Discoblog » Diseases, Injuries, & Other Ailments

Honoring St. Patrick: Guinness Bubbles Demystified and Why Your Hangover Hurts

Smriti Rao — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:36:57 +0000

Oh, St. Patrick’s Day! Somehow it has become the day of binge drinking, day of doing shots, and the day before contemplating why you spent the last 24 hours drinking your head off. Nonetheless, St. Paddy must be honored, and honor him we shall—with alcohol and some science.

We decided to reach into the past and pull out the wondrous mystery of the Guinness beer bubbles. For years, the mysterious downward flowing Guinness bubbles have confounded both professional scientists and drinkers. When the bartender pulls a pint of most any beer, the bubbles can clearly be seen gushing to the top. When a pint of Guinness is poured, however, the bubbles slyly cascade down the sides of the glass, while the beer mysteriously maintains its frothy layer on top.

So in 2004, scientists Andy Alexander from the Royal Society of Chemistry and Dick Zare of Stanford University decided to find out why the bubbles act the way they do. After preliminary research trips to the local pub proved unfruitful, they decided to move the scene to a lab where they rigged a high-speed camera to take pictures of the Guinness being poured. The camera could zoom in and magnify the images ten times.

The scientists found that the drink’s dynamics can be likened to a mini-tornado. When Guinness is poured into a glass, the bubbles dip downwards as they experience drag–similar to what would happen should you run your finger along a glass surface. When they reach the center of the glass, the bubbles rise to the top, setting up a circulating current.

The Telegraph explains:

Flowing outwards from the surface, the frothy ”head”, the current hit the glass edge and was pushed down. Bubbles held back by dragging on the side of the glass were caught in the circulation and forced to go with the flow – the wrong way, for a bubble.

A spokesman for the Royal Society says:

“Guinness bubbles are small, due to being released at high pressure by the widget and therefore easily pushed around. Also, in lager the gas is carbon dioxide, which is easily dissolved. The gas in Guinness bubbles is nitrogen – not so easily dissolved. Finally, the contrast between the dark liquid and the light bubbles makes them easier to see.”

There! Mystery solved.

And if you’re recovering from an early St. Pat’s day celebration, here’s a video explaining the chemistry of alcohol and hangovers. Enjoy.

Image: Guinness

Is Erectile Dysfunction a Heart Attack in the Penis?

Andrew Moseman — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:20:11 +0000

Men diagnosed with erectile dysfunction probably wouldn’t be too keen to hear that they might have bigger problems, but a new study in the journal Circulation reinforces that unfortunate idea. Given that both ED and heart attacks can result from restricted arteries that prevent blood from flowing freely, doctors have long suspected that they might be connected. Now, the study says, there’s evidence that one precedes the other. From The Los Angeles Times:

The results are probably not too surprising, added Dr. Robert Kloner, a cardiologist at USC’s Keck School of Medicine, “because arteries in the penis are smaller, so atherosclerosis shows up there sooner,” perhaps three to four years before the onset of cardiovascular disease.

The take-home message, both experts said, is that when a patient seeks treatment for ED, typically from a general practitioner, he should be given a full physical work-up to look for heart disease and referred to a cardiologist.

The guidelines for treating men with ED already state that they should be examined for cardiac problems. Kloner says updated guidelines in a few years could make that recommendation more forceful, so doctors can make sure a penis attack doesn’t become a heart attack.

Related Content:
Discoblog: Had a Heart Attack? Start Eating Chocolate
Discoblog: Erectile Dysfunction Could Signal a Heart Attack

Image: iStockphoto

Worst Science Article of the Week: The CIA Dosed a French Town With LSD!

Smriti Rao — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:05:02 +0000

The CIA’s experiments with mind-control and hallucinogenic drugs are well documented. It’s hard to forget about programs like Operation Midnight Climax, in which the agency studied the effects of LSD by dosing unsuspecting clients at brothels. But did the agency go so far as to send an entire French village on an acid trip that killed a few people and institutionalized a bunch more? According to The Telegraph, the CIA did just that in 1951.

