explains – Page 2

A Medical Toxicologist Explains: What Fentanyl Is And Why Is It Behind The Deadly Surge In US Drug Overdoses?

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

A Medical Toxicologist Explains: What Fentanyl Is And Why Is It Behind The Deadly Surge In US Drug Overdoses?

Buying drugs on the street is a game of Russian roulette. From Xanax to cocaine, drugs or counterfeit pills purchased in nonmedical settings may contain life-threatening amounts of fentanyl. Physicians like me have seen a rise in unintentional fentanyl use from people buying prescription opioids and other drugs laced, or adulterated, with fentanyl. Heroin users in my community in Massachusetts came to realize that fentanyl had entered the drug supply when overdose numbers exploded. In 2016, my colleagues and I found that patients who came to the emergency department reporting a heroin overdose often only had fentanyl present in their drug test results. As the Chief of Medical Toxicology at UMass Chan Medical School, I have studied fentanyl and its analogs for years. As fentanyl has becom...

A Law Professor Explains How Blockchains And NFTs Don’t Protect Virtual Property – Can You Truly Own Anything In The Metaverse?

22Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

BUSINESS, IN OTHER NEWS

A Law Professor Explains How Blockchains And NFTs Don’t Protect Virtual Property – Can You Truly Own Anything In The Metaverse?

In 2021, an investment firm bought 2,000 acres of real estate for about US$4 million. Normally this would not make headlines, but in this case the land was virtual. It existed only in a metaverse platform called The Sandbox. By buying 792 non-fungible tokens on the Ethereum blockchain, the firm then owned the equivalent of 1,200 city blocks. But did it? It turns out that legal ownership in the metaverse is not that simple. The prevailing but legally problematic narrative among crypto enthusiasts is that NFTs allow true ownership of digital items in the metaverse for two reasons: decentralization and interoperability. These two technological features have led some to claim that tokens provide indisputable proof of ownership, which can be used across various metaverse apps, environments an...

A Finance Expert Explains The ‘Poison Pill’ The Anti-Takeover Tool That Twitter Hopes Will Keep Elon Musk At Bay

19Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

BUSINESS, IN OTHER NEWS

A Finance Expert Explains The ‘Poison Pill’ The Anti-Takeover Tool That Twitter Hopes Will Keep Elon Musk At Bay

Takeovers are usually friendly affairs. Corporate executives engage in top-secret talks, with one company or group of investors making a bid for another business. After some negotiating, the companies engaged in the merger or acquisition announce a deal has been struck. But other takeovers are more hostile in nature. Not every company wants to be taken over. This is the case with Elon Musk’s US$43 billion bid to buy Twitter. Companies have various measures in their arsenal to ward off such unwanted advances. One of the most effective anti-takeover measures is the shareholder rights plan, also more aptly known as a “poison pill.” It is designed to block an investor from accumulating a majority stake in a company. Twitter adopted a poison pill plan on April 15, 2022, shortly after Musk un...

A First Amendment Scholar Explains – When Are Book Bans Unconstitutional?

14Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

EDUCATION

A First Amendment Scholar Explains – When Are Book Bans Unconstitutional?

The United States has become a nation divided over important issues in K-12 education, including which books students should be able to read in public school. Efforts to ban books from school curricula, remove books from libraries and keep lists of books that some find inappropriate for students are increasing as Americans become more polarized in their views. These types of actions are being called “book banning.” They are also often labeled “censorship.” But the concept of censorship, as well as legal protections against it, are often highly misunderstood. A 2021 campaign ad for Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin focuses on a book with what one mother claimed was “explicit material.” Book banning by the political right and left On the right side of the political spect...

A Computer Scientist Explains – Why ‘Bad’ Ads Appear On ‘Good’ Websites

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS, Journalism

A Computer Scientist Explains – Why ‘Bad’ Ads Appear On ‘Good’ Websites

Sketchy ads, like those for miracle weight loss pills and suspicious-looking software, sometimes appear on legitimate, well-regarded websites. It turns out that most websites don’t actually decide who gets to show ads to their viewers. Instead, most sites outsource this task to a complex network of advertising tech companies that do the work of figuring out which ads are shown to each particular person. The online ad ecosystem is largely built around “programmatic advertising,” a system for placing advertisements from millions of advertisers on millions of websites. The system uses computers to automate bidding by advertisers on available ad spaces, often with transactions occurring faster than would be possible manually. Programmatic advertising is a powerful tool that allows advertiser...

