http://uk.news.yahoo.com/wenn/20080706/ten...-c60bd6d_1.html
‘Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane has vowed to stop smoking marijuana - because it makes him too paranoid.
MacFarlane signed a GBP50 million deal with 20th Century Fox in May, in a move which will make him the highest-paid writer-producer in television - and he’s determined to increase his productivity by swearing off illegal drugs.
He says, “I don’t smoke much pot anymore. One of the last times I was stoned, I was convinced that
http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?i...C35C&sc=rss
'In the insect world, bright reds, oranges and yellows can be a warning: “Eat me at your own risk, pal.” Because colorful bugs can be toxic, they often get their chemical protection from nibbling poisonous plants. But these poisons can have a flip side for us—some fight cancer or tropical parasites that cause diseases like malaria.
The idea that colorful bugs can tip us off to disease-fighting plants isn’t new. But researchers at the
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=fear-f...mine&sc=rss
'A brain chemical linked to pleasure and depression may also trigger fear, according to a new study. Researchers say this may explain why the neurotransmitter dopamine, known to cause addictive behavior, may also play a role in anxiety disorders.
"Showing that dopamine can enhance both approach and avoidance behaviors is an important finding," says Howard Fields, a neurobiologist at the University of California, San Francisco. Approa
http://blog.aclu.org/2008/07/12/strip-sear...constitutional/
‘If you have a problem with school officials strip searching 13-year-olds for Advil – or if you care about the government’s standards for informant use and invasive searches – you can take relief in yesterday’s ruling by a full panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which ruled 6-5 that students cannot be strip-searched based on the uncorroborated word of another student who is facing disciplinary punishment.
“A reas
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/...80707161437.htm
'A combination drug taken within an hour after the start of a migraine is effective in relieving symptoms, according to research published in the July 8, 2008, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
The drug combines sumatriptan, a migraine-specific drug that affects the constriction of blood vessels, with naproxen sodium, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug that works on the inflammatory as
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnough...oddlyEnoughNews
'Police have detained two custodians who were about to harvest their first crop of cannabis, a source of drugs like hashish and marijuana, from a cemetery in Vietnam's capital, a state-run newspaper reported on Monday.
Police took in Nguyen Manh Hung, 44, who heads the caretaker team at the cemetery in Hanoi's outer district of Hoang Mai, and Ho A Lau, 46, after the authorities found cannabis plants grown on a 25 square meter (82 squ
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/...80703145849.htm
'Letting your imagination run away with you may actually influence how you see the world. New research from Vanderbilt University has found that mental imagery—what we see with the "mind's eye"—directly impacts our visual perception.
"We found that imagery leads to a short-term memory trace that can bias future perception," says Joel Pearson, research associate in the Vanderbilt Department of Psychology. and lead author of the study.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=long-t...ooms&sc=rss
'People who took magic mushrooms were still feeling the love more than a year later, and one might say they were on cloud nine about it, scientists report in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
"Most of the volunteers looked back on their experience up to 14 months later and rated it as the most, or one of the five most, personally meaningful and spiritually significant of their lives," comparing it with the birth of a child or the de
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnough...oddlyEnoughNews
'Drug traffickers in China's far west are smuggling heroin into the country woven into carpets imported from Afghanistan and Pakistan, state media said on Tuesday.
Customs officials in Xinjiang, which borders both countries, have seized more than 30 carpets containing some 50 kg (110 lb) of heroin in the last several months, the official China Daily said.
"The traffickers have become more sophisticated and are using new techniques,"
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnough...oddlyEnoughNews
'A sharp increase in drugs and cellphones found inside a Brazilian prison mystified officials -- until guards spotted some distressed pigeons struggling to stay airborne.
Inmates at the prison in Marilia, Sao Paulo state had been training carrier pigeons to smuggle in goods using cell phone sized pouches on their backs, a low-tech but ingenious way of skipping the high-tech security that visitors faced.
"We have sophisticated equipm
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=genera...leep&sc=rss
'Researchers studying the effects of general anesthesia recently made a startling discovery: the drugs used to knock out patients during surgery may lead to increased pain when they wake up.
Doctors have known for decades that most general anesthetics may cause a temporary burning sensation when administered or swelling around the injection site. Similarly, inhaled agents can cause momentary coughing bouts, according to Gerard Ahern,
http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_B...-07/06-144.html
‘Morphine, as little as a single dose, blocks the brain’s ability to strengthen connections at inhibitory synapses, according to new Brown University research published in Nature.
The findings, uncovered in the laboratory of Brown scientist Julie Kauer, may help explain the origins of addiction in the brain. The research also supports a provocative new theory of addiction as a disease of learning and memory.
“We’ve added a new piece
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/200...mp;topic=latest
‘Australian researchers have found that long-term heavy use of marijuana may cause parts of the brain to shrink.
