Chronic pain is an unknown issue with unknown causes and a subjective definition but some people clearly have it. Researchers recently analyzed 2,721 people, all taking prescription opioid pain medications, for genes COMT, DRD2, DRD1 and OPRK1. The participants also rated their perception of pain on a scale from zero to 10. People who rated their pain as zero were not included in the study.

Low pain perception was defined as a score of one, two or three; moderate pain perception was a score of four, five or six; and high pain perception was a score of seven, eight, nine or 10. 

9 percent of the participants had low pain perception, 46 percent had moderate pain perception and 45 percent had high pain perception.

Environmentalists generally regard people as the enemy, but that is a mythology only held by urban fundraisers working for environmental corporations. In actuality, sportsmen are some of the biggest protectors of the environment. They are even more protective of the environmental than the US Environmental Protection Agency, they are just more practical and not motivated by the latest political fads.


Photo credit: Brendan Burns.
Link: Sportsman's Alliance for Alaska.

Between 2000 and 2010, native-born Californians had fewer children and a giant chunk of the middle class fled the state, but California's population still grew by 3,390,000.

A new study conducted in mice has implicated a single type of cell, in the lining of the bladder, as responsible for most cases of invasive bladder cancer.

The study is the first to pinpoint the normal cell type that can give rise to invasive bladder cancers and the first to show that most bladder cancers and their associated precancerous lesions arise from just one cell, which would also explain why many human bladder cancers recur after therapy.

Stem cells – the body's master cells – demonstrate a bizarre property never before seen at a cellular level, according to a study published today from scientists at the University of Cambridge. The property – known as auxeticity – is one which may have application as wide-ranging as soundproofing, super-absorbent sponges and bulletproof vests.

Biofuels - ethanol - were trumpeted as being a renewable alternative to fossil fuels for decades. Finally, in 2005, it got the mandates and subsidies environmentalists insisted were necessary to make inroads against a mature industry like petroleum.

Immediately, what scientists knew became evident - they were more resource intensive to produce, were no better for emissions, and subsidies insured there was no reason to get more efficient. Worse, the gold rush of government money drove up corn prices, unfairly impacting the poor.