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Found pills for laziness

26.06.2012

While science is trying to create safe pills to fight obesity, many people, despite weight problems, simply cannot bring themselves to give up high-calorie foods and start exercising. Fortunately, scientists from the Center for Integrative Human Physiology at the University of Zurich (Switzerland) have found a completely original way to defeat obesity and solve many other problems associated with a lack of motivation.

In a report by scientists published in the FASEB Journal, an optimistic statement sounds: it is possible to create a treatment that motivates a person to work harder to lose weight and overcome “weak will”. The researchers found that injecting the hormone erythropoietin into the brain of a mouse made the animal more motivated and forced to train harder. In addition, the specific form of erythropoietin used in these experiments does not increase the number of red blood cells (erythrocytes) as regular erythropoietin does. This therapy has clear benefits for a wide range of health problems, from Alzheimer's disease and obesity to psychiatric disorders, in which increased physical activity improves the patient's condition.

In humans, erythropoietin activates the production of red blood cells from bone marrow stem cells. This leads to an increase in the amount of oxygen in the blood and, accordingly, to an increase in endurance. That is why erythropoietin is considered doping in sports. In addition, an overdose of erythropoietin causes increased blood pressure and blood viscosity, which is fraught with dangerous complications.

"For the first time, with erythropoietin, we have been able to increase motivation to act," says co-author Max Gassmann. "It appears that erythropoietin has a general effect on mood and can be used to treat patients suffering from depression and related conditions."

In their experiments, scientists used three types of experimental mice: a control group; with injected human erythropoietin; genetically modified mice that produce human erythropoietin. Compared to mice in the control group, "erythropoietin" mice showed significantly higher performance during running without an increase in red blood cells. According to Swiss scientists, even if it is not possible to create an "obesity pill", there is a possibility to make "motivation pills". These pills will make the gym as inviting as a fast food restaurant.

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Scientists from McGill University and the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne in Switzerland have studied the brittleness of metals and found out how hydrogen affects this crucial property of metals.

Hydrogen, as the lightest element, easily dissolves and migrates inside metals, making them more brittle and prone to breakage. This phenomenon was discovered in 1875, and since then hydrogen embrittlement (the transition of a material from a ductile to brittle state) has been a constant problem in structural design in industries ranging from hand tools to aircraft and nuclear reactors. Despite decades of research, scientists still don't fully understand the physics behind hydrogen embrittlement. Because of this, it is difficult to create a reliable model that predicts the behavior of a structure in certain conditions or after many years. As a result, industrial designers are forced to resort to costly and dangerous trial and error.

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