Whats Good: Sugar Detox? Cutting Carbs? A Doctor Explains Why You Should Keep Fruit On The Menu

14Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

WHAT'S GOOD

Whats Good: Sugar Detox? Cutting Carbs? A Doctor Explains Why You Should Keep Fruit On The Menu

One of my patients – who had been struggling with obesity, uncontrolled diabetes and the cost of her medications – agreed in June 2019 to adopt a more whole-food plant-based diet. Excited by the challenge, she did a remarkable job. She increased her fresh fruit and vegetable intake, stopped eating candy, cookies and cakes and cut down on foods from animal sources. Over six months, she lost 19 pounds and her HbA1c – a measure of her average blood sugar – dropped from 11.5% to 7.6%. She was doing so well, I expected that her HbA1c would continue to drop and she would be one of our plant-based successes who had reversed diabetes. Her three-month follow-up visit in March 2020 was canceled because of COVID-19 lockdowns. When I eventually saw her again in May 2021, she’d regained some of the ...

An Expert Explains What Aphasia Is – The Condition Forcing Bruce Willis To Retire From Acting

1Apr

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CELEBRITY NEWS, TOP FOUR

An Expert Explains What Aphasia Is – The Condition Forcing Bruce Willis To Retire From Acting

Actor Bruce Willis, 67, is “stepping away” from his career in film and TV after being diagnosed with aphasia, his family announced on March 30, 2022. In a message posted on Instagram, his daughter, Rumer Willis, said that the condition was “impacting his cognitive abilities.” Swathi Kiran, director of the Aphasia Research Laboratory at Boston University, explains what aphasia is and how it impairs the communication of those with the condition. What is aphasia? Aphasia is a communication disorder that affects someone’s ability to speak or understand speech. It also impacts how they understand written words and their ability to read and to write. It is important to note that aphasia can take different forms. Some people with aphasia only have difficulty understanding language – a result o...

An Electrical Engineer Explains How A Large Solar Storm Could Knock Out The Power Grid And The Internet

3Apr

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IN OTHER NEWS, TECHNOLOGY, VIDEO REELS

An Electrical Engineer Explains How A Large Solar Storm Could Knock Out The Power Grid And The Internet

On Sept. 1 and 2, 1859, telegraph systems around the world failed catastrophically. The operators of the telegraphs reported receiving electrical shocks, telegraph paper catching fire, and being able to operate equipment with batteries disconnected. During the evenings, the aurora borealis, more commonly known as the northern lights, could be seen as far south as Colombia. Typically, these lights are only visible at higher latitudes, in northern Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia. What the world experienced that day, now known as the Carrington Event, was a massive geomagnetic storm. These storms occur when a large bubble of superheated gas called plasma is ejected from the surface of the sun and hits the Earth. This bubble is known as a coronal mass ejection. The plasma of a coronal mass e...

A Neurologist Explains – Why Daylight Saving Time Is Unhealthy

10Mar

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

A Neurologist Explains – Why Daylight Saving Time Is Unhealthy

As people in the U.S. prepare to turn their clocks ahead one hour in mid-March, I find myself bracing for the annual ritual of media stories about the disruptions to daily routines caused by switching from standard time to daylight saving time. About a third of Americans say they don’t look forward to these twice-yearly time changes. An overwhelming 63% to 16% majority would like to eliminate them completely. But the effects go beyond simple inconvenience. Researchers are discovering that “springing ahead” each March is connected with serious negative health effects. I’m a professor of neurology and pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, and the director of our sleep division. In a 2020 commentary for the journal JAMA Neurology, my co-authors and I r...

A Bioethicist Explains Why Restricting Opioid Supply May Not Be The Right Solution For Opioid Overdose

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

A Bioethicist Explains Why Restricting Opioid Supply May Not Be The Right Solution For Opioid Overdose

Year after year, America’s drug overdose crisis is worsening. In the 12-month period ending in June 2021, the most recent period for which there is reliable data, more than 101,000 people died from drug overdose in the U.S., – an increase of more than 20% from the previous year. 2021 was also an important year for analysis of the overdose crisis, with numerous books and articles shedding light on both the causes and potential solutions to the crisis. Not all analysis is in agreement, however. As a bioethicist who has spent much of the past several years researching the ethical and policy issues related to drug use, I’ve become particularly interested in an evolving tension between commentators on the drug crisis. While many blame today’s crisis on an increase in drug supply over the pa...