Published in this month’s Archives of General Psychiatry, the study found that the hippocampus and amygdala were smaller in men who were heavy marijuana users compared to non-users.
The study looked at 15 men heavy marijuana users, who had smoked at least five marijuana cigarettes daily for on average of 20 years.
Brain
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/...80531091527.htm
'A University of Adelaide study has revealed that effects of the drug ecstasy are compounded when taken in warm environments.
Preclinical research undertaken by Pharmacology PhD student Emily Jaehne shows that ecstasy deaths, which are invariably related to elevated body temperature, may be related to drug users’ failure to recognise their body is abnormally hot.
“The fact that these drugs are often taken in warm nightclubs and at r
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2871407.html
‘Two Australian burglars broke into a house - only to find it full of police officers staging a drugs raid.
The pair jemmied open a window to get into the house in a midnight raid in Melbourne, reports the Herald Sun.
But they had been beaten to it by police officers who had just burst through the door to search for drugs.
The property was allegedly being used for growing hydroponic cannabis, and the detectives were on a raid to arrest the re
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnough...oddlyEnoughNews
'Canadians should avoid unlicensed drugs that claim to improve sexual performance because they could cause problems such as loss of consciousness, prolonged erections and chest pain, the health ministry said on Friday.
Health Canada issued the warning in a release about a product called Desire, which was found to contain the prescription drug phentolamine -- something not indicated on the label.
"Health Canada advises consumers not
http://www.13wham.com/entertainment/weirdn...4b-a488924bd823
‘Police in Russia are investigating after pupils stripped off their clothes, climbed walls or lay on the floor laughing after their school dinners were spiked with drugs.
The teenaged students were given ecstasy in their soup and drinks at their school in the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk in eastern Russia.
Doctors who were called in said the students showed signs of intoxication and prosecutors later found traces of ecstasy.’
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=can-hg...-dam&sc=rss
'Abuse of opiates such as heroin, methadone and morphine destroy brain cells, reducing attention span and memory. But new research shows there may be a way to regain some lost patience and recall.
Researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA that brain cells targeted for early death by continued opiate use may be salvaged by injections of synthetic human growth hormone (H
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnough...oddlyEnoughNews
'Authorities in Texas have filed corpse-abuse charges against two men who allegedly removed a skull from a grave and used it as a bong.
The Harris County District Attorney's Office confirmed on Thursday that misdemeanor abuse of corpse charges have been filed in the case.
One of the men allegedly told police they dug up a grave in an abandoned cemetery in the woods, removed a head from a body and smoked marijuana using the skull as
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-...line-news_rss20
'The Milanese are partial to a line or two of cocaine. The same goes for many drug users in London, although they dabble in heroin more than their Italian counterparts. Both cities like ecstasy at the weekends and cannabis pretty much every day. Welcome to the results from a new branch of public health: sewage epidemiology.
The Italian scientists behind the idea first attracted attention in 2005, when they detected the residues of se
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/01/2233186.htm
'Instead, they say, the drink's reputation is down to nothing more exotic than its high alcohol content.
German researcher Dr Dirk Lachenmeier of the Chemisches und Veterinaruntersuchungsamt Karlsruhe and colleagues publish their study online in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Absinthe has been dubbed 'the green fairy' or 'the green muse' and was once widely used by 19th century Parisian bohemians, many of whom believed
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1381...allucinate.html
'Hospital intensive care is a traumatic experience, especially for a child. It can cause post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in adults, but nothing has been known about it in children.
"No-one asks the children," says Gillian Colville, at St George's Hospital in London.
Now Colville and colleagues have asked the children, and they have found that any long-term stress in children may result more from the drugs the children were giv
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=invent...trip&sc=rss
'Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann, inventor of LSD, died yesterday at the age of 102, just 10 days after the 55th anniversary of his notorious bicycle trip while tripping on "acid". Hofmann, who suffered a heart attack at home in Basel, Switzerland, was the first person to synthesize lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as LSD, and the first human known to experience its mind-bending effects.
The drug was the 25th he created from the
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health...line-news_rss20
'BILLIONS of people the world over drink alcohol to overcome shyness and animate their social lives - as people have done for millennia. For most drinkers, alcohol is associated above all with relaxation and conviviality, and people forget about its darker side. Yet doctors, governments and healthcare agencies are becoming so concerned about the effects of alcohol abuse that in January the executive board of the World Health Organizat
http://science-community.sciam.com/blog-en...Habit/580000713
'If you use cocaine and need a reason to quit—or one to avoid starting in the first place—think conservation. The national parks of Guatemala and other countries have become the preferred haven of drug traffickers who usurp protected areas and burn the forest to serve their own purposes and the demands of their customers, according to Roan McNab, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) country director for Guatemala.
"They systematically
