Science! (2 Viewers)

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longtime lurker said:
www.uni-bonn.de

Can oxytocin help against loneliness?

www.uni-bonn.de
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Sailorsaint said:
I guess if you hand it out for free, you will have lots of friends.
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www.psychiatrictimes.com

What Does “Rat Park” Teach Us About Addiction?

How many of us, during clinical encounters with patients, focus on their families, their social communities, their sources of human contact and support?
www.psychiatrictimes.com www.psychiatrictimes.com

Alexander’s experiments, in the 1970s, have come to be called the “Rat Park.1 Researchers had already proved that when rats were placed in a cage, all alone, with no other community of rats, and offered two water bottles-one filled with water and the other with heroin or cocaine-the rats would repetitively drink from the drug-laced bottles until they all overdosed and died. Like pigeons pressing a pleasure lever, they were relentless, until their bodies and brains were overcome, and they died.
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But Alexander wondered: is this about the drug or might it be related to the setting they were in? To test his hypothesis, he put rats in “rat parks,” where they were among others and free to roam and play, to socialize and to have sex. And they were given the same access to the same two types of drug laced bottles. When inhabiting a “rat park,” they remarkably preferred the plain water. Even when they did imbibe from the drug-filled bottle, they did so intermittently, not obsessively, and never overdosed. A social community beat the power of drugs.
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America decided to stop funding public projects in favor of tax cuts which allow massive accumulation of wealth for wealth sake. Seems like the science points to that being a huge mistake if you have to live with the results. If you have enough the unwashed masses can't touch you, then it's no problem.
 
Microplastics have been found in human testicles, with researchers saying the discovery might be linked to declining sperm counts in men.

The scientists tested 23 human testes, as well as 47 testes from pet dogs. They found microplastic pollution in every sample.

The human testicles had been preserved and so their sperm count could not be measured. However, the sperm count in the dogs’ testes could be assessed and was lower in samples with higher contamination with PVC. The study demonstrates a correlation but further research is needed to prove microplastics cause sperm counts to fall.


Sperm counts in men have been falling for decades, with chemical pollution such as pesticides implicated by many studies. Microplastics have also recently been discovered in human blood, placentas and breast milk, indicating widespread contamination of people’s bodies. The impact on health is as yet unknown but microplastics have been shown to cause damage to human cells in the laboratory.

Vast amounts of plastic waste are dumped in the environment and microplastics have polluted the entire planet, from the summit of Mount Everestto the deepest oceans. People are known to consume the tiny particles via food and water as well as breathing them in.

The particles could lodge in tissue and cause inflammation, as air pollution particles do, or chemicals in the plastics could cause harm. In March, doctors warned of potentially life-threatening effects after finding a substantially raised risk of stroke, heart attack and earlier death in people whose blood vessels were contaminated with microscopic plastics.

“At the beginning, I doubted whether microplastics could penetrate the reproductive system,” said Prof Xiaozhong Yu, at the University of New Mexico in the US. “When I first received the results for dogs I was surprised. I was even more surprised when I received the results for humans.”…….

www.theguardian.com

Microplastics found in every human testicle in study

Scientists say discovery may be linked to decades-long decline in sperm counts in men around the world
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
The world’s most widespread type of cockroach — a tiny, tan pest called the German cockroach — is at this moment crawling through countless buildings, hiding in the dark nooks of hotel rooms, restaurant kitchens and, if you’re unlucky, your own home — anywhere it can squeeze its little body and scavenge for the crumbs we drop.


Yet at the same time, when scientists search for its natural habitat, they can’t find it. It’s not native to any wilderness in Germany. In fact, it doesn’t seem to have any home in the wild anywhere in the world.


“Its origin has been a mystery,” said Edward Vargo, an urban entomologist at Texas A&M University. “These only exist in buildings.”


Now scientists who conducted a DNA analysis of the cockroach say they have solved that 250-year-old puzzle of where this ubiquitous bug is from.


The answer is us. We made the cockroach.

The species branched off from its closest cousin only about 2,100 years ago — a blink in evolutionary time — and is adapted entirely to living in dwellings alongside humans…..

 
Fish oil supplements may increase the risk of someone developing a heart condition or stroke, but could reduce the risk for those who already have cardiovascular disease, according to research.

Fish oil is a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids. The NHS recommends at least one portion of oily fish a week to help prevent the development of cardiovascular disease.

In order to find out how much protection it affords, a team of researchers in China, the US, the UK and Denmark monitored the health of more than 400,000 participants in the UK Biobank for an average of 12 years to estimate the associations between fish oil supplements and new cases of atrial fibrillation (irregular heartbeat); heart attack, stroke, and heart failure; and death in people with no known cardiovascular disease.…..

www.theguardian.com

Fish oil may increase risk of heart conditions and stroke, study finds

But supplements could reduce likelihood of heart attack for people who already have cardiovascular disease
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 

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