The extremely long odds against the destruction of Earth

http://discovermagazine.com/2008/aug/24-the-extremely-long-odds-against-the-destruction-of-earth

I think this information is good to share since there are a lot of misconceptions about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The LHC is the largest particle accelerator ever built (17 miles around) that lies between the French and Swiss borders. The build has been a massive project with the assistance of scientists from several countries. Particles will be smashed together at near light speeds (approximately 99.99% the speed of light). What comes of the impacts is still speculation, but scientists hope to find such things as, the elementary building block of all mass (the Higgs Boson), extra dimensions in space, answers to the questions about supersymmetry, dark matter, dark energy and other quantum mechanic theories. Scientists even expect to produce mini black holes. Many (uninformed) people believe that these black holes will engulf the Earth. This article provides scientific evidence to disprove that claim.

Scientists find long term benefits in psychedelic drugs

http://www.infoniac.com/science/scientists-find-long-term-benefits-in-psychedelic-drug.html

In conjunction with the 3 previous articles I posted, this one also deals with the benefits of psychedelic drugs. This one is great because it studies the long term effects the drugs have on people. Many of the quarrels with the drugs are due to the lack of research on their long term effects on a person's body and mind. This study shows that participants noticed positive changes in their lives and their attitudes towards life. They had a more positive outlook on things and were generally in better spirits. Not only does this show that a good trip on a psychedelic drug does not negatively affect a person, it shows that it positively influences their life for months after the experience. Experiments such as this aid the continued research in this field. Hopefully more positive results like this are found and research continues.

Could an Acid trip cure your OCD?

http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jun/16-could-an-acid-trip-cure-your-ocd
This is a very indepth article that not only discusses the positive research done by scientists to cure disorders such as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but it describes how psychedelic research was banned in the 1970s. They also discuss studies for treatments using MDMA. Hopefully more research like this is published and more positive, healing characteristics of these drugs can be found.

Psychedelic healing

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=psychedelic-healing
I found this article a few months ago and have read it a few times. I think it's great that researchers are being allowed access to this type of research. Psychedelics have been ignored for the past few decades and earlier research that showed they can have positive, healing effects on people for diseases which are currently labeled as "untreatable" (such as OCD, post traumatic stress syndrome, drug addiction, etc.) was thrown in a closet and ignored. Each study that has been performed in the past few years has had a great deal of success and this has influenced more scientists to perform research in this field, as well as given the government reason to allow them to continue their research. It must be kept in mind that the positive effects gained from the psychedelics was done in a controlled environment with pre-screened subjects who were deemed mentally healthy enough to endure the psychedelic experience. It is very easy for a trip to go wrong and this can be devastating on the individual. Hopefully research will continue and more positive aspects of psychedelic drugs will surface to help people with these diseases.

Brain scans could diagnose OCD

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2008/07/18/brain-scans-could-diagnose-obsessive-compulsive-disorder/

Found this article today and thought it was pretty interesting. Since much what causes Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is located in the frontal cortex of the brain, it's not surprising that the orbifrontal cortex could play a key role. Hopefully if scientists come up with a way to diagnose OCD before it becomes a problem, they will be able to create a cure for it.