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Please interrupt me, but don't heat your fish
Bother me, I’m working
Although some of us have been comfortably functioning in a virtual work environment, others are now trickling back into the office. And you know what that means? People come to your desk to show you pictures of their cat or tell you about their kid’s birthday party. You may sneer at the interruption, but a study shows you actually like it.
A team of researchers at the University of Cincinnati surveyed 111 full-time employees twice a day for 3 weeks about their work experience. They asked about mental exhaustion, workplace interruptions, sense of belonging, and overall job satisfaction. They found that employees had a higher sense of belonging and job satisfaction when interrupted with a social versus work interruption.
“Interruptions can actually benefit individuals from an interpersonal perspective – people feel like they belong when others come and talk to them or ask them questions, even while being distracted from their tasks,” said Heather C. Vough, senior investigator and a former university faculty member.
Chitchatting at work is often seen as a distraction, but this study suggests that it’s not like heating up fish in the breakroom microwave.
So the next time someone hits you with the “Hey, do you have a sec?,” do yourself a favor and enjoy the interruption.
A smorgasbord of science
It’s probably difficult to recruit patients for some medical trials. Try this new drug and potentially get all sorts of interesting and unpleasant side effects. Pass. We suggest the approach a group of researchers from the University of Kansas took for a recent study into weight gain: Invite a bunch of 20-something adults to an all-you-can-eat buffet. They’ll be beating down your door in no time.
Their study, published in Appetite, focused on hyperpalatable food – the sort of food you can keep eating – and compared it with high-energy-dense food and ultra processed food. The test patients had their body composition measured, were let loose on the buffet, and were measured again a year later.
The patients who favored salty/carbohydrate-filled hyperpalatable food (such as pretzels or popcorn) were much more likely to gain weight, compared with those who focused on salty/fat-filled food of any variety. As a matter of fact, those who stuck to fatty food during the buffet had no change in weight over the 1-year study period. The researchers noted that those who ate the carb-filled food tended more toward hedonic eating, or the act of eating simply for pleasure.
The study is no doubt helpful in the long battle against obesity and overeating, but it’s also a very helpful guide to getting the most bang for your buck at the buffet. Stay away from the cheap salty snack food. Go for the steak and seafood. Get your money’s worth. In the long run you won’t even gain any weight. No promises about tomorrow though.
There’s a cheat code for that
For a large percentage of kids and young adults, and maybe even older adults (we don’t judge), a storm warning means a cozy night in playing video games. Staying inside is probably the safest bet when there’s a storm, and the weatherman never says to avoid playing video games when there’s lightning.
Maybe he should, though, since a man from Tennessee reportedly got struck by lightning through his game controller. Emergency crews determined that lightning either hit the man’s house or struck near it and went through the controller. The type of console was not revealed, even though some people may want to know the specifics before playing during the next storm.
Luckily, the man was not seriously hurt and did not need to go to the hospital. This is apparently not unheard of, as a professional gamer was shocked through a wired controller last year, causing burns on her hands and a broken controller.
This might be our cue to do less electrical types of activities during thunderstorms, like knitting or reading by candlelight.
Freeze, squeeze, and enjoy … cramping
As you were ingesting last week’s installment of the never-ending buffet that is LOTME, you probably wondered: What’s going on? Where’s the latest bodily insult being perpetuated by the gang over at TikTok?
Have no fear, good readers. We would never make you go 2 straight weeks without serving up some hyperpalatable TikTok tidbits.
Our bodily insult du jour is frozen honey, and it’s exploding all over TikTok … and a few other places. “The hashtag ‘#FrozenHoney’ has been viewed nearly 600 million times, and the hashtag ‘#FrozenHoneyChallenge’ has been viewed more than 80 million times,” NBC News recently reported.
After a few hours in the freezer, honey can be squeezed out of a plastic bottle as a semisolid, toothpastelike goo – it’s stiff enough to rise out of a container that’s pointed straight up – and bitten off in large chunks. And therein lies the problem.
Some people are overdoing it. “Honey is great, but having it in small amounts to sweeten is really a healthy relationship with food, and using it to get a lot of followers and a lot of attention and having it in excess amounts is crazy,” Kristin Kirkpatrick, a registered dietitian at the Cleveland Clinic, told NBC.
Besides the possible weight gain from eating massive amounts of sugar, experts warned that “gobbling up bottles of frozen honey” could lead to stomach cramping, bloating, and diarrhea. Some TikTokers, NBC noted, said that they “were running for the bathroom.”
As we said, it’s a trend that is exploding.
Be sure to tune in next week, when we learn how TikTokers use ground meat as a skin moisturizer.
Bother me, I’m working
Although some of us have been comfortably functioning in a virtual work environment, others are now trickling back into the office. And you know what that means? People come to your desk to show you pictures of their cat or tell you about their kid’s birthday party. You may sneer at the interruption, but a study shows you actually like it.
A team of researchers at the University of Cincinnati surveyed 111 full-time employees twice a day for 3 weeks about their work experience. They asked about mental exhaustion, workplace interruptions, sense of belonging, and overall job satisfaction. They found that employees had a higher sense of belonging and job satisfaction when interrupted with a social versus work interruption.
“Interruptions can actually benefit individuals from an interpersonal perspective – people feel like they belong when others come and talk to them or ask them questions, even while being distracted from their tasks,” said Heather C. Vough, senior investigator and a former university faculty member.
Chitchatting at work is often seen as a distraction, but this study suggests that it’s not like heating up fish in the breakroom microwave.
So the next time someone hits you with the “Hey, do you have a sec?,” do yourself a favor and enjoy the interruption.
A smorgasbord of science
It’s probably difficult to recruit patients for some medical trials. Try this new drug and potentially get all sorts of interesting and unpleasant side effects. Pass. We suggest the approach a group of researchers from the University of Kansas took for a recent study into weight gain: Invite a bunch of 20-something adults to an all-you-can-eat buffet. They’ll be beating down your door in no time.
Their study, published in Appetite, focused on hyperpalatable food – the sort of food you can keep eating – and compared it with high-energy-dense food and ultra processed food. The test patients had their body composition measured, were let loose on the buffet, and were measured again a year later.
The patients who favored salty/carbohydrate-filled hyperpalatable food (such as pretzels or popcorn) were much more likely to gain weight, compared with those who focused on salty/fat-filled food of any variety. As a matter of fact, those who stuck to fatty food during the buffet had no change in weight over the 1-year study period. The researchers noted that those who ate the carb-filled food tended more toward hedonic eating, or the act of eating simply for pleasure.
The study is no doubt helpful in the long battle against obesity and overeating, but it’s also a very helpful guide to getting the most bang for your buck at the buffet. Stay away from the cheap salty snack food. Go for the steak and seafood. Get your money’s worth. In the long run you won’t even gain any weight. No promises about tomorrow though.
There’s a cheat code for that
For a large percentage of kids and young adults, and maybe even older adults (we don’t judge), a storm warning means a cozy night in playing video games. Staying inside is probably the safest bet when there’s a storm, and the weatherman never says to avoid playing video games when there’s lightning.
Maybe he should, though, since a man from Tennessee reportedly got struck by lightning through his game controller. Emergency crews determined that lightning either hit the man’s house or struck near it and went through the controller. The type of console was not revealed, even though some people may want to know the specifics before playing during the next storm.
Luckily, the man was not seriously hurt and did not need to go to the hospital. This is apparently not unheard of, as a professional gamer was shocked through a wired controller last year, causing burns on her hands and a broken controller.
This might be our cue to do less electrical types of activities during thunderstorms, like knitting or reading by candlelight.
Freeze, squeeze, and enjoy … cramping
As you were ingesting last week’s installment of the never-ending buffet that is LOTME, you probably wondered: What’s going on? Where’s the latest bodily insult being perpetuated by the gang over at TikTok?
Have no fear, good readers. We would never make you go 2 straight weeks without serving up some hyperpalatable TikTok tidbits.
Our bodily insult du jour is frozen honey, and it’s exploding all over TikTok … and a few other places. “The hashtag ‘#FrozenHoney’ has been viewed nearly 600 million times, and the hashtag ‘#FrozenHoneyChallenge’ has been viewed more than 80 million times,” NBC News recently reported.
After a few hours in the freezer, honey can be squeezed out of a plastic bottle as a semisolid, toothpastelike goo – it’s stiff enough to rise out of a container that’s pointed straight up – and bitten off in large chunks. And therein lies the problem.
Some people are overdoing it. “Honey is great, but having it in small amounts to sweeten is really a healthy relationship with food, and using it to get a lot of followers and a lot of attention and having it in excess amounts is crazy,” Kristin Kirkpatrick, a registered dietitian at the Cleveland Clinic, told NBC.
Besides the possible weight gain from eating massive amounts of sugar, experts warned that “gobbling up bottles of frozen honey” could lead to stomach cramping, bloating, and diarrhea. Some TikTokers, NBC noted, said that they “were running for the bathroom.”
As we said, it’s a trend that is exploding.
Be sure to tune in next week, when we learn how TikTokers use ground meat as a skin moisturizer.
Bother me, I’m working
Although some of us have been comfortably functioning in a virtual work environment, others are now trickling back into the office. And you know what that means? People come to your desk to show you pictures of their cat or tell you about their kid’s birthday party. You may sneer at the interruption, but a study shows you actually like it.
A team of researchers at the University of Cincinnati surveyed 111 full-time employees twice a day for 3 weeks about their work experience. They asked about mental exhaustion, workplace interruptions, sense of belonging, and overall job satisfaction. They found that employees had a higher sense of belonging and job satisfaction when interrupted with a social versus work interruption.
“Interruptions can actually benefit individuals from an interpersonal perspective – people feel like they belong when others come and talk to them or ask them questions, even while being distracted from their tasks,” said Heather C. Vough, senior investigator and a former university faculty member.
Chitchatting at work is often seen as a distraction, but this study suggests that it’s not like heating up fish in the breakroom microwave.
So the next time someone hits you with the “Hey, do you have a sec?,” do yourself a favor and enjoy the interruption.
A smorgasbord of science
It’s probably difficult to recruit patients for some medical trials. Try this new drug and potentially get all sorts of interesting and unpleasant side effects. Pass. We suggest the approach a group of researchers from the University of Kansas took for a recent study into weight gain: Invite a bunch of 20-something adults to an all-you-can-eat buffet. They’ll be beating down your door in no time.
Their study, published in Appetite, focused on hyperpalatable food – the sort of food you can keep eating – and compared it with high-energy-dense food and ultra processed food. The test patients had their body composition measured, were let loose on the buffet, and were measured again a year later.
The patients who favored salty/carbohydrate-filled hyperpalatable food (such as pretzels or popcorn) were much more likely to gain weight, compared with those who focused on salty/fat-filled food of any variety. As a matter of fact, those who stuck to fatty food during the buffet had no change in weight over the 1-year study period. The researchers noted that those who ate the carb-filled food tended more toward hedonic eating, or the act of eating simply for pleasure.
The study is no doubt helpful in the long battle against obesity and overeating, but it’s also a very helpful guide to getting the most bang for your buck at the buffet. Stay away from the cheap salty snack food. Go for the steak and seafood. Get your money’s worth. In the long run you won’t even gain any weight. No promises about tomorrow though.
There’s a cheat code for that
For a large percentage of kids and young adults, and maybe even older adults (we don’t judge), a storm warning means a cozy night in playing video games. Staying inside is probably the safest bet when there’s a storm, and the weatherman never says to avoid playing video games when there’s lightning.
Maybe he should, though, since a man from Tennessee reportedly got struck by lightning through his game controller. Emergency crews determined that lightning either hit the man’s house or struck near it and went through the controller. The type of console was not revealed, even though some people may want to know the specifics before playing during the next storm.
Luckily, the man was not seriously hurt and did not need to go to the hospital. This is apparently not unheard of, as a professional gamer was shocked through a wired controller last year, causing burns on her hands and a broken controller.
This might be our cue to do less electrical types of activities during thunderstorms, like knitting or reading by candlelight.
Freeze, squeeze, and enjoy … cramping
As you were ingesting last week’s installment of the never-ending buffet that is LOTME, you probably wondered: What’s going on? Where’s the latest bodily insult being perpetuated by the gang over at TikTok?
Have no fear, good readers. We would never make you go 2 straight weeks without serving up some hyperpalatable TikTok tidbits.
Our bodily insult du jour is frozen honey, and it’s exploding all over TikTok … and a few other places. “The hashtag ‘#FrozenHoney’ has been viewed nearly 600 million times, and the hashtag ‘#FrozenHoneyChallenge’ has been viewed more than 80 million times,” NBC News recently reported.
After a few hours in the freezer, honey can be squeezed out of a plastic bottle as a semisolid, toothpastelike goo – it’s stiff enough to rise out of a container that’s pointed straight up – and bitten off in large chunks. And therein lies the problem.
Some people are overdoing it. “Honey is great, but having it in small amounts to sweeten is really a healthy relationship with food, and using it to get a lot of followers and a lot of attention and having it in excess amounts is crazy,” Kristin Kirkpatrick, a registered dietitian at the Cleveland Clinic, told NBC.
Besides the possible weight gain from eating massive amounts of sugar, experts warned that “gobbling up bottles of frozen honey” could lead to stomach cramping, bloating, and diarrhea. Some TikTokers, NBC noted, said that they “were running for the bathroom.”
As we said, it’s a trend that is exploding.
Be sure to tune in next week, when we learn how TikTokers use ground meat as a skin moisturizer.
Money buys life, and a cigarette maker wants to ‘unsmoke the world’
With COVID, the fun never ends
Welcome to America’s favorite pandemic-themed game show! Let’s play Covidiot Proof! And now, here’s your host, the lovely and talented Anthony Grouchy!
Tony: Hello everyone! Our first category today is America or [blank], and the first clue is for you, Don. This country requires “individuals to use a health pass to patronize indoor establishments such as restaurants, bars, nightclubs and cinemas.”
Don: Freedom-loving Americans would never stand for that, Tony, so I’m going to say Greece.
Tony: That’s correct, Don. One hundred points for you. Okay Joe, here’s your clue: In this country, some people wear disguises to get a COVID vaccination so their friends and families won’t find out.
Joe: Sounds like communism to me, Tony. I’ll say Cuba.
Tony: Sorry Joe, that’s incorrect. Don?
Don: The friends and families sound like freedom-loving Americans, so it must be America.
Tony: It is America. Missouri, to be exact. And now, one last question for both of you to win the game. True or false? Did the pastor of a church in Tennessee say that mask-wearers would be kicked out of the building because “I am not playing these Democrat games up in this church”?
Joe: That’s fake news, Tony. It’s gotta be false.
Tony: Incorrect! It’s absolutely true. That means today’s winner is … Joe? Yes, I’m being told that Tennessee goes to Joe.
Don: That’s bulls#&@! I won this thing! I’ll see you in court!
More money, more life
Does it seem to you that the wealthy live forever, while the less financially comfortable live shorter lives? If you answered, yes, it turns out that you’re right.
Researchers analyzed the effect of net worth at midlife with mortality. To take out genetic differences among the sample of 5,400 adults aged 46 years, the investigators also studied a subset of 2,490 twin and sibling pairs.
“The within-family association provides strong evidence that an association between wealth accumulation and life expectancy exists, because comparing siblings within the same family to each other controls for all of the life experience and biology that they share,” said coauthor Eric Finegood of Northwestern University, Chicago.
But what if one sibling has a history of cancer, heart disease, or other health conditions? The cost of treatment and employment limitations could affect someone’s ability to stack their wealth, right? Absolutely. The researchers took that into account and looked at only healthy individuals and found the same results. More money, longer life.
We have the policies and programs in place for heart health, diabetes prevention, and smoking cessation, as they are seen as major threats to public health. So why not do the same for financial security? A low bank account may just be more harmful.
Holding the ‘health care and wellness’ gun
Cigarettes are not good for us. We know this.
It’s, therefore, not surprising to learn that a business has requested for a U.K. ban on the sale of cigarettes by 2030. However, when that someone turns out to be the CEO of Philip Morris International, tobacco company and maker of Marlboro cigarettes, things get a little confusing.
Banning cigarettes, according to Jacek Olczak, would reduce confusion among consumers, many of whom feel that the alternatives are worse for their health. His company can “see the world without cigarettes ... and actually, the sooner it happens, the better it is for everyone.” A truly noble sentiment from the CEO of a large tobacco company. Nothing nefarious going on here.
And if those aren’t egregious business euphemisms, we don’t know what is.
Of course, for all the completely believable and sincere rhetoric, the fact is that Marlboros are still on the shelves. Philip Morris is still making and advertising them. If their concern was genuine, why wouldn’t they just stop manufacturing them now?
So, we ask ourselves if this a selfless act of kindness or is it an unscrupulous corporate act to get a leg up on their competitors? We’ll leave it up to the readers to decide.
Okay, we lied, it’s the second one.
Autopsy of the living dead
Imagine the absolute terror you’d feel if you opened your eyes to bright, blinding white lights only to see a bone saw 3 inches from your forehead and getting closer by the second. Horrifying for you, certainly, but think about the poor pathologist behind the saw who probably thought a zombie apocalypse was coming. This was close to being a reality for a 29-year-old prisoner at the Asturias Central Penitentiary in Spain.
Gonzalo Montoya Jiménez was discovered in his cell unresponsive. Three physicians examined him and found he was showing signs of death, such as cyanosis and rigor mortis. Mr. Jiménez was processed like any other body and was sent, in a body bag, to a hospital mortuary, where he spent time in a freezer for body preservation. Just before he was due for his autopsy, he began showing signs of life.
It’s not completely clear why this happened to poor Mr. Jiménez, but it was reported that he wasn’t feeling well the day before and that he has epilepsy. Hospital officials suggested he may have been cataleptic, possibly because he had trouble adhering to his medication schedule.
