The Weird Power Of The Placebo Effect, Explained
Placebos seem to have the greatest power over symptoms that lie at the murky boundary between the physical and psychological. Placebos seem to move the needle on pain, nausea, asthma, and phobias, with more inconsistent results for outcomes like smoking, dementia, depression*, obesity, hypertension, insomnia, and anxiety.
Why Vitamin Pills Don’t Work, And May Be Bad For You
We dose up on antioxidants as if they are the elixir of life. At best, they are probably ineffective. At worse, they may just send you to an early grave.
Does The Data We Produce Serve Us, Or Vice Versa?
Humans generate far more actionable information than is encoded in all of our combined genetic material, and we carry much of it into the future. The data outside of our biological selves—call it the dataome—could actually represent the grander scaffolding for complex life.
Creatives Call For Mental-Health Warnings On ‘Toxic’ Magazines
A creative team in London is hijacking the covers of celebrity and gossip magazines to raise awareness of the harmful impact that media can have on people’s mental health. They were inspired by news that hair salons across the UK have boycotted “toxic” gossip magazines following the death of presenter Caroline Flack.
The Great Vape Debate: Are E-cigarettes Saving Smokers Or Creating New Addicts?
Behind the outright ban on sales of e-cigarettes in San Francisco is a panic about teenagers vaping. More than one in four American teens have tried vaping. In the UK, meanwhile, the medical establishment is endorsing vaping as an aid to giving up smoking. Where does the truth lie?
The Behavioral Economics Diet: The Science of Killing a Bad Habit
Diets don’t work. Studies show that temporary fixes to old habits actually make people gain weight. Essentially, the dieter’s brain is trained to gorge when off the diet and inevitably the weight returns. Putting some skin in the game makes people more likely to accomplish their goal of stopping a bad habit.
Behind The Scenes Of A Radical New Cancer Cure
CAR-T involves removing a patient’s own blood, filtering for immune cells called T-cells, and genetically engineering those cells to recognize and attack cancer. CAR-T made history in 2017 as the first FDA-approved gene therapy to treat any disease. The trials that led to approval showed response rates of 80 percent and above in aggressive leukemias and lymphomas that had resisted chemotherapy.
The Race To Develop The Moon
For science, profit, and pride, China, the U.S., and private companies are hunting for resources on the lunar surface. It’s not difficult to imagine moon development, like all development, proceeding less than peacefully, and less than equitably.
China Is Building An Artificial Sun
China has announced advancing plans for its nuclear fusion device known colloquially as an “artificial sun.” The extremely high temperatures of 360 million degrees Fahrenheit lead to the titular effect: literally, the nucleuses of two or more atoms are fused, and the process generates energy.
Under The Weather
As psychiatrists and philosophers begin to define a pervasive mental health crisis triggered by climate change, they ask who is really sick: the individual or society?
Can Vertical Farms Reap Their Harvest? It’s Anyone’s Bet.
Food futurists and industry leaders say these high-tech vertical farming operations are the future of agriculture. Indoor-grown produce is available in more than 20 supermarket chains nationwide. But despite massive investment, questions remain about efficiency and costs.
Why Babies Can’t Drink Water
While drinking ample amount of water is generally good health practice for adults, it can be deadly for newborn babies. It turns out, just a few ounces of water can be too much for an infant to handle, resulting in water intoxication that can even be fatal.
Here’s How Nicotine Affects Your Brain
With such a focus on the physical concerns around vaping, the main psychoactive ingredient in e-cigarettes, nicotine, is often left out of the conversation. The addictive drug can boost your cognition and won’t give you cancer, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe for casual use.
Diabetes: The Rice You Eat Is Worse Than Sugary Drinks
The health authorities in Singapore have identified one of their top concerns as they wage war on diabetes: white rice. It is even more potent than sweet soda drinks in causing the disease.
It’s Okay To Be Good And Not Great
“Good is the enemy of great” is one of the most popular self-improvement expressions there is. It’s the first sentence of an international bestselling business book. It sounds appealing and rolls off the tongue nicely, but there’s a good chance it’s downright wrong.
How Much Is A Human Life Actually Worth?
As a society we have historically been willing to incur costs to save lives. Government forces carmakers to reduce air pollution to help people with asthma, and the price of cars goes up. Laws prevent factories from polluting to save fisheries, and goods cost more. But that kind of tradeoff clearly has limits.
How Political Opinions Change
A powerful shaping factor about our social and political worlds is how they are structured by group belonging and identities. For instance, researchers have found that moral and emotion messages on contentious political topics, such as gun-control and climate change, spread more rapidly within rather than between ideologically like-minded networks.
The Frontier Couple Who Chose Death Over Life Apart
Artist Eric Bealer was living the remote, rugged good life in coastal Alaska with his wife, Pam, an MS sufferer, when they made a dramatic decision: to exit this world together, leaving behind precise instructions for whoever entered their cabin first.
The Doomsday Invention: Will Artificial Intelligence Bring Us Utopia Or Destruction?
Philosopher Nick Bostrom argues that true artificial intelligence, if it is realized, might pose a danger that exceeds every previous threat from technology—even nuclear weapons—and that if its development is not managed carefully humanity risks engineering its own extinction.
The Healing Power Of Nature
River guides might know that nature is transformative for the human body and psyche; but the mechanism behind such profound change is less universally agreed upon and understood. The idea that immersing yourself in forests and nature has a healing effect is far more than just folk wisdom.
Yoga With Adriene: How The YouTube Star Won Lockdown
Adriene Mishler was already huge before the pandemic – her channel, which has more than 7 million subscribers, is the first to pop up when you search for “yoga” on YouTube – but the lockdown has catapulted her to a new level of fame.