Category Archives: Science/Medicine

Apparently, pineapples are painkillers:

It turns out that pineapple has a unique set of enzymes with anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties. The main one is bromelin/bromelain, which is an anti-inflammatory, prostaglandin suppressant, anti-coagulant and mild painkiller. I have not confirmed that it's safe to mix pineapple/bromelain with your usual NSAIDs but the Arthritis Foundation does not note this as a risk, nor does this very comprehensive article noting clinical trials (one currently ongoing) and previous studies. Pineapple being cheap this time of year, and non-organic pineapple having a very low probability of pesticide treatment, further investigation is strongly recommended.

And if that doesn't work, try a virtual reality game:

The BBC reports that people absorbed in virtual reality simulations or games are oblivious to pain that normally cripples them. They're so mentally busy that there's no attention left for physical signals. This is a logical extension of how pro athletes are able to continue playing despite severe injury. The project is being developed by the University of Washington Harborview Burn Center, which also developed Spiderworld to use virtual reality to remove fear of spiders

Both items from an odd, and apparently no longer updated, blog I stumbled on called The Clean Shopper .

Chemical in carrots keeps cancer at bay.

A chemical found in carrots [falcarinol] has been found to reduce the risk of cancer in laboratory rats by a third.

But it seems the carrots should be fresh and raw to get the full effect. And, don't worry about the beta caroten,

Carrots have been somewhat unpopular for some time, since it was found that the substance beta caroten found in carrots increases the risk of cancer. According to the researchers at Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences, however, this will never become a problem, since one would have to eat 2 ­ 3 kilos of carrots every day, or eat pure beta caroten in the shape of pills, in order to be at risk.

Amazingly rare that something I like is good for you.

(Google assures me that falcarinol is also found in English Ivy and in Ginseng.)

It seems somewhat strange that an effect this basic would only suddenly be noticed. There's no doubt the coral around here is dying, but that's thought to be caused by pollution, boats, and divers. This sounds altogether more serious:

Acid seas 'will kill off coral within 70 years': Coral reefs could be dead within two generations and cod replaced by jellyfish because of the acidification of the sea, scientists said yesterday.

The potentially disastrous problem, discovered only recently, is being caused by the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

…

Carol Turley, the head of science at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, told a conference in Exeter that the acidity of the sea was rising through chemical processes that turned carbon dioxide into carbonic acid.

She said: “It is happening now; nobody is saying it is not happening. It is O-level chemistry but no one noticed until 15 months ago. This is a rapid change that the world – and the organisms in the sea – have not seen for hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions. …

Ms Turley said that cod and other fish ate plankton and shellfish that relied for their growth on calcium carbonate. If fish were not there, the sea would fill up with organisms such as jellyfish, which could eat other kinds of plankton.

“In cartoon form, you could say that people should be prepared to change their tastes from cod and chips to jellyfish and chips,” she said. “The whole composition of life in the oceans will have changed.”

Add in the already severe issue of the exhaustion of fish stocks from overfishing and profligate use of drift nets and I wonder if ocean collapse won't be the major environmental crisis of the mid-21st century.

I don't think I will like jellyfish sandwiches.

Sun Exposure May Fight Some Cancers.

I am waiting now for the following discoveries:

• Fatty French cheese fights heart disease when combined with wine
• Sedentary life style increases intelligence and resistance to disease
• Reading small print in the dark improves eyesight
• Regular chocolate consumption causes 'Teela Brown' effect

“It is a common custom to refer to the usual complication between one man and two ladies, or one lady and two men, or a lady and a man and a nobleman, or—well, any of those problems—as the triangle. But they are never unqualified triangles. They are always isosceles—never equilateral. So, upon the coming of Nevada Warren, she and Gilbert and Barbara Ross lined up into such a figurative triangle; and of that triangle Barbara formed the hypotenuse.”

—O. Henry Schools and Schools.

Researchers Map The Sexual Network Of An Entire High School:

more (via Boing Boing).

Goodbye “cold fusion” and hello “bubble fusion”.

Physical Review E has announced the publication of an article by a team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Purdue University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and the Russian Academy of Science (RAS) stating that they have replicated and extended previous experimental results that indicated the occurrence of nuclear fusion using a novel approach for plasma confinement.

This approach, called bubble fusion, and the new experimental results are being published in an extensively peer-reviewed article titled “Additional Evidence of Nuclear Emissions During Acoustic Cavitation,” which is scheduled to be posted on Physical Review E’s Web site and published in its journal this month.

The research team used a standing ultrasonic wave to help form and then implode the cavitation bubbles of deuterated acetone vapor. The oscillating sound waves caused the bubbles to expand and then violently collapse, creating strong compression shock waves around and inside the bubbles. Moving at about the speed of sound, the internal shock waves impacted at the center of the bubbles causing very high compression and accompanying temperatures of about 100 million Kelvin.

These new data were taken with an upgraded instrumentation system that allowed data acquisition over a much longer time than was possible in the team’s previous bubble fusion experiments. According to the new data, the observed neutron emission was several orders of magnitude greater than background and had extremely high statistical accuracy. Tritium, which also is produced during the fusion reactions, was measured and the amount produced was found to be consistent with the observed neutron production rate.

Earlier test data, which were reported in Science (Vol. 295, March 2002), indicated that nuclear fusion had occurred, but these data were questioned because they were taken with less precise instrumentation.

“These extensive new experiments have replicated and extended our earlier results and hopefully answer all of the previous questions surrounding our discovery,” said Richard T. Lahey Jr., the Edward E. Hood Professor of Engineering at Rensselaer and the director of the analytical part of the joint research project.

I think this is still a long way from powering my laptop, though.