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The Most Popular Antidepressants Are Based On An Outdated Theory [UPDATED]

One in ten Americans takes an anti-depressant drug like Zoloft or Prozac. These drugs have been shown to work in some patients, but their design is based on a so-called “chemical imbalance” theory of depression that is incomplete, at best. Image Credit: Tom Varco | CC BY-SA 3.0 The number of people taking antidepressants has … Continued

Tech News

Blood Transfusions Are One of the Most Overused Procedures in Medicine

Blood transfusions have saved countless lives. But blood transfusions can be risky. Emily Anthes writing inNature gathers the evidence that the procedure is one of the most overused treatments out there, an expensive, but more importantly, potentially dangerous, problem. It’s intuitive to understand why blood transfusions are good. When blood banks that arose out of … Continued

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The Science Of Spontaneous Healing

A person comes down with a terrible disease. The doctors give up all hope. Then, suddenly, the disease is gone. It’s a great soap opera plot, but it can actually happen in real life. The question is, how? What Is Spontaneous Remission? Spontaneous remission, also known as spontaneous healing, is downplayed by the medical community. … Continued

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Tiny ‘Nanoneedles’ Could Help Your Damaged Organs Repair Themselves

In a trial involving mice, an international team of researchers used microscopic “nanoneedles” to coax the body into generating new blood vessels. Applied to humans, the technology could eventually be used to get organs and nerves to repair themselves. Top image: Colorized cells on nanoneedles (credit: Imperial College London) Researchers from Imperial College London and … Continued

Tech News

Iceland Has Become the Perfect Genetics Experiment 

A millenium ago, a group settled in Iceland and have stayed there ever since, with few people coming and going. And so their DNA has stayed remarkably homogenous. That’s a major boon for genetics researchers, who today have released the results of sequencing the complete genomes of 2,636 Icelanders—the largest such countrywide project ever. Researchers … Continued

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Wondering What To Expect After A Medical Abortion? Read This.

The latest installment of Oh Joy, Sex Toy offers an accessible, informative, and non-judgmental overview of medical abortion, one of several choices available to newly pregnant persons. The comic is well worth reading in its entirety. It links to a number of resources and medical studies, and deals with everything from basic anatomy to abortion … Continued

Tech News

Why Anti-Vaxxers Just ‘Know’ They’re Right

Anti-vaccination beliefs can cause real, substantive harm, as shown by the recent outbreak of measles in the US. These developments are as shocking and distressing as their consequences are predictable. But if the consequences are so predictable, why do the beliefs persist? It is not simply that anti-vaxxers don’t understand how vaccines work (some of … Continued

ScienceHealth

How a Bee Sting Saved My Life

Ellie Lobel was ready to die. Then she was attacked by bees. Christie Wilcox hears how venom can be a saviour. “I moved to California to die.” Ellie Lobel was 27 when she was bitten by a tick and contracted Lyme disease. And she was not yet 45 when she decided to give up fighting … Continued

Tech News

Chlorine Treatment Can Accelerate Antibiotic Resistance, Study Says

As anyone who’s ever owned a pet fish or gone to a public swimming pool knows, chlorine is commonly used to disinfect water. Ironically, when it comes to sewage treatment, it may be doing just the opposite. At wastewater treatment plants, chlorine is used to eliminate both harmful bacteria and pharmaceutical residues, including antibiotics. But … Continued

ScienceHealth

Americans — Why Is Your Insulin So Expensive?

Insulin has saved countless lives since its discovery in 1921. But nearly a century later, there is somehow still no cheap, generic version of insulin available in the U.S—making the “wonder drug” too expensive for many patients. Why? In the New England Journal of Medicine, Jerome Greene and Kevin Riggs call it the “paradox of … Continued

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DARPA Wants To Solve Ebola With DNA, Money, And Institutional Knowhow

Colonel Dan Wattendorf is a program manager in DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office. His goal: To dramatically suppress Ebola, and infectious diseases like it, with a new, unconventional vaccine. And according to Wattendorf, the biggest hurdles he faces in accomplishing this mission “aren’t scientific, but institutional.” Above: Electron micrograph of an Ebola virus virion | Credit: … Continued

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How To Murder Someone With An MRI

A little-known and harmless side effect of MRIs gives us an intriguing way to murder people. Tricking them into getting an MRI would be tough, but afterwards? It’s almost too easy. Magnetic resonance imaging machines are a safe, painless, and effective way to take a look at a person’s insides. They put the person in … Continued

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Why You Need To Avoid Those All-Too-Frequent “Sad Desk Lunches”

You know by now that sitting prunes lifespans, negates workouts, and outright kills people. Ugh, sitting. The worst, right? Well, not technically. Standing too much is also bad for you, and apparently plain old sitting can’t hold a candle (in terms of sheer terribleness) to eating lunch while sitting at your desk. And yet, an … Continued

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How A Terminal Illness Can Change Your Perception Of Time

Last week, Paul Kalanithi – a writer and new dad, who recently completed his residency in neurosurgery at Stanford – died from metastatic lung cancer. In this video, released last month, Kalanithi addresses the “strange relativity” that accompanied his diagnosis. The video is full of insights about how Kalanithi’s diagnosis altered his relationship with time. … Continued

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The Things People Did To Fight Syphilis Were Utterly Horrifying

Syphilis, today, is minor and treatable. In the past, though, it was an incurable diseases that caused insanity, rotting flesh, and death. It’s understandable that nations took drastic measures to try to stop it — but their efforts resulted in a 400-year reign of terror. Syphilis hit Europe at the end of the 1400s. In … Continued

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Yes, Dangerously Low Vaccination Rates Are Fueling The Measles Outbreak

A new research letter published in JAMA Pediatrics is the first to positively link low vaccination rates to the Disneyland measles outbreak that emerged in California late last year. The new research also shows how frighteningly fast measles can spread in a population that’s insufficiently immunized against the highly contagious virus. Calculations made by a … Continued

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Women At Risk For Ovarian Cancer Have New Options, But No Easy Choices

Women predisposed to ovarian cancer can reduce their risk with surgery, but with it comes early menopause. To avoid this, some doctors propose delaying part of the procedure. But is this safe? More than two decades have passed, but Erika Archer Lewis clearly recalls the fear, uncertainty and struggle required to bring her 42-year-old mother … Continued

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South African Surgeons Claim “First Successful” Penis Transplant. Is It?

After losing all but one centimeter of his penis to a botched circumcision, an anonymous 21-year-old man from South Africa has found himself on the receiving end of the world’s first successful penis transplant, according to the surgical team that performed the procedure. But was it actually the first? Above: The surgical team behind the … Continued

Tech News

This Technology Can Prevent a Superbug Apocalypse

Nearly a century after scientists dug up penicillin, researchers are turning once more to the soil for new pharmaceuticals. But this time, they have tiny, powerful technologies on their side. Here’s how scientists are unlocking the secrets of soil microbes and discovering the next generation of medicine. Soil is the most biodiverse habitat on the … Continued

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Measles Could Cause More Deaths Than Ebola In West Africa

West Africa’s Ebola outbreak could be stanched by mid-year – but in the epidemic’s wake, another public health crisis looms. Disruption of the region’s already feeble health care systems has derailed health campaigns targeting childhood diseases, leaving the door wide open for measles and other preventable illnesses. Above: A mother brings her sick child for … Continued