Strawberries now cure alcohol poisoning?

Strawberries are delicious. In fact, they're second only to the great mango in terms of tastiness. But now they're not just delicious - they can cure the effects of alcohol poisoning!

Heavy drinking can bring serious problems. And not the 'I-got-drunk-last-night' kind of drinking, but the 'I-got-drunk-every-week-this-month' kind of drinking. It can cause long-term damage to the mucous membrane of your stomach that can give rise to all manner of gastrointestinal disorders, including ulcers, colorectal cancer, and inflammatory bowel disease. Not cool.

Now a European team has found that strawberries, or more accurately the anthocyanins and antioxidants found in strawberries, can help mitigate these effects and even improve treatment of stomach ulcers.

Sara Tulipani, University of Barcelona researcher and co-author of the study, explains that "the positive effects of strawberries are not only linked to their antioxidant capacity and high content of phenolic compounds, but also to the fact that they activate the antioxidant defenses and enzymes of the body."

TC;DR: Gastrointestinal diseases like stomach ulcers caused by heavy drinking are caused by 'free radical' atoms and molecules that are highly unstable and cause chain reactions in trying to gain stability. That's why the damage accumulates over time. Antioxidants in strawberries activate the 'defense systems' of the body, and reduce the production of these free radicals in the first place.

Life lesson here: If you plan on doing some heavy drinking during the holidays, minimise damage by loading up with strawberries in the days beforehand. It won't stop the damage, but it'll help reduce it.

via i09, while the original research paper can be found here.

Glowing kittens. Oh Science.

Science is good for many things. Building psychotic robots, flying into space, and bioengineering the perfect tomato for a salad sandwich. And now, its latest innovation: glowing kittens.

The Mayo Clinic in Minnesota implanted genes from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria into the eggs from which the kittens grew, which, helpfully, allows them to produce Green Fluorescent Protein, allowing them to glow under certain light frequencies.

But it's another gene inserted into the kittens that is promising a step towards a cure for AIDS. The antiviral gene, coming from a monkey, produces a protein called TRIMCyp. This protein can make blood cells that fight infections and resist the viruses that cause AIDS, according to Dr Laurence Tiley of the University of Cambridge.

"One of the best things about this biomedical research is that it is aimed at benefiting both human and feline health. If you could show that you confer protection to these animals, it would give us a lot of information about protecting humans."

So far, they've only tested it on cells extracted from the cats, not the cats themselves, which is apparently their next step. And they made the kittens glow so that their cells would be more visible. At least that's their story.


via The Guardian