Â鶹ŮÓÅ

During protests in the summer of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, law enforcement used chemical irritants on the crowds. Later, some protestors reported disruptions in their menstrual cycles and reproductive health. The anecdotal reports prompted a study at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and Planned Parenthood to explore the relationship between tear gas exposure and reproductive health. (Mitchell, 9/26)

A huge, horrifying spider might be the last thing you want to think about in the throes of passion, but scientists are now using spider venom to cure erectile dysfunction. Venom from the Brazilian wandering spider (Phoneutria nigriventer), also known as the banana spider, is the perfect candidate for a Viagra-like drug, as it is known to cause painful and long-lasting erections as a side effect. (Thomson, 9/26)

A 46-year-old Swiss man who was paralyzed after falling on ice has regained some movement after a world-first surgery that installed an implant on his brain that uses artificial intelligence to read his thoughts, his intentions to move, and transfers them to a second implant in his abdomen that stimulates the right muscles to make parts of his body move as his brain wants them to. (Watt, 9/27)

A study published Monday in the journal Nature reveals an array of physical anomalies among the 152 study participants with long COVID, narrowing in on likely causes that researchers have suspected for years. The sheer variety of biomarkers — measurable physical characteristics — sets long COVID apart from more straightforward illnesses like hypertension, which can be easily identified by measuring blood pressure. The new study confirms that there isn’t just one such characteristic in people with long COVID, but many, and that not all are shared by everyone with the disease. (Asimov, 9/26)

On a mild May day in 1993, about 60 scientists and doctors gathered on a lawn in Copenhagen to commemorate the first International Symposium on GLP-1, the hormone that decades later would become the basis for highly effective diabetes and obesity drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. The meeting was a scientific showcase of all the leading experts in the nascent field. But for one of them, a chemist named Svetlana Mojsov, it was also the backdrop to a strange encounter with a former colleague. (Chen and Molteni, 9/27)