University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) researchers have shown that psilocybin — the active chemical in 'magic mushrooms' — still works its antidepressant-like actions, at least in mice, even when the psychedelic experience is blocked. The new findings suggest that psychedelic drugs work in multiple ways in the brain and it may be possible to deliver the fast-acting antidepressant therapeutic benefit without requiring daylong guided therapy sessions. A version of the drug without, or with less of, the psychedelic effects could loosen restrictions on who could receive the therapy, and lower costs, making the benefits of psilocybin more available to more people in need.

In all clinical trials performed to date, the person treated with psilocybin remains under the care of a guide, who keeps the person calm and reassures them during their daylong experience. This can include hallucinations, altered perception of time and space, and intense emotional and spiritual encounters.

Only a few years ago, back when I was in medical school, I was taught that the goal of oxygen therapy should be to push saturation above 95%, and that anyone who comes in to hospital with a saturation below that should receive oxygen therapy (with the exception of people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, whose bodies have adjusted to lower oxygen levels). For those who aren't used to the terminology, the definition of oxygen saturation is the proportion of haemoglobin molecules in the arteries that are "saturated" with oxygen. A normal level for a healthy person is usually 97% or higher.

In the last few years, however, there's been a bit of a shift in thinking. It started with the realization that people with heart attacks who were treated oxygen didn't do any better than those who weren't. This is a good example of a medical reversal - it seemed logical to give oxygen to people with heart attacks, because a heart attack is a blockage in one of the arteries that supply the heart, which means that the heart muscle isn't getting enough oxygen. By increasing the oxygen level in the blood stream, even if only a small amount of that oxygen is able to get past the blockage, it should do some good. At least that was the thinking.

Unfortunately, logic often turns out be wrong, at least in medicine. As it turns out, oxygen isn't the utterly benign substance it's often made out to be. First, oxygen causes blood vessels to constrict, so by pushing up the oxygen saturation you could actually be worsening the blockage. Second, oxygen has an unfortunate tendency to form reactive oxygen species (ROS), which can wreak all kinds of havoc in our cells. We've evolved mechanisms to deal with these, but when a part of the body is depleted of oxygen for a while, many of our defences to deal with ROS are diminished. If you then push up the oxygen arriving in an area enormously, say an area of heart muscle that's been deprived of oxygen for a while but that now once again has good flow thanks to an intervention to remove the blockage, you might actually increase the damage to that area.

Long story short, it turned out that oxygen wasn't good to give to people with heart attacks. It might even be bad. Thankfully, that practice has now stopped in most places. The realization that oxygen might actually be harmful in certain situations has led to a change in thinking about oxygen therapy. No longer is it viewed uncritically as a universal panacea that can be doled out generously to everyone who comes in through the doors of the hospital. At least that's the case in theory. In practice, lots of patients still get oxygen who don't need it.

People vaccinated against COVID-19 may require booster shots within nine to 12 months of their initial vaccination, Reuters reported.

Evidence suggests that the coronavirus vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna offer at least six months of robust protection from COVID-19 infection. But even if this protection lasts for longer, several highly-transmissible viral variants are now circulating; that means people may need a regular booster shots to bolster immunity to the virus, Dr. David Kessler, chief science officer for President Joe Biden's COVID-19 response task force, said at a congressional committee meeting on Thursday (April 15).

"The current thinking is those who are more vulnerable will have to go first," in terms of getting their booster shots, Kessler said.

From early on in the pandemic, experts predicted that officials may need to roll out multiple generations of COVID-19 vaccines and that regular booster shots may be necessary, since experts couldn't know then how long vaccine-generated immunity would last, Live Science previously reported. And there's always the potential for new virus variants to emerge and thwart the current vaccines, raising the risk of so-called breakthrough infections, meaning infections among fully vaccinated people.

Breakthrough infections are completely expected, as none of the COVID-19 vaccines are 100% protective against the coronavirus. The CDC has been monitoring for such infections since the vaccine rollout began, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, told the House subcommittee hearing, according to Reuters.

The CDC announced today that deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a U.S. Government funded database that tracks injuries and deaths caused by vaccines, following experimental COVID injections, have now surpassed 3000 deaths since December of 2020, when the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA COVID shots were given emergency use authorization (EUA) by the FDA.

This was reported on the CDC website today, on their "Selected Adverse Events Reported after COVID-19 Vaccination" page.

