Not everyone who is close to death—or thinks they are, at least—has a “near-death experience.” But those who do often hallucinate that they leave their bodies, meet otherworldly beings, see bright flashes and tunnels of light, and more. Those who take the psychedelic drug dimethyltryptamine, or DMT— a compound found…
Americans who opened the newspaper on January 5, 1961, were greeted with an article by Associated Press science writer John Barbour. He described the futuristic world of the year 2000 and the great medical advances that would be achieved by then. And quite frankly, reading about all of the medical miracles we were…
A leading medical university in Japan wanted more male students—so it’s reportedly been lowering the entrance exam scores of female applicants for years.
At the peak of summer, when just walking to and from the corner store necessitates a shower and a change of clothes, air-conditioning can seem almost too good to be true. It is one of the few staples of modernity without severe and readily apparent downsides: all it does, or all it seems to do, is make things cooler,…
From Disney World to Seattle, plastic straw bans have become, well, trendy. So it’s perhaps no surprise that San Francisco became the latest city to move toward banning the drink accessory, as well as unrequested napkins and utensils for deliveries and take out, earlier this week (it still requires a second vote to be…
Are you always careful to apply sunscreen before a day outdoors, but find yourself getting burned anyway? It might be due to your application technique. Dermatologists say that most people don’t put on a thick enough layer sunscreen, and new research—in which scientists put varying amounts of sunscreen on volunteers’…
Internal company documents from IBM show that medical experts working with the company’s Watson supercomputer found “multiple examples of unsafe and incorrect treatment recommendations” when using the software, according to a report from Stat News.
Being a millennial is no picnic. But a new study published this Friday in JAMA Open suggests it’s especially hard for expectant moms. It found that pregnant women today are more likely to feel depressed than their mothers were during their pregnancies a generation ago.
The execution of twice-convicted killer Scott Raymond Dozier in Nevada on Wednesday was postponed after pharmaceutical company Alvogen requested a federal judge prevent officials from botching an execution with their drug midazolam.
One of the biggest arguments in favor of vaping is that it can help people ease themselves away from their addiction to tobacco smoking. But a new study published this week in PLoS One seems to offer a strong rebuttal to that line of thought. It suggests that people who use both tobacco and e-cigarettes are actually…
People living with opioid addiction are increasingly using the inhalation method to get high, warns a new review published Monday in JAMA Neurology. The technique known as “chasing the dragon,” which involves heating up heroin and inhaling its fumes through a pipe, may be safer in some ways than injection, but it…
With its endless parade of corporate shills, industry flacks, cronies, and quacks, it’s become clear that there are no acts of pettiness too shabby—or grifts too cheap—for Donald Trump’s administration. Still, a Sunday report in the New York Times alleging that the US threatened Ecuador and the World Health…
Here’s something to give even Goop’s “bio-frequency healing” stickers a run for the money of various rubes: A Canadian man successfully sold slickly marketed bottles of water with hot dogs in them as a miraculous cure-all for whatever ails customers at exorbitant prices.
The bad news: The European Union is moving forward with its potentially disastrous new Copyright Directive, a law that could have potentially sweeping repercussions for how open the internet remains—and yes, that means the continentals might be coming for your memes. The good news: There’s still time to kill it.
Officials with California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) have intervened to nullify a recent court ruling saying coffee sold in the state—say, like at a local Starbucks—must be accompanied by warning labels saying brewed coffee contains the carcinogen acrylamide.
The state of Massachusetts has filed a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma LP, the company that developed the semisynthetic opioid OxyContin in 1995 and aggressively marketed it while downplaying the risk of addiction. It’s part of a growing backlash to Purdue, a pharmaceutical giant the New Yorker characterized as an …
The world is filled with disgusting toilets. You might personally prefer toilets that smell okay and aren’t covered in filth, but try telling that to whichever organs are involved in making you really need to use the bathroom. It has happened before, and it will happen again: you’ll be at a public bus station, or a…
If you survived adolescence without a harrowing bout of acne, consider yourself lucky: It’s estimated that 85 percent of people aged 12 to 24 have had at least mild acne. But if you’re among those of us who would have been thrilled to deal with merely “mild” acne, you’ve probably tried a number of different products…
Dr. Mehmet Oz is at it again. The infamous snake oil salesman tweeted today, asking his followers to learn more about the link between a person’s astrological sign and their health.
Popular hookup app Grindr is reportedly considering a new feature that would alert users if may have been exposed to a sexually transmitted infection.
