Monthly Archives: April 2019

The line “times they are a changin’,” as Bob Dylan sang in 1964, describes the state of cannabis research aptly. As cannabis and related products are becoming increasingly accepted or legalized around the world, it has opened doors for researching the drug and it’s many variants and effects. Studies on the psychological, behavioral, and physical effects of smoking marijuana are being conducted in increasing numbers, but little is known about the effects of smoking synthetic cannabinoid products such as Spice or K2. These are herbal blends spiked with molecules that are similar to the active ingredient in marijuana, THC. These molecules are not THC, have no known medical uses, but are either structurally similar or otherwise known to elicit a similar experience when smoked. Their legality is also questionable. Researchers from Germany and The Netherlands collaborated on a study to test the effects of the active ingredient of Spice, JWH-018,…

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Over time, bacteria have evolved to become resistant to some types of antibiotics, the medicines designed to destroy them. Due to this resistance, certain types of bacteria can no longer be destroyed by normal means. This is a big problem, as the infections from these bacteria are more difficult to treat, and they require a more intensive solution. However, in order to develop solutions to this problem, we need to know the extent of the problem. We know a great deal about how antibiotic resistance occurs, but we don’t have much hard data on how widespread it really it – where it is occurring and in what populations. Currently, there is not a lot of data that has been collected in a standard way to show the extent of antibiotic resistance. Therefore, researchers from many different universities and organizations in Europe came together to estimate the burden of infections caused…

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The one of the largest land predators to have ever lived, the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex, just crowned a new king. On March 21st, a team of University of Alberta scientists described the oldest and largest T. rex ever found. The specimen, dubbed “Scotty”, was originally found in 1991. However the fossils, encased in sandstone, proved too hard to remove until 2012 when it was fully recasted. Not every organism will fossilize after they die. Often they will decompose before the fossilization process can begin. After millions of years of being subject to environmental forces, many fossilized bones break down and become unrecoverable. Scotty’s unearthed fossils reveals a fairly complete set of bones including a hips, limbs, and a complete skull, but for a complete, set paleontologists still had to use what they knew about T. rex anatomy to fill in the blanks. This allowed paleontologist Scott Persons, and his team,…

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Cold brew coffee has recently become a go-to option at coffee shops, due in part to marketing campaigns that note its smoother, less bitter taste. Not to mention that in the summer, this is a popular option when coffee lovers need their daily coffee but want to avoid the excess heat. Unlike coffee brewed relatively quickly at hot temperatures, cold brew is brewed slowly at low temperatures, with the coffee steeping longer within the water. Various health claims have been made about cold brew coffee, some by coffee enthusiasts and others by popular coffee companies, but not much is known about cold brew, and not enough information is out there yet to verify these claims. Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA, wanted to collect some information about cold and hot brew coffees, to see if any of the claims made by bloggers, magazines, coffee companies, among others, may…

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When you think of exciting foods, white fish like cod and catfish aren’t usually at the forefront of people’s minds. However, any fishermen will tell you that a fresh, high quality white fish is a true delicacy. Declining fish consumption in Japan has driven scientists to look for ways to easily pinpoint the best tasting fish before they are sent to market. A team of researchers in Hiroshima, Japan designed an experiment to figure out which components of fish meat have the greatest influence on its taste, such as bitterness, sourness, umami, and saltiness. Umami is a relatively new term in the science of taste and is used to describe how savory something is. To test the taste of white fish, the researchers analyzed muscle from 4 white fish species (red sea bream, rockfish, black scraper, and goblinfish) using “metabolomics” methods. Metabolomics means taking a snapshot of all the active…

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