For years, people familiar with “the incident of the cursed bread” (or le pain maudit) have subscribed to the theory that villagers in Saint-Pont-Esprit in Southern France suffered massive delusions because they all ate bread contaminated by ergot, a hallucinogenic fungus. After eating bread from a local baker, the villagers reported such delusions as the conviction that they were missing body parts or had animals in their stomachs.

Now, The Telegraph reports that the incident was not “ergotism” caused by the fungus, as previously believed, but was actually a bad trip caused by the CIA, which had spiked the village bread with LSD, or maybe just sprayed LSD into the air. Quite a story, huh? Too bad it doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.

The always credulous Telegraph reports that the discovery was made by investigative journalist H. P. Albarelli Jr., who published a book on the CIA’s research. Albarelli claimed the outbreak was the result of a covert experiment carried out by the CIA and the U.S. army’s top secret Special Operations Division (SOD) at the height of the cold war.

The Telegraph reports:

Mr Albarelli came across CIA documents while investigating the suspicious suicide of Frank Olson, a biochemist working for the SOD who fell from a 13th floor window two years after the Cursed Bread incident. One note transcribes a conversation between a CIA agent and a Sandoz official who mentions the “secret of Pont-Saint-Esprit” and explains that it was not “at all” caused by mould but by diethylamide, the D in LSD.

The Telegraph’s article immediately drew sharp responses from other journalists, who dismissed the report as bunkum. David Steven of The Global Dashboard points out that Albarelli’s theories were rejected out of hand by Steven Kaplan, a history professor at Cornell University and a noted bread expert who has written a book on the incident.

Terming the report “incoherent and harebrained,” Kaplan told France 24:

I have numerous objections to this paltry evidence against the CIA. First of all, it’s clinically incoherent: LSD takes effects in just a few hours, whereas the inhabitants showed symptoms only after 36 hours or more. Furthermore, LSD does not cause the digestive ailments or the vegetative effects described by the townspeople.…

It is absurd, this idea of transmitting a very toxic drug by putting it in bread. As for pulverizing it [for ingestion through the air], that technology was not even possible at that time. Most compellingly, why would they choose the town of Pont-Saint-Esprit to conduct these tests? It was half-destroyed by the US Army during fighting with the Germans in the Second World War. It makes no sense.

The report also came under fire for not getting its science right. Derek Lowe, a chemist who has worked in several major pharmaceutical companies, points to the reporter’s assertion that the hallucinations were caused by diethylamide, the D in LSD, as incorrect.

He writes:

Laughter may now commence. For the non-chemists in the audience, diethylamide isn’t a separate compound; it’s the name of a chemical group. And LSD isn’t some sort of three-component mixture; it’s the diethylamide derivative of the parent compound, lysergic acid. (I’d like to hear this guy explain to me what the “S” stands for)

In short, neither the author of this new book, nor the people at the Telegraph, nor the supposed scientific “source” of this quote, knows anything about chemistry. This is like saying that the secret of TNT is a compound called “Tri”. Nonsense.

Related Content:
DISCOVER: Whatever Happened To… Mind Control?
DISCOVER: Could an Acid Trip Cure Your OCD?
Discoblog: Worst Science Article of the Week, the archives

Image: iStockphoto

Tobacco Fights Toxins? GM Tobacco Plants Disarm Harmful Pond Scum

Smriti Rao — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:34:05 +0000

The tobacco plant is considered a villain of the plant world because of the harmful effects of smoking it. But now a genetically engineered tobacco plant is enjoying a moment of redemption, as scientists have discovered that tweaking a certain gene in one tobacco plant strain allows the plant to produce antibodies that disarm toxic pond scum.

Treehugger reports:

The pond scum in question is microcystin-LR (MC-LR), which makes water unsafe for drinking, swimming and fishing in many parts of the world. Upon ingestion it can cause serious liver damage, with some studies indicating a connection to causing liver and colorectal cancers.

To counter this harmful algae, lead scientist Pascal Drake inserted genes into the tobacco plants to produce an antibody to the algae. The antibody was produced in the tobacco plant’s leaves and secreted from its roots into the growth medium. When the toxin from the algae was added to the medium, the antibody immediately latched on to it.

