I'm no scientist but I did hear this very question being answered a while back. The answer is apparently to do with the way in which the nuts are processed. A while back (talking at least 10 years) manufacturers switched to a cheaper and easier method of processing that didn't remove the substances that cause the hyper allergic reactions. I can't be more specific than that, but there's a starting point.
How dangerous is yerba mate? It seems really good, besides the fact that it might cause cancer? There seem to be some studies that show that it does, and others that argue that it doesn't. Which is right?
How fucked are we? It seems like the asteroid is gonna be a little too close for comfort. Any updated trajectories on this thing? I would google it, but apparently I am too drunk at the moment to spell the name of this asteroid correctly. edit: If you're into this type of science, then watch more videos by this guy. He has a way of explaining very complex things in a very simple and understandable way. I wasted a whole evening watching this guy the other night. And I bought his book "Death By Black Hole" yesterday. So far it's a very interesting read.
I'm going to go all Animal Liberation Front on this board, but..... Have any studies on Primates proven efficacious in human studies? I've been reading about some of the shit they do to primates at medical labs, and it is nothing short of atrocious... Just wondering what people here think about the use of primates and the actual benefit to society. Insofar as I can tell, primates, while close genetically, do not prove to be a good working model to produce medical breakthroughs in humans.
Additional data obtained since that interview indicates a much reduced chance of Apophis hitting the earth. But there is still a chance. http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/oct/HQ_09-232_Apophis_Update.html Fortunately, Bruce Willis has plenty of time to assemble a team of drillers and geologists who can plant explosives on the asteroid and save us all.
It's not just primates. Dogs, cats, and a bunch of other animals are used for lots of tests as well. As a follow up to this question, will any of the alternative methods of testing (in vitro / in silico) be viable in the future, eliminating the need for animal testing?
Doubt it. In vitro testing is great and all for looking at binding affinities and tissue response (also, torturing undergraduates in molecular pharmacology), but the human body is highly complex. Not even animal testing perfectly predicts adverse reactions, and to simplify down the body down to one target tissue and its response is the mother of all surrogate markers, and wildly unsafe. One quick example - all drugs approved these days need to have testing done for teratogenic effects. I'd like to see a way that you could test for a drug causing birth defects without giving it to something pregnant. And even then, the standard of evidence for use in pregnancy is so stringent that even if something has been shown to have no teratogenic effects in animals, that still isn't considered good enough to support widespread use in pregnancy until studies have been done in pregnant humans. And it goes the other way - antibiotics like ciprofloxacin and other fluroquinolones have been shown to have effects on tissue formation and growth in animal models, and as a result all of the official recommendations and textbooks say they shouldn't be used in pediatrics and pregnant women. But that doesn't happen in people, so they're widely used anyways. To answer the question about the usefulness of animal models, of course they're useful - how else would new drugs get to the phase of being tested on people without first having toxic exposure limits and so forth figured out? It isn't pretty, and ethics boards oversee their use to prevent unnecessary cruelty, but that's the way she goes. That said, the usefulness of animal models is sometimes limited by what disease you're trying to study. Animal depression models, for example, aren't perfect, although markers like response to stress, forced swim tests, etc., are used.
Hate to bring up an old subject, but I said I would... I've been doing focusing exercises for my eyes everyday (30 minutes a day) for the last month, and I've noticed no change in the quality of my vision. It's possible that I'm not doing them properly, or that it takes longer for changes to be noticeable. Or maybe my eyes are too far gone. But whatever the case may be, the exercises haven't worked so far.
I just read in "Death by Black Hole" that 1 second after the big bang, the universe was a few light years across. The book also says, as we all know, that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. How can both statements be true? Assuming the "explosion" sent matter out in all directions at the speed of light, then my logic tells me that after one second the universe would be exactly 2 light seconds across. How do they conclude that it was a few light years across and how do they account for the super rapid expansion of the early universe?
Don't know if I'm explaining it right, since I've been drinking, but the analogy I've heard most relates the universe to an expanding balloon. What we would consider as the universe is contained on the surface of the balloon while the balloon is rapidly expanding. Something moving on the skin of the balloon is limited to moving at the speed of light, but two points on the balloon can move apart at a speed faster than this. Because of this, the universe can be larger across than would be predicted by the age of the universe multiplied by the speed of light. Hope this helps, you can also look here for some more in depth information, and I'm sure you can find some better stuff somewhere else on the interwebs with some more searching.
