Artful dodging

“Caffeine,” say University of Waterloo researchers, “improves reaction to moving targets.”

What does that mean?

Let’s say you have a busy highway (one where the vehicles are actually moving — sorry, Atlanta). And let’s say you have a bunch of grad students who try to run across the highway, Frogger-style.

According to these visual-science researchers, the students who have had about 250-350mg of caffeine will have better reactions times an hour later and will be less likely to end up as roadkill. Metaphorically, of course.

Researchers found that participants who had ingested the caffeine capsules showed significantly greater accuracy and faster speed when identifying smaller moving stimuli, inferring caffeine positively influences participants’ stimulus processing and decision-making.

Covid tidbit

Smoking, vaping, and drinking alcohol — even moderately — can lower your immunological response to a Covid-19 vaccine.

(Side note: There is apparently no standard term for ‘vaping device.’ These researchers use the term “heat-not-burn tobacco product” (HNB).)

Medical mysteries (maybe) solved (seriously)

Anti-depressants work, we know that. Exactly how they work, though, is still a bit of a mystery. Now Vanderbilt University neurologists say they’ve found the mechanism.

The details are waaaaaaaaay too detailed to go into here, but the gist is that it’s about regulating an ion transporter channel (a pore) in nerve cells called the HCN channel. A molecule called cAMP can open and close that channel, and antidepressants increase cAMP signaling.

“This appears,” they said, “to carry promising implications for new drug development.”

=AND=

You might remember that the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine had a scary side effect: occasional blood clots. Now a team of Brit and U.S. scientists have figured out why that happens.

The adenovirus used to carry the vaccine’s payload can, in rare cases, bind to a particular platelet protein*. That triggers an immune response that ends up causing platelets to clump and cause those clots. It can’t be stopped, but knowing the problem is critical to preventing it.

* Platelet factor 4, if you must know; and yes, this was oversimplified.

Pronoun relationship primer

When you’re in a relationship and having a spot of trouble, a study by an international group of psychology researchers found the best way to use pronouns to your advantage.

• When trying to resolve a conflict, use we (or us) rather than I or you. (“[T]he use of we-talk represents a ‘shared resource’ and can potentially protect against the negative effects of partner-focused interactions.”)
• When looking for sympathy or support, though, use I, as in “I feel terrible.” (This kind of “emotional self-disclosure can be helpful for building intimacy.”)
• If your partner uses such “I-talk” to complain, though, “Use you-talk to show you have been listening.”

Captain Obvious thinks that’s kind of the point

“Older MS patients who discontinue medications experience worsening of their disease”

Sheep breathing easier

Let’s say you’ve got sheep with damaged lungs — happens to all of us. A way to treat them, found Aussie veterinary researchers, could come from eucalyptus plants.

Specifically, it’s a flavonoid in eucalyptus called pinocembrin that sounds like a wonder drug: “[It] has been reported to have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial and anti-cancer properties.”

At least some of that appears to be true. Sheep with lung fibrosis were given pinocembrin, and … wow.

“We saw striking anti-inflammatory effects and modest anti-fibrotic remodelling after four weeks of administering pinocembrin,” the researchers said — we’re talking “a 50 percent reduction in certain inflammatory cells in the lungs.”

How might that apply beyond sheep? How about this:

In humans, pulmonary fibrosis involves scarring and thickening of lung tissue with lung transplantation the only known cure.

Saving you a click

“Are Voice Assistants a Reliable Source of Health Information?”

No.

[A]lthough the voice assistants often guided users to reputable sources such as the CDC and the American Cancer Society, they also directed users to non-reputable sources, such as popsugar.com and mensjournal.com.