They report that 3,005 people have now died following COVID-19 experimental "vaccines." (Note: not all of these deaths they are reporting have been entered into the VAERS database yet. Additional data is entered into VAERS every Friday.)

Scientists at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Sydney have discovered a critical new gene that it is hoped could help human hearts repair damaged heart muscle after a heart attack.

Researchers have identified a genetic switch in zebrafish that turns on cells allowing them to divide and multiply after a heart attack, resulting in the complete regeneration and healing of damaged heart muscle in these fish.

It's already known that zebrafish can heal their own hearts, but how they performed this incredible feat remained unknown, until now. In research recently published in the prestigious journal, Science, the team at the Institute drilled down into a critical gene known as Klf1 that previously had only been identified in red blood cells. For the first time they discovered it plays a vital role in healing damaged hearts.

Dr. Kazu Kikuchi, who led this world first research, said he was astonished by the findings.

"Our research has identified a secret switch that allows heart muscle cells to divide and multiply after the heart is injured. It kicks in when needed and turns off when the heart is fully healed. In humans where damaged and scarred heart muscle cannot replace itself, this could be a game-changer," Dr. Kikuchi explains.

Cloth face masks during exercise limit performance and physical capacity, study finds

Heart rate peaks lower and oxygen intake drops, according to sports science research

Cloth face coverings limit performance and physical capacity during exercise, a new study has found.

Masked joggers said they felt claustrophobic during higher-intensity exercise and their oxygen intake was reduced, according to research.

Heart rate was found to have a lower peak while exercising with a mask and participants could not keep up a jog for as long as when unmasked.

The looming threat of vaccine passports have been a constant companion over the past year, sending chills down the collective spines of anyone with even the slightest value of liberty. While a large scale rollout is still on the horizon, we are starting to see these things issued in various places, and they're pretty much exactly what everyone has feared.

While New York State's voluntary app has proven to be a logistical nightmare, with its many shortcomings making it almost unusable, Israel's Green Pass has already started to create a two-tiered society, with stark contrast between the haves and the have-nots (vaxxed and unvaxxed) and Naomi Wolf is sounding dire warnings about "the end of human liberty in the West if this plan unfolds as planned."

Yet the plans of the elites are not without resistance. Gov. DeSantis of Florida has taken an executive action against vaccine passports and even the WHO has dismissed the idea as discriminatory. Meanwhile, the UK has said that the Covid passports will only be a 'short-term' measure until the covetted herd immunity has been reached (if you trust them on this, you might want do a little research into the history of 'temporary' government powers).

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People infected with the more contagious coronavirus variant first identified in the United Kingdom did not experience more severe symptoms and were not at higher risk of death, according to a new study published Monday.

Scientists are struggling to pin down the nature of the U.K. variant, which has become the dominant strain across Europe and, as of last week, in the United States. Chief among the questions: Is the variant more deadly?

The study, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, looked at data from last fall in the U.K., shortly after the variant was first detected. It soon spread rapidly, eventually becoming the dominant strain circulating in the country.

The new findings add to scientists' ever-evolving understanding of the U.K. variant, known as B.1.1.7, at a crucial time in the pandemic, as it and other variants are circulating widely in other countries.

Researchers looked at Covid-19 patients who were admitted to University College London Hospital and North Middlesex University Hospital from Nov. 9 to Dec. 20. The scientists sequenced virus samples from 341 patients, finding that 58 percent were positive for the U.K. variant and that 42 percent had been infected with a different strain.

The researchers then compared the severity of symptoms between the two groups and found that patients infected with the B.1.1.7 variant were not at increased risk of becoming severely ill or dying. The study zeroed in on a time when the U.K. variant was just gaining a foothold in London — and as the U.K.'s vaccination program was getting underway.

U.S. federal health agencies on Tuesday recommended pausing the use of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine for at least a few days after six women under 50 given the shot developed rare blood clots, dealing a fresh setback to efforts to tackle the pandemic.

Following the news, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) said it was delaying the rollout of the vaccine to Europe, a week after regulators there said they were reviewing rare blood clots in four recipients of the shot in the United States.

Janet Woodcock, acting commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said the agency expected the pause to be a matter of days, and it was aimed at providing information to healthcare providers so they can diagnose, treat and report such blood clots.

The cadence is increasing of jurisdictions introducing, normalizing and expanding laws allowing doctors to help people commit suicide.

Is this purely in the service of relieving unbearable physical or mental suffering? Or do other factors predominate?

I used to believe the former, but my recent re-examination of the issue suggests the latter is more likely.