Mr. Jiménez was moved to another hospital under armed guard after coming back to life and regained consciousness after a day or so. Talk about cheating death.
With COVID, the fun never ends
Welcome to America’s favorite pandemic-themed game show! Let’s play Covidiot Proof! And now, here’s your host, the lovely and talented Anthony Grouchy!
Tony: Hello everyone! Our first category today is America or [blank], and the first clue is for you, Don. This country requires “individuals to use a health pass to patronize indoor establishments such as restaurants, bars, nightclubs and cinemas.”
Don: Freedom-loving Americans would never stand for that, Tony, so I’m going to say Greece.
Tony: That’s correct, Don. One hundred points for you. Okay Joe, here’s your clue: In this country, some people wear disguises to get a COVID vaccination so their friends and families won’t find out.
Joe: Sounds like communism to me, Tony. I’ll say Cuba.
Tony: Sorry Joe, that’s incorrect. Don?
Don: The friends and families sound like freedom-loving Americans, so it must be America.
Tony: It is America. Missouri, to be exact. And now, one last question for both of you to win the game. True or false? Did the pastor of a church in Tennessee say that mask-wearers would be kicked out of the building because “I am not playing these Democrat games up in this church”?
Joe: That’s fake news, Tony. It’s gotta be false.
Tony: Incorrect! It’s absolutely true. That means today’s winner is … Joe? Yes, I’m being told that Tennessee goes to Joe.
Don: That’s bulls#&@! I won this thing! I’ll see you in court!
More money, more life
Does it seem to you that the wealthy live forever, while the less financially comfortable live shorter lives? If you answered, yes, it turns out that you’re right.
Researchers analyzed the effect of net worth at midlife with mortality. To take out genetic differences among the sample of 5,400 adults aged 46 years, the investigators also studied a subset of 2,490 twin and sibling pairs.
“The within-family association provides strong evidence that an association between wealth accumulation and life expectancy exists, because comparing siblings within the same family to each other controls for all of the life experience and biology that they share,” said coauthor Eric Finegood of Northwestern University, Chicago.
But what if one sibling has a history of cancer, heart disease, or other health conditions? The cost of treatment and employment limitations could affect someone’s ability to stack their wealth, right? Absolutely. The researchers took that into account and looked at only healthy individuals and found the same results. More money, longer life.
We have the policies and programs in place for heart health, diabetes prevention, and smoking cessation, as they are seen as major threats to public health. So why not do the same for financial security? A low bank account may just be more harmful.
Holding the ‘health care and wellness’ gun
Cigarettes are not good for us. We know this.
It’s, therefore, not surprising to learn that a business has requested for a U.K. ban on the sale of cigarettes by 2030. However, when that someone turns out to be the CEO of Philip Morris International, tobacco company and maker of Marlboro cigarettes, things get a little confusing.
Banning cigarettes, according to Jacek Olczak, would reduce confusion among consumers, many of whom feel that the alternatives are worse for their health. His company can “see the world without cigarettes ... and actually, the sooner it happens, the better it is for everyone.” A truly noble sentiment from the CEO of a large tobacco company. Nothing nefarious going on here.
And if those aren’t egregious business euphemisms, we don’t know what is.
Of course, for all the completely believable and sincere rhetoric, the fact is that Marlboros are still on the shelves. Philip Morris is still making and advertising them. If their concern was genuine, why wouldn’t they just stop manufacturing them now?
So, we ask ourselves if this a selfless act of kindness or is it an unscrupulous corporate act to get a leg up on their competitors? We’ll leave it up to the readers to decide.
Okay, we lied, it’s the second one.
Autopsy of the living dead
Imagine the absolute terror you’d feel if you opened your eyes to bright, blinding white lights only to see a bone saw 3 inches from your forehead and getting closer by the second. Horrifying for you, certainly, but think about the poor pathologist behind the saw who probably thought a zombie apocalypse was coming. This was close to being a reality for a 29-year-old prisoner at the Asturias Central Penitentiary in Spain.
Gonzalo Montoya Jiménez was discovered in his cell unresponsive. Three physicians examined him and found he was showing signs of death, such as cyanosis and rigor mortis. Mr. Jiménez was processed like any other body and was sent, in a body bag, to a hospital mortuary, where he spent time in a freezer for body preservation. Just before he was due for his autopsy, he began showing signs of life.
It’s not completely clear why this happened to poor Mr. Jiménez, but it was reported that he wasn’t feeling well the day before and that he has epilepsy. Hospital officials suggested he may have been cataleptic, possibly because he had trouble adhering to his medication schedule.
Mr. Jiménez was moved to another hospital under armed guard after coming back to life and regained consciousness after a day or so. Talk about cheating death.
With COVID, the fun never ends
Welcome to America’s favorite pandemic-themed game show! Let’s play Covidiot Proof! And now, here’s your host, the lovely and talented Anthony Grouchy!
Tony: Hello everyone! Our first category today is America or [blank], and the first clue is for you, Don. This country requires “individuals to use a health pass to patronize indoor establishments such as restaurants, bars, nightclubs and cinemas.”
Don: Freedom-loving Americans would never stand for that, Tony, so I’m going to say Greece.
Tony: That’s correct, Don. One hundred points for you. Okay Joe, here’s your clue: In this country, some people wear disguises to get a COVID vaccination so their friends and families won’t find out.
Joe: Sounds like communism to me, Tony. I’ll say Cuba.
Tony: Sorry Joe, that’s incorrect. Don?
Don: The friends and families sound like freedom-loving Americans, so it must be America.
Tony: It is America. Missouri, to be exact. And now, one last question for both of you to win the game. True or false? Did the pastor of a church in Tennessee say that mask-wearers would be kicked out of the building because “I am not playing these Democrat games up in this church”?
Joe: That’s fake news, Tony. It’s gotta be false.
Tony: Incorrect! It’s absolutely true. That means today’s winner is … Joe? Yes, I’m being told that Tennessee goes to Joe.
Don: That’s bulls#&@! I won this thing! I’ll see you in court!
More money, more life
Does it seem to you that the wealthy live forever, while the less financially comfortable live shorter lives? If you answered, yes, it turns out that you’re right.
Researchers analyzed the effect of net worth at midlife with mortality. To take out genetic differences among the sample of 5,400 adults aged 46 years, the investigators also studied a subset of 2,490 twin and sibling pairs.
“The within-family association provides strong evidence that an association between wealth accumulation and life expectancy exists, because comparing siblings within the same family to each other controls for all of the life experience and biology that they share,” said coauthor Eric Finegood of Northwestern University, Chicago.
But what if one sibling has a history of cancer, heart disease, or other health conditions? The cost of treatment and employment limitations could affect someone’s ability to stack their wealth, right? Absolutely. The researchers took that into account and looked at only healthy individuals and found the same results. More money, longer life.
We have the policies and programs in place for heart health, diabetes prevention, and smoking cessation, as they are seen as major threats to public health. So why not do the same for financial security? A low bank account may just be more harmful.
Holding the ‘health care and wellness’ gun
Cigarettes are not good for us. We know this.
It’s, therefore, not surprising to learn that a business has requested for a U.K. ban on the sale of cigarettes by 2030. However, when that someone turns out to be the CEO of Philip Morris International, tobacco company and maker of Marlboro cigarettes, things get a little confusing.
Banning cigarettes, according to Jacek Olczak, would reduce confusion among consumers, many of whom feel that the alternatives are worse for their health. His company can “see the world without cigarettes ... and actually, the sooner it happens, the better it is for everyone.” A truly noble sentiment from the CEO of a large tobacco company. Nothing nefarious going on here.
And if those aren’t egregious business euphemisms, we don’t know what is.
Of course, for all the completely believable and sincere rhetoric, the fact is that Marlboros are still on the shelves. Philip Morris is still making and advertising them. If their concern was genuine, why wouldn’t they just stop manufacturing them now?
So, we ask ourselves if this a selfless act of kindness or is it an unscrupulous corporate act to get a leg up on their competitors? We’ll leave it up to the readers to decide.
Okay, we lied, it’s the second one.
Autopsy of the living dead
Imagine the absolute terror you’d feel if you opened your eyes to bright, blinding white lights only to see a bone saw 3 inches from your forehead and getting closer by the second. Horrifying for you, certainly, but think about the poor pathologist behind the saw who probably thought a zombie apocalypse was coming. This was close to being a reality for a 29-year-old prisoner at the Asturias Central Penitentiary in Spain.
Gonzalo Montoya Jiménez was discovered in his cell unresponsive. Three physicians examined him and found he was showing signs of death, such as cyanosis and rigor mortis. Mr. Jiménez was processed like any other body and was sent, in a body bag, to a hospital mortuary, where he spent time in a freezer for body preservation. Just before he was due for his autopsy, he began showing signs of life.
It’s not completely clear why this happened to poor Mr. Jiménez, but it was reported that he wasn’t feeling well the day before and that he has epilepsy. Hospital officials suggested he may have been cataleptic, possibly because he had trouble adhering to his medication schedule.
Mr. Jiménez was moved to another hospital under armed guard after coming back to life and regained consciousness after a day or so. Talk about cheating death.
Lucid abductions and Candy Crush addiction
I dream of alien abductions
There he goes! It’s lunchtime and your colleague Tom is going on and on again about that time he was abducted by aliens. It sounds ridiculous, but he does make some convincing arguments. Tom thinks it was real, but could it have all just been in his head?
Lucid dreaming may help explain alleged alien abductions. During a lucid dream, people know that they’re dreaming, and can also have some control over how the dreams play out. During some dream states, a person can feel intense sensations, such as terror and paralysis, so it’s no wonder these dreams feel so real.
In a recent study, scientists encouraged 152 participants who had self-identified as lucid dreamers to dream about aliens. Many (75%) of the participants were able to dream about alien encounters, and 15% “achieved relatively realistic experiences,” the investigators reported.
So cut Tom some slack. He’s not crazy, he might just have lucid dreaming privileges. Tell him he should dream about something more fun, like a vacation in the Bahamas.
Follow your heart: Drink more coffee
It seems like the world is divided into coffee drinkers and non–coffee drinkers. Then there’s decaf and regular drinkers. Whichever camp you fall into, know this: The widespread belief that caffeine consumption has an effect on your heart is all beans.
In what is the largest investigation of its kind, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, looked into whether drinking caffeinated coffee was linked to a risk for heart arrhythmia. They also researched whether patients with genetic variants that affect their metabolism could change that association. Almost 400,000 people with a mean age of 56 years participated in the study. More than half of the participants were women.
The investigators analyzed the participants’ self-reported coffee consumption using a technique called Mendelian randomization to leverage genetic data with the participants’ relationship with caffeine, making it an even field and not relying on the participant consumption self-reporting for outcomes as in previous studies.
What they found, after the 4-year follow up, was nothing short of myth busting.
“We found no evidence that caffeine consumption leads to a greater risk of arrhythmias,” said senior and corresponding author Gregory Marcus, MD. “Our population-based study provides reassurance that common prohibitions against caffeine to reduce arrhythmia risk are likely unwarranted.”
There was no evidence of a heightened risk of arrhythmias in participants who were genetically predisposed to metabolize caffeine differently from those who were not. And, there was a 3% reduction of arrhythmias in patients who consumed higher amounts of coffee.
We are not lobbying for Big Caffeine, but this study adds to the reported health benefits linked to coffee, which already include reduced risk for cancer, diabetes, and Parkinson’s disease, with an added bonus of anti-inflammatory benefits. So, the next time you’re hesitant to pour that second cup of Joe, just go for it. Your heart can take it.
Bored? Feeling down? Don’t play Candy Crush
Now hang on, aren’t those the perfect times to play video games? If there’s nothing else to do, why not open Candy Crush and mindlessly power through the levels?
Because, according to a study by a group of Canadian researchers, it’s actually the worst thing you can do. Well, maybe not literally, but it’s not helpful. Researchers recruited 60 Candy Crush players who were at various levels in the game. They had the participants play early levels that were far too easy or levels balanced with their gameplay abilities.
Players in the easy-level group got bored and quit far earlier than did those in the advanced-level group. The group playing to their abilities were able to access a “flow” state and focus all their attention on the game. While this is all well and good for their gaming performance, according to the researchers, it confirms the theory that playing to escape boredom or negative emotions is more likely to lead to addiction. As with all addictions, the temporary high can give way to a self-repeating loop, causing patients to ignore real life and deepen depression.
The researchers hope their findings will encourage game developers to “consider implementing responsible video gaming tools directly within their games.” Comedy gold. Perhaps Canadians’ idea of capitalism is a little different from that of those south of the border.
Hiccups and vaccine refusal
Tonight, LOTME News dives into the fetid cesspool that is international politics and comes out with … hiccups?
But first, a word from our sponsor, Fearless Boxing Club of South Etobicoke, Ontario.
Are you looking to flout public health restrictions? Do you want to spend time in an enclosed space with other people who haven’t gotten the COVID-19 vaccine? Do you “feel safer waiting until more research is done on the side effects being discovered right now”? (We are not making this up.)
Then join the Fearless Boxing Club, because we “will not be accepting any vaccinated members.” Our founders, Mohammed Abedeen and Krystal Glazier-Roscoe, are working hard to exclude “those who received the experimental COVID vaccine.” (Still not making it up.)
And now, back to the news.
Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro was hospitalized recently for a severe case of hiccups that may have been related to a stab wound he received in 2018. [Nope, didn’t make that up, either.]
Mr. Bolsonaro had been hiccuping for 10 days, and was experiencing abdominal pain and difficulty speaking, when he entered the hospital on July 14. Since being stabbed while on the campaign trail, he has undergone several operations, which may have led to the partial intestinal obstruction that caused his latest symptoms.
His medical team advised Mr. Bolsonaro to go on a diet to aid his recovery, but when he was released on July 18 he said, “I hope in 10 days I’ll be eating barbecued ribs.” (Maybe this is all just a lucid dream. Probably shouldn’t have had ribs right before bed.)
I dream of alien abductions
There he goes! It’s lunchtime and your colleague Tom is going on and on again about that time he was abducted by aliens. It sounds ridiculous, but he does make some convincing arguments. Tom thinks it was real, but could it have all just been in his head?
Lucid dreaming may help explain alleged alien abductions. During a lucid dream, people know that they’re dreaming, and can also have some control over how the dreams play out. During some dream states, a person can feel intense sensations, such as terror and paralysis, so it’s no wonder these dreams feel so real.
In a recent study, scientists encouraged 152 participants who had self-identified as lucid dreamers to dream about aliens. Many (75%) of the participants were able to dream about alien encounters, and 15% “achieved relatively realistic experiences,” the investigators reported.
So cut Tom some slack. He’s not crazy, he might just have lucid dreaming privileges. Tell him he should dream about something more fun, like a vacation in the Bahamas.
Follow your heart: Drink more coffee
It seems like the world is divided into coffee drinkers and non–coffee drinkers. Then there’s decaf and regular drinkers. Whichever camp you fall into, know this: The widespread belief that caffeine consumption has an effect on your heart is all beans.
In what is the largest investigation of its kind, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, looked into whether drinking caffeinated coffee was linked to a risk for heart arrhythmia. They also researched whether patients with genetic variants that affect their metabolism could change that association. Almost 400,000 people with a mean age of 56 years participated in the study. More than half of the participants were women.
The investigators analyzed the participants’ self-reported coffee consumption using a technique called Mendelian randomization to leverage genetic data with the participants’ relationship with caffeine, making it an even field and not relying on the participant consumption self-reporting for outcomes as in previous studies.
What they found, after the 4-year follow up, was nothing short of myth busting.
“We found no evidence that caffeine consumption leads to a greater risk of arrhythmias,” said senior and corresponding author Gregory Marcus, MD. “Our population-based study provides reassurance that common prohibitions against caffeine to reduce arrhythmia risk are likely unwarranted.”
There was no evidence of a heightened risk of arrhythmias in participants who were genetically predisposed to metabolize caffeine differently from those who were not. And, there was a 3% reduction of arrhythmias in patients who consumed higher amounts of coffee.
We are not lobbying for Big Caffeine, but this study adds to the reported health benefits linked to coffee, which already include reduced risk for cancer, diabetes, and Parkinson’s disease, with an added bonus of anti-inflammatory benefits. So, the next time you’re hesitant to pour that second cup of Joe, just go for it. Your heart can take it.
Bored? Feeling down? Don’t play Candy Crush
Now hang on, aren’t those the perfect times to play video games? If there’s nothing else to do, why not open Candy Crush and mindlessly power through the levels?
Because, according to a study by a group of Canadian researchers, it’s actually the worst thing you can do. Well, maybe not literally, but it’s not helpful. Researchers recruited 60 Candy Crush players who were at various levels in the game. They had the participants play early levels that were far too easy or levels balanced with their gameplay abilities.
Players in the easy-level group got bored and quit far earlier than did those in the advanced-level group. The group playing to their abilities were able to access a “flow” state and focus all their attention on the game. While this is all well and good for their gaming performance, according to the researchers, it confirms the theory that playing to escape boredom or negative emotions is more likely to lead to addiction. As with all addictions, the temporary high can give way to a self-repeating loop, causing patients to ignore real life and deepen depression.
The researchers hope their findings will encourage game developers to “consider implementing responsible video gaming tools directly within their games.” Comedy gold. Perhaps Canadians’ idea of capitalism is a little different from that of those south of the border.
Hiccups and vaccine refusal
Tonight, LOTME News dives into the fetid cesspool that is international politics and comes out with … hiccups?
But first, a word from our sponsor, Fearless Boxing Club of South Etobicoke, Ontario.
Are you looking to flout public health restrictions? Do you want to spend time in an enclosed space with other people who haven’t gotten the COVID-19 vaccine? Do you “feel safer waiting until more research is done on the side effects being discovered right now”? (We are not making this up.)