Discovery News reports:

“Binding to the pollutant might reduce its bioavailability,” Drake said. “It might make it less dangerous and less likely to be taken up by animals and humans.”

The scientists say this is the first example of a transgenic plant making an antibody that can fight an environmental toxin. But they note that for this research to be useful in the field, they would have to genetically tweak aquatic plants instead of tobacco plants.

Image: Flickr/Christian Haugen

The Newest Experts in Landmine Detection: African Pouched Rats

Smriti Rao — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:47:03 +0000

Struggling for a gift idea? How about gifting a rat through “Adopt-a-HeroRat.” These are no regular New York City-type rats, creepily scampering across train tracks or spreading disease; these so-called HeroRats help save lives by sniffing out unexploded landmines in Mozambique. For just six dollars a month, you can choose to support the good work of “Allan,” “Kim,” “Tyson,” or “The Chosen One.”

The rats being used in Mozambique’s mine-sweeping operations are African pouched rats; they’re small, lightweight (weighing about 3 pounds), and, according to the BBC, surprisingly cute. Traditionally, mine-detection has been carried out by metal detectors and sniffer-dogs, but the rats are the latest workers to join the team. However, the mine-removal process is still dangerous and labor-intensive: Once a rat discovers a mine it has to be dismantled by a human.

A bunch of these rats have been trained by APOPO, a joint Belgian/Tanzanian organization that taught the rodents to associate the smell of TNT in unexploded explosives with food. So, much like the dogs that Igor Pavlov taught to associate a certain stimuli with a particular response, the rats associate mines with delicious snacks, and are highly motivated to find them.

APOPO’s rats aren’t deployed in the field without proper training, of course. First, they must attend a grueling boot camp in Tanzania, where, much like sniffer dogs, they work with individual human trainers. Each rat works in a training box and is fastened to a search line, which is strung between its two trainers. The rat sniffs up and down the box, moving through different lanes, systematically. When it smells an explosive, it starts scratching the top soil. The trainer clicks a clicker, the rat steps aside and gets his reward–a piece of banana. APOPO trainers say they’re proud that the HeroRats are helping to find and eliminate the three million unexploded mines that still clutter Mozambique in the aftermath of a deadly civil war.

But the HeroRats’ life is not all sniffing and bananas, they have had their share of criticism too. British Army vet Andy Smith, who works with de-mining groups worldwide, told the online magazine Miller-McCune that while mine-detecting rats are “media-sexy” and attract a lot of money, they’re highly inefficient:

Their legs are too small to walk regular patterns in overgrown fields, so vegetation must be trimmed, and the rats attached to a string to literally keep them in line. “You need to spend so much time clearing space, you’re better off doing it manually,” Smith says.

But maybe mine detecting personnel who are working through the painstaking process of defusing deadly landmines across 70 countries need all the help they can get. And maybe “The Chosen One” can, in some small way, contribute to this effort.

Image: HeroRat.org

The FDA Warns POM: Stop Saying Pomegranate Juice Cures Cancer

Smriti Rao — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:51:13 +0000

The Web site for POM pomegranate juice makes some pretty extreme claims, strongly implying that the juice can prevent or help treat diseases like cancer, hypertension, diabetes, and even erectile dysfunction. Now, the Food and Drug Administration has said such claims are misleading and are not allowed on food products, according to a report in The New York Times. If POM wants to make such claims, the FDA stated, it will have to be regulated as a drug.

In a crackdown on companies with misleading labels, the FDA shot off warning letters asking 17 companies to clean up their act.

POM is not the only company to be chastised by the FDA for misleading labeling. Other offenders included several products whose labels trumpet the fact that they contain no transfats, even though they contain high levels of saturated fat, writes The New York Times:

The products included Gorton’s Fish Fillets, Spectrum Organic All Vegetable Shortening and two products from Dreyer’s, the Dibs bite-size ice cream snacks and the vanilla-fudge Drumsticks. According to Dreyer’s, the Dibs contain 17 grams of saturated fat per serving. Federal guidelines recommend that a person not consume more than 20 grams in a day.

The FDA also wagged its finger at some baby foods made by Gerber and Beech-Nut, saying those foods made several unwarranted health claims, because dietary levels for the nutrients cited on their labels haven’t been established for babies.

