The placebo effect is pretty freaky when you think about it: just believing that a harmless substance is a medicine can really produce measurable benefits. It sounds crazy, but the placebo effect is real, and its implications continue to fascinate scienti
Yesterday
CLASSIC: How Rigging Elections Works: Mexico, 1988
<p>While democracy isn't always predictable, one thing's for sure -- no matter who wins an election, for any party, in any country, some part of the population will claim the game is rigged. That's what happened in Mexico in 1988, when Carlos Salinas de Gortari became president i ... Show More
1h 2m
Yesterday
Strange News: Raccoon Evolution! A Grand Theft Joyride, the Guys Predict Nvidia, Cheese gets Cast, and Much More
<p>Recent studies argue city raccoons are evolving along with humans. A guy steals a city bus and honestly does a pretty good job. Legislation is unprepared for technology, and Nvidia makes a lot of stuff. All this and more in this week's strange news segment.</p><p><a href="http ... Show More
1h 11m
Nov 21
3I/Atlas: We are Obsessed with the Newest (or Oldest?) Instellar Object
<p>While humanity's local solar system appears huge from Earth, it's actually a pretty tiny piece of real estate in the grand scheme of things. And, in recent years, technological breakthroughs have allowed astronomers and physicists to learn more about the things traveling to us ... Show More
1h 2m
Apr 2020
Will a placebo boost my sports performance?
<p>In medicine, it’s long been recognised that a placebo, a sham medicine or treatment, can have a powerful positive effect on a patient’s health. Part of that effect relies on a person’s belief that an inactive substance or treatment (for example, a sugar pill) is in fact an act ... Show More
26m 27s
Nov 2023
Jeremy Howick, "The Power of Placebos: Unlocking Their Potential to Improve Health Care" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)
Should your doctor prescribe a placebo for you, instead of conventional medicine? And if she did, would it work? Is the double-blind placebo-controlled paradigm really the gold standard for medical research?
Placebos are the most widely used treatments in the history of medicine. ... Show More
34m 56s