Then join the Fearless Boxing Club, because we “will not be accepting any vaccinated members.” Our founders, Mohammed Abedeen and Krystal Glazier-Roscoe, are working hard to exclude “those who received the experimental COVID vaccine.” (Still not making it up.)
And now, back to the news.
Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro was hospitalized recently for a severe case of hiccups that may have been related to a stab wound he received in 2018. [Nope, didn’t make that up, either.]
Mr. Bolsonaro had been hiccuping for 10 days, and was experiencing abdominal pain and difficulty speaking, when he entered the hospital on July 14. Since being stabbed while on the campaign trail, he has undergone several operations, which may have led to the partial intestinal obstruction that caused his latest symptoms.
His medical team advised Mr. Bolsonaro to go on a diet to aid his recovery, but when he was released on July 18 he said, “I hope in 10 days I’ll be eating barbecued ribs.” (Maybe this is all just a lucid dream. Probably shouldn’t have had ribs right before bed.)
I dream of alien abductions
There he goes! It’s lunchtime and your colleague Tom is going on and on again about that time he was abducted by aliens. It sounds ridiculous, but he does make some convincing arguments. Tom thinks it was real, but could it have all just been in his head?
Lucid dreaming may help explain alleged alien abductions. During a lucid dream, people know that they’re dreaming, and can also have some control over how the dreams play out. During some dream states, a person can feel intense sensations, such as terror and paralysis, so it’s no wonder these dreams feel so real.
In a recent study, scientists encouraged 152 participants who had self-identified as lucid dreamers to dream about aliens. Many (75%) of the participants were able to dream about alien encounters, and 15% “achieved relatively realistic experiences,” the investigators reported.
So cut Tom some slack. He’s not crazy, he might just have lucid dreaming privileges. Tell him he should dream about something more fun, like a vacation in the Bahamas.
Follow your heart: Drink more coffee
It seems like the world is divided into coffee drinkers and non–coffee drinkers. Then there’s decaf and regular drinkers. Whichever camp you fall into, know this: The widespread belief that caffeine consumption has an effect on your heart is all beans.
In what is the largest investigation of its kind, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, looked into whether drinking caffeinated coffee was linked to a risk for heart arrhythmia. They also researched whether patients with genetic variants that affect their metabolism could change that association. Almost 400,000 people with a mean age of 56 years participated in the study. More than half of the participants were women.
The investigators analyzed the participants’ self-reported coffee consumption using a technique called Mendelian randomization to leverage genetic data with the participants’ relationship with caffeine, making it an even field and not relying on the participant consumption self-reporting for outcomes as in previous studies.
What they found, after the 4-year follow up, was nothing short of myth busting.
“We found no evidence that caffeine consumption leads to a greater risk of arrhythmias,” said senior and corresponding author Gregory Marcus, MD. “Our population-based study provides reassurance that common prohibitions against caffeine to reduce arrhythmia risk are likely unwarranted.”
There was no evidence of a heightened risk of arrhythmias in participants who were genetically predisposed to metabolize caffeine differently from those who were not. And, there was a 3% reduction of arrhythmias in patients who consumed higher amounts of coffee.
We are not lobbying for Big Caffeine, but this study adds to the reported health benefits linked to coffee, which already include reduced risk for cancer, diabetes, and Parkinson’s disease, with an added bonus of anti-inflammatory benefits. So, the next time you’re hesitant to pour that second cup of Joe, just go for it. Your heart can take it.
Bored? Feeling down? Don’t play Candy Crush
Now hang on, aren’t those the perfect times to play video games? If there’s nothing else to do, why not open Candy Crush and mindlessly power through the levels?
Because, according to a study by a group of Canadian researchers, it’s actually the worst thing you can do. Well, maybe not literally, but it’s not helpful. Researchers recruited 60 Candy Crush players who were at various levels in the game. They had the participants play early levels that were far too easy or levels balanced with their gameplay abilities.
Players in the easy-level group got bored and quit far earlier than did those in the advanced-level group. The group playing to their abilities were able to access a “flow” state and focus all their attention on the game. While this is all well and good for their gaming performance, according to the researchers, it confirms the theory that playing to escape boredom or negative emotions is more likely to lead to addiction. As with all addictions, the temporary high can give way to a self-repeating loop, causing patients to ignore real life and deepen depression.
The researchers hope their findings will encourage game developers to “consider implementing responsible video gaming tools directly within their games.” Comedy gold. Perhaps Canadians’ idea of capitalism is a little different from that of those south of the border.
Hiccups and vaccine refusal
Tonight, LOTME News dives into the fetid cesspool that is international politics and comes out with … hiccups?
But first, a word from our sponsor, Fearless Boxing Club of South Etobicoke, Ontario.
Are you looking to flout public health restrictions? Do you want to spend time in an enclosed space with other people who haven’t gotten the COVID-19 vaccine? Do you “feel safer waiting until more research is done on the side effects being discovered right now”? (We are not making this up.)
Then join the Fearless Boxing Club, because we “will not be accepting any vaccinated members.” Our founders, Mohammed Abedeen and Krystal Glazier-Roscoe, are working hard to exclude “those who received the experimental COVID vaccine.” (Still not making it up.)
And now, back to the news.
Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro was hospitalized recently for a severe case of hiccups that may have been related to a stab wound he received in 2018. [Nope, didn’t make that up, either.]
Mr. Bolsonaro had been hiccuping for 10 days, and was experiencing abdominal pain and difficulty speaking, when he entered the hospital on July 14. Since being stabbed while on the campaign trail, he has undergone several operations, which may have led to the partial intestinal obstruction that caused his latest symptoms.
His medical team advised Mr. Bolsonaro to go on a diet to aid his recovery, but when he was released on July 18 he said, “I hope in 10 days I’ll be eating barbecued ribs.” (Maybe this is all just a lucid dream. Probably shouldn’t have had ribs right before bed.)
Dogs know their humans, but humans don’t know expiration dates
An extreme price to pay for immortality
We know that men don’t live as long as women, but the reasons aren’t entirely clear. However, some New Zealand scientists have a thought on the subject, thanks to a sheep called Shrek.
The researchers were inspired by a famous old sheep who escaped captivity, but was captured 6 years later at the age of 10. The sheep then lived 6 more years, far beyond the lifespan of a normal sheep, capturing the hearts and minds of Kiwis everywhere. Look, it’s New Zealand, sheep are life, so it’s only natural the country got attached. Scientists from the University of Otago suspected that Shrek lived such a long life because he was castrated.
So they undertook a study of sheep, and lo and behold, sheep that were castrated lived significantly longer than their uncastrated kin, thanks to a slowing of their epigenetic clocks – the DNA aged noticeably slower in the castrated sheep.
Although the research can most immediately be applied to the improvement of the New Zealand sheep industry, the implication for humanity is also apparent. Want to live longer? Get rid of the testosterone. An extreme solution to be sure. As previously reported in this column, researchers wanted to torture our mouths to get us to lose weight, and now they want to castrate people for longer life. What exactly is going on down there in New Zealand?
Man’s best mind reader
There are a lot of reasons why dogs are sometimes called “man’s best friend,” but the root of it may actually have something to do with how easily we communicate with each other. Researchers dug deeper and fetched something that Fido is born with, but his wild wolf cousin isn’t.
That something is known as the “theory of mind” ability. Have you noticed that when you point and tell dogs to grab a leash or toy, they react as if they understood the language you spoke? Researchers from Duke University wondered if this ability is a canine thing or just a domesticated dog thing.
They compared 44 canine puppies and 37 wolf pups between 5 and 18 weeks old. The wolf pups were taken into human homes and raised with a great amount of human interaction, while the dog pups were left with their mothers and raised with less human interaction.
All the puppies were then put through multiple tests. In one test, they were given clues to find a treat under a bowl. In another test, a block of wood was placed next to the treat as a physical marker. During yet another test, researchers pointed to the food directly.
The researchers discovered that the dog puppies knew where the treat was every time, while their wild relatives didn’t.
“This study really solidifies the evidence that the social genius of dogs is a product of domestication,” senior author Brian Hare said in a separate statement.
The domestication hypothesis theorizes that dogs picked up the human social cues through thousands of years of interaction. The more friendly and cooperative a wolf was with humans, the more likely it was to survive and pass on those same traits and practices. Even within the study, the dog puppies were 30 times more likely to approach a stranger than were the wolf pups.
You may think your dog understands everything you say, but it’s actually body language that Fido is most fluent in.
I’m not a dentist, but I play one on TikTok
In last week’s column, it was garlic cloves up the nose to treat a cold. This week, TikTok brings us a new way to whiten teeth.
Familiar with the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser? If not, we’ll save you the trouble of Googling it: Check it out here and here.
Have you heard anything about using it to clean your teeth? No, neither did we, and we did a lot of Googling. Proctor & Gamble, which makes the Magic Eraser, goes so far as to say on the package: “Do not use on skin or other parts of the body. Using on skin will likely cause abrasions.” (The warning is actually in all caps, but we are stylistically forbidden by our editorial overlords to do that.)
But it’s magic, right? How can you not use it on your teeth? Enter TikTok. Heather Dunn posted a video in which she rubbed a bit of a Magic Eraser on her teeth – being careful to avoid her gums, because you can never be too careful – “as the product squeaked back and forth,” the Miami Herald reported. The video has almost 256,000 likes so far.
“Yeah, your teeth are white because you scrubbed all the enamel off them. So don’t do this,” Dr. Benjamin Winters, aka the Bentist, said in a YouTube video that has 105,000 likes.
In this race for common sense, common sense is losing. Please help the Bentist restore sanity to the dental world by liking his video. It would make Mr. Clean happy.
Don’t let an expiration date boss you around
Surely you’ve been there: It’s Taco Tuesday and you’re rummaging through the refrigerator to find that shredded cheese you’re sure you have. Jackpot! You find it, but realize it’s probably been in the refrigerator for a while. You open the bag, it smells and looks fine, but the expiration date was 2 days ago. Now you have a decision to make. Maybe you’ll be fine, or maybe you’ll risk food poisoning right before your brother’s wedding.
But here’s the truth: Americans throw away perfectly good food every day. The average American family throws out $1,365 to $2,275 worth of food a year, according to a 2013 study.
Truthfully, expiration dates are not for buyers, rather they’re for stores to have an idea of their stock’s freshness. Emily Broad Leib, director of the Harvard Law School Food and Policy Clinic and lead author of the 2013 study, told Vox that manufacturers use the dates as a way of “protecting the brand” to keep consumers from eating food that’s just a little past its peak.
With approximately 40 million people in the United States concerned about where their next meal is coming from, the Vox article noted, we need to reevaluate our system. Our national misunderstanding of expiration labels is hurting both suppliers and consumers because perfectly good food is wasted.
Sure, there is always that chance that something might be a little funky after a certain amount of time, but all in all, food probably stays fresh a lot longer than we think. Don’t always judge the shredded cheese by its expiration date.
An extreme price to pay for immortality
We know that men don’t live as long as women, but the reasons aren’t entirely clear. However, some New Zealand scientists have a thought on the subject, thanks to a sheep called Shrek.
The researchers were inspired by a famous old sheep who escaped captivity, but was captured 6 years later at the age of 10. The sheep then lived 6 more years, far beyond the lifespan of a normal sheep, capturing the hearts and minds of Kiwis everywhere. Look, it’s New Zealand, sheep are life, so it’s only natural the country got attached. Scientists from the University of Otago suspected that Shrek lived such a long life because he was castrated.
So they undertook a study of sheep, and lo and behold, sheep that were castrated lived significantly longer than their uncastrated kin, thanks to a slowing of their epigenetic clocks – the DNA aged noticeably slower in the castrated sheep.
Although the research can most immediately be applied to the improvement of the New Zealand sheep industry, the implication for humanity is also apparent. Want to live longer? Get rid of the testosterone. An extreme solution to be sure. As previously reported in this column, researchers wanted to torture our mouths to get us to lose weight, and now they want to castrate people for longer life. What exactly is going on down there in New Zealand?
Man’s best mind reader
There are a lot of reasons why dogs are sometimes called “man’s best friend,” but the root of it may actually have something to do with how easily we communicate with each other. Researchers dug deeper and fetched something that Fido is born with, but his wild wolf cousin isn’t.
That something is known as the “theory of mind” ability. Have you noticed that when you point and tell dogs to grab a leash or toy, they react as if they understood the language you spoke? Researchers from Duke University wondered if this ability is a canine thing or just a domesticated dog thing.
They compared 44 canine puppies and 37 wolf pups between 5 and 18 weeks old. The wolf pups were taken into human homes and raised with a great amount of human interaction, while the dog pups were left with their mothers and raised with less human interaction.
All the puppies were then put through multiple tests. In one test, they were given clues to find a treat under a bowl. In another test, a block of wood was placed next to the treat as a physical marker. During yet another test, researchers pointed to the food directly.
The researchers discovered that the dog puppies knew where the treat was every time, while their wild relatives didn’t.
“This study really solidifies the evidence that the social genius of dogs is a product of domestication,” senior author Brian Hare said in a separate statement.
The domestication hypothesis theorizes that dogs picked up the human social cues through thousands of years of interaction. The more friendly and cooperative a wolf was with humans, the more likely it was to survive and pass on those same traits and practices. Even within the study, the dog puppies were 30 times more likely to approach a stranger than were the wolf pups.
You may think your dog understands everything you say, but it’s actually body language that Fido is most fluent in.
I’m not a dentist, but I play one on TikTok
In last week’s column, it was garlic cloves up the nose to treat a cold. This week, TikTok brings us a new way to whiten teeth.
Familiar with the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser? If not, we’ll save you the trouble of Googling it: Check it out here and here.
Have you heard anything about using it to clean your teeth? No, neither did we, and we did a lot of Googling. Proctor & Gamble, which makes the Magic Eraser, goes so far as to say on the package: “Do not use on skin or other parts of the body. Using on skin will likely cause abrasions.” (The warning is actually in all caps, but we are stylistically forbidden by our editorial overlords to do that.)
But it’s magic, right? How can you not use it on your teeth? Enter TikTok. Heather Dunn posted a video in which she rubbed a bit of a Magic Eraser on her teeth – being careful to avoid her gums, because you can never be too careful – “as the product squeaked back and forth,” the Miami Herald reported. The video has almost 256,000 likes so far.
“Yeah, your teeth are white because you scrubbed all the enamel off them. So don’t do this,” Dr. Benjamin Winters, aka the Bentist, said in a YouTube video that has 105,000 likes.
In this race for common sense, common sense is losing. Please help the Bentist restore sanity to the dental world by liking his video. It would make Mr. Clean happy.
Don’t let an expiration date boss you around
Surely you’ve been there: It’s Taco Tuesday and you’re rummaging through the refrigerator to find that shredded cheese you’re sure you have. Jackpot! You find it, but realize it’s probably been in the refrigerator for a while. You open the bag, it smells and looks fine, but the expiration date was 2 days ago. Now you have a decision to make. Maybe you’ll be fine, or maybe you’ll risk food poisoning right before your brother’s wedding.
But here’s the truth: Americans throw away perfectly good food every day. The average American family throws out $1,365 to $2,275 worth of food a year, according to a 2013 study.
Truthfully, expiration dates are not for buyers, rather they’re for stores to have an idea of their stock’s freshness. Emily Broad Leib, director of the Harvard Law School Food and Policy Clinic and lead author of the 2013 study, told Vox that manufacturers use the dates as a way of “protecting the brand” to keep consumers from eating food that’s just a little past its peak.
With approximately 40 million people in the United States concerned about where their next meal is coming from, the Vox article noted, we need to reevaluate our system. Our national misunderstanding of expiration labels is hurting both suppliers and consumers because perfectly good food is wasted.
Sure, there is always that chance that something might be a little funky after a certain amount of time, but all in all, food probably stays fresh a lot longer than we think. Don’t always judge the shredded cheese by its expiration date.
An extreme price to pay for immortality
We know that men don’t live as long as women, but the reasons aren’t entirely clear. However, some New Zealand scientists have a thought on the subject, thanks to a sheep called Shrek.
The researchers were inspired by a famous old sheep who escaped captivity, but was captured 6 years later at the age of 10. The sheep then lived 6 more years, far beyond the lifespan of a normal sheep, capturing the hearts and minds of Kiwis everywhere. Look, it’s New Zealand, sheep are life, so it’s only natural the country got attached. Scientists from the University of Otago suspected that Shrek lived such a long life because he was castrated.
So they undertook a study of sheep, and lo and behold, sheep that were castrated lived significantly longer than their uncastrated kin, thanks to a slowing of their epigenetic clocks – the DNA aged noticeably slower in the castrated sheep.
Although the research can most immediately be applied to the improvement of the New Zealand sheep industry, the implication for humanity is also apparent. Want to live longer? Get rid of the testosterone. An extreme solution to be sure. As previously reported in this column, researchers wanted to torture our mouths to get us to lose weight, and now they want to castrate people for longer life. What exactly is going on down there in New Zealand?
Man’s best mind reader
There are a lot of reasons why dogs are sometimes called “man’s best friend,” but the root of it may actually have something to do with how easily we communicate with each other. Researchers dug deeper and fetched something that Fido is born with, but his wild wolf cousin isn’t.
That something is known as the “theory of mind” ability. Have you noticed that when you point and tell dogs to grab a leash or toy, they react as if they understood the language you spoke? Researchers from Duke University wondered if this ability is a canine thing or just a domesticated dog thing.
They compared 44 canine puppies and 37 wolf pups between 5 and 18 weeks old. The wolf pups were taken into human homes and raised with a great amount of human interaction, while the dog pups were left with their mothers and raised with less human interaction.
All the puppies were then put through multiple tests. In one test, they were given clues to find a treat under a bowl. In another test, a block of wood was placed next to the treat as a physical marker. During yet another test, researchers pointed to the food directly.
The researchers discovered that the dog puppies knew where the treat was every time, while their wild relatives didn’t.
