Researcher Sujoy Guha in India has created a new contraceptive that only needs to be applied once, lasts for 10+ years, is reversable, is extremely cheap, ... and is for men.

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Instead of an invasive vasectomy procedure, a simple procedure of injecting a gel called Vasagel into the vas deferens tubes in a man's testicles.  After about 72 hours, the man is no longer potent because sperm are broken apart when passing by this layer of gel (due to the polyelectrolytic effect).

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When the man decides to have a planned pregnancy, he will undergo another procedure where water and baking soda is injected into the same locations to flush out the Vasagel.

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The materials used are extremely cheap and a pharmaceutical companies would be losing out of massive amounts of money selling contraceptives to women.

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Now this won't be available in the US for a really long while, due to drug approval processes and, more importantly, due to Big Pharma lobbying groups.  However, since the procedure is at the final stage of approval in India, men can take a nice vacation to India to get temporarily neutered.  That vacation would be much cheaper than raising an unwanted child!

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read the article on Wired.

MIT is developing that has such huge implications on the heath of humanity that pharmaceutical companies and the rest of the health care industry are eager to patent it so it doesn't see the light of day.

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Researchers at MIT have started testing an antiviral drug that broadly targets all viruses that create double stranded RNA.  It will kill all viruses and make viral diseases a thing of the past.

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The drug is not a vaccine and doesn't protect against future infections.  But, it is very useful curing someone already infected and could be administered much like penicillin, which was a major medical breakthrough in itself.

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Think of all the viral diseases that would no longer be lethal... Hepatitis C, HIV, Ebola, Smallpox... and the non-lethal like Herpes.

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DRACO is a cool acronym in a project called PANACEA, another cool acronym!

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read the article.

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read the white paper.

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more from MIT.

The bubble suits make the sport like American Football with really large helmets.  The game is much more interesting since the soccer players end up checking each other like hockey.

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Oh, good idea.  Let's see an ice hockey version of this.  At least the players won't be able to fight as often.

The TSA has been running a scam by implementing the civil rights abusing nude body scanners.  The funny thing is they are in no way effective and they only serve to line the pockets of contractors, lobbyists, and government officials.  The devices actually make air travel less safe since they cannot detect strategically placed objects and they emit radiation on the subject.

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In short: If you want to get an object through airport security, head over to the higher security millimeter wave nude scanners with an object strapped to your side!

What sort of third grader with an engineering degree created a security scanning device that does not detect objects on the side of a person?

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The TSA has not caught any terrorist attempt and they only serve to make the public feel secure and, ironically, disempowered.  The TSA intends to cow air travelers and slowly erode resistance to personal civil rights and liberties.

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Write your senators and representatives urging them to stop the attack on Americans and return the TSA to the proven method of using old fashioned metal detectors and bomb sniffing dogs (or chemical sniffing machines... they exist).

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read more of the article from TSAoutOfOurPants.

Folks in Japan have developed a handheld device (aka. gun) that can stop a remote person mid-sentence.  The research group capitalized on the oddity of people having trouble speaking when their own voice is heard with a fraction of a second delay.

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This is, in fact, a speech impediment.  There are people that get feed back when they talk and hearing their voice can derail any train of thought.  If you haven't seen The King's Speech, you should.  It is a great movie and it has a scene where the protagonist plops on some headphone to block the sound of his own voice and the stutter is absent.

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For all those conspiracy nuts, consider this device in the hands of big brother and how he can squelch any political rally with the non-lethal pull of a trigger...

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read more about the speech jammer at MIT.

Not only is the parasite toxoplasma gondii bad for pregnant women, but it is possibly bad for everyone by changing mental behavior and even increasing the risk of schizophrenia and suicide.

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That's some serious findings and makes you wonder how long it takes for symptoms to appear.  Is it similar to Mad Cow, which doesn't surface until 10 years after exposure?  Scary stuff.

"The subjects who tested positive for the parasite had significantly delayed reaction times. Flegr was especially surprised to learn, though, that the protozoan appeared to cause many sex-specific changes in personality. Compared with uninfected men, males who had the parasite were more introverted, suspicious, oblivious to other people’s opinions of them, and inclined to disregard rules. Infected women, on the other hand, presented in exactly the opposite way: they were more outgoing, trusting, image-conscious, and rule-abiding than uninfected women."

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-- The Atlantic

So, it makes you wonder if those crazy cat ladies (that own more than 5 cats) are nuts before owning the first cat.... or if they are victims to the parasite, making them get more and more felines?  It's a chicken or the egg problem...

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Read more about the research Jaroslav Flegr has been doing at Pregue's Charles University at the Atlantic.

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via BoingBoing.

This song Weightless by Marconi Union, is scientifically proven as the most relaxing song ever.  It has something to do with 60 BPM and ambient waifs of soothing sounds.

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Listen:

MARCONI UNION - WEIGHTLESS by Just Music label

read the article on why the song is considered the most relaxing.

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check out more of Marconi Union.

It was a capricious night where various items in our refrigerator were cooked together and eaten with zeal.  The following was delicious. What was in it:

• 1 Chicken Breast (chopped up to small pieces)
• Spaghetti
• Red bell pepper (chopped)
• Yellow/Orange bell pepper (chopped)
• Tomato (smashed... just kidding... chopped)
• 1/2 Onion (chopped)
• 1 cup of chopped eggplant
• 1 bunch of spinach (chopped after quick boil)
• like a whole tablespoon of this sweet preminced garlic (It's too sweet and doesn't taste like garlic... but worked well on this recipe).
• Some olive oil
• Herbs & Spices: dried basil, italian seasoning, salt, and a dash of even more garlic powder.
• 3 cups of tomato spaghetti sauce (this came from Trader Joe's)

What to do:

1. Boil water for spinach and pasta
2. Chop chicken, put some oil in a large pan, start cooking chicken with all those good herbs.
3. Chop your veggies while the chicken cooks and start cooking pasta.
4. Saute the onions, eggplant, peppers, and tomato after the chicken has been cooked.  Add more oil if you need to.
5. Throw in the spinach after it finishes cooking (1 minute? or 2?).  Chop it so you can fit it in your maw.
6. Dump in the spaghetti sauce then the strained pasta (now you see why you need a large frying pan???)
7. After cooking everything to an eatable temperature, put it on a plate and fill your gob.

This was surprisingly good.  Posting it so I don't forget to cook it again.

One of many odd pictures you find while doing research in reproductive anthropology...  Magic Trick:

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Relevant.

via boingboing.net