Category Archives: Science/Medicine

The right gut bacteria can make you more or less stressful, and perhaps more or less clever too:

And now evidence is emerging that these tiny organisms may also have a profound impact on the brain too. They are a living augmentation of your body – and like any enhancement, this means they could, in principle, be upgraded.

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His team tested the effects of two strains of bacteria, finding that one improved cognition in mice. His team is now embarking on human trials, to see if healthy volunteers can have their cognitive abilities enhanced or modulated by tweaking the gut microbiome.

— BBC, Body bacteria: Can your gut bugs make you smarter?, via Slashdot, Gut Bacteria Affect the Brain.

Apparently a very monotonous diet reduces the variety of gut bacteria. I’m just waiting to hear that processed food was a long-term Communist plot to make us dumber.

Apparently I do, at least according to these maps of American dialect and pronunciation.

My pronunciations are most likely to be like New York City (where I was born, but moved away to DC at age six) but several of them are not. Although I spent five years in the UK, and hang around a Brit a great deal, I don’t think I have (m)any English pronunciations, although I may have the odd bit of British slang.

The discovery of a new, more solid, superionic phase of water, made me think of Kurt Vonnegut, who in his novel Cat’s Cradle imagined an ultimately deadly state of water he called ice-nine, which was solid at room temperature. Fortunately the real stuff requires vastly greater temperature and pressure than found on the Earth’s surface:

One lesser known phase of water is the superionic phase, which is considered an “ice” but exists somewhere between a solid and a liquid: while the oxygen atoms occupy fixed lattice positions as in a solid, the hydrogen atoms migrate through the lattice as in a fluid. Until now, scientists have thought that there was only one phase of superionic ice, but scientists in a new study have discovered a second phase that is more stable than the original. The new phase of superionic ice could make up a large component of the interiors of giant icy planets such as Uranus and Neptune.

University of British Columbia researchers have found a new potential use for the over-the-counter pain drug Tylenol. Typically known to relieve physical pain, the study suggests the drug may also reduce the psychological effects of fear and anxiety over the human condition, or existential dread.

— Science News Anxious About Life and Afraid of Death? Tylenol May Do the Trick, Study Suggests

I think it would have been better poetic justice if the cure for existential angst were an anti-nausea drug.

Meanwhile, just remember: if it you take too much Acetaminophen, it will destroy your liver.

On the bright side, though, Acetaminophen is the only painkiller that doesn’t interact poorly with any of my meds….