or equal citizenship of women,” she said. “It is thus striking that this Court allows none of the common sense breathing room for the more evolutionary reading of the document that has been employed by so many justices over the years.”
In an essay excerpted in the Palo Alto Weekly, Hoover Institution fellow emeritus and retired U.S. District Court Judge Abraham Sofaer traced the history of the battle at the Court to protect individual rights not enumerated in the Constitution. “Some of their decisions were criticized, but none as vehemently as Roe v. Wade, which became a rallying cry in the push to curb the Court’s activism,” he wrote. Now, he points out, the question is how far the reversal will go. “Assuming the Court will defer to legislative judgments on access to pills [for medical abortion], will the Court go so far as to allow legislatures to prevent women from obtaining or using pills even to prevent conception? The Court’s flat refusal to give substantive weight to the right to privacy in Dobbs does not bode well for the future of contraception rights,” he wrote. “While the Court majority in Dobbs correctly asserted that Roe had remained controversial, Dobbs too will remain controversial.”
A shot in the dark.
Photo: WILLIAM MENG/The Stanford Daily Publishing Corporation
William Meng, a graduate student in electrical engineering, came upon students touring an unusually dark campus last week and snapped a few photos. The university lost power June 21 when a fire 10 miles north of campus damaged the main PG&E transmission line that supplies electricity to the university. Summer classes and other programs were canceled for the rest of the week and students sought recharging stations, snacks and cold drinks (temps hit 99 degrees last Tuesday) in respite centers on campus, while a second power line restored electricity to critical infrastructure. Though Stanford uses 100 percent renewable energy, most power from its solar farms must be transported via the state grid, meaning the school is not immune to such outages. The lights came back on Friday, June 24.
At last, an “anti-hunger” molecule.
All hail the dieting deities: Scientists have discovered a compound that stems appetite. Assistant professor of pathology Jonathan Long first noticed the mystery molecule when it spiked in the blood of post-exercise mice. It was lac-phe—a combination of lactate and phenylalanine, both of which naturally exist in human bodies. Lac-phe is produced when humans (or mice, or racehorses) exercise. When you’ve worked up a good sweat, you may experience the effects of lac-phe—a feeling that your stomach is small. (Unfortunately, the Loop cannot confirm this phenomenon.) When Long’s team gave obese mice lac-phe, the rodents reduced their food intake by about 30 percent, which led to lower body weight and improved glucose tolerance. “We thought, ‘Wow, all these lines of evidence really suggest that lac-phe is going to the brain to suppress feeding,’” Long told Stanford Medicine. (TL;DR? Here’s a video.) He estimates that the lac-phe pathway accounts for about 25 percent of the anti-obesity effects of exercise. So . . . is a diet pill on the horizon? Don’t throw out your running shoes just yet. The next step to better understanding lac-phe is zeroing in on which receptors in the brain are targeted by the molecule.
We’ve got 99 problems and 1,000 genes linked to severe COVID.
Michael Snyder, director of the Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine and chair of the department of genetics, is the co-senior author of a new study published in Cell Systems that takes a big step toward unraveling the mysteriously varied presentations of COVID-19. His team looked at genomic data from both healthy lung tissue and the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative (one of the largest genome-wide studies of critically ill coronavirus patients) and identified suspicious DNA mutations on 19 types of lung cells. Ultimately, 1,000 genes accounted for 77 percent of the drivers of severe COVID-19. “Our findings lay the foundation for a genetic test that can predict who is born with an increased risk for severe COVID-19,” Snyder said. Furthermore, the researchers determined that the faulty gene expression was largely associated with two types of immune cells. Trials of immune-cell infusions for severe COVID-19 are already underway.
But wait, there’s more.
Even if you’re not a university faculty member, this summer you can read like one. Browse the Law School and School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences summer reading lists for everything from the science of psychedelics to the history of how we cook and eat.
As nations industrialize, babies are losing gut bacteria critical to the trajectory of their overall health. The loss of one bacterium in particular—Bifidobacterium infantis—not only affects an infant’s ability to reap the benefits of breast milk, but may also cause lasting systemic inflammation and immune dysregulation.
Who said putting on pants can’t involve musical revelation? Hear the compositions of Deborah Wicks La Puma, ’91, in the soundtrack of HBO Max’s new children’s movie Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed.
Researchers say restoring beaches, marshland, native seagrass and other coastal habitats provides the same level of coastline flood protection as concrete walls. The difference: Restoring natural habitats accrues up to eight times as much of a particular benefit, such as reduced stormwater pollution.
Earlier this month, the U.S. acknowledged Juneteenth as a federal holiday for the second year. Yet a 2021 Gallup poll revealed that more than 60 percent of Americans know very little or nothing about the annual commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States. If you’re eager to learn more, the Stanford Center for Racial Justice law blog provides a brief history of Juneteenth.
Fun fact: Stanford holds more women’s NCAA titles than any other university. On Thursday, the country celebrated the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the civil rights law prohibiting federally funded educational institutions from discriminating on the basis of sex. On a website, Stanford Athletics honors the achievements of female student-athletes and the impact of Title IX, and this September will induct its first-ever all-female class into the Stanford Athletics Hall of Fame.
Summer Moore Batte, ’99, is the editor of Stanfordmag.org and the Loop. Email her at summerm@stanford.edu.
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