Nature publishes a study on minocycline (remember that name, stupid men, it’s a kind of tetracycline), which not only kills germs but also keeps men from trusting attractive women just because they’re attractive:

Here we show that minocycline also reduces the risk of the ‘honey trap’ during an economic exchange. Males tend to cooperate with physically attractive females without [...]

Vice, of all publications, examines the strange chemistry of the first-known psychedelic sponges… trying to figure out why sponges would make something as potent as DMT anyway:

It would be a tragically anthropocentric mistake to assume that Smenospongia aurea produces 5-Br-DMT and related tryptamines to provide terrestrial vertebrates such as you and me with a transient psychedelic high. Serotonin [...]

Nature reports that the link between youthful indulgence in marijuana and IQ loss might be overstated:

Ole Røgeberg, a labour economist at the Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research in Oslo and the author of the latest paper, ran simulations which showed that confounding factors associated with socioeconomic status could explain the earlier result. For example, poorer people have [...]

New York Times reviews the research demonstrating that MDMA, better known as X, can work wonders with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder patients:

Government regulators criminalized the drug in 1985, placing it on a list of prohibited substances that includes heroin and LSD. But in recent years, regulators have licensed a small number of labs to produce MDMA for research purposes.

“I [...]

The Independent has a surprisingly lucid summary of a 25-year longitudinal study of cannabis users from ages 13 to 38. And they found that teen marijuana users dropped their IQs by 8 points:

With no cannabis history, there was a small decline in IQ. However recurrent cannabis use was associated with an 8 point decline in IQ, comparable to [...]

BBC breaks some not-terribly-encouraging news from the stoner desk. Neuromedical researchers have found marijuana-based meds don’t slow the progress multiple sclerosis:

Lead researcher, Professor John Zajicek, will present the preliminary results of the Cupid (Cannabinoid Use in Progressive Inflammatory brain Disease) trial to the Association of British Neurologists in Brighton later.

Prof Zajicek said he was “disappointed” the overall effect [...]

Scientific American veers into “No, really?” territory with news that cocaine ages your brain prematurely:

“As we age we all lose gray matter,” Karen Ersche of the Behavioral and Clinical Neuroscience Institute at the University of Cambridge and co-author of the new study, said in a prepared statement. But, she noted, “chronic cocaine users lose grey matter at a [...]

…of killing endangered animals. Or at least Nature hypes up enough evidence to put Chinese medicine on trial:

“There’s absolutely no honesty in the labelling of these products. What they declare is completely at odds with what’s in there,” says Mike Bunce, a geneticist at Murdoch University near Perth, Australia, who led the study. The results are published today [...]

The Independent reports on one of those weird medical side effect whodathunkits (like Rogaine and Viagra coming from blood pressure medications). Minocycline, a drug usually used to get rid of zits, is about to revolutionize we treat mental illness:

Trials in Israel, Pakistan and Brazil have shown significant improvement in patients treated with the drug.

…

The first account of minocycline’s [...]