“This study really solidifies the evidence that the social genius of dogs is a product of domestication,” senior author Brian Hare said in a separate statement.
The domestication hypothesis theorizes that dogs picked up the human social cues through thousands of years of interaction. The more friendly and cooperative a wolf was with humans, the more likely it was to survive and pass on those same traits and practices. Even within the study, the dog puppies were 30 times more likely to approach a stranger than were the wolf pups.
You may think your dog understands everything you say, but it’s actually body language that Fido is most fluent in.
I’m not a dentist, but I play one on TikTok
In last week’s column, it was garlic cloves up the nose to treat a cold. This week, TikTok brings us a new way to whiten teeth.
Familiar with the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser? If not, we’ll save you the trouble of Googling it: Check it out here and here.
Have you heard anything about using it to clean your teeth? No, neither did we, and we did a lot of Googling. Proctor & Gamble, which makes the Magic Eraser, goes so far as to say on the package: “Do not use on skin or other parts of the body. Using on skin will likely cause abrasions.” (The warning is actually in all caps, but we are stylistically forbidden by our editorial overlords to do that.)
But it’s magic, right? How can you not use it on your teeth? Enter TikTok. Heather Dunn posted a video in which she rubbed a bit of a Magic Eraser on her teeth – being careful to avoid her gums, because you can never be too careful – “as the product squeaked back and forth,” the Miami Herald reported. The video has almost 256,000 likes so far.
“Yeah, your teeth are white because you scrubbed all the enamel off them. So don’t do this,” Dr. Benjamin Winters, aka the Bentist, said in a YouTube video that has 105,000 likes.
In this race for common sense, common sense is losing. Please help the Bentist restore sanity to the dental world by liking his video. It would make Mr. Clean happy.
Don’t let an expiration date boss you around
Surely you’ve been there: It’s Taco Tuesday and you’re rummaging through the refrigerator to find that shredded cheese you’re sure you have. Jackpot! You find it, but realize it’s probably been in the refrigerator for a while. You open the bag, it smells and looks fine, but the expiration date was 2 days ago. Now you have a decision to make. Maybe you’ll be fine, or maybe you’ll risk food poisoning right before your brother’s wedding.
But here’s the truth: Americans throw away perfectly good food every day. The average American family throws out $1,365 to $2,275 worth of food a year, according to a 2013 study.
Truthfully, expiration dates are not for buyers, rather they’re for stores to have an idea of their stock’s freshness. Emily Broad Leib, director of the Harvard Law School Food and Policy Clinic and lead author of the 2013 study, told Vox that manufacturers use the dates as a way of “protecting the brand” to keep consumers from eating food that’s just a little past its peak.
With approximately 40 million people in the United States concerned about where their next meal is coming from, the Vox article noted, we need to reevaluate our system. Our national misunderstanding of expiration labels is hurting both suppliers and consumers because perfectly good food is wasted.
Sure, there is always that chance that something might be a little funky after a certain amount of time, but all in all, food probably stays fresh a lot longer than we think. Don’t always judge the shredded cheese by its expiration date.
Garlic cloves in the nose and beer dreams and pareidolia faces
Insert clove A into nostril B
Just when you start wondering what crazy and potentially dangerous thing people can do to themselves next, comes a crazy and potentially dangerous new trend. The good folks at TikTok have provided patients a new treatment for stuffed up sinuses.
Dangerous? Well, that’s what doctors say, anyway.
“We typically do not recommend putting anything into the nostril for the obvious fact that it could get dislodged or lodged up into the nasal cavity,” Anthony Del Signore, MD, of Mount Sinai Union Square, New York, told TODAY.
“Not only does it have the potential to rot or cause a nasal obstruction, it can induce an episode of sinusitis,” Omid Mehdizadeh, MD, of Providence Saint John’s Health Center, Santa Monica, Calif., explained to Shape.
But who doesn't want to breathe easier and keep blood-sucking vampires at bay?
TikTokers are posting videos of themselves sticking garlic cloves in their nostrils for several minutes. They, “then, pull the garlic out, followed, typically, by long strands of mucus,” according to The Hill.
That can’t be real, you’re probably saying. Or maybe you think that no one is actually watching this stuff. Well, wake up! This isn’t network television we’re talking about. It’s freakin’ TikTok! One video has been favorited over half a million times. Another is up to 2.2 million.
It’s all true. Really. We couldn’t make this stuff up if we tried.
Seeing faces in random places?
Ever look up at the clouds, at a fast-moving train, or into your morning bowl of cereal and see two eyes, a nose, and a mouth looking back at you? You may shake it off and think you’re imagining something, but it's actually your brain doing what it’s built to do and researchers know why.
The phenomenon is called face pareidolia, and it’s technically an error function of the human brain. Evolution has molded our brains to rapidly identify faces, according to David Alais, PhD, of the University of Sydney, Australia, lead author of the study.
“But the system plays ‘fast and loose’ by applying a crude template of two eyes over a nose and mouth. Lots of things can satisfy that template and thus trigger a face detection response,” he said in a separate statement. But not only are we seeing faces, our brains go one step further and seemingly give those faces feelings.
In the study, Dr. Alais and his team looked for two things about each pareidolia face: Was it analyzed for facial expression or just rejected as a face altogether? The participants were shown a series of faces and then asked to rate the expression on a scale from angry to happy. What the researchers found was that once a face was detected, the brain analyzed the pareidolia face in the same way as a human face. Have you ever seen an angry trash can? Or a smile on an over-easy egg?
The other question faced: Was there a bias on emotion? Yup, and excuse the dad joke.
The researchers showed a mixed series of human faces and pareidolia faces to participants and found that responses were influenced by the previous face seen, no matter if the face was human or not.
So if someone smiled at you on the way to the grocery store and you see a grinning tomato in the produce section, your mind is playing tricks on you, and it’s totally normal.
Corporate dream manipulation
Advertisements are quite literally everywhere. On billboards, in commercials, in videos, in movies; the list goes on and on. Still, at least you can shut your eyes and be mercifully free of corporate interference inside your own head, right? Right?
Early in 2021, Coors launched an ad campaign that seemed to be a b bit of a gimmick, if not a joke. Coors claimed that if people watched an ad before bed, and played an 8-hour soundscape while sleeping, their dreams would be filled with crisp mountains and cold, thirst-quenching beverages. While, the Coors campaign didn’t go viral, someone was paying attention. A group of 35 leading researchers published an open letter on the subject of corporate dream manipulation, in the journal Dream Engineering.
"Multiple marketing studies are openly testing new ways to alter and motivate purchasing behavior through dream and sleep hacking. The commercial, for-profit use of dream incubation is rapidly becoming a reality," wrote the investigators. "As sleep and dream researchers, we are deeply concerned about marketing plans aimed at generating profits at the cost of interfering with our natural nocturnal memory processing."
People have tried to manipulate their dreams for countless years, but only in recent years have scientists attempted to target or manipulate behavior through dreams. In a 2014 study, smokers exposed to tobacco smoke and rotten egg smell while sleeping reduced their cigarette consumption by 30%.
Most research into dream manipulation has been aimed at positive results, but the experts warn that there’s no reason corporations couldn’t use it for their own purposes, especially given the widespread usage of devices such as Alexa. A company could play a certain sound during a commercial, they suggested, and then replay that sound through a device while people are sleeping to trigger a dream about that product.
And just when our COVID-19–driven anxiety dreams were starting to subside.
The experts said that the Federal Trade Commission could intervene to prevent companies from attempting dream manipulation, and have done so in the past to stop subliminal advertising, but as of right now, there’s nothing stopping big business from messing with your dreams. But hey, at least they’re not directly beaming commercials into our heads with gamma radiation. Yet.
Got breast milk?
As we know, breast milk has endless benefits for newbords and babies, but many things can stand in the way of a mother’s ability to breastfeed. Baby formula has served as a good enough substitute. But now, there might be something that’s even better.
A start-up company called BIOMILQ created a product that could be groundbreaking. Using “breakthrough mammary biotechnology,” BIOMILQ created cell-cultured breast milk.
Leila Strickland, a biologist who is the company’s cofounder and chief science officer, said she’s had her own personal experience with breastfeeding and believes the product could benefit many if just given a chance. "Some of the cells we’ve looked at can produce milk for months and months," according to a company statement
Baby formula has done its job feeding and nourishing babies since 1865, but could BIOMILQ do better?
Time – and babies – will tell.
Insert clove A into nostril B
Just when you start wondering what crazy and potentially dangerous thing people can do to themselves next, comes a crazy and potentially dangerous new trend. The good folks at TikTok have provided patients a new treatment for stuffed up sinuses.
Dangerous? Well, that’s what doctors say, anyway.
“We typically do not recommend putting anything into the nostril for the obvious fact that it could get dislodged or lodged up into the nasal cavity,” Anthony Del Signore, MD, of Mount Sinai Union Square, New York, told TODAY.
“Not only does it have the potential to rot or cause a nasal obstruction, it can induce an episode of sinusitis,” Omid Mehdizadeh, MD, of Providence Saint John’s Health Center, Santa Monica, Calif., explained to Shape.
But who doesn't want to breathe easier and keep blood-sucking vampires at bay?
TikTokers are posting videos of themselves sticking garlic cloves in their nostrils for several minutes. They, “then, pull the garlic out, followed, typically, by long strands of mucus,” according to The Hill.
That can’t be real, you’re probably saying. Or maybe you think that no one is actually watching this stuff. Well, wake up! This isn’t network television we’re talking about. It’s freakin’ TikTok! One video has been favorited over half a million times. Another is up to 2.2 million.
It’s all true. Really. We couldn’t make this stuff up if we tried.
Seeing faces in random places?
Ever look up at the clouds, at a fast-moving train, or into your morning bowl of cereal and see two eyes, a nose, and a mouth looking back at you? You may shake it off and think you’re imagining something, but it's actually your brain doing what it’s built to do and researchers know why.
The phenomenon is called face pareidolia, and it’s technically an error function of the human brain. Evolution has molded our brains to rapidly identify faces, according to David Alais, PhD, of the University of Sydney, Australia, lead author of the study.
“But the system plays ‘fast and loose’ by applying a crude template of two eyes over a nose and mouth. Lots of things can satisfy that template and thus trigger a face detection response,” he said in a separate statement. But not only are we seeing faces, our brains go one step further and seemingly give those faces feelings.
In the study, Dr. Alais and his team looked for two things about each pareidolia face: Was it analyzed for facial expression or just rejected as a face altogether? The participants were shown a series of faces and then asked to rate the expression on a scale from angry to happy. What the researchers found was that once a face was detected, the brain analyzed the pareidolia face in the same way as a human face. Have you ever seen an angry trash can? Or a smile on an over-easy egg?
The other question faced: Was there a bias on emotion? Yup, and excuse the dad joke.
The researchers showed a mixed series of human faces and pareidolia faces to participants and found that responses were influenced by the previous face seen, no matter if the face was human or not.
So if someone smiled at you on the way to the grocery store and you see a grinning tomato in the produce section, your mind is playing tricks on you, and it’s totally normal.
Corporate dream manipulation
Advertisements are quite literally everywhere. On billboards, in commercials, in videos, in movies; the list goes on and on. Still, at least you can shut your eyes and be mercifully free of corporate interference inside your own head, right? Right?
Early in 2021, Coors launched an ad campaign that seemed to be a b bit of a gimmick, if not a joke. Coors claimed that if people watched an ad before bed, and played an 8-hour soundscape while sleeping, their dreams would be filled with crisp mountains and cold, thirst-quenching beverages. While, the Coors campaign didn’t go viral, someone was paying attention. A group of 35 leading researchers published an open letter on the subject of corporate dream manipulation, in the journal Dream Engineering.
"Multiple marketing studies are openly testing new ways to alter and motivate purchasing behavior through dream and sleep hacking. The commercial, for-profit use of dream incubation is rapidly becoming a reality," wrote the investigators. "As sleep and dream researchers, we are deeply concerned about marketing plans aimed at generating profits at the cost of interfering with our natural nocturnal memory processing."
People have tried to manipulate their dreams for countless years, but only in recent years have scientists attempted to target or manipulate behavior through dreams. In a 2014 study, smokers exposed to tobacco smoke and rotten egg smell while sleeping reduced their cigarette consumption by 30%.
Most research into dream manipulation has been aimed at positive results, but the experts warn that there’s no reason corporations couldn’t use it for their own purposes, especially given the widespread usage of devices such as Alexa. A company could play a certain sound during a commercial, they suggested, and then replay that sound through a device while people are sleeping to trigger a dream about that product.
And just when our COVID-19–driven anxiety dreams were starting to subside.
The experts said that the Federal Trade Commission could intervene to prevent companies from attempting dream manipulation, and have done so in the past to stop subliminal advertising, but as of right now, there’s nothing stopping big business from messing with your dreams. But hey, at least they’re not directly beaming commercials into our heads with gamma radiation. Yet.
Got breast milk?
As we know, breast milk has endless benefits for newbords and babies, but many things can stand in the way of a mother’s ability to breastfeed. Baby formula has served as a good enough substitute. But now, there might be something that’s even better.
A start-up company called BIOMILQ created a product that could be groundbreaking. Using “breakthrough mammary biotechnology,” BIOMILQ created cell-cultured breast milk.
Leila Strickland, a biologist who is the company’s cofounder and chief science officer, said she’s had her own personal experience with breastfeeding and believes the product could benefit many if just given a chance. "Some of the cells we’ve looked at can produce milk for months and months," according to a company statement
Baby formula has done its job feeding and nourishing babies since 1865, but could BIOMILQ do better?
Time – and babies – will tell.
Insert clove A into nostril B
Just when you start wondering what crazy and potentially dangerous thing people can do to themselves next, comes a crazy and potentially dangerous new trend. The good folks at TikTok have provided patients a new treatment for stuffed up sinuses.
Dangerous? Well, that’s what doctors say, anyway.
“We typically do not recommend putting anything into the nostril for the obvious fact that it could get dislodged or lodged up into the nasal cavity,” Anthony Del Signore, MD, of Mount Sinai Union Square, New York, told TODAY.
“Not only does it have the potential to rot or cause a nasal obstruction, it can induce an episode of sinusitis,” Omid Mehdizadeh, MD, of Providence Saint John’s Health Center, Santa Monica, Calif., explained to Shape.
But who doesn't want to breathe easier and keep blood-sucking vampires at bay?
TikTokers are posting videos of themselves sticking garlic cloves in their nostrils for several minutes. They, “then, pull the garlic out, followed, typically, by long strands of mucus,” according to The Hill.
That can’t be real, you’re probably saying. Or maybe you think that no one is actually watching this stuff. Well, wake up! This isn’t network television we’re talking about. It’s freakin’ TikTok! One video has been favorited over half a million times. Another is up to 2.2 million.
It’s all true. Really. We couldn’t make this stuff up if we tried.
Seeing faces in random places?
Ever look up at the clouds, at a fast-moving train, or into your morning bowl of cereal and see two eyes, a nose, and a mouth looking back at you? You may shake it off and think you’re imagining something, but it's actually your brain doing what it’s built to do and researchers know why.
The phenomenon is called face pareidolia, and it’s technically an error function of the human brain. Evolution has molded our brains to rapidly identify faces, according to David Alais, PhD, of the University of Sydney, Australia, lead author of the study.
“But the system plays ‘fast and loose’ by applying a crude template of two eyes over a nose and mouth. Lots of things can satisfy that template and thus trigger a face detection response,” he said in a separate statement. But not only are we seeing faces, our brains go one step further and seemingly give those faces feelings.
In the study, Dr. Alais and his team looked for two things about each pareidolia face: Was it analyzed for facial expression or just rejected as a face altogether? The participants were shown a series of faces and then asked to rate the expression on a scale from angry to happy. What the researchers found was that once a face was detected, the brain analyzed the pareidolia face in the same way as a human face. Have you ever seen an angry trash can? Or a smile on an over-easy egg?
The other question faced: Was there a bias on emotion? Yup, and excuse the dad joke.
The researchers showed a mixed series of human faces and pareidolia faces to participants and found that responses were influenced by the previous face seen, no matter if the face was human or not.
So if someone smiled at you on the way to the grocery store and you see a grinning tomato in the produce section, your mind is playing tricks on you, and it’s totally normal.
Corporate dream manipulation
Advertisements are quite literally everywhere. On billboards, in commercials, in videos, in movies; the list goes on and on. Still, at least you can shut your eyes and be mercifully free of corporate interference inside your own head, right? Right?
Early in 2021, Coors launched an ad campaign that seemed to be a b bit of a gimmick, if not a joke. Coors claimed that if people watched an ad before bed, and played an 8-hour soundscape while sleeping, their dreams would be filled with crisp mountains and cold, thirst-quenching beverages. While, the Coors campaign didn’t go viral, someone was paying attention. A group of 35 leading researchers published an open letter on the subject of corporate dream manipulation, in the journal Dream Engineering.
"Multiple marketing studies are openly testing new ways to alter and motivate purchasing behavior through dream and sleep hacking. The commercial, for-profit use of dream incubation is rapidly becoming a reality," wrote the investigators. "As sleep and dream researchers, we are deeply concerned about marketing plans aimed at generating profits at the cost of interfering with our natural nocturnal memory processing."
People have tried to manipulate their dreams for countless years, but only in recent years have scientists attempted to target or manipulate behavior through dreams. In a 2014 study, smokers exposed to tobacco smoke and rotten egg smell while sleeping reduced their cigarette consumption by 30%.
Most research into dream manipulation has been aimed at positive results, but the experts warn that there’s no reason corporations couldn’t use it for their own purposes, especially given the widespread usage of devices such as Alexa. A company could play a certain sound during a commercial, they suggested, and then replay that sound through a device while people are sleeping to trigger a dream about that product.
