Professors are using so-called ‘study drugs’ to boost their cognitive performance Cambridge academic claims one in 10 students take them to improve memory The drugs are meant to be for Alzheimer’s, narcolepsy and ADHD treatment Long-term effects of some substances include heart problems and psychosis One in five university professors have admitted to using so-called ‘brain...
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This map will help biologists learn more about the human body than ever before
Squint your eyes so tight that they’re almost shut. Now keep them that way as you look at the world. You can’t see its beauty in detail. Leaves on the trees, constellations in the night sky, the words on this screen — they’re all a blur. In a sense, biologists have spent the last century...
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Failure to warn: Hundreds died while taking an arthritis drug, but nobody alerted patients
When a new remedy for rheumatoid arthritis arrived, ads called it a “unique” breakthrough that would “transform expectations” for patients and doctors. “If I knew then what I know now about rheumatoid arthritis, I would have been more proactive,” said one young woman, pictured happily kayaking. Treatments for the disabling disease afflicting about 1.5 million...
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‘FDA approved’ medical devices don’t actually have to do what they promise
‘FDA approval’ has a certain glow of authority to it. In most people’s minds to be FDA approved is to be safe, effective, and proven. Or at least, it technically is. Technically, FDA approval is a stringent process that requires a degree of proof. You might like to think that you couldn’t get away with claiming something went through that...
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Alan Alda’s Experiment: Helping Scientists Learn To Talk To The Rest Of Us
Alan Alda’s father wanted him to become a doctor, but it wasn’t meant to be. “I failed chemistry really disastrously … ” Alda says. “I really didn’t want to be a doctor; I wanted to be a writer and an actor.” Which is exactly what happened, but Alda didn’t leave science behind entirely. His new...
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The Making Of Emotions, From Pleasurable Fear To Bittersweet Relief
Emotions, the classic thinking goes, are innate, basic parts of our humanity. We are born with them, and when things happen to us, our emotions wash over us. “They happen to us, almost,” says Lisa Feldman Barrett, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University and a researcher at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital. She’s also...
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Specific long-term therapy may not prevent fractures in older women
Osteoporosis is a disease that causes thinning of the bones, loss of bone density, and increasingly fragile bones. This puts people at higher risk for bone fractures. Risk for the disease increases as we age. In fact, 50% of women over the age of 50 will experience a bone facture due to osteoporosis. By 2020,...
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Scientists find off-switch for the mTor complex
As the cell’s molecular control center, the mTor kinase regulates cellular metabolism, growth and division. However, in cells affected by pathological change, the regulation goes array. Therefore, it would be helpful if the central control could be simply turned off to suppress insulin resistance or cancerous growth for example. Scientists at the Leibniz–Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare...
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Small molecule prevents blood clots without increasing bleeding risk
It may be possible to disrupt harmful blood clots in people at risk for heart attack or stroke without increasing their risk of bleeding, according to a new study published in Nature Communications. The new research out of University Hospitals (UH) Cleveland Medical Center, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and the Cleveland Clinic reveals...
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Jab to stop damage after a heart attack: Protein in the injection helps to stimulate the growth of new muscle
The injection contains a protein called insulin-like growth factor 1 It’s been found to halt damage and stimulate growth of healthy new heart muscle Some 270,000 people in Britain have a heart attack every year A jab that starts working in minutes could repair damage done by a heart attack and prevent risk of future heart...