In Why is Sex Fun, by Jared Diamond he mentions a recent decline in human fertility. In some other book (I think it was Lies My Teacher Told Me), I remember reading that the same phenomenon was approaching 50%. Is this real, and where are some studies about it? Anyone heard/read/know anything about this?
The two most convincing hypothesis's are as follows: - The widespread use of anti-bacterial products and increased sanitation habits have caused the immune system to have few real pathogens, so it does not develop properly resulting in both an overall weaker immune system and an increased tendency for adverse reactions to things that are not actually dangerous (ie, pollen, peanuts). http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol7no3_supp/levy.htm - The rise of leaky gut syndrome. http://www.ei-resource.org/articles...ky-gut-syndromes:-breaking-the-vicious-cycle/
I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for, but a shit-ton of neuroscience comes from animal studies. Macaque monkeys, for example, have a very similar visual system to us, and a lot of what we know about the visual sections of the human brain comes from them. This does kind of involve blinding animals and chopping out bits of their brains, but we've got a level of knowledge from them you just can't get any other way (short of doing the same thing on humans). Looking at dead brains only gets you so far. On the plus side, we've got quite a few techniques to temporarily incapacitate bits of the brain, so it's not always necessary to really fuck the animals up anymore. It just usually is. I guess this has a lot of indirect medical benefits. If you're specifically talking about drug tests, I dunno.
Another point to remember when thinking about research done on animals is that nearly 100% of the animals being worked on come from a lineage that has been in a laboratory environment for decades. The animals would not have the skill set to survive if released; while it is hard to accept, that is a part of the reality of lab animals.
Anyone have an opinion or have any history with the drug Humira? It is supposed to be a immune suppressor, and side effects sound pretty scary.
Mind if I ask why you're asking? Have a friend or relative that's on it? Odds are if someone's being put on this medication, it's for a pretty good reason. The side effects might suck, yes, but the results of not treating would either be worse, or result in a serious loss of quality of life (see: rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis). Humira is an immune system suppressant, yes, but it's generally used when your immune system is attacking your own body, and causing damage, like psoriasis, which has extremely high morbidity, and rheumatoid arthritis, which is pretty damn painful.
I'm asking because I just got put on it yesterday. I have Psoriatic Arthritis if that helps at all. I know this isn't a medical forum so if mods wanna delete this then go ahead.
I've seen a lot of patients have a lot of success on Humira, especially some rheumatoid arthritis patients. You will have to fully discuss the risks/benefits with your doc, but if your symptoms are out of control I'd give it a shot. Of course, as mentioned you will be immuno-suppressed and somewhat more susceptible to infectious disease (I think the literature discusses TB the most), but many patients will never notice any difference in their lives while on the medicine in terms of "sick days" or hospitalizations. Think of yourself as a healthy little aids patient...sort of. I have a B.S. in Cell and Molecular Biology and an M.D., although the above question is a little astray from my field of interest. Disclaimer: I'm a doc, but not your doc.
Disaster movies and the Mayan Calendar aside , who has looked into any of the "Science" behind predictions that we are due for natural disasters and the like in 2012 due to ; Sunspots and resulting solar radiation. From Wikidepia : On the sun, the solar maximum of Solar Cycle 24 in the 11-year sunspot cycle is forecast to occur. Solar Cycle 24 is regarded to have commenced January 2008, and on average will reach its peak of maximal sunspot activity around 2012. The period between successive solar maxima averages 11 years (the Schwabe cycle), and the previous solar maximum of Solar Cycle 23 occurred in 2000–2002.[14] During the solar maximum the sun's magnetic poles will reverse.[15] The Earth's poles shifting or swapping over entirely. Our Solar System's planets aligning and alignment with the centre of the Milky Way.
One of the reasons that I have posted the above is due to listening to this guy in YouTube .... Crackpot , Crazy ? Maybe. Its interesting though <a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd-cCeaKrOA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd-cCeaKrOA</a> His website <a class="postlink" href="http://www.howtosurvive2012.com/htm_night/home.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.howtosurvive2012.com/htm_night/home.htm</a>