And just when our COVID-19–driven anxiety dreams were starting to subside.
The experts said that the Federal Trade Commission could intervene to prevent companies from attempting dream manipulation, and have done so in the past to stop subliminal advertising, but as of right now, there’s nothing stopping big business from messing with your dreams. But hey, at least they’re not directly beaming commercials into our heads with gamma radiation. Yet.
Got breast milk?
As we know, breast milk has endless benefits for newbords and babies, but many things can stand in the way of a mother’s ability to breastfeed. Baby formula has served as a good enough substitute. But now, there might be something that’s even better.
A start-up company called BIOMILQ created a product that could be groundbreaking. Using “breakthrough mammary biotechnology,” BIOMILQ created cell-cultured breast milk.
Leila Strickland, a biologist who is the company’s cofounder and chief science officer, said she’s had her own personal experience with breastfeeding and believes the product could benefit many if just given a chance. "Some of the cells we’ve looked at can produce milk for months and months," according to a company statement
Baby formula has done its job feeding and nourishing babies since 1865, but could BIOMILQ do better?
Time – and babies – will tell.
A pacemaker that 'just disappears' and a magnetic diet device
Ignore this pacemaker and it will go away
At some point – and now seems to be that point – we have to say enough is enough. The throwaway culture that produces phones, TVs, and computers that get tossed in the trash because they can’t be repaired has gone too far. That’s right, we’re looking at you, medical science!
This time, it’s a pacemaker that just disappears when it’s no longer needed. Some lazy heart surgeon decided that it was way too much trouble to do another surgery to remove the leads when a temporary pacemaker was no longer needed. You know the type: “It sure would be nice if the pacemaker components were biocompatible and were naturally absorbed by the body over the course of a few weeks and wouldn’t need to be surgically extracted.” Slacker.
Well, get a load of this. Researchers at Northwestern and George Washington universities say that they have come up with a transient pacemaker that “harvests energy from an external, remote antenna using near-field communication protocols – the same technology used in smartphones for electronic payments and in RFID tags.”
That means no batteries and no wires that have to be removed and can cause infections. Because the infectious disease docs also are too lazy to do their jobs, apparently.
The lack of onboard infrastructure means that the device can be very small – it weighs less than half a gram and is only 250 microns thick. And yes, it is bioresorbable and completely harmless. It fully degrades and disappears in 5-7 weeks through the body’s natural biologic processes, “thereby avoiding the need for physical removal of the pacemaker electrodes. This is potentially a major victory for postoperative patients,” said Dr. Rishi Arora, one of the investigators.
A victory for patients, he says. Not a word about the time and effort saved by the surgeons. Typical.
It’s a mask! No, it’s a COVID-19 test!
Mask wearing has gotten more lax as people get vaccinated for COVID-19, but as wearing masks for virus prevention is becoming more normalized in western society, some saw an opportunity to make them work for diagnosis.
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have found a way to do just that with their wearable freeze-dried cell-free (wFDCF) technology. A single push of a button releases water from a reservoir in the mask that sequentially activates three different freeze-dried biological reactions, which detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the wearer’s breath.
Initially meant as a tool for the Zika outbreak in 2015, the team made a quick pivot in May 2020. But this isn’t just some run-of-the-mill, at-home test. The data prove that the wFDCF mask is comparable to polymerase chain reactions tests, the standard in COVID-19 detection. Plus there aren’t any extra factors to deal with, like room or instrument temperature to ensure accuracy. In just 90 minutes, the mask gives results on a readout in a way similar to that of a pregnancy test. Voilà! To have COVID-19 or not to have COVID-19 is an easily answered question.
At LOTME, we think this is a big improvement from having dogs, or even three-foot rats, sniffing out coronavirus.
But wait, there’s more. “In addition to face masks, our programmable biosensors can be integrated into other garments to provide on-the-go detection of dangerous substances including viruses, bacteria, toxins, and chemical agents,” said Peter Nguyen, PhD, study coauthor and research scientist at the Wyss Institute. The technology can be used on lab coats, scrubs, military uniforms, and uniforms of first responders who may come in contact with hazardous pathogens and toxins. Think of all the lives saved and possible avoidances.
If only it could diagnose bad breath.
Finally, an excuse for the all-beer diet
Weight loss is hard work. Extremely hard work, and, as evidenced by the constant inundation and advertisement of quick fixes, crash diets, and expensive gym memberships, there’s not really a solid, 100% solution to the issue. Until now, thanks to a team of doctors from New Zealand, who’ve decided that the best way to combat obesity is to leave you in constant agony.
The DentalSlim Diet Control device is certainly a radical yet comically logical attempt to combat obesity. The creators say that the biggest problem with dieting is compliance, and, well, it’s difficult to eat too much if you can’t actually open your mouth. The metal contraption is mounted onto your teeth and uses magnetic locks to prevent the user from opening their mouths more than 2 mm. That’s less than a tenth of an inch. Which is not a lot. So not a lot that essentially all you can consume is liquid.
Oh, and they’ve got results to back up their madness. In a small study, seven otherwise healthy obese women lost an average of 5.1% of their body weight after using the DentalSlim for 2 weeks, though they did complain that the device was difficult to use, caused discomfort and difficulty speaking, made them more tense, and in general made life “less satisfying.” And one participant was able to cheat the system and consume nonhealthy food like chocolate by melting it.
So, there you are, if you want a weight-loss solution that tortures you and has far bigger holes than the one it leaves for your mouth, try the DentalSlim. Or, you know, don’t eat that eighth slice of pizza and maybe go for a walk later. Your choice.
Ignore this pacemaker and it will go away
At some point – and now seems to be that point – we have to say enough is enough. The throwaway culture that produces phones, TVs, and computers that get tossed in the trash because they can’t be repaired has gone too far. That’s right, we’re looking at you, medical science!
This time, it’s a pacemaker that just disappears when it’s no longer needed. Some lazy heart surgeon decided that it was way too much trouble to do another surgery to remove the leads when a temporary pacemaker was no longer needed. You know the type: “It sure would be nice if the pacemaker components were biocompatible and were naturally absorbed by the body over the course of a few weeks and wouldn’t need to be surgically extracted.” Slacker.
Well, get a load of this. Researchers at Northwestern and George Washington universities say that they have come up with a transient pacemaker that “harvests energy from an external, remote antenna using near-field communication protocols – the same technology used in smartphones for electronic payments and in RFID tags.”
That means no batteries and no wires that have to be removed and can cause infections. Because the infectious disease docs also are too lazy to do their jobs, apparently.
The lack of onboard infrastructure means that the device can be very small – it weighs less than half a gram and is only 250 microns thick. And yes, it is bioresorbable and completely harmless. It fully degrades and disappears in 5-7 weeks through the body’s natural biologic processes, “thereby avoiding the need for physical removal of the pacemaker electrodes. This is potentially a major victory for postoperative patients,” said Dr. Rishi Arora, one of the investigators.
A victory for patients, he says. Not a word about the time and effort saved by the surgeons. Typical.
It’s a mask! No, it’s a COVID-19 test!
Mask wearing has gotten more lax as people get vaccinated for COVID-19, but as wearing masks for virus prevention is becoming more normalized in western society, some saw an opportunity to make them work for diagnosis.
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have found a way to do just that with their wearable freeze-dried cell-free (wFDCF) technology. A single push of a button releases water from a reservoir in the mask that sequentially activates three different freeze-dried biological reactions, which detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the wearer’s breath.
Initially meant as a tool for the Zika outbreak in 2015, the team made a quick pivot in May 2020. But this isn’t just some run-of-the-mill, at-home test. The data prove that the wFDCF mask is comparable to polymerase chain reactions tests, the standard in COVID-19 detection. Plus there aren’t any extra factors to deal with, like room or instrument temperature to ensure accuracy. In just 90 minutes, the mask gives results on a readout in a way similar to that of a pregnancy test. Voilà! To have COVID-19 or not to have COVID-19 is an easily answered question.
At LOTME, we think this is a big improvement from having dogs, or even three-foot rats, sniffing out coronavirus.
But wait, there’s more. “In addition to face masks, our programmable biosensors can be integrated into other garments to provide on-the-go detection of dangerous substances including viruses, bacteria, toxins, and chemical agents,” said Peter Nguyen, PhD, study coauthor and research scientist at the Wyss Institute. The technology can be used on lab coats, scrubs, military uniforms, and uniforms of first responders who may come in contact with hazardous pathogens and toxins. Think of all the lives saved and possible avoidances.
If only it could diagnose bad breath.
Finally, an excuse for the all-beer diet
Weight loss is hard work. Extremely hard work, and, as evidenced by the constant inundation and advertisement of quick fixes, crash diets, and expensive gym memberships, there’s not really a solid, 100% solution to the issue. Until now, thanks to a team of doctors from New Zealand, who’ve decided that the best way to combat obesity is to leave you in constant agony.
The DentalSlim Diet Control device is certainly a radical yet comically logical attempt to combat obesity. The creators say that the biggest problem with dieting is compliance, and, well, it’s difficult to eat too much if you can’t actually open your mouth. The metal contraption is mounted onto your teeth and uses magnetic locks to prevent the user from opening their mouths more than 2 mm. That’s less than a tenth of an inch. Which is not a lot. So not a lot that essentially all you can consume is liquid.
Oh, and they’ve got results to back up their madness. In a small study, seven otherwise healthy obese women lost an average of 5.1% of their body weight after using the DentalSlim for 2 weeks, though they did complain that the device was difficult to use, caused discomfort and difficulty speaking, made them more tense, and in general made life “less satisfying.” And one participant was able to cheat the system and consume nonhealthy food like chocolate by melting it.
So, there you are, if you want a weight-loss solution that tortures you and has far bigger holes than the one it leaves for your mouth, try the DentalSlim. Or, you know, don’t eat that eighth slice of pizza and maybe go for a walk later. Your choice.
Ignore this pacemaker and it will go away
At some point – and now seems to be that point – we have to say enough is enough. The throwaway culture that produces phones, TVs, and computers that get tossed in the trash because they can’t be repaired has gone too far. That’s right, we’re looking at you, medical science!
This time, it’s a pacemaker that just disappears when it’s no longer needed. Some lazy heart surgeon decided that it was way too much trouble to do another surgery to remove the leads when a temporary pacemaker was no longer needed. You know the type: “It sure would be nice if the pacemaker components were biocompatible and were naturally absorbed by the body over the course of a few weeks and wouldn’t need to be surgically extracted.” Slacker.
Well, get a load of this. Researchers at Northwestern and George Washington universities say that they have come up with a transient pacemaker that “harvests energy from an external, remote antenna using near-field communication protocols – the same technology used in smartphones for electronic payments and in RFID tags.”
That means no batteries and no wires that have to be removed and can cause infections. Because the infectious disease docs also are too lazy to do their jobs, apparently.
The lack of onboard infrastructure means that the device can be very small – it weighs less than half a gram and is only 250 microns thick. And yes, it is bioresorbable and completely harmless. It fully degrades and disappears in 5-7 weeks through the body’s natural biologic processes, “thereby avoiding the need for physical removal of the pacemaker electrodes. This is potentially a major victory for postoperative patients,” said Dr. Rishi Arora, one of the investigators.
A victory for patients, he says. Not a word about the time and effort saved by the surgeons. Typical.
It’s a mask! No, it’s a COVID-19 test!
Mask wearing has gotten more lax as people get vaccinated for COVID-19, but as wearing masks for virus prevention is becoming more normalized in western society, some saw an opportunity to make them work for diagnosis.
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have found a way to do just that with their wearable freeze-dried cell-free (wFDCF) technology. A single push of a button releases water from a reservoir in the mask that sequentially activates three different freeze-dried biological reactions, which detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the wearer’s breath.
Initially meant as a tool for the Zika outbreak in 2015, the team made a quick pivot in May 2020. But this isn’t just some run-of-the-mill, at-home test. The data prove that the wFDCF mask is comparable to polymerase chain reactions tests, the standard in COVID-19 detection. Plus there aren’t any extra factors to deal with, like room or instrument temperature to ensure accuracy. In just 90 minutes, the mask gives results on a readout in a way similar to that of a pregnancy test. Voilà! To have COVID-19 or not to have COVID-19 is an easily answered question.
At LOTME, we think this is a big improvement from having dogs, or even three-foot rats, sniffing out coronavirus.
But wait, there’s more. “In addition to face masks, our programmable biosensors can be integrated into other garments to provide on-the-go detection of dangerous substances including viruses, bacteria, toxins, and chemical agents,” said Peter Nguyen, PhD, study coauthor and research scientist at the Wyss Institute. The technology can be used on lab coats, scrubs, military uniforms, and uniforms of first responders who may come in contact with hazardous pathogens and toxins. Think of all the lives saved and possible avoidances.
If only it could diagnose bad breath.
Finally, an excuse for the all-beer diet
Weight loss is hard work. Extremely hard work, and, as evidenced by the constant inundation and advertisement of quick fixes, crash diets, and expensive gym memberships, there’s not really a solid, 100% solution to the issue. Until now, thanks to a team of doctors from New Zealand, who’ve decided that the best way to combat obesity is to leave you in constant agony.
The DentalSlim Diet Control device is certainly a radical yet comically logical attempt to combat obesity. The creators say that the biggest problem with dieting is compliance, and, well, it’s difficult to eat too much if you can’t actually open your mouth. The metal contraption is mounted onto your teeth and uses magnetic locks to prevent the user from opening their mouths more than 2 mm. That’s less than a tenth of an inch. Which is not a lot. So not a lot that essentially all you can consume is liquid.
Oh, and they’ve got results to back up their madness. In a small study, seven otherwise healthy obese women lost an average of 5.1% of their body weight after using the DentalSlim for 2 weeks, though they did complain that the device was difficult to use, caused discomfort and difficulty speaking, made them more tense, and in general made life “less satisfying.” And one participant was able to cheat the system and consume nonhealthy food like chocolate by melting it.
So, there you are, if you want a weight-loss solution that tortures you and has far bigger holes than the one it leaves for your mouth, try the DentalSlim. Or, you know, don’t eat that eighth slice of pizza and maybe go for a walk later. Your choice.
Gray hair goes away and squids go to space
Goodbye stress, goodbye gray hair
Last year was a doozy, so it wouldn’t be too surprising if we all had a few new gray strands in our hair. But what if we told you that you don’t need to start dying them or plucking them out? What if they could magically go back to the way they were? Well, it may be possible, sans magic and sans stress.
Investigators recently discovered that the age-old belief that stress will permanently turn your hair gray may not be true after all. There’s a strong possibility that it could turn back to its original color once the stressful agent is eliminated.
“Understanding the mechanisms that allow ‘old’ gray hairs to return to their ‘young’ pigmented states could yield new clues about the malleability of human aging in general and how it is influenced by stress,” said senior author Martin Picard, PhD, of Columbia University, New York.
For the study, 14 volunteers were asked to keep a stress diary and review their levels of stress throughout the week. The researchers used a new method of viewing and capturing the images of tiny parts of the hairs to see how much graying took place in each part of the strand. And what they found – some strands naturally turning back to the original color – had never been documented before.
How did it happen? Our good friend the mitochondria. We haven’t really heard that word since eighth-grade biology, but it’s actually the key link between stress hormones and hair pigmentation. Think of them as little radars picking up all different kinds of signals in your body, like mental/emotional stress. They get a big enough alert and they’re going to react, thus gray hair.
So that’s all it takes? Cut the stress and a full head of gray can go back to brown? Not exactly. The researchers said there may be a “threshold because of biological age and other factors.” They believe middle age is near that threshold and it could easily be pushed over due to stress and could potentially go back. But if you’ve been rocking the salt and pepper or silver fox for a number of years and are looking for change, you might want to just eliminate the stress and pick up a bottle of dye.
One small step for squid
Space does a number on the human body. Forget the obvious like going for a walk outside without a spacesuit, or even the well-known risks like the degradation of bone in microgravity; there are numerous smaller but still important changes to the body during spaceflight, like the disruption of the symbiotic relationship between gut bacteria and the human body. This causes the immune system to lose the ability to recognize threats, and illnesses spread more easily.
Naturally, if astronauts are going to undertake years-long journeys to Mars and beyond, a thorough understanding of this disturbance is necessary, and that’s why NASA has sent a bunch of squid to the International Space Station.
When it comes to animal studies, squid aren’t the usual culprits, but there’s a reason NASA chose calamari over the alternatives: The Hawaiian bobtail squid has a symbiotic relationship with bacteria that regulate their bioluminescence in much the same way that we have a symbiotic relationship with our gut bacteria, but the squid is a much simpler animal. If the bioluminescence-regulating bacteria are disturbed during their time in space, it will be much easier to figure out what’s going wrong.
The experiment is ongoing, but we should salute the brave squid who have taken a giant leap for squidkind. Though if NASA didn’t send them up in a giant bubble, we’re going to be very disappointed.
Less plastic, more vanilla
Have you been racked by guilt over the number of plastic water bottles you use? What about the amount of ice cream you eat? Well, this one’s for you.
Plastic isn’t the first thing you think about when you open up a pint of vanilla ice cream and catch the sweet, spicy vanilla scent, or when you smell those fresh vanilla scones coming out of the oven at the coffee shop, but a new study shows that the flavor of vanilla can come from water bottles.
Here’s the deal. A compound called vanillin is responsible for the scent of vanilla, and it can come naturally from the bean or it can be made synthetically. Believe it or not, 85% of vanillin is made synthetically from fossil fuels!
We’ve definitely grown accustomed to our favorite vanilla scents, foods, and cosmetics. In 2018, the global demand for vanillin was about 40,800 tons and is expected to grow to 65,000 tons by 2025, which far exceeds the supply of natural vanilla.
So what can we do? Well, we can use genetically engineered bacteria to turn plastic water bottles into vanillin, according to a study published in the journal Green Chemistry.
