Fool’s Paradise

His mother told him he was Native American and introduced him to a series of "fathers," supposed substitutes for his biological dad. In a powerful memoir, Brando Skyhorse, '95, describes a nomadic childhood and his search to discover who he really is.

When a team of scholars presented a paper on cryptography in the late 1970s, it spurred a battle with the government that underscored fundamental tensions between academic freedom and national security. Who was right and who was wrong?

by Henry Corrigan-Gibbs

In the Arctic and the Gobi Desert, and on one of the world's largest coral colonies, Stanford researchers are growing knowledge and understanding, and enjoying one heck of a view.

by Erin Biba

Sixty years go by in a wink when you have your dream job. William Dement has devoted his career to elucidating what happens while we sleep and the consequences when we don't.

by Nicholas Weiler

Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson spent decades assembling one of the world's best private collections of postwar American art, and almost as long sharing it with Stanford students. Now, some of the paintings and sculptures that once adorned their house have a permanent home on campus.

Intercollegiate athletics are baked deep into Stanford’s identity and culture. But measures aimed at professionalizing college sports could jeopardize that historic part of university life.

by Mike Antonucci and Kevin Cool

Making batteries better is not just a goal for Professor Yi Cui it's something close to a life's work. His breakthroughs hold the promise of far-reaching electric cars, long-running smartphones and a cleaner, greener world.

by Kate Galbraith

At Stanford, Tom Frost was shy, undersized and unremarkable. But he found his bliss on the granite rock faces of Yosemite and reached career heights that made generations of followers marvel.

by Sam Scott

The drought in California is historically severe, and future ones may be worse if climate models prove true. But there's plenty of water to go around, say Stanford faculty immersed in the issue, if we value it properly and conserve it more sensibly.

by Kate Galbraith

The dangers of chronic stress are well-known. But not all stress is bad, researchers say. And they are beginning to spread the word that we should stop stressing so much about stress.

by Kristin Sainani