Daily Mail – A hazardous drug that eliminates free will and can wipe the memory of its victims is currently being dealt on the streets of Colombia. The drug is called scopolamine, but is colloquially known as ‘The Devil’s Breath,’ and is derived from a particular type of tree [The borrachero plant: Datura stramonium] common to South America. Stories surrounding the drug are the stuff of urban legends, with some telling horror stories of how people were raped, forced to empty their bank accounts, and even coerced into giving up an organ. Read article
NY Times – Scientists who have studied a degenerative brain disease in athletes have found the same condition in combat veterans exposed to roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, concluding that such explosions injure the brain in ways strikingly similar to tackles and punches. The researchers also discovered what they believe is the mechanism by which explosions damage brain tissue and trigger the wasting disease, called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., by studying simulated explosions on mice. The animals developed evidence of the disease just two weeks after exposure to a single simulated blast, researchers found. Read article
Reuters – Three months of acupuncture improved breathing problems in people with chronic lung disease, in a new study from Japan. According to one researcher, the benefits seen with the alternative treatment were on par with, or better than, what’s been shown for conventional drugs and exercises used to treat the disease. But the study was small, he added, and more research will be needed to convince doctors and policymakers of acupuncture’s usefulness. Read article
Nature – The town of Ozersk, deep in Russia’s remote southern Urals, hides the relics of a massive secret experiment. From the early 1950s to the end of the cold war, nearly 250,000 animals were systematically irradiated. Some were blasted with ?-, ?- or ?-radiation. Others were fed radioactive particles. Some of the doses were high enough to kill the animals outright; others were so low that they seemed harmless. After the animals — mice, rats, dogs, pigs and a few monkeys — died, scientists dissected out their tissues to see what damage the radioactivity had wrought. They fixed thin slices of lung, heart, liver, brain and other organs in paraffin blocks, to be sliced and examined under the microscope. Some organs, they pickled in jars of formalin. Read article
NBC – A rise in prescription drug abuse involving Xanax and similar anti-anxiety pills in recent years has prompted some doctors in the U.S. to rethink the frequency with which they dole out the prescription. Between 2004 and 2009, New York City emergency room visits involving Xanax and other anti-anxiety prescription drugs known as benzodiazepines increased more than 50 percent. That’s up from 38 out of 100,000 New Yorkers in 2004 to 59 out of 100,000 New Yorkers. Read article
Nature – European researchers have identified a gene that is linked to improved memory, but also to increased risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Dominique de Quervain of the University of Basel in Switzerland and his colleagues recruited around 700 healthy young volunteers, obtaining DNA samples from them to analyse the sequence of their PRKCA gene. This gene is one of many known to be involved in the formation of emotional memories, and encodes an enzyme called protein kinase C-?. The researchers then showed the participants a series of emotionally affecting photographs and shortly afterwards asked them to write down short descriptions of the images. Read article
The Nation – Willice Onyango is an enterprising university student in western Kenya who is traveling the country with an unusual offer for women living with HIV. It goes like this: you join a cohort of ten to fifteen other HIV-positive women, together you come up with a viable plan for a small business, and you get an intrauterine device (IUD) to serve as long-term birth control. In return, you will be paid $40. Read Article
Nature – Not long ago, the story was simple. A vanguard of modern humans left their African birthplace 50,000–60,000 years ago and quickly conquered Asia. They turned left into Europe some 40,000 years ago, later crossing the Bering Strait and marching southward into the Americas. With their advance, Neanderthals and other earlier peoples dwindled and vanished. But in the past five years, the picture has grown more complex — and more interesting. Read article
Reuters – Malaria-carrying mosquitoes in Africa and India are becoming resistant to insecticides, putting millions of lives at greater risk and threatening eradication efforts, health experts said on Tuesday. While existing prevention measures such as mosquito nets treated with insecticide and indoor spraying are still effective, experts said tight surveillance and rapid response strategies were needed to prevent more resistance developing. Read article
Reuters – People getting checked for signs of colon cancer may not need to take a laxative if they choose a CT scan for their cancer screening over a tradition colonoscopy, according to a new study. The findings suggest a so-called CT colonography is almost as good at identifying certain polyps as a traditional colonoscopy, and researchers said eliminating the need for laxatives may encourage more people to get screened. Read article
Reuters – When London marathon medical director Sanjay Sharma was called to attend someone who had collapsed with suspected cardiac arrest a mile from the finish line last month, he expected to find a man in his seventies. “I had to hide my horror as I saw a young, athletic woman,” he says. “I had to… compose myself for a few seconds before we started resuscitation.” Read article
NY Times – One day last summer, Anne and her husband, Miguel, took their 9-year-old son, Michael, to a Florida elementary school for the first day of what the family chose to call “summer camp.” For years, Anne and Miguel have struggled to understand their eldest son, an elegant boy with high-planed cheeks, wide eyes and curly light brown hair, whose periodic rages alternate with moments of chilly detachment. Michael’s eight-week program was, in reality, a highly structured psychological study — less summer camp than camp of last resort. Read article
Daily News and Analysis – Nearly 70% of the districts in the state have fluoride contents beyond the permissible limit in ground water. Data available from the ministry of water resources, concerning ground water quality scenario, reveals that 18 of Gujarat’s 26 districts have fluoride content above the permissible limit. Gujarat ranks 5th among the 19 states in high fluoride content in ground water. If that isn’t enough, the nitrate content in ground water is also quite high in various districts of the state. Read article
Editorial Note: Flouride occurs naturally in many places in India in DEEP water wells that are relied on for clean water.