The plastic can be broken down into terephthalic acid, which is very similar, chemically speaking, to vanillin. Similar enough that a bit of bioengineering produced Escherichia coli that could convert the acid into the tasty treat, according to researchers at the University of Edinburgh.
A perfect solution? Decreasing plastic waste while producing a valued food product? The thought of consuming plastic isn’t appetizing, so just eat your ice cream and try to forget about it.
No withdrawals from this bank
Into each life, some milestones must fall: High school graduation, birth of a child, first house, 50th wedding anniversary, COVID-19. One LOTME staffer got really excited – way too excited, actually – when his Nissan Sentra reached 300,000 miles.
Well, there are milestones, and then there are milestones. “1,000 Reasons for Hope” is a report celebrating the first 1,000 brains donated to the VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank. For those of you keeping score at home, that would be the Department of Veterans Affairs, Boston University, and the Concussion Legacy Foundation.
The Brain Bank, created in 2008 to study concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, is the brainchild – yes, we went there – of Chris Nowinski, PhD, a former professional wrestler, and Ann McKee, MD, an expert on neurogenerative disease. “Our discoveries have already inspired changes to sports that will prevent many future cases of CTE in the next generation of athletes,” Dr. Nowinski, the CEO of CLF, said in a written statement.
Data from the first thousand brains show that 706 men, including 305 former NFL players, had football as their primary exposure to head impacts. Women were underrepresented, making up only 2.8% of brain donations, so recruiting females is a priority. Anyone interested in pledging can go to PledgeMyBrain.org or call 617-992-0615 for the 24-hour emergency donation pager.
LOTME wanted to help, so we called the Brain Bank to find out about donating. They asked a few questions and we told them what we do for a living. “Oh, you’re with LOTME? Yeah, we’ve … um, seen that before. It’s, um … funny. Can we put you on hold?” We’re starting to get a little sick of the on-hold music by now.
Goodbye stress, goodbye gray hair
Last year was a doozy, so it wouldn’t be too surprising if we all had a few new gray strands in our hair. But what if we told you that you don’t need to start dying them or plucking them out? What if they could magically go back to the way they were? Well, it may be possible, sans magic and sans stress.
Investigators recently discovered that the age-old belief that stress will permanently turn your hair gray may not be true after all. There’s a strong possibility that it could turn back to its original color once the stressful agent is eliminated.
“Understanding the mechanisms that allow ‘old’ gray hairs to return to their ‘young’ pigmented states could yield new clues about the malleability of human aging in general and how it is influenced by stress,” said senior author Martin Picard, PhD, of Columbia University, New York.
For the study, 14 volunteers were asked to keep a stress diary and review their levels of stress throughout the week. The researchers used a new method of viewing and capturing the images of tiny parts of the hairs to see how much graying took place in each part of the strand. And what they found – some strands naturally turning back to the original color – had never been documented before.
How did it happen? Our good friend the mitochondria. We haven’t really heard that word since eighth-grade biology, but it’s actually the key link between stress hormones and hair pigmentation. Think of them as little radars picking up all different kinds of signals in your body, like mental/emotional stress. They get a big enough alert and they’re going to react, thus gray hair.
So that’s all it takes? Cut the stress and a full head of gray can go back to brown? Not exactly. The researchers said there may be a “threshold because of biological age and other factors.” They believe middle age is near that threshold and it could easily be pushed over due to stress and could potentially go back. But if you’ve been rocking the salt and pepper or silver fox for a number of years and are looking for change, you might want to just eliminate the stress and pick up a bottle of dye.
One small step for squid
Space does a number on the human body. Forget the obvious like going for a walk outside without a spacesuit, or even the well-known risks like the degradation of bone in microgravity; there are numerous smaller but still important changes to the body during spaceflight, like the disruption of the symbiotic relationship between gut bacteria and the human body. This causes the immune system to lose the ability to recognize threats, and illnesses spread more easily.
Naturally, if astronauts are going to undertake years-long journeys to Mars and beyond, a thorough understanding of this disturbance is necessary, and that’s why NASA has sent a bunch of squid to the International Space Station.
When it comes to animal studies, squid aren’t the usual culprits, but there’s a reason NASA chose calamari over the alternatives: The Hawaiian bobtail squid has a symbiotic relationship with bacteria that regulate their bioluminescence in much the same way that we have a symbiotic relationship with our gut bacteria, but the squid is a much simpler animal. If the bioluminescence-regulating bacteria are disturbed during their time in space, it will be much easier to figure out what’s going wrong.
The experiment is ongoing, but we should salute the brave squid who have taken a giant leap for squidkind. Though if NASA didn’t send them up in a giant bubble, we’re going to be very disappointed.
Less plastic, more vanilla
Have you been racked by guilt over the number of plastic water bottles you use? What about the amount of ice cream you eat? Well, this one’s for you.
Plastic isn’t the first thing you think about when you open up a pint of vanilla ice cream and catch the sweet, spicy vanilla scent, or when you smell those fresh vanilla scones coming out of the oven at the coffee shop, but a new study shows that the flavor of vanilla can come from water bottles.
Here’s the deal. A compound called vanillin is responsible for the scent of vanilla, and it can come naturally from the bean or it can be made synthetically. Believe it or not, 85% of vanillin is made synthetically from fossil fuels!
We’ve definitely grown accustomed to our favorite vanilla scents, foods, and cosmetics. In 2018, the global demand for vanillin was about 40,800 tons and is expected to grow to 65,000 tons by 2025, which far exceeds the supply of natural vanilla.
So what can we do? Well, we can use genetically engineered bacteria to turn plastic water bottles into vanillin, according to a study published in the journal Green Chemistry.
The plastic can be broken down into terephthalic acid, which is very similar, chemically speaking, to vanillin. Similar enough that a bit of bioengineering produced Escherichia coli that could convert the acid into the tasty treat, according to researchers at the University of Edinburgh.
A perfect solution? Decreasing plastic waste while producing a valued food product? The thought of consuming plastic isn’t appetizing, so just eat your ice cream and try to forget about it.
No withdrawals from this bank
Into each life, some milestones must fall: High school graduation, birth of a child, first house, 50th wedding anniversary, COVID-19. One LOTME staffer got really excited – way too excited, actually – when his Nissan Sentra reached 300,000 miles.
Well, there are milestones, and then there are milestones. “1,000 Reasons for Hope” is a report celebrating the first 1,000 brains donated to the VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank. For those of you keeping score at home, that would be the Department of Veterans Affairs, Boston University, and the Concussion Legacy Foundation.
The Brain Bank, created in 2008 to study concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, is the brainchild – yes, we went there – of Chris Nowinski, PhD, a former professional wrestler, and Ann McKee, MD, an expert on neurogenerative disease. “Our discoveries have already inspired changes to sports that will prevent many future cases of CTE in the next generation of athletes,” Dr. Nowinski, the CEO of CLF, said in a written statement.
Data from the first thousand brains show that 706 men, including 305 former NFL players, had football as their primary exposure to head impacts. Women were underrepresented, making up only 2.8% of brain donations, so recruiting females is a priority. Anyone interested in pledging can go to PledgeMyBrain.org or call 617-992-0615 for the 24-hour emergency donation pager.
LOTME wanted to help, so we called the Brain Bank to find out about donating. They asked a few questions and we told them what we do for a living. “Oh, you’re with LOTME? Yeah, we’ve … um, seen that before. It’s, um … funny. Can we put you on hold?” We’re starting to get a little sick of the on-hold music by now.
Goodbye stress, goodbye gray hair
Last year was a doozy, so it wouldn’t be too surprising if we all had a few new gray strands in our hair. But what if we told you that you don’t need to start dying them or plucking them out? What if they could magically go back to the way they were? Well, it may be possible, sans magic and sans stress.
Investigators recently discovered that the age-old belief that stress will permanently turn your hair gray may not be true after all. There’s a strong possibility that it could turn back to its original color once the stressful agent is eliminated.
“Understanding the mechanisms that allow ‘old’ gray hairs to return to their ‘young’ pigmented states could yield new clues about the malleability of human aging in general and how it is influenced by stress,” said senior author Martin Picard, PhD, of Columbia University, New York.
For the study, 14 volunteers were asked to keep a stress diary and review their levels of stress throughout the week. The researchers used a new method of viewing and capturing the images of tiny parts of the hairs to see how much graying took place in each part of the strand. And what they found – some strands naturally turning back to the original color – had never been documented before.
How did it happen? Our good friend the mitochondria. We haven’t really heard that word since eighth-grade biology, but it’s actually the key link between stress hormones and hair pigmentation. Think of them as little radars picking up all different kinds of signals in your body, like mental/emotional stress. They get a big enough alert and they’re going to react, thus gray hair.
So that’s all it takes? Cut the stress and a full head of gray can go back to brown? Not exactly. The researchers said there may be a “threshold because of biological age and other factors.” They believe middle age is near that threshold and it could easily be pushed over due to stress and could potentially go back. But if you’ve been rocking the salt and pepper or silver fox for a number of years and are looking for change, you might want to just eliminate the stress and pick up a bottle of dye.
One small step for squid
Space does a number on the human body. Forget the obvious like going for a walk outside without a spacesuit, or even the well-known risks like the degradation of bone in microgravity; there are numerous smaller but still important changes to the body during spaceflight, like the disruption of the symbiotic relationship between gut bacteria and the human body. This causes the immune system to lose the ability to recognize threats, and illnesses spread more easily.
Naturally, if astronauts are going to undertake years-long journeys to Mars and beyond, a thorough understanding of this disturbance is necessary, and that’s why NASA has sent a bunch of squid to the International Space Station.
When it comes to animal studies, squid aren’t the usual culprits, but there’s a reason NASA chose calamari over the alternatives: The Hawaiian bobtail squid has a symbiotic relationship with bacteria that regulate their bioluminescence in much the same way that we have a symbiotic relationship with our gut bacteria, but the squid is a much simpler animal. If the bioluminescence-regulating bacteria are disturbed during their time in space, it will be much easier to figure out what’s going wrong.
The experiment is ongoing, but we should salute the brave squid who have taken a giant leap for squidkind. Though if NASA didn’t send them up in a giant bubble, we’re going to be very disappointed.
Less plastic, more vanilla
Have you been racked by guilt over the number of plastic water bottles you use? What about the amount of ice cream you eat? Well, this one’s for you.
Plastic isn’t the first thing you think about when you open up a pint of vanilla ice cream and catch the sweet, spicy vanilla scent, or when you smell those fresh vanilla scones coming out of the oven at the coffee shop, but a new study shows that the flavor of vanilla can come from water bottles.
Here’s the deal. A compound called vanillin is responsible for the scent of vanilla, and it can come naturally from the bean or it can be made synthetically. Believe it or not, 85% of vanillin is made synthetically from fossil fuels!
We’ve definitely grown accustomed to our favorite vanilla scents, foods, and cosmetics. In 2018, the global demand for vanillin was about 40,800 tons and is expected to grow to 65,000 tons by 2025, which far exceeds the supply of natural vanilla.
So what can we do? Well, we can use genetically engineered bacteria to turn plastic water bottles into vanillin, according to a study published in the journal Green Chemistry.
The plastic can be broken down into terephthalic acid, which is very similar, chemically speaking, to vanillin. Similar enough that a bit of bioengineering produced Escherichia coli that could convert the acid into the tasty treat, according to researchers at the University of Edinburgh.
A perfect solution? Decreasing plastic waste while producing a valued food product? The thought of consuming plastic isn’t appetizing, so just eat your ice cream and try to forget about it.
No withdrawals from this bank
Into each life, some milestones must fall: High school graduation, birth of a child, first house, 50th wedding anniversary, COVID-19. One LOTME staffer got really excited – way too excited, actually – when his Nissan Sentra reached 300,000 miles.
Well, there are milestones, and then there are milestones. “1,000 Reasons for Hope” is a report celebrating the first 1,000 brains donated to the VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank. For those of you keeping score at home, that would be the Department of Veterans Affairs, Boston University, and the Concussion Legacy Foundation.
The Brain Bank, created in 2008 to study concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, is the brainchild – yes, we went there – of Chris Nowinski, PhD, a former professional wrestler, and Ann McKee, MD, an expert on neurogenerative disease. “Our discoveries have already inspired changes to sports that will prevent many future cases of CTE in the next generation of athletes,” Dr. Nowinski, the CEO of CLF, said in a written statement.
Data from the first thousand brains show that 706 men, including 305 former NFL players, had football as their primary exposure to head impacts. Women were underrepresented, making up only 2.8% of brain donations, so recruiting females is a priority. Anyone interested in pledging can go to PledgeMyBrain.org or call 617-992-0615 for the 24-hour emergency donation pager.
LOTME wanted to help, so we called the Brain Bank to find out about donating. They asked a few questions and we told them what we do for a living. “Oh, you’re with LOTME? Yeah, we’ve … um, seen that before. It’s, um … funny. Can we put you on hold?” We’re starting to get a little sick of the on-hold music by now.
The most important meal of the day, with extra zinc
Busting the myth of skipping breakfast
Your mother told you that breakfast was the most important meal of the day. Cereal marketing teams banked on that, selling breakfast to millions of people based on a common turn of phrase like “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Well, what if the notion of breakfast’s importance isn’t just marketing BS?
A new study suggests that adults who don’t eat breakfast are setting themselves up for a nutritional gap. Common breakfast foods pack a ton of calcium, fiber, and vitamin C from milk, cereals, and fruit. Christopher Taylor, PhD, senior author of the study and professor of dietetics at the Ohio State University, Columbus, said that if you’re not getting those nutrients from foods at breakfast, there’s a tendency to skip them throughout the rest of your day.
Data from a sample of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey – 30,889 adults aged 19 and older who participated between 2005 and 2016 – showed that 15.2% of participants reported skipping breakfast.
The research team then estimated nutrient consumption using federal dietary studies and guidelines and compared it to Food and Nutrition Board of National Academies nutrient recommendations. The breakfast skippers, they determined, were missing out on pronounced levels of fiber, magnesium, iron, calcium, and vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, C, and D and were more likely to fall prey to lower-quality snacking. Cue those Oreos at 3 pm.
You may get more total calories within the day by eating breakfast, but your lunch, dinner, and snacks are much larger when you skip it. So the case of breakfast being the most important meal of the day checks out. Who knew that Tony the Tiger – and Mom – were actually on to something?
The bitter taste of a healthy liver
Alcohol and liver disease. They go together like, well, alcohol and liver disease. But alcohol isn’t the only reason people get liver disease, and now there’s a potential new treatment for people with hepatic steatosis on the way to becoming nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: beer.
Okay, not literally beer, but a pair of compounds derived from hops, the plant that gives beer its color and bitter flavor. In a study published in eLife, researchers from Oregon State University fed mice either a low-fat diet or a high-fat diet to induce hepatic steatosis, with some on the high-fat diet receiving either xanthohumol, a prenylated flavonoid from the hop plant, or tetrahydroxanthohumol, a hydrogenated derivative of xanthohumol.
Mice that received tetrahydroxanthohumol not only gained weight at a far slower rate than that of mice on the normal high-fat diet, their blood sugar remained stable; xanthohumol was similarly effective if the dosage was higher. The researchers noted that the two chemicals were effective because they acted as antagonists for the PPAR-gamma protein, which controls glucose metabolism and fatty cell activation. The chemicals bind to the protein but don’t activate it, meaning fat is unable to build up in the cells. No fat means no hepatic steatosis, which means no liver disease.
The researchers caution that more research is needed to determine the chemicals’ effectiveness in humans, but the classic line from a great animated philosopher still holds true: Alcohol may really be the source of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.
Life’s great mysteries, from A to zinc
Thanks to science, we now have answers to what were once unanswerable questions: Is Jello a solid or a liquid? If someone leads but no one follows, are they just out for a walk? Does zinc inhibit or promote the growth of kidney stones? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? (Turns out science really did answer this one.)
If you’re anything like us, then you’ve been following the big debate on the two competing theories involving the role of zinc in kidney stone formation for years. One theory says that zinc stops the growth of calcium oxalate crystals that make up stones. The other says that zinc alters the surfaces of crystals, which encourages growth.
We can’t stand the suspense any longer, so here goes: The answer to “does zinc inhibit or promote the growth of kidney stones?” is … yes.
“What we see with zinc is something we haven’t seen before. It does slow down calcium oxalate crystal growth and at the same time it changes the surface of the crystals, causing defects in the form of intergrowths. These abnormalities create centers for new crystals to nucleate and grow,” said senior author Jeffrey Rimer, PhD, of the University of Houston.
In vitro experimentation, computational modeling, and atomic force microscopy don’t lie: Zinc ions have a unique ability “to alter the termination of crystal surfaces.” They tried alternative ions found in urine, including magnesium, and there was no effect on crystal formation.
With this one great mystery now solved, we contacted Dr. Rimer to ask him about the whole “sound of one hand clapping” business. He hasn’t cracked that one yet, but he did want to speak to our supervisor. So many of life’s unanswered questions, so little time. Oh well.
Babies’ ‘gut instinct’ to cry
At some point or another, you’ve probably been told not to “be such a baby” when you were scared of something. If you’ve been called a crybaby, it may be an indicator that you had a different gut microbiome as an infant.
Investigators from Michigan State University and the University of North Carolina say that babies who react more strongly to scary situations have different gut microbiomes compared with babies who don’t have such a strong reaction. The way babies react to scary situations can say a lot about their future, and there is even some evidence that gut microbiomes may have something to do with mental health.
Physicians who support neurologic development may one day be able to use this research on gut microbiomes to help monitor people’s neurological health. “This early developmental period is a time of tremendous opportunity for promoting healthy brain development. The microbiome is an exciting new target that can be potentially used for that,” said Rebecca Knickmeyer of MSU, leader of the study, which was published in Nature Communications. And loyal LOTME followers already know about the OpenBiome Microbiome Library, aka the “Amazon of bacteria.”
