Lawmakers defiantly chewed coca in Peru’s Congress on Thursday while criticizing a U.N. recommendation to criminalize traditional uses of the plant.The coca leaf, the raw ingredient of cocaine, is used by millions of people to stave off hunger and fight altitude sickness. It is also used in teas, in cooking and by fortune tellers.
Category: Life Is Like Science Fiction
In recent years, crystal meth (methamphetamine) and ecstasy (MDMA) have become some of America’s top problem drugs. Meth can cause severe problems in the cardiovascular and central nervous systems. Furthermore, because there is no way to remove the drug from the body, therapies tend to focus on treating its side-effects.
But antibodies that bind to methamphetamines and methamphetamine-like compounds to effectively remove them from the bloodstream could change that. Michael Owens, director of the Center for Alcohol and Drug Abuse at the University of Arkansas, US, and colleagues claim to have developed a way to generate them.
A six-inch robotic spy plane modeled after a bat would gather data from sights, sounds and smells in urban combat zones and transmit information back to a soldier in real time.
Read the rest at The University of Michigan College of Engineering
Using tiny brushes and chisels, workers picking at a big greenish-black rock in the basement of North Dakota’s state museum are meticulously uncovering something amazing: a nearly complete dinosaur, skin and all.
A brain surgeon used a £30 DIY drill to carry out a successful operation on a fully conscious patient.
Henry Marsh, 58, used a Bosch cordless drill because he did not have his normal equipment on him.
Israeli secret agents are writing blogs about their lives in a bid to boost recruitment.
Shin Beth, Israel’s equivalent of MI5, is allowing four agents to write blogs about their daily routines.
A German pensioner is suing a hospital after she checked in for an operation on her leg – and woke up to find she had been given a new anus.
On Wednesday, March 12, 2008, surgeons at UC San Diego Medical Center performed what is believed to be the country’s first removal of a diseased appendix through the mouth. This clinical trial procedure received approval for a limited number of patients by UC San Diego’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) which oversees clinical research.
If you think it’s impossible to have sex while you sleep, think again, according to a new study.
There are at least 11 different sex-related sleep disorders, collectively referred to as “sexsomnia” or “sleepsex,” that affect people who are otherwise psychologically healthy—causing them to unknowingly engage in various sexual activities during the night.
By The Associated Press
Millions of swarming honey bees are on the loose after a truck carrying crates of the insects flipped over on a California highway.
The California Highway Patrol says 8-to-12 million bees escaped Sunday from the crates in which they were stored and swarmed over an area of Highway 99 and stung officers, firefighters and tow truck drivers trying to clear the accident. View full article »
