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As of now, 18 states have legalized recreational marijuana use while 36 have 'medical' cannabis laws but there is still debate about how cannabis may affect the abilities, real and perceived, of drivers under the influence.A two-year randomized trial, conducted at the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research (CMCR) at University of California San Diego School of Medicine hopes to add some science to the anecdotes. Researchers recruited 191 regular cannabis users to partake of cannabis containing different levels of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive compound in cannabis or a placebo immediately before a series of driving simulation tests over several hours.

Long before there were Israelites, Sumerians, or Egyptians in the world, the people living in Israel experienced a boom in food quantity and diversity, and a new study finds that the reason was climate change 23,000 years ago.Ohalo II is a
submerged archaeological site on the southern tip of the Sea of Galilee in Israel and in it are preserved extensive evidence of human occupation about 23,000 years ago. Climate change was a given, the world was exiting its latest periodic ice age. Humans diversified their dietary habits. Some have posited that the changes in food were due to decreasing food availability, while others suggest the change was thanks to increasing food abundance.

A lot of media articles a decade ago worried about risk to honeybees from crop protection products while science should have been worried more about the viruses they carry that put plants at risk of disease.A recent study sequenced the genetic material present on the pollen grains of 24 plant species across the U.S., the group found signs of many of the plant viruses already shown to travel on pollen—along with six new species, three new variants of known species and the incomplete traces of more than 200 more that have never before been identified.

In a pilot study, a fat injection procedure improved symptoms of plantar fasciitis in patients, and the authors of the paper hope it will get a company or NGO interested in a clinical trial. 

All coronaviruses, and certainly SARS-CoV-2, have become famous as a respiratory virus, but acute COVID-19 infection has been linked to many different organ systems, including the brain, resulting in a wide range of neurological complications with long-lasting impacts.  According to a new paper by Serena Spudich and Avindra Nath, cases of neurological “Long Covid” symptoms may result from the emergence and persistence of these mechanisms and the neurological symptoms that accompany COVID-19.

A new study finds that oral stimuli during the chewing of food can help increase energy expenditure of body and prevent obesity.Chew your food well is ancient wisdom.  In the past, the belief was perhaps because there was less food anyway. Chewing it longer gave the brain and stomach time to catch up with each other. Many people have reported 'their eyes are bigger than their stomach' and feeling hungry until they were very full. Others said it made digestion easier.

In 2008, Senator Barack Obama was opposed to gay marriage and worried vaccines might cause autism. A few years later he said neither of those things.Did Democrats flip to being pro-science and the party followed and then the President reflected those polls? Perhaps he changed from stating party platforms based on voter beliefs to his own once he was elected, then he changed the party, and then the party led its members, finds results in a new paper on party and personal political polarization. 

Magnesium is important in the immune system’s ability to tackle pathogens and even cancer cells but that doesn't mean you should run to a supplement huckster or naturopath. It is magnesium in blood that is needed for T cells to operate efficiently and that means science and medicine, not woo.Some studies, though only in mice so strictly observational, found that cancerous growths spread faster when the animals received a low-magnesium diet – and also that their defense against flu viruses was also impaired. Lacking a plausible biological mechanism for exactly how this mineral affects the immune system leaves such studies in the interesting but not clinically relevant camp.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, 81 countries, rich and poor, mostly do poorly on how well their health systems provide for the physical and mental wellbeing of patients at the end of life.

When it comes to baseball and football, coaches always know the numbers. That helps them make informed decisions on risk and reward. Less well-known is that clinicians also often make important healthcare decisions with the aid of algorithmic tools that draw on large amounts of complex data.

People in Britain, from Scotland to Wales, may maintain a cultural identity, but how much of it is real versus an arbitrary social construct? How much should be decided by genes versus how people choose to identify?A new study opens up as many questions as it answers about Bronze Age Britain. Where did many of them 'come from'? Inference suggests France.

As Peru's Wari kingdom sought to shore up their crumbling empire over 1,000 years ago they did it with their own form of bread and circuses - cocaine, ayahuasca, and a beer with psychedelics mixed in.Since the concoction was only made by elites without a penalty of death, festivals became a way to exercise political control among friends and challengers alike. It obviously didn't work forever, the Incas conquered them, but the archaeological evidence provides a compelling look into South American culture of 1000 AD.