So the next time someone tells you not to be such a baby when you’re scared of something, tell them it’s not your fault. Blame it on your gut microbiome!
Busting the myth of skipping breakfast
Your mother told you that breakfast was the most important meal of the day. Cereal marketing teams banked on that, selling breakfast to millions of people based on a common turn of phrase like “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Well, what if the notion of breakfast’s importance isn’t just marketing BS?
A new study suggests that adults who don’t eat breakfast are setting themselves up for a nutritional gap. Common breakfast foods pack a ton of calcium, fiber, and vitamin C from milk, cereals, and fruit. Christopher Taylor, PhD, senior author of the study and professor of dietetics at the Ohio State University, Columbus, said that if you’re not getting those nutrients from foods at breakfast, there’s a tendency to skip them throughout the rest of your day.
Data from a sample of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey – 30,889 adults aged 19 and older who participated between 2005 and 2016 – showed that 15.2% of participants reported skipping breakfast.
The research team then estimated nutrient consumption using federal dietary studies and guidelines and compared it to Food and Nutrition Board of National Academies nutrient recommendations. The breakfast skippers, they determined, were missing out on pronounced levels of fiber, magnesium, iron, calcium, and vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, C, and D and were more likely to fall prey to lower-quality snacking. Cue those Oreos at 3 pm.
You may get more total calories within the day by eating breakfast, but your lunch, dinner, and snacks are much larger when you skip it. So the case of breakfast being the most important meal of the day checks out. Who knew that Tony the Tiger – and Mom – were actually on to something?
The bitter taste of a healthy liver
Alcohol and liver disease. They go together like, well, alcohol and liver disease. But alcohol isn’t the only reason people get liver disease, and now there’s a potential new treatment for people with hepatic steatosis on the way to becoming nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: beer.
Okay, not literally beer, but a pair of compounds derived from hops, the plant that gives beer its color and bitter flavor. In a study published in eLife, researchers from Oregon State University fed mice either a low-fat diet or a high-fat diet to induce hepatic steatosis, with some on the high-fat diet receiving either xanthohumol, a prenylated flavonoid from the hop plant, or tetrahydroxanthohumol, a hydrogenated derivative of xanthohumol.
Mice that received tetrahydroxanthohumol not only gained weight at a far slower rate than that of mice on the normal high-fat diet, their blood sugar remained stable; xanthohumol was similarly effective if the dosage was higher. The researchers noted that the two chemicals were effective because they acted as antagonists for the PPAR-gamma protein, which controls glucose metabolism and fatty cell activation. The chemicals bind to the protein but don’t activate it, meaning fat is unable to build up in the cells. No fat means no hepatic steatosis, which means no liver disease.
The researchers caution that more research is needed to determine the chemicals’ effectiveness in humans, but the classic line from a great animated philosopher still holds true: Alcohol may really be the source of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.
Life’s great mysteries, from A to zinc
Thanks to science, we now have answers to what were once unanswerable questions: Is Jello a solid or a liquid? If someone leads but no one follows, are they just out for a walk? Does zinc inhibit or promote the growth of kidney stones? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? (Turns out science really did answer this one.)
If you’re anything like us, then you’ve been following the big debate on the two competing theories involving the role of zinc in kidney stone formation for years. One theory says that zinc stops the growth of calcium oxalate crystals that make up stones. The other says that zinc alters the surfaces of crystals, which encourages growth.
We can’t stand the suspense any longer, so here goes: The answer to “does zinc inhibit or promote the growth of kidney stones?” is … yes.
“What we see with zinc is something we haven’t seen before. It does slow down calcium oxalate crystal growth and at the same time it changes the surface of the crystals, causing defects in the form of intergrowths. These abnormalities create centers for new crystals to nucleate and grow,” said senior author Jeffrey Rimer, PhD, of the University of Houston.
In vitro experimentation, computational modeling, and atomic force microscopy don’t lie: Zinc ions have a unique ability “to alter the termination of crystal surfaces.” They tried alternative ions found in urine, including magnesium, and there was no effect on crystal formation.
With this one great mystery now solved, we contacted Dr. Rimer to ask him about the whole “sound of one hand clapping” business. He hasn’t cracked that one yet, but he did want to speak to our supervisor. So many of life’s unanswered questions, so little time. Oh well.
Babies’ ‘gut instinct’ to cry
At some point or another, you’ve probably been told not to “be such a baby” when you were scared of something. If you’ve been called a crybaby, it may be an indicator that you had a different gut microbiome as an infant.
Investigators from Michigan State University and the University of North Carolina say that babies who react more strongly to scary situations have different gut microbiomes compared with babies who don’t have such a strong reaction. The way babies react to scary situations can say a lot about their future, and there is even some evidence that gut microbiomes may have something to do with mental health.
Physicians who support neurologic development may one day be able to use this research on gut microbiomes to help monitor people’s neurological health. “This early developmental period is a time of tremendous opportunity for promoting healthy brain development. The microbiome is an exciting new target that can be potentially used for that,” said Rebecca Knickmeyer of MSU, leader of the study, which was published in Nature Communications. And loyal LOTME followers already know about the OpenBiome Microbiome Library, aka the “Amazon of bacteria.”
So the next time someone tells you not to be such a baby when you’re scared of something, tell them it’s not your fault. Blame it on your gut microbiome!
Busting the myth of skipping breakfast
Your mother told you that breakfast was the most important meal of the day. Cereal marketing teams banked on that, selling breakfast to millions of people based on a common turn of phrase like “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Well, what if the notion of breakfast’s importance isn’t just marketing BS?
A new study suggests that adults who don’t eat breakfast are setting themselves up for a nutritional gap. Common breakfast foods pack a ton of calcium, fiber, and vitamin C from milk, cereals, and fruit. Christopher Taylor, PhD, senior author of the study and professor of dietetics at the Ohio State University, Columbus, said that if you’re not getting those nutrients from foods at breakfast, there’s a tendency to skip them throughout the rest of your day.
Data from a sample of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey – 30,889 adults aged 19 and older who participated between 2005 and 2016 – showed that 15.2% of participants reported skipping breakfast.
The research team then estimated nutrient consumption using federal dietary studies and guidelines and compared it to Food and Nutrition Board of National Academies nutrient recommendations. The breakfast skippers, they determined, were missing out on pronounced levels of fiber, magnesium, iron, calcium, and vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, C, and D and were more likely to fall prey to lower-quality snacking. Cue those Oreos at 3 pm.
You may get more total calories within the day by eating breakfast, but your lunch, dinner, and snacks are much larger when you skip it. So the case of breakfast being the most important meal of the day checks out. Who knew that Tony the Tiger – and Mom – were actually on to something?
The bitter taste of a healthy liver
Alcohol and liver disease. They go together like, well, alcohol and liver disease. But alcohol isn’t the only reason people get liver disease, and now there’s a potential new treatment for people with hepatic steatosis on the way to becoming nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: beer.
Okay, not literally beer, but a pair of compounds derived from hops, the plant that gives beer its color and bitter flavor. In a study published in eLife, researchers from Oregon State University fed mice either a low-fat diet or a high-fat diet to induce hepatic steatosis, with some on the high-fat diet receiving either xanthohumol, a prenylated flavonoid from the hop plant, or tetrahydroxanthohumol, a hydrogenated derivative of xanthohumol.
Mice that received tetrahydroxanthohumol not only gained weight at a far slower rate than that of mice on the normal high-fat diet, their blood sugar remained stable; xanthohumol was similarly effective if the dosage was higher. The researchers noted that the two chemicals were effective because they acted as antagonists for the PPAR-gamma protein, which controls glucose metabolism and fatty cell activation. The chemicals bind to the protein but don’t activate it, meaning fat is unable to build up in the cells. No fat means no hepatic steatosis, which means no liver disease.
The researchers caution that more research is needed to determine the chemicals’ effectiveness in humans, but the classic line from a great animated philosopher still holds true: Alcohol may really be the source of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.
Life’s great mysteries, from A to zinc
Thanks to science, we now have answers to what were once unanswerable questions: Is Jello a solid or a liquid? If someone leads but no one follows, are they just out for a walk? Does zinc inhibit or promote the growth of kidney stones? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? (Turns out science really did answer this one.)
If you’re anything like us, then you’ve been following the big debate on the two competing theories involving the role of zinc in kidney stone formation for years. One theory says that zinc stops the growth of calcium oxalate crystals that make up stones. The other says that zinc alters the surfaces of crystals, which encourages growth.
We can’t stand the suspense any longer, so here goes: The answer to “does zinc inhibit or promote the growth of kidney stones?” is … yes.
“What we see with zinc is something we haven’t seen before. It does slow down calcium oxalate crystal growth and at the same time it changes the surface of the crystals, causing defects in the form of intergrowths. These abnormalities create centers for new crystals to nucleate and grow,” said senior author Jeffrey Rimer, PhD, of the University of Houston.
In vitro experimentation, computational modeling, and atomic force microscopy don’t lie: Zinc ions have a unique ability “to alter the termination of crystal surfaces.” They tried alternative ions found in urine, including magnesium, and there was no effect on crystal formation.
With this one great mystery now solved, we contacted Dr. Rimer to ask him about the whole “sound of one hand clapping” business. He hasn’t cracked that one yet, but he did want to speak to our supervisor. So many of life’s unanswered questions, so little time. Oh well.
Babies’ ‘gut instinct’ to cry
At some point or another, you’ve probably been told not to “be such a baby” when you were scared of something. If you’ve been called a crybaby, it may be an indicator that you had a different gut microbiome as an infant.
Investigators from Michigan State University and the University of North Carolina say that babies who react more strongly to scary situations have different gut microbiomes compared with babies who don’t have such a strong reaction. The way babies react to scary situations can say a lot about their future, and there is even some evidence that gut microbiomes may have something to do with mental health.
Physicians who support neurologic development may one day be able to use this research on gut microbiomes to help monitor people’s neurological health. “This early developmental period is a time of tremendous opportunity for promoting healthy brain development. The microbiome is an exciting new target that can be potentially used for that,” said Rebecca Knickmeyer of MSU, leader of the study, which was published in Nature Communications. And loyal LOTME followers already know about the OpenBiome Microbiome Library, aka the “Amazon of bacteria.”
So the next time someone tells you not to be such a baby when you’re scared of something, tell them it’s not your fault. Blame it on your gut microbiome!
The pandemic changed smokers, but farming didn’t change humans
Pandemic smoking: More or less?
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed a lot of habits in people, for better or worse. Some people may have turned to food and alcohol for comfort, while others started on health kicks to emerge from the ordeal as new people. Well, the same can be said about smokers.
New evidence comes from a survey conducted from May to July 2020 of 694 current and former smokers with an average age of 53 years. All had been hospitalized prior to the pandemic and had previously participated in clinical trials to for smoking cessation in Boston, Nashville, and Pittsburgh hospitals.
Researchers found that 32% of participants smoked more, 37% smoked less, and 31% made no change in their smoking habits. By the time of the survey, 28% of former smokers had relapsed. Although 68% of the participants believed smoking increased the risk of getting COVID-19, that still didn’t stop some people from smoking more. Why?
Respondents “might have increased their smoking due to stress and boredom. On the other hand, the fear of catching COVID might have led them to cut down or quit smoking,” said lead author Nancy A. Rigotti, MD. “Even before the pandemic, tobacco smoking was the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. COVID-19 has given smokers yet another good reason to stop smoking.”
This creates an opportunity for physicians to preach the gospel to smokers about their vulnerability to respiratory disease in hopes of getting them to quit for good. We just wish the same could be said for all of our excessive pandemic online shopping.
3,000 years and just one pair of genomes to wear
Men and women are different. We’ll give you a moment to pick your jaw off the ground.
It makes sense though, the sexes being different, especially when you look at the broader animal kingdom. The males and females of many species are slightly different when it comes to size and shape, but there’s a big question that literally only anthropologists have asked: Were human males and females more different in the past than they are today?
To be more specific, some scientists believe that males and females grew more similar when humans shifted from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a farming-based lifestyle, as agriculture encouraged a more equitable division of labor. Others believe that the differences come down to random chance.
Researchers from Penn State University analyzed genomic data from over 350,000 males and females stored in the UK Biobank and looked at the recent (within the last ~3,000 years; post-agriculture adoption in Britain) evolutionary histories of these loci. Height, body mass, hip circumference, body fat percentage, and waist circumference were analyzed, and while there were thousands of differences in the genomes, only one trait occurred more frequently during that time period: Females gained a significantly higher body fat content than males.
It’s a sad day then for the millions of people who were big fans of the “farming caused men and women to become more similar” theory. Count the LOTME crew among them. Be honest: Wouldn’t life be so much simpler if men and women were exactly the same? Just think about it, no more arguments about leaving the toilet seat up. It’d be worth it just for that.
Proteins don’t lie
Research published in Open Biology shows that the human brain contains 14,315 different proteins. The team conducting that study wanted to find out which organ was the most similar to the old brain box, so they did protein counts for the 32 other major tissue types, including heart, salivary gland, lung, spleen, and endometrium.
The tissue with the most proteins in common with the center of human intelligence? You’re thinking it has to be colon at this point, right? We were sure it was going to be colon, but it’s not.
The winner, with 13,442 shared proteins, is the testes. The testes have 15,687 proteins, of which 85.7% are shared with the brain. The researchers, sadly, did not provide protein counts for the other tissue types, but we bet colon was a close second.
Dreaming about COVID?
We thought we were the only ones who have been having crazy dreams lately. Each one seems crazier and more vivid than the one before. Have you been having weird dreams lately?
This is likely your brain’s coping mechanism to handle your pandemic stress, according to Dr. Erik Hoel of Tufts University. Dreams that are crazy and scary might make real life seem lighter and simpler. He calls it the “overfitted brain hypothesis.”
“It is their very strangeness that gives them their biological function,” Dr. Hoel said. It literally makes you feel like COVID-19 and lockdowns aren’t as scary as they seem.
We always knew our minds were powerful things. Apparently, your brain gets tired of everyday familiarity just like you do, and it creates crazy dreams to keep things interesting.
Just remember: That recurring dream that you’re back in college and missing 10 assignments is there to help you, not scare you! Even though it is pretty scary.
Pandemic smoking: More or less?
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed a lot of habits in people, for better or worse. Some people may have turned to food and alcohol for comfort, while others started on health kicks to emerge from the ordeal as new people. Well, the same can be said about smokers.
New evidence comes from a survey conducted from May to July 2020 of 694 current and former smokers with an average age of 53 years. All had been hospitalized prior to the pandemic and had previously participated in clinical trials to for smoking cessation in Boston, Nashville, and Pittsburgh hospitals.
Researchers found that 32% of participants smoked more, 37% smoked less, and 31% made no change in their smoking habits. By the time of the survey, 28% of former smokers had relapsed. Although 68% of the participants believed smoking increased the risk of getting COVID-19, that still didn’t stop some people from smoking more. Why?
Respondents “might have increased their smoking due to stress and boredom. On the other hand, the fear of catching COVID might have led them to cut down or quit smoking,” said lead author Nancy A. Rigotti, MD. “Even before the pandemic, tobacco smoking was the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. COVID-19 has given smokers yet another good reason to stop smoking.”
This creates an opportunity for physicians to preach the gospel to smokers about their vulnerability to respiratory disease in hopes of getting them to quit for good. We just wish the same could be said for all of our excessive pandemic online shopping.
3,000 years and just one pair of genomes to wear
Men and women are different. We’ll give you a moment to pick your jaw off the ground.
It makes sense though, the sexes being different, especially when you look at the broader animal kingdom. The males and females of many species are slightly different when it comes to size and shape, but there’s a big question that literally only anthropologists have asked: Were human males and females more different in the past than they are today?
To be more specific, some scientists believe that males and females grew more similar when humans shifted from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a farming-based lifestyle, as agriculture encouraged a more equitable division of labor. Others believe that the differences come down to random chance.
Researchers from Penn State University analyzed genomic data from over 350,000 males and females stored in the UK Biobank and looked at the recent (within the last ~3,000 years; post-agriculture adoption in Britain) evolutionary histories of these loci. Height, body mass, hip circumference, body fat percentage, and waist circumference were analyzed, and while there were thousands of differences in the genomes, only one trait occurred more frequently during that time period: Females gained a significantly higher body fat content than males.
It’s a sad day then for the millions of people who were big fans of the “farming caused men and women to become more similar” theory. Count the LOTME crew among them. Be honest: Wouldn’t life be so much simpler if men and women were exactly the same? Just think about it, no more arguments about leaving the toilet seat up. It’d be worth it just for that.
Proteins don’t lie
Research published in Open Biology shows that the human brain contains 14,315 different proteins. The team conducting that study wanted to find out which organ was the most similar to the old brain box, so they did protein counts for the 32 other major tissue types, including heart, salivary gland, lung, spleen, and endometrium.
The tissue with the most proteins in common with the center of human intelligence? You’re thinking it has to be colon at this point, right? We were sure it was going to be colon, but it’s not.
The winner, with 13,442 shared proteins, is the testes. The testes have 15,687 proteins, of which 85.7% are shared with the brain. The researchers, sadly, did not provide protein counts for the other tissue types, but we bet colon was a close second.
Dreaming about COVID?
We thought we were the only ones who have been having crazy dreams lately. Each one seems crazier and more vivid than the one before. Have you been having weird dreams lately?
This is likely your brain’s coping mechanism to handle your pandemic stress, according to Dr. Erik Hoel of Tufts University. Dreams that are crazy and scary might make real life seem lighter and simpler. He calls it the “overfitted brain hypothesis.”
“It is their very strangeness that gives them their biological function,” Dr. Hoel said. It literally makes you feel like COVID-19 and lockdowns aren’t as scary as they seem.
