During the height of the Civil War, the Confederate Surgeon General commissioned a guide to traditional plant remedies of the South, as battlefield physicians faced high rates of infections among the wounded and shortages ...
Cell & Microbiology
May 22, 2019
2
5270
A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in South Korea and one in Switzerland has demonstrated that it is possible to use magnetically actuated microrobots to deliver stem cells to targeted tissue. In their ...
Iceland is a small country tucked away on the edge of Europe. It has a population of only about 340,000 people. Iceland's prisons are small too. There are only five, altogether housing fewer than 200 prisoners. Of these five, ...
Social Sciences
Nov 06, 2018
3
103
University of California, Berkeley, synthetic biologists have engineered brewer's yeast to produce marijuana's main ingredients—mind-altering THC and non-psychoactive CBD—as well as novel cannabinoids not found in the ...
Biotechnology
Feb 27, 2019
15
5351
Researchers have designed a machine learning algorithm for drug discovery which has been shown to be twice as efficient as the industry standard, which could accelerate the process of developing new treatments for disease.
Biochemistry
Feb 11, 2019
0
160
Cannabis has been cultivated for millennia in East Asia as an oil-seed and fibre crop. Little is known, however, about the early use and eventual cultivation of the plant for its psychoactive and medicinal properties. Despite ...
Archaeology & Fossils
Jun 12, 2019
5
3090
It's a feat three decades in the making: Harvard University chemists have achieved what a new paper calls a "landmark in drug discovery" with the total synthesis of halichondrin. Known to be a potent anti-cancer agent in ...
Biochemistry
Jun 17, 2019
1
587
Most people have heard about antibiotic-resistant germs. But how about antibiotic-resistant dust?
Cell & Microbiology
Dec 11, 2018
0
836
Discovery of a new feature of a large class of pathogenic viruses may allow development of new antiviral medications for the common cold, polio, and other illnesses, according to a new study publishing June 11 in the open-access ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jun 11, 2019
0
1395
Researchers from the Institute of Process Engineering (IPE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tsinghua University (THU) report a sandwiched superstructure for graphene oxide (GO) that transports through cell membranes. ...
Bio & Medicine
Jun 07, 2019
0
196
A drug, broadly speaking, is any substance that, when absorbed into the body of a living organism, alters normal bodily function. There is no single, precise definition, as there are different meanings in drug control law, government regulations, medicine, and colloquial usage.
In pharmacology, Dictionary.com defines a drug as "a chemical substance used in the treatment, cure, prevention, or diagnosis of disease or used to otherwise enhance physical or mental well-being." Drugs may be prescribed for a limited duration, or on a regular basis for chronic disorders.
Recreational drugs are chemical substances that affect the central nervous system, such as opioids or hallucinogens. They may be used for perceived beneficial effects on perception, consciousness, personality, and behavior. Some drugs can cause addiction and habituation.
Drugs are usually distinguished from endogenous biochemicals by being introduced from outside the organism.[citation needed] For example, insulin is a hormone that is synthesized in the body; it is called a hormone when it is synthesized by the pancreas inside the body, but if it is introduced into the body from outside, it is called a drug.[citation needed]
Many natural substances such as beers, wines, and some mushrooms, blur the line between food and drugs, as when ingested they affect the functioning of both mind and body.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