Image: POM Juice

Why Can’t All Medications Come in Ice Cream-Form?

Darlene Cavalier — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:00:03 +0000

I scream, you scream, we all scream… for the medicine given to recovering cancer patients.

The Scientist reports that LactoPharma, (a “collaborative research venture between the University of Aukland, the New Zealand government, and the country’s largest dairy company, Fonterra Ltd.”) has created a therapeutic, strawberry-flavored ice cream called ReCharge.

ReCharge ice cream has gone through a string of taste-tests to ensure that the product satisfies the palette. However, one ingredient is a mandatory keeper: Lactoferrin, a protein found in milk that possesses the power to impede tumor growth and improve intestinal immune response. Because side effects of chemotherapy include the destruction of neutrophils (while blood cells) and intestinal cells, which often leads to infection and digestive problems, University of Auckland biologist Geoff Krissansen decided to test bovine lactoferrin on chemotherapy patients to see whether it could counter these side effects.

The Scientist reports on the results:

Indeed, when fed to mice two weeks prior to chemotherapy, bovine lactoferrin helped increase immunoresponsive cytokines in the intestine, decreasing cell damage caused by chemo, and restored both red blood cell and neutrophil numbers…. The researchers also found that another bioactive component present naturally in milk—a type of “lipid fraction,” according to Krissansen—demonstrated similar results in mice. The scientists expect to publish these results in 2010.

But why serve up the lactoferrin in ice cream-form? Kate Palmano of the Fonterra Research Center explains: “We needed to formulate a product that was acceptable and palatable to patients, but that was also suitable for the bioactives.” The bioactive in question, lactoferrin, is a protein that can change form and function in warmer temperatures. “Plus,” Palmano adds, “people going through chemotherapy typically lose their appetite. Why not give them a treat like ice cream?”

LactoPharma plans to develop more foods and pharmaceuticals incorporating milk’s protective mechanisms.

Image: flickr / joyosity

Chile Quake Shifted Earth’s Axis, Shortened the Length of a Day

Smriti Rao — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:03:46 +0000

The devastating earthquake in Chile that killed almost 700 people probably also shifted the Earth’s axis, say NASA scientists, permanently making days shorter by 1.26 microseconds. But since a microsecond is one-millionth of a second, you may not have noticed.

Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, says he has done the calculations. Gross says the earthquake, which measured 8.8 on the Richter scale, moved large amounts of rock, altered the distribution of mass on the planet, and moved the Earth’s axis by about 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters or 3 inches). The change in axis directly impacts Earth’s rotation, and the rate of the planet’s rotation determines the length of a day.

To explain this phenomenon, scientists used an ice skating analogy: When a skater spins on ice, he draws his arms closer in to his body to spin faster, because the speed of his rotation is dependent on the way mass is distributed across his body.

Scientists point out that the duration of a day can change depending on different geological events.

CNN reports:

The magnitude 9.1 earthquake in 2004 that generated a killer tsunami in the Indian Ocean shortened the length of days by 6.8 microseconds.

On the other hand, the length of a day also can increase. For example, if the Three Gorges reservoir in China were filled, it would hold 10 trillion gallons (40 cubic kilometers) of water. The shift of mass would lengthen days by 0.06 microsecond, scientists said.

Join Discover Magazine on Facebook.

Image: iStockphoto

Class-Action Lawsuit Accuses Yelp of Extortion

Smriti Rao — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:07:57 +0000

Yelp, the popular website that offers reviews of local businesses, has just been bitten by Cats and Dogs, a veterinary hospital that is accusing the site of extortion. In a class-action lawsuit filed in Los Angeles this week, the Long Beach pet hospital claims that Yelp tried to get it to cough up $300 a month for a 12-month advertising commitment in exchange for tweaking possible bad reviews of the clinic.

In its complaint, Cats and Dogs alleges that Yelp carried a negative review of the hospital written by a certain “Chris R” that the hospital’s owner, Gregory Perrault, viewed as false and defamatory. He asked Yelp to remove it because the review was based on an office visit that occurred 18 months before the post was written, and Yelp’s guidelines mandate that reviews must be posted within 12 months of an experience. The site took down Chris R’s review.