We always knew our minds were powerful things. Apparently, your brain gets tired of everyday familiarity just like you do, and it creates crazy dreams to keep things interesting.
Just remember: That recurring dream that you’re back in college and missing 10 assignments is there to help you, not scare you! Even though it is pretty scary.
Pandemic smoking: More or less?
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed a lot of habits in people, for better or worse. Some people may have turned to food and alcohol for comfort, while others started on health kicks to emerge from the ordeal as new people. Well, the same can be said about smokers.
New evidence comes from a survey conducted from May to July 2020 of 694 current and former smokers with an average age of 53 years. All had been hospitalized prior to the pandemic and had previously participated in clinical trials to for smoking cessation in Boston, Nashville, and Pittsburgh hospitals.
Researchers found that 32% of participants smoked more, 37% smoked less, and 31% made no change in their smoking habits. By the time of the survey, 28% of former smokers had relapsed. Although 68% of the participants believed smoking increased the risk of getting COVID-19, that still didn’t stop some people from smoking more. Why?
Respondents “might have increased their smoking due to stress and boredom. On the other hand, the fear of catching COVID might have led them to cut down or quit smoking,” said lead author Nancy A. Rigotti, MD. “Even before the pandemic, tobacco smoking was the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. COVID-19 has given smokers yet another good reason to stop smoking.”
This creates an opportunity for physicians to preach the gospel to smokers about their vulnerability to respiratory disease in hopes of getting them to quit for good. We just wish the same could be said for all of our excessive pandemic online shopping.
3,000 years and just one pair of genomes to wear
Men and women are different. We’ll give you a moment to pick your jaw off the ground.
It makes sense though, the sexes being different, especially when you look at the broader animal kingdom. The males and females of many species are slightly different when it comes to size and shape, but there’s a big question that literally only anthropologists have asked: Were human males and females more different in the past than they are today?
To be more specific, some scientists believe that males and females grew more similar when humans shifted from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a farming-based lifestyle, as agriculture encouraged a more equitable division of labor. Others believe that the differences come down to random chance.
Researchers from Penn State University analyzed genomic data from over 350,000 males and females stored in the UK Biobank and looked at the recent (within the last ~3,000 years; post-agriculture adoption in Britain) evolutionary histories of these loci. Height, body mass, hip circumference, body fat percentage, and waist circumference were analyzed, and while there were thousands of differences in the genomes, only one trait occurred more frequently during that time period: Females gained a significantly higher body fat content than males.
It’s a sad day then for the millions of people who were big fans of the “farming caused men and women to become more similar” theory. Count the LOTME crew among them. Be honest: Wouldn’t life be so much simpler if men and women were exactly the same? Just think about it, no more arguments about leaving the toilet seat up. It’d be worth it just for that.
Proteins don’t lie
Research published in Open Biology shows that the human brain contains 14,315 different proteins. The team conducting that study wanted to find out which organ was the most similar to the old brain box, so they did protein counts for the 32 other major tissue types, including heart, salivary gland, lung, spleen, and endometrium.
The tissue with the most proteins in common with the center of human intelligence? You’re thinking it has to be colon at this point, right? We were sure it was going to be colon, but it’s not.
The winner, with 13,442 shared proteins, is the testes. The testes have 15,687 proteins, of which 85.7% are shared with the brain. The researchers, sadly, did not provide protein counts for the other tissue types, but we bet colon was a close second.
Dreaming about COVID?
We thought we were the only ones who have been having crazy dreams lately. Each one seems crazier and more vivid than the one before. Have you been having weird dreams lately?
This is likely your brain’s coping mechanism to handle your pandemic stress, according to Dr. Erik Hoel of Tufts University. Dreams that are crazy and scary might make real life seem lighter and simpler. He calls it the “overfitted brain hypothesis.”
“It is their very strangeness that gives them their biological function,” Dr. Hoel said. It literally makes you feel like COVID-19 and lockdowns aren’t as scary as they seem.
We always knew our minds were powerful things. Apparently, your brain gets tired of everyday familiarity just like you do, and it creates crazy dreams to keep things interesting.
Just remember: That recurring dream that you’re back in college and missing 10 assignments is there to help you, not scare you! Even though it is pretty scary.
Noses can be electronic, and toilets can be smart
Cancer loses … by a nose
Since the human nose is unpredictable at best, we’ve learned to rely on animals for our detailed nozzle needs. But researchers have found the next best thing to man’s best friend to accurately identify cancers.
A team at the University of Pennsylvania has developed an electronic olfaction, or “e-nose,” that has a 95% accuracy rate in distinguishing benign and malignant pancreatic and ovarian cancer cells from a single blood sample. How?
The e-nose system is equipped with nanosensors that are able to detect the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by cells in a blood sample. Not only does this create an opportunity for an easier, noninvasive screening practice, but it’s fast. The e-nose can distinguish VOCs from healthy to cancerous blood cells in 20 minutes or less and is just as effective in picking up on early- and late-stage cancers.
The investigators hope that this innovative technology can pave the way for similar devices with other uses. Thanks to the e-nose, a handheld device is in development that may be able to sniff out the signature odor of people with COVID-19.
That’s one smart schnoz.
Do you think this is a (food) game?
Dieting and eating healthy is tough, even during the best of times, and it has not been the best of times. With all respect to Charles Dickens, it’s been the worst of times, full stop. Millions of people have spent the past year sitting around their homes doing nothing, and it’s only natural that many would let their discipline slide.
Naturally, the solution to unhealthy eating habits is to sit down and play with your phone. No, that’s not the joke, the Food Trainer app, available on all cellular devices near you, is designed to encourage healthy eating by turning it into a game of sorts. When users open the app, they’re presented with images of food, and they’re trained to tap on images of healthy food and pass on images of unhealthy ones. The process takes less than 5 minutes.
It sounds really simple, but in a study of more than 1,000 people, consumption of junk food fell by 1 point on an 8-point scale (ranging from four times per day to zero to one time per month), participants lost about half a kilogram (a little over one pound), and more healthy food was eaten. Those who used the app more regularly, along the lines of 10 times per month or more, saw greater benefits.
The authors did acknowledge that those who used the app more may have been more motivated to lose weight anyway, which perhaps limits the overall benefit, but reviews on Google Play were overall quite positive, and if there’s one great truth in this world, it’s that Internet reviewers are almost impossible to please. So perhaps this app is worth looking into if you’re like the LOTME staff and you’re up at the top end of that 8-point scale. What, pizza is delicious, who wouldn’t eat it four times a day? And you can also get it from your phone!
It’s time for a little mass kickin’
The universe, scientists tell us, is a big place. Really big. Chromosomes, scientists tell us, are small. Really small. But despite this very fundamental difference, the universe and chromosomes share a deep, dark secret: unexplained mass.
This being a medical publication, we’ll start with chromosomes. A group of researchers measured their mass with x-rays for the first time and found that “the 46 chromosomes in each of our cells weigh 242 picograms (trillionths of a gram). This is heavier than we would expect, and, if replicated, points to unexplained excess mass in chromosomes,” Ian K. Robinson, PhD, said in a written statement.
We’re not just talking about a bit of a beer belly here. “The chromosomes were about 20 times heavier than the DNA they contained,” according to the investigators.
Now to the universe. Here’s what CERN, the European Council for Nuclear Research, has to say about the mass of the universe: “Galaxies in our universe … are rotating with such speed that the gravity generated by their observable matter could not possibly hold them together. … which leads scientists to believe that something we cannot see is at work. They think something we have yet to detect directly is giving these galaxies extra mass.”
But wait, there’s more! “The matter we know and that makes up all stars and galaxies only accounts for 5% of the content of the universe!”
So chromosomes are about 20 times heavier than the DNA they contain, and the universe is about 20 times heavier than the matter that can be seen. Interesting.
We are, of course, happy to share this news with our readers, but there is one catch: Don’t tell Neil deGrasse Tyson. He’ll want to reclassify our genetic solar system into 45 chromosomes and one dwarf chromosome.
A photo finish for the Smart Toilet
We know that poop can tell us a lot about our health, but new research by scientists at Duke University is really on a roll. Their Smart Toilet has been created to help people keep an eye on their bowel health. The device takes pictures of poop after it is flushed and can tell whether the consistency is loose, bloody, or normal.
The Smart Toilet can really help people with issues such as irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease by helping them, and their doctors, keep tabs on their poop. “Typically, gastroenterologists have to rely on patient self-reported information about their stool to help determine the cause of their gastrointestinal health issues, which can be very unreliable,” study lead author Deborah Fisher said.
Not many people look too closely at their poop before it’s flushed, so the fecal photos can make a big difference. The Smart Toilet is installed into the pipes of a toilet and does its thing when the toilet is flushed, so there doesn’t seem to be much work on the patient’s end. Other than the, um, you know, usual work from the patient’s end.
Cancer loses … by a nose
Since the human nose is unpredictable at best, we’ve learned to rely on animals for our detailed nozzle needs. But researchers have found the next best thing to man’s best friend to accurately identify cancers.
A team at the University of Pennsylvania has developed an electronic olfaction, or “e-nose,” that has a 95% accuracy rate in distinguishing benign and malignant pancreatic and ovarian cancer cells from a single blood sample. How?
The e-nose system is equipped with nanosensors that are able to detect the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by cells in a blood sample. Not only does this create an opportunity for an easier, noninvasive screening practice, but it’s fast. The e-nose can distinguish VOCs from healthy to cancerous blood cells in 20 minutes or less and is just as effective in picking up on early- and late-stage cancers.
The investigators hope that this innovative technology can pave the way for similar devices with other uses. Thanks to the e-nose, a handheld device is in development that may be able to sniff out the signature odor of people with COVID-19.
That’s one smart schnoz.
Do you think this is a (food) game?
Dieting and eating healthy is tough, even during the best of times, and it has not been the best of times. With all respect to Charles Dickens, it’s been the worst of times, full stop. Millions of people have spent the past year sitting around their homes doing nothing, and it’s only natural that many would let their discipline slide.
Naturally, the solution to unhealthy eating habits is to sit down and play with your phone. No, that’s not the joke, the Food Trainer app, available on all cellular devices near you, is designed to encourage healthy eating by turning it into a game of sorts. When users open the app, they’re presented with images of food, and they’re trained to tap on images of healthy food and pass on images of unhealthy ones. The process takes less than 5 minutes.
It sounds really simple, but in a study of more than 1,000 people, consumption of junk food fell by 1 point on an 8-point scale (ranging from four times per day to zero to one time per month), participants lost about half a kilogram (a little over one pound), and more healthy food was eaten. Those who used the app more regularly, along the lines of 10 times per month or more, saw greater benefits.
The authors did acknowledge that those who used the app more may have been more motivated to lose weight anyway, which perhaps limits the overall benefit, but reviews on Google Play were overall quite positive, and if there’s one great truth in this world, it’s that Internet reviewers are almost impossible to please. So perhaps this app is worth looking into if you’re like the LOTME staff and you’re up at the top end of that 8-point scale. What, pizza is delicious, who wouldn’t eat it four times a day? And you can also get it from your phone!
It’s time for a little mass kickin’
The universe, scientists tell us, is a big place. Really big. Chromosomes, scientists tell us, are small. Really small. But despite this very fundamental difference, the universe and chromosomes share a deep, dark secret: unexplained mass.
This being a medical publication, we’ll start with chromosomes. A group of researchers measured their mass with x-rays for the first time and found that “the 46 chromosomes in each of our cells weigh 242 picograms (trillionths of a gram). This is heavier than we would expect, and, if replicated, points to unexplained excess mass in chromosomes,” Ian K. Robinson, PhD, said in a written statement.
We’re not just talking about a bit of a beer belly here. “The chromosomes were about 20 times heavier than the DNA they contained,” according to the investigators.
Now to the universe. Here’s what CERN, the European Council for Nuclear Research, has to say about the mass of the universe: “Galaxies in our universe … are rotating with such speed that the gravity generated by their observable matter could not possibly hold them together. … which leads scientists to believe that something we cannot see is at work. They think something we have yet to detect directly is giving these galaxies extra mass.”
But wait, there’s more! “The matter we know and that makes up all stars and galaxies only accounts for 5% of the content of the universe!”
So chromosomes are about 20 times heavier than the DNA they contain, and the universe is about 20 times heavier than the matter that can be seen. Interesting.
We are, of course, happy to share this news with our readers, but there is one catch: Don’t tell Neil deGrasse Tyson. He’ll want to reclassify our genetic solar system into 45 chromosomes and one dwarf chromosome.
A photo finish for the Smart Toilet
We know that poop can tell us a lot about our health, but new research by scientists at Duke University is really on a roll. Their Smart Toilet has been created to help people keep an eye on their bowel health. The device takes pictures of poop after it is flushed and can tell whether the consistency is loose, bloody, or normal.
The Smart Toilet can really help people with issues such as irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease by helping them, and their doctors, keep tabs on their poop. “Typically, gastroenterologists have to rely on patient self-reported information about their stool to help determine the cause of their gastrointestinal health issues, which can be very unreliable,” study lead author Deborah Fisher said.
Not many people look too closely at their poop before it’s flushed, so the fecal photos can make a big difference. The Smart Toilet is installed into the pipes of a toilet and does its thing when the toilet is flushed, so there doesn’t seem to be much work on the patient’s end. Other than the, um, you know, usual work from the patient’s end.
Cancer loses … by a nose
Since the human nose is unpredictable at best, we’ve learned to rely on animals for our detailed nozzle needs. But researchers have found the next best thing to man’s best friend to accurately identify cancers.
A team at the University of Pennsylvania has developed an electronic olfaction, or “e-nose,” that has a 95% accuracy rate in distinguishing benign and malignant pancreatic and ovarian cancer cells from a single blood sample. How?
The e-nose system is equipped with nanosensors that are able to detect the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by cells in a blood sample. Not only does this create an opportunity for an easier, noninvasive screening practice, but it’s fast. The e-nose can distinguish VOCs from healthy to cancerous blood cells in 20 minutes or less and is just as effective in picking up on early- and late-stage cancers.
The investigators hope that this innovative technology can pave the way for similar devices with other uses. Thanks to the e-nose, a handheld device is in development that may be able to sniff out the signature odor of people with COVID-19.
That’s one smart schnoz.
Do you think this is a (food) game?
Dieting and eating healthy is tough, even during the best of times, and it has not been the best of times. With all respect to Charles Dickens, it’s been the worst of times, full stop. Millions of people have spent the past year sitting around their homes doing nothing, and it’s only natural that many would let their discipline slide.
Naturally, the solution to unhealthy eating habits is to sit down and play with your phone. No, that’s not the joke, the Food Trainer app, available on all cellular devices near you, is designed to encourage healthy eating by turning it into a game of sorts. When users open the app, they’re presented with images of food, and they’re trained to tap on images of healthy food and pass on images of unhealthy ones. The process takes less than 5 minutes.
It sounds really simple, but in a study of more than 1,000 people, consumption of junk food fell by 1 point on an 8-point scale (ranging from four times per day to zero to one time per month), participants lost about half a kilogram (a little over one pound), and more healthy food was eaten. Those who used the app more regularly, along the lines of 10 times per month or more, saw greater benefits.
The authors did acknowledge that those who used the app more may have been more motivated to lose weight anyway, which perhaps limits the overall benefit, but reviews on Google Play were overall quite positive, and if there’s one great truth in this world, it’s that Internet reviewers are almost impossible to please. So perhaps this app is worth looking into if you’re like the LOTME staff and you’re up at the top end of that 8-point scale. What, pizza is delicious, who wouldn’t eat it four times a day? And you can also get it from your phone!
It’s time for a little mass kickin’
The universe, scientists tell us, is a big place. Really big. Chromosomes, scientists tell us, are small. Really small. But despite this very fundamental difference, the universe and chromosomes share a deep, dark secret: unexplained mass.
This being a medical publication, we’ll start with chromosomes. A group of researchers measured their mass with x-rays for the first time and found that “the 46 chromosomes in each of our cells weigh 242 picograms (trillionths of a gram). This is heavier than we would expect, and, if replicated, points to unexplained excess mass in chromosomes,” Ian K. Robinson, PhD, said in a written statement.
We’re not just talking about a bit of a beer belly here. “The chromosomes were about 20 times heavier than the DNA they contained,” according to the investigators.
Now to the universe. Here’s what CERN, the European Council for Nuclear Research, has to say about the mass of the universe: “Galaxies in our universe … are rotating with such speed that the gravity generated by their observable matter could not possibly hold them together. … which leads scientists to believe that something we cannot see is at work. They think something we have yet to detect directly is giving these galaxies extra mass.”
But wait, there’s more! “The matter we know and that makes up all stars and galaxies only accounts for 5% of the content of the universe!”
So chromosomes are about 20 times heavier than the DNA they contain, and the universe is about 20 times heavier than the matter that can be seen. Interesting.
We are, of course, happy to share this news with our readers, but there is one catch: Don’t tell Neil deGrasse Tyson. He’ll want to reclassify our genetic solar system into 45 chromosomes and one dwarf chromosome.
A photo finish for the Smart Toilet
We know that poop can tell us a lot about our health, but new research by scientists at Duke University is really on a roll. Their Smart Toilet has been created to help people keep an eye on their bowel health. The device takes pictures of poop after it is flushed and can tell whether the consistency is loose, bloody, or normal.
The Smart Toilet can really help people with issues such as irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease by helping them, and their doctors, keep tabs on their poop. “Typically, gastroenterologists have to rely on patient self-reported information about their stool to help determine the cause of their gastrointestinal health issues, which can be very unreliable,” study lead author Deborah Fisher said.
Not many people look too closely at their poop before it’s flushed, so the fecal photos can make a big difference. The Smart Toilet is installed into the pipes of a toilet and does its thing when the toilet is flushed, so there doesn’t seem to be much work on the patient’s end. Other than the, um, you know, usual work from the patient’s end.