Daily Mail – NASA’s probes have seen the ‘edge’ of our solar system for the first time – and it’s completely different from what scientists thought. Our solar system is flying through space more slowly than we thought – and NASA’s IBEX – Interstellar Boundary Explorer – has found it doesn’t have a ‘bow shock’, an area of gas or plasma that shields our solar system as it hurtles though space ‘The sonic boom made by a jet breaking the sound barrier is an earthly example of a bow shock,’ says Dr. David McComas, principal investigator of the IBEX mission. Read article
Editorial Comment: A number of nice pictures are included in the article.
Reuters – More than half of kids who were part of a new study from California tested positive for secondhand smoke exposure — despite only a handful of their parents admitting to lighting up. Parents may think kids are only exposed if they’re around someone actively smoking a cigarette, researchers said, or are unaware of where else their children might be breathing in smoke. Read article
Daily Mail – Americans consume 80 percent of the world’s supply of painkillers — more than 110 tons of pure, addictive opiates every year — as the country’s prescription drug abuse epidemic explodes. That’s enough drugs to give every single American 64 Percocets or Vicodin. And pain pill prescriptions continue to surge, up 600 percent in ten year… Read article
Daily Mail – Britain has become a nation of sleeping pill addicts since the start of the economic downturn, figures revealed yesterday. Stress-related insomnia has been blamed for a sharp increase in the number of people prescribed powerful drugs to help them sleep. The annual cost to the NHS of handing out the pills has risen by a sixth in the past three years to nearly £50million. Read article
ScienceDaily — Scientists are reporting a possible link between the use of sunscreen containing a certain ingredient that mimics the effects of the female sex hormone estrogen and an increased risk of being diagnosed with endometriosis, a painful condition in which uterine tissue grows outside the uterus. They describe the report, published in ACS’ journal Environmental Science & Technology, as the first to examine whether such a connection may exist. Read article
The Telegraph – Common chemicals found in household products may be causing a range of medical problems such as cancer, reduced fertility and obesity, Europe’s environmental watchdog has warned. The European Environment Agency (EEA) warned other items such as cosmetics and medicines which contain endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) could be harmful to humans. The agency said the link between some diseases and these disrupter chemicals was now fully accepted. Read article
Open your eyes for there is a brave new world upon us! Aldous Huxley’s 5thnovel prophetically anticipates developments in reproductive technology, drug use, education and psychoanalysis that combine to change society. Watch our brave new world come into focus before your very eyes by reading our news archive on the subject. CLICK HERE
Science Alert – Lupus patients show more severe symptoms of the disease if their vitamin D levels are low, an Australian-first study has found. Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), which affects more than five million people worldwide, was found to be worse in vitamin D deficient SLE patients than in those with normal levels, in the study led by Professor Eric Morand, head of the Monash Lupus Clinic and Southern Clinical School at Monash Medical Centre. Read article
AP — A deadly lead poisoning outbreak that began two years ago in northern Nigeria continues to claim young victims even today, an aid agency official said Thursday, while calling on the government to do more to protect those at risk. Ivan Gayton of Doctors Without Borders also criticized the government of oil-rich Nigeria for not taking the threat seriously, despite 4,000 children already being sickened by the outbreak linked to gold mining. Foreign aid groups have done much of the work to clean the villages affected in rural Zamfara state and provide care to the children, who likely will suffer long-term brain damage from their exposure to the lead. Read article
Deutsche Welle – Researches in the UK and Japan have turned to nature (read, magnetic bacteria) to help produce electronics on a nano scale. They say the bacteria could help us make better hard drives and faster internet connections. Researchers at Britain’s University of Leeds and Japan’s Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology have used a type of bacterium that “eats” iron to create tiny magnets inside themselves, similar to those found in traditional hard drives. Read article
What is Open Your Eyes News?
It is the Big Picture - We aim to bring you the most comprehensive news on what is happening in your world, updated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Open Your Eyes News is compiled from the news feeds of over a hundred mainstream media outlets worldwide.