However another bad review, this time by “Kay K,” popped up five days later. According to Wired, Kay K wrote:

Dr. Perrault is the rudest vet I’ve ever been to . . . probably one of the rudest people I’ve had the displeasure of meeting. I agree with the previous reviews about making you feel like an unfit mom. My pup had been sick and I had a theory on what the problem may have been and he wouldn’t even entertain the idea, but instead, made me feel bad because my dog got sick. And, my poor dog was terrified of him! He made me feel like I was 2 inches tall and repeatedly looked down his nose at me. Oh, and OVER PRICED! OMG! Who does he think he is??? I did not feel welcomed by him nor his staff. I paid you for a service! No need to treat me so bad!

This is when Perrault alleges Yelp started pestering him; he says sales staff called and pressured him to consider an advertising package that would delete negative reviews, and would keep bad reviews from appearing in Google searches. Wired reports that when the doctor refused to bite, Chris R’s review reappeared on the site, along with a new one from Kay K that read in part:

I ran in to him in a neighborhood store right after he saw my poor sick dog at his clinic and he looked right at me, recognized me, rolled his eyes and looked away!!!! Seriously, someone needs to knock this guy down to the size he really is. He needs to drop his Napolean complex and be a professional. After my horrible experience with him, I took my sick dog to Bixby Animal Clinic and I have never had a more pleasant vet experience! Go there instead! My dog loved everyone there!

On being asked to remove this posting, Yelp declined, stating that they were not in a position to verify if all the reviews had been written by the same person. It added that the reviews reflected the personal opinion of the reviewers and that Yelp, adhering to its review guidelines, couldn’t do anything about them. Perrault’s lawyer called this tactic “high-tech extortion.”

This is not the first time Yelp has found itself in hot water. Last year, the Oakland-based East Bay Express found six business owners who had received calls from Yelp sales reps promising to move or remove negative reviews in exchange for an advertising package.

The report said:

In another six instances, positive reviews disappeared — or negative ones appeared — after owners declined to advertise.

A former Yelp employee reportedly confirmed to the paper that several sales reps promised local businesses that bad reviews would be purged in exchange for advertising on the site. While this is legal, the report pointed out that it raised ethical questions about a site that prides itself on “Real People. Real Reviews.”

The San Francisco-based Web site had more than 26 million visitors in December 2009 and has published more than 9 million reviews.

Image: Yelp

Want More Oxygen for Your Workout? Pony Up $2700 for This Backpack

Smriti Rao — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:16:05 +0000

Here’s a product for anyone who has ever huffed and puffed on the treadmill, while wishing they had done a better job of keeping fit. A new device called Oxyfit claims to make the workout experience a little easier by pumping oxygen-rich air directly into your breathing space. (Air out in the wild contains about 20 percent oxygen.) The increase in oxygen flow, claim the makers, will maximize your workout.

Japan Trend Shop sells the product, and extolls the merits of Oxyfit:

Not only can this help with fatigue and other symptoms of low oxygen, but it can actually boost brainpower and metabolism as well. More oxygen lets you run farther, work longer, and even lose weight! An increased supply of oxygen speeds up your body’s metabolic engine, burning more calories and stimulating fat loss. Finally, the improved circulation from increased oxygen levels can produce nootropic (brain-stimulating) and anti-aging effects (through increased moisturization of the skin).

Oxyfit doesn’t come cheap. It’s a whopping $2,681 plus $49 in shipping. For that money, marketers says you get an advanced electronic oxygen generation pack, a lithium-ion battery that provides 1.5 hours of run-time, a charger, and an oxygen tube. But the effectiveness of this expensive gadget is is up for debate.

For years, athletes like biker Lance Armstrong have trained at high altitudes because the thin air causes the body to create more red blood cells that carry oxygen. This meant that when Armstrong competed at normal altitudes, his body was able to flood oxygen to his muscles. With an artificial oxygen unit, some argue, the body soaks in the available fresh oxygen from the kit, but as a result the body isn’t prompted to produce more red blood cells. So a better alternative might be to forget the gadgets, and go for a jog in the mountains instead.

Image: Oxyfit