The results of a 20-year old project started by the Boston Retinal Implant Project may soon allow degenerative blind patients to once again see their surroundings. A new bio-electronic optical implant is currently in the works and should be ready to roll out within a couple of years. You can check out the details of this technological breakthrough in our full article.

Botox injections may get rid of wrinkles, but let's not forget that Botox is essentially a toxin. US drug-regulators are currently re-evaluating the safety of Botox due to some adverse effects related to the drug. Some of the cases involve anywhere from strained breathing to difficulty in swallowing. In extreme cases, deaths have been reported. Details in the full article.

A small study is trying to prove that normal products such as cosmetics and lotions are carrying dangerous chemicals that may prove to be the cause of reproductive problems to humans. But U.S. FDA has yet to be convinced that these chemicals are indeed problematic.

The study was spearheaded by pediatrician from the University of Washington and is being backed up by several concerned non-government organizations. More on this after the jump!

 Worried that you'll drop dead when you're listening to music from an iPod because it interferes with your pacemaker? Worry no more. The Food and Drug Administration has dispelled this little myth with experiments that prove the iPod's innocence. Full details after the jump.

Perhaps it was inevitable ever since Dolly, the first cloned sheep, came to existence: the entry of milk and meat from cloned animals into the market. The Food and Drug Administration is expected to give a ruling  next week on whether cloned livestock are safe for consumption. Details in the full article.

An entry in the Journal of the American Medical Association has revealed a tested hypothesis that topiramate - a drug used to treat patients experiencing epilepsy - can reduce the effects of alcoholism and lower the urge to drink. Topiramate was found successful to some degree in achieving the desired effect, though more testing would be needed to fully affirm the claim.

Topiramate, under the brand of Topamax, is an FDA-approved, anti-convulsant drug that has also been approved for preventing migraines. Such a drug has also been known to cure other symptoms such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, bulimia nervosa, neuropathic pain, and the inhibition of the desire to smoke, though most are still in the investigational stages and are often off-hand therapeutic claims.

Of course, that doesn't include claims of side-effects associated with even "therapeutic doses" of topiramate, which ranges from short-term memory loss and difficulty in finding words to write or say. And sadly, certain epilepsy drugs have often been off-handedly claimed to sort out alcoholism from time to time.

But if scientists can upgrade the claims to an approved therapeutic level, then quitting the habit would no longer have "drying out" as the only way out.

There are many existing doubts about RFID tagging, such as possible breach of privacy. Now there's another grave possibility looming over the high-tech technology that is RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), and that is the likelihood of RFID implants causing cancer.

A few years ago, the US. Food and Drug Administration approved the practice of implanting RFID tags in humans after finding the RFID tags "reasonably safe", and brought about much-needed innovation to medical science (one of which is letting doctors access medical records instantaneously).

However, a number of veterinary and toxicology studies revealed that the implants actually caused malignant tumors in laboratory mice and rats. The cause? Keith Johnson, a retired toxicologic pathologist, said that the culprit is the RFID's transponder device used to send data.

The news disturbed even the leading cancer specialists, with some encouraging others to practice further caution before the glass transponder implants become an easily accessible commodity. Other specialists even claimed that they would not let allow family members to have RFID tags implanted in their bodies.

"We stand by our implantable products which have been approved by the FDA and/or other U.S. regulatory authorities," said Scott Silverman, CEO of VeriChip, one of the leading RFID manufacturers. He continued that they were not aware of studies that resulted in malignant tumors in laboratory animals that were brought about by the implants.


Check out the Read link to read the full report!

A year ago, the FDA allowed for over-the-counter purchase of Plan B, a "morning after" birth control pill for women. Since then, sales have doubled, but scientists still aren't even sure what the long term consequences of taking the pill are. Since then, Plan B has sparked a controversy through medical groups in the US.

Plan B works by preventing the release of an egg from the ovary or preventing a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus. The process sparked a controversy, likening it to abortion. Some views are so strong that some pharmacies refused to sell it. A group of pharmacists in Seattle even sued Washington state for the ruling.

One other issue is that the drug will promote promiscuity, an alarming suggestion since the full effects of the drug aren't known yet. Charmaine Yoest of the Family Research Council says that "the FDA doesn't know what the long-term consequences are of having women take the drug outside the parameters of the way it's prescribed, and so this is really gambling on women's health."

Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, is one of the leading advocates for the pill saying

We have an alarmingly high rate of teenage pregnancies in this country — 750,000 each year, and that population also needs access to emergency contraception [...] Emergency contraception is contraception. It prevents pregnancy. And there's no reason for pharmacists not to be providing contraceptives.

Forget Star Wars Clone Wars, cloned livestock looks to be the current trend most developed countries, like the U.S., are heading. Food and Drug Administration issued a draft ruling last year stating that meat and milk from cloned animals are safe for human consumption.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has also taken an interest in this and is also carrying out its own investigation into the safety of cloned food and the impact on animal welfare, biodiversity, and the environment .

The director of Genesis Faraday (a scientific partnership based in Edinburgh) Chris Warkup, has given a few thoughts on this, its implementation, and the current status of prime meat in the industry.

If the FDA say what they seem minded to say, you might expect meat and milk from the progeny of clones - not clones themselves - to be on the U.S. market in the not-too-distant future. There is a pyramid structure in animal breeding. All the breed improvement occurs to a few elite animals at the top of the pyramid.

The big advantage of the Dolly technology (somatic cell nuclear transfer) is that you know what the animal's potential is, because you are taking the DNA from an adult. You could even take cells from a beef carcass on the slaughter line and recreate the animal that produced that very impressive carcass.

If you'd care to recall, Dolly was the first animal ever cloned. This was soon followed by the cloning of various animals such as goats, dogs, cats, horses, mice, rats, but more importantly cattle and pigs. Now while the application of this cloning technology might seem like a very good thing for the meat industry, not everyone is jumping on the bandwagon.

The senior science officer at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) Nikki Osborne, spoke on behalf of his organization.

We are totally opposed to the cloning of animals for food production purposes. The process is inefficient, and has a huge potential to cause the animals involved unnecessary pain, suffering and distress - for absolutely no valid reason.

So there you have it, cloned meat might be hitting our grills pretty soon. Will it be long 'til we start referring to the quality of meat and dairy products as we do wine? Imagine walking into the grocery to find vintage labels on your milk, butter, and steaks. Mmmm, steaks.

We previously reported about many fine dining establishments getting rid of bottled water from their menu, and Treehugger.com echoes their sentiments by stating many more reasons why people should just quit the bottle.

One of the interesting tidbits that was presented in their article was that bottled water costs about 10,000 times more than tap water per gallon. Its a sure fact that bottled water does cost more: factor in the 1.5 million barrels of oil used to make the plastic bottles, then add the fuel used to transport heavy bottled of water into the market.

The article also mentioned that some towns and farms located near bottled water plants experience frequent water shortages due to increased water extraction. About millions of gallons of water were reported to be consumed in the plastic-making process, and about two gallons were used for every gallon that ends up getting sold in bottles.

They also mentioned that turning to tap water for refreshments is much safer to drink than bottled water - Treehugger claims that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) standards for tap water is much more rigid than Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) standards for bottled water. However, many people claim that their local tap water tastes bad or is rusty, so better check a water quality report for your area before turning to tap if you're used to chugging bottled water. You can also get water filters to remove trace chemicals and other impurities lurking in your tap.