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The horrors of the nuclear age, in terms of exploding reactors and nuclear bombs, are well known. Behind the well-publicized threat of mass death lies a secret history of nuclear projects being used to destroy individuals. In the late 1940s, United States citizens were injected with plutonium without their knowledge. More »
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Evidence suggests that driving high may be less dangerous than driving drunk, but driving stoned is still driving impaired — and assuming otherwise could get you killed. More »
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The effectiveness of zinc as a treatment for colds is hotly debated, but it appears the element might have a major role in saving lives — with a completely different disease. A new report published in BMC Medicine suggests that zinc supplements might significantly improve the survival rate of young children with pneumonia. Researchers at Makerere University in Uganda undertook a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial, of 350 children under the age of five with respiratory tract infections. All the subjects were treated with standard antibiotics, but half were given zinc supplements in addition, and half a placebo. More »
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Gonorrhea is the second-most commonly reported sexually transmitted disease in the United States. But no biggie, right? It's not like it's HIV or herpes — you know, one of those STDs that sticks with you for life. Just pop some antibiotics and you're good to go, right? More »
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Bacillus anthraces — more commonly known as anthrax — is not to be trifled with. Once the bacterium enters the blood stream, it releases a lethal cocktail of toxins that spreads rapidly throughout the body, leading to severe tissue damage, bleeding, and respiratory collapse. The fact that anthrax spores can infect a host via inhalation have made it a popular biological weapon in recent years. More »
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Why haven't we cured cancer yet? It seems like almost every day, we hear about another miraculous advance in cancer treatment. Drugs that cause tumors to shrink, gene therapies, and even a possible vaccine. And yet, our loved ones keep dying of cancer. More »
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It's Monday. For most of us, that means it's back to the grind — whether that grind be work, school, or some other scheduled obligation. Unfortunately for weekend warriors everywhere, these obligations typically require us to get up earlier than we'd choose if it were up to us. More »
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90% of North Americans consume caffeine on a daily basis. When ingested by itself, caffeine is extremely bitter — not the type a flavor many of us want lingering on our taste buds. More »
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Sure, sugar's bad for you. But should we establish a drinking age for sugary sodas? According to UC San Francisco pediatric endocrinologist Robert Lustig, the answer is emphatically yes. He says that added sweeteners have health effects comparable to alcohol and tobacco, and should be regulated accordingly. In a comment piece for the journal Nature, Lustig and his colleagues argue that the state should selectively block access to sugar, using some pretty stiff rules. More »
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British pharmaceutical company GW Pharmaceuticals has developed a medical marijuana drug called Sativex. The drug is delivered orally via a spray pump, and is the first of its kind to be produced by extracting high-inducing cannabinoids like THC (pot's primary psychoactive ingredient) from the cannabis plant itself. More »
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Skin-bound books may sound like weird artifacts that belong in Evil Dead movies or Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. But from the 1600s to 1800s, these suede-like tomes were less necromancy, more commemorative plate. And hell, converting yourself into a human moleskine upon kicking the bucket made for a heartfelt present. More »
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What if the male version of the birth control pill wasn't a pill at all? Scientists from the University of North Carolina say a non-oral form of male contraception is on the horizon. According to researchers, all it takes to be effective is a couple blasts of high frequency sound waves...delivered straight to the testicles. More »
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What would happen if you tried to survive on just one type of food? The short answer: you would die. Of course, how you died (organ failure, muscle-wasting, rapidly spreading pustular wounds... some combination thereof) would depend entirely on which type of food you decided to ride out your last weeks/months/years of life consuming. More »
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It's one of the biggest milestones for stem cells since their discovery. Researchers yesterday published the first results of a clinical trial where doctors transplanted of stem cells into the eyes of patients suffering from a form of progressive blindness. And the preliminary results look very good. More »
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For the first time in seventeen years, the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (D.S.M.) is undergoing a significant revision. One of the mental conditions facing major emendations in its D.S.M. definition is autism. If the changes go through, a recent analysis suggests that the rate of official diagnosis for autism, and related disorders like Asperger syndrome, could plummet. And that, some people worry, could be bad news for those marginalized by the new diagnostic criteria. More »
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When left untreated, cancer cells begin migrating away from the tumor where they first developed, spreading throughout the body and becoming much deadlier. But what stimulates this migration? A new study suggests that physical cell compression – which occurs when a tumor grows in certain parts of the body, where there is limited room and the cancerous cells get squashed together – could be one of the impetuses for cancer migration. More »
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In their World Malaria Report 2011, the World Health Organization reports that the number of malaria victims in 2010 numbered just over 650,000 — that's down from around a million at the turn of the Millennium. More »
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One of the most important duties of a peer-reviewed research journal is to not only feature discoveries at the frontiers of science, but to provide other researchers with the information necessary to build upon said discoveries in a meaningful way. Now, the development of two highly virulent strains of H5N1 — the deadly bird flu virus — is revealing the more subtle complexities of this duty in an unprecedented fashion. More »
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Smart? Good genes? Need Money? You've probably seen the advertisements in campus magazines, and fliers nailed to trees, offering thousands of dollars to women who are willing to donate their eggs. More »
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Today I received the worst news a stay-at-home writer can get. There is a threat of Escherichia coli in our unbaked cookie dough. An investigation into a 2009 outbreak of E. coli turned up ready-to-bake cookie dough, eaten raw, as the culprit. And the CDC believes steps need to be taken to keep it from happening again. More »
