McDonald’s USA says that within two years, it will only buy chickens raised without antibiotics. This is in response to increasing evidence that the overuse of antibiotics for poultry may diminish their effectiveness in fighting disease in humans.

While veterinary use of antibiotics is a legal practice and has been used by poultry producers since the 1940s, consumer advocates and public health experts have become more critical of the practice of routinely feeding antibiotics to chickens, cattle and pigs. They contend that that may help superbugs develop resistance to antibiotics used to fight infections in humans. The poultry industry’s lobby argues that there is little evidence that bacteria which do become resistant also infect people.

The exception to McDonald’s new policy is that the company will buy chicken from farmers who use ionophores, an animal antibiotic not used in human medical treatment.

The phase-out of chickens raised on antibiotics will apply only to McDonald’s 14,000 U.S. restaurants, but not the company’s 22,000 international restaurants.

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Sourced from: Reuters, McDonald’s USA to phase out human antibiotics from chicken supply

Researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia say they’ve found new compounds in spider venom that could lead to more effective treatments for people with chronic pain. Specifically, they believe that peptides found in spider venom may be able to block neural pathways that send pain signals to the brain.

Because spiders paralyze their prey by injecting them with venom containing protein molecules known as peptides, scientists think that some of those peptides could act as pain relievers in humans.

To conduct their study, the researchers created a system that allowed them to search for peptides in spider venom that could block the most common pain pathway, known as Nav1.7.

The team screened the venoms of 205 species of spider and found that 40 percent of venoms contained at least one peptide able to block the Nav1.7 pathway in humans. They narrowed this down to seven promising compounds, identifying one that was likely to be most effective as a pain reliever. The compound Hd1a was identified in the venom of a species of spider called Haplopelma doriae, a member of the tarantula family. This compound can block the human Nav1.7 pathway, and it also has a chemical structure that makes it chemically, thermally and biologically stable - meaning it has strong potential as an effective painkiller in humans.

NEXT: McDonald’s to remove antibiotics from chicken

Sourced from: Medical News Today, Newly identified compounds in spider venom could help treat chronic pain

While you may hear a lot about “beer goggles”–that a person looks more attractive after you have a few drinks–not much research has been done on how consuming alcohol may make you look. But now researchers say that if you want to look your best at a bar or party, you should limit how much you consume to one drink.

The scientists gathered 40 students from the University of Bristol in the U.K. and took three photos: once when the participants were sober, once after they drank one glass of wine, and once after having a second drink. Facial expressions were all neutral.

A separate group of heterosexual students then rated how attractive they found the volunteers side by side photos. Researchers presented photos of a sober person next to a person who had one drink or a sober person next to a person who had two drinks. Consistently, photos of people who had one drink were rated as more attractive than the sober photos. But once a person had two drinks, they were rated as better-looing in their sober photos.

The researchers said that the effect that alcohol can have on appearance, such as reddening cheeks or dilating pupils, may explain why people appeared more attractive after one drink.

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Sourced from: LiveScience, You Look Hotter After 1 Drink, But Not 2