World’s First Opioid Vending Machine Opens In Vancouver

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A vending machine for powerful opioids has opened in Canada as part of a project to help fight the Canadian city’s overdose crisis. The MySafe project, which resembles a cash machine, gives addicts access to a prescribed amount of medical quality hydromorphone, a drug about twice as powerful as heroin. Don Durban,…

For you, Valentine: 10 reasons we fall in love

On this Valentine’s Day 2020, what the world of science suggests about the mystery we call love. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/for-you-valentine-top-10-reasons-we-fall-in-love…

Loot Boxes Push Kids Into Gambling, Says England’s NHS Mental Health Director

Claire Murdoch, mental health director of England’s National Health Service (NHS), has reignited the loot box controversy with a report claiming they push young people into “under the radar” gambling. PC Gamer reports: “Frankly no company should be setting kids up for addiction by teaching them to gamble on the content of these loot boxes”, she said. “No firm should sell…

What’s new on Coursera for Business – December 2019

By Kyle Clark, Senior Skills Transformation Consultant Coursera’s university and industry partners launched over 50 courses in December to round out 2019. Our new courses range in topic from the data-heavy – including new AI, cloud, and analytics courses – to cultural intelligence, public health, security management, and business English. Here are our top picks […]
The post What’s new on Coursera…

FDA Bans Production, Sale of Fruit- and Mint-Flavored Vape Pods

In an attempt to curb teen vaping, the FDA has officially banned most fruit- and mint-flavored, cartridge-based vaping products. Companies that manufacture, sell and distribute such products have 30 days to comply. Engadget reports: The new restrictions make some important exceptions. First, they permit tobacco- and menthol-flavored goods. They also apply only to cartridge-based products, which the FDA says are easier…

Chronic Pain is an Impossible Problem

A “safe” alternative to opioid painkillers turns out to be not so safe. From a report: Gabapentin was supposed to be the answer. Chronic pain afflicts about a fifth of American adults, and for years, doctors thought it could be treated with prescription painkillers like Oxycontin. But as the drugs began killing the equivalent of three planeloads of Americans every week,…

College Students Say Ditching Their Smartphones For a Week Changed Their Lives

“They survived!” reports a local CBS news station, revisiting nearly two dozen students at Adelphi University who went a full week without their cell phones. schwit1 shares their report:
It was part of a college course intended to break the powerful addiction of smartphones… an Adelphi University course called “Life Unplugged” where students did the unthinkable one week ago — handed over…

Teenagers Are Easily Bypassing Apple’s Parental Controls

“Kids are outsmarting an army of engineers from Cupertino, California,” reports the Washington Post: And Apple, which introduced “Screen Time” a year ago in response to pressure to address phone overuse by kids, has been slow to make fixes to its software that would close these loopholes. It’s causing some parents to raise questions about Apple’s commitment to safeguarding children from…

Magic Mushrooms Can Help Smokers Kick the Habit

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: New research shows that psilocybin might be an effective treatment for diseases such as depression and addiction. While the work is still in its early stages, there are signs that psilocybin might help addicts shake the habit by causing the brain to talk with itself in different ways. “These brain changes lead to,…