Monday, October 16, 2006
Welcome to Monday
How could last night's hilarity be followed by anything but vague seriousness? It seems that the antidepressant Prozac (very similar to Paxil) seems to increase aggressive behavior in adolescent hamsters. One posited explanation is a change in 5HT-1 versus 5HT-3 densities that occur over development, the former increasing with age and dampening aggression, the latter promoting it. Very interesting, and more evidence of one of my pet issues - that drugs tested only in adults probably shouldn't be prescribed willy-nilly to kids.
Nutrition trends, on the other hand, rarely even get tested in anyone before people all over are taking part, regardless of age or actual need to change. Some new research that may start a food fad, and one I'd fully get behind (since I love walnuts) is a study which suggests that finishing a fatty meal with a few walnuts may help protect the body from damaging effects of the meal. The study is small, but the result is intriguing - how real is this effect, and what happens long term?
Long or short term, eating mercury is bad for you. Especially if you're preggers. A small study suggests that women who give birth prematurely have higher mercury exposures - is mercury a cause here? Interesting if it is, especially if we could know how that happens.
Babies are getting more and more vaccines all the time, and someday soon they may get one for an age-old scourge: herpes. A young Montana virologist suggests that he has a new path to take in searching for a vaccine against HSV, and I really hope he's both on to something and gets funded. Even though the nitwits will protest that not having HSV risks out there will make people more sexually promiscuous. Especially because it might well just.
And finally, the physicists have managed to combine matter and antimatter into a single entity. I don't really know what this means, but it sure sounds cool!
Nutrition trends, on the other hand, rarely even get tested in anyone before people all over are taking part, regardless of age or actual need to change. Some new research that may start a food fad, and one I'd fully get behind (since I love walnuts) is a study which suggests that finishing a fatty meal with a few walnuts may help protect the body from damaging effects of the meal. The study is small, but the result is intriguing - how real is this effect, and what happens long term?
Long or short term, eating mercury is bad for you. Especially if you're preggers. A small study suggests that women who give birth prematurely have higher mercury exposures - is mercury a cause here? Interesting if it is, especially if we could know how that happens.
Babies are getting more and more vaccines all the time, and someday soon they may get one for an age-old scourge: herpes. A young Montana virologist suggests that he has a new path to take in searching for a vaccine against HSV, and I really hope he's both on to something and gets funded. Even though the nitwits will protest that not having HSV risks out there will make people more sexually promiscuous. Especially because it might well just.
And finally, the physicists have managed to combine matter and antimatter into a single entity. I don't really know what this means, but it sure sounds cool!
