Marin General Hospital is leaving the corporate umbrella of Sutter Health Care, effective at the end of June. But the separation is proving to be less than amicable.

Dr. Martin Brotman, President of the Sutter Health West Bay Region, is well aware of the criticisms directed at Sutter and their actions in Marin County. He contends those critics fail to give the company credit for the substantial investment it has made in the Greenbrea hospital.

Sutter Health Care’s internal financial maneuvers may be legal, observes Assemblyman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), but they do not support the best interests of the communities where the corporation’s hospitals are located.

As the number of African children orphaned by AIDS continues to grow, a new model for housing, teaching and caring for them is trying to take root in Mozambique.

Malena Ruth, Founder and President of the African Millennium Foundation, says that while it is clearly her intention to create opportunities for the orphaned youth and children of her home country, she is just as clear that her vision is not just another orphanage.

Actress  CCH Pounder’s first contact with AMF was as a donor. As she learned more about the organization, she was impressed enough to join their board of directors. And she is now firmly committed to promoting the A Nossa Casa project, because she believes it will begin to make a difference in the near future.

UNICEF has projected that before the end of this year in Mozambique,  more than 926,000 children such as these with have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS.

Even in patients with advanced Alzheimer’s Disease, familiar music from long ago can awaken memories and prompt interactive behaviors. But how does that happen? A U.C. Davis researcher is working to unravel the neural mechanisms within the brain.

Much of the research that has been done so far on how music stimulates the brain has used musical samples that are not particularly stimulating. Dr. Petr Janata, associate professor of Psychology at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain, says that a new round of studies should work with recognizable samples, and could discover that the brain encodes different types of music in different ways or areas.

That’s one area of research that Janata hopes to explore himself, along with expanding the studies he’s done on Alzheimer’s patients to include different age groups.

Dr. Peter Janata will discuss his research into “Music, Memories and the Brain"  in a public presentation Friday, Feb. 19 at 8 pm in the Glaser Center in Santa Rosa, a benefit event for the Sonoma County Bach Society.

You can read more about research into the associations between music, memory and Alzheimer's Disease in this Wall Street Journal article.

Blood cells produced in human bone marrow can save the life of someone with leukemia, but only if the donor and patient are carefully matched. Jeana Moore is walking the length and breadth of the United States to round up more donors, and boost the odds that those matches can be made.

In addition to her one-to-one conversations, Jeana Moore is also actively working to set in motion plans for bone marrow drives in many of the communities she’s passing through.

She notes that they combine well with blood drives that may already be scheduled. Moore’s journey is also inspiring “sister” bone marrow drives in communities far from her pedestrian route.

Moore is just 900 miles—and four pairs of shoes—into her trek, but already she considers it an unqualified success.

To follow her progress, you can read Jeana's journal of her journey and see her planned itinerary, which are both featured on her website. Or go directly to  the National Bone Marrow donor registry to sign up or get more information.