DailyDirt: Better Living Through Chemistry

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Occasionally, we talk about problems with big pharma companies and how they sometimes hinder innovation. There are lots of ways to develop new drugs, and apparently plenty of people out there are willing to ingest experimental drugs for fun (and then maybe eat other people's faces). Here are just a few examples of some innovative folks doing some chemistry.

• Underground chemists are making synthetic versions of recreational drugs that are technically legal to possess and sell. This has been going on for years, but recently, there have been increasing political efforts to make these "chemically-similar" drugs illegal. [url]
• Amateur scientists are working on all kinds of crazy biological experiments and ideas such as rewriting the DNA of an acorn so that it grows into the shape of oak furniture. The zombie apocalypse might not come from a megacorporation, but from biology experiment gone wrong in a garage... [url]
• Albert Hofmann discovered LSD had interesting effects in the 1940s, and he said that it spoke to him: "Don't give me to the pharmacologist, he won't find anything." And lots of people have tried LSD since, including Steve Jobs and Aldous Huxley. [url]
• To discover more interesting science-related stuff, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: albert hofmann, biotech, chemistry, drugs, lsd, pharma

DailyDirt: Better Medicine

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Modern medicine has come a long way, but it still has a long way to go -- especially when it comes to figuring out whether or not drugs are even doing better than a placebo. Categorizing and quantifying the development of drugs in a more public way could speed up the progress of new treatments, so it's nice to see some folks getting around to doing just that. Here are some links about drugs and a relatively new way to diagnose brain disorders.

• The Pillbox project is organizing a huge database of various drugs and their interactions. This probably duplicates databases from pharmacies like Walmart/Walgreens, but the data will be public. [url]
• With near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), psychiatric diagnoses might be more accurately determined. Or at least, these brain scans will create a database of brain patterns to help categorize various mental conditions. [url]
• The contribution of public-sector research institutions (PSRIs) for developing FDA-approved drugs and vaccines has been quantified. "Virtually all the important, innovative vaccines that have been introduced during the past 25 years have been created by PSRIs." [url]
• LSD has a pretty interesting history. Derivatives of the drug could have a more interesting future, too. [url]
• To discover more biotech stuff, check out what's roaming around in the StumbleUpon jungle. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: drugs, lsd, near-infrared spectroscopy, pillbox, public-sector research institutions