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Rotating shift work is remarkably unpleasant. The frequent changes from day to night work have previously been linked to cancer and heart problems, and new research has shown that it also can cause an increased risk of type 2 diabetes in women. This discovery applies to those poor, unfortunate souls who have to switch between day and night shifts on a regular basis. More »
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How cold of a temperature do you think you can survive exposure to? 0°F? -20°F? -50°F? How about -166°F, and you do it intentionally? A group of French scientists studied various ways that people recover after intensive workouts, including whole body cryotherapy, which sounds like something out of Futurama. Tested on a group of experienced runners, the cryotherapy involved exposing them to temperatures as low as -166°F (-110°C) to aid recovery from a workout. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5865671&view=rss&microfeed=true Low carbohydrate diets go in and out of fashion for weight loss, but a new piece of research suggests that an occasional low carb day is better than traditional diets for helping to prevent breast cancer. The findings are set to be presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, where the researchers describe a diet that may lower insulin and prevent cancer better than a traditional diet. More »
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Many of you probably read last week about a supervirus, engineered by dutch virologist Ron Fouchier, that has the potential to wipe out half of humanity. More »
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Evolutionary psychology has a lot of ideas that are, well, pretty nutty. The latest theory argues that social prejudice can be fought by being more careful about the spread of disease. It's definitely nutty...but it might also do some good. More »
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On the fence about legalizing marijuana? If so, consider this: legalizing weed could save your life. In the most comprehensive study of its kind ever conducted, the Institute for the Study of Labor has revealed in a provisional discussion paper that the legalization of medical marijuana in the United States is linked to a dramatic decrease in traffic fatalities. More »
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For hundreds of years, immunization has been one of society's most elegant and dependable methods of disease prevention. Vaccines have been developed for infections ranging from measles to HPV. Many of us get vaccinated to protect ourselves against seasonal illness, or before traveling internationally. Vaccination is safe. It is dependable. It works. More »
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If you're about to fly somewhere for Thanksgiving, you're probably dreading the possibility that you'll catch a bug along the way. And you're not alone. Many people report coming down with something in the days following an airplane flight. It's not like we're all lining up to lick the lavatory handles — so why can't our immune systems handle a plane trip? What are our bodies really up against? More »
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Researchers have known for some time that women who experience weakened heart function in the months before and after childbirth (a condition known as peripartum cardiomyopathy) recover more quickly than any other group of heart failure patients. Now, a team of researchers from Mt. Sinai School of Medicine thinks it may know why. More »
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Caffeine is the most commonly used mood-altering drug in the world, and coffee is one of the most popular means of ingesting it. Over 50% of Americans drink coffee on a daily basis, and that figure is thought to be increasing every year. More »
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The Food and Drug Administration declared this morning that the blockbuster pharmaceutical Avastin — one of the world's best-selling cancer drugs — should no longer be prescribed for the treatment of breast cancer, claiming that the drug has proven to be neither safe nor effective in treating the disease. But is it the right decision? More »
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What price will the United States pay in the name of security? A PBS NewsHour investigation published earlier this month reported that as many as 100 Americans could develop cancer each year due to radiation emitted by full-body X-ray scanners, which continue to pop up en masse at airports across the US. More »
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Hearing loss is the kind of ailment that sneaks up on you over time — many people don't even recognize that it's happening). New research shows that its long-term consequences could include dementia. And now, it turns out that hearing loss is far more pervasive than anyone realized. More »
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Yesterday we discussed the horrors of the Russian drug krokodil. This flesh-eating heroin-like substance may seem like the most nightmarish of all nightmares, but there are plenty of other toxic (and just plain grody) substances out there, ready to be consumed for no good reason. Here are 10 more intoxicating things that would give McGruff the Crime Dog angina.

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Congress is expected to approve three spending bills by week's end that would grant the National Science Foundation a 2.5% bump in it's 2012 budget. More »
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The battle over the future of chimpanzees in research has reached a critical point. Chimps are humans' closest extant relatives — and as such, they are arguably one of the best animal models available for biomedical investigations that have the potential to save countless human lives. More »
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News about anti-obesity drugs is pretty common, but many of them never make it past the testing stage in rodents. Now, a new fat-fighting drug has passed the primate test: it's proven to be successful with obese rhesus monkeys. It just might be appropriate for us, too. More »
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Yesterday afternoon, voters in Mississippi took to the polls to vote on Initiative 26 — aka "the Personhood amendment." The ballot measure proposed to amend the state's constitution to redefine "person" to mean "every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the equivalent thereof." If approved, the amendment would have given fertilized eggs the same legal rights and privileges of infants and adult humans, making abortion illegal in the state of Mississippi. More »
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In the wake of some of the most unfortunate politicization (and misrepresentation) of science and medicine in recent memory, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee voted yesterday to recommend that boys and young men should be vaccinated against human papilloma virus (HPV). More »
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When we hear news about human sexual dysfunction, it often tends to revolve around men. And when female sexual dysfunction does receive attention, it's often brought up in reference to the difficulty they face achieving sexual climax. But a new study shows that jumping the orgasmic gun is likely a problem that is faced by women and men alike—even if we don't always hear about it. More »
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