Listen here on your chosen podcast platform.
Research suggests that a new male birth control gel ‘takes effect sooner than other similar male contraceptives’.
In the study by the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda in the US, men applied the gel once daily to each shoulder blade, and then took part in sperm count tests every four weeks.
The threshold deemed effective for contraception was one million or fewer sperm per millilitre of semen, and 86% of the more than 200 participants reached this sperm count by week 15.
The sperm suppression stage of the study is complete, and researchers will now look at the contraceptive’s effectiveness, safety, acceptability and reversibility after treatment stops.
Does toad-licking have health benefits? The Standard’s Health Reporter, Daniel Keane, discusses the first participant dosed in a study of ‘toad’ psychedelic compound effects on the human brain.
A trial is now taking place at Imperial College London, where up to 20 healthy volunteers will be given a placebo and a 12mg dose on separate occasions over one month. They will also undergo brain scans to measure electrical activity in the brain.
Live Nation has confirmed that it’s investigating a cyber attack at its Ticketmaster unit - which could potentially affect up to 560 million users.
Customers have been urged by cyber security experts to change their passwords after the hacking claims emerged.
And the rest
A new blood test can predict if breast cancer will return years before relapse, China lands Chang'e-6 spacecraft on the far side of the Moon in a mission to bring back samples for the first time, and MrBeast overtakes T-Series for most YouTube subscribers.
Plus, the electric spoon that makes food taste saltier goes on sale in Japan.
Here’s an automated transcript:
Hi, I'm Rochelle Travers, and this is The Standard's Tech and Science Daily podcast.
Coming up, a potential breast cancer breakthrough.
Now, let's get into it.
Research suggests that a new male birth control gel takes effect sooner than other similar male contraceptives.
In the study by the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda in the US, men applied the gel once daily to each shoulder blade, and then took part in sperm count tests every four weeks.
The threshold deemed effective for contraception was one million or fewer sperm per millilitre of semen, and 86% of the more than 200 participants reached this sperm count by week 15.
The sperm suppression stage of the study is complete, and researchers will now look at the contraceptive's effectiveness, safety, acceptability, and reversibility after treatment stops.
Does toad licking have health benefits?
Now, do not go reaching for any amphibians.
It's very dangerous and can be highly poisonous.
You're gonna wanna listen to the rest of the story for the full details about this.
This study is looking at the effects of a drug, which is called 5-MeO-DMT, and it's actually secreted in toads, but it produces a psychedelic effect, and that's what scientists want to examine in the human brain.
That's Daniel Keane, The Standard's health reporter.
The substance in question is produced by the Sonoran Desert Toad, which are found in Northwestern Mexico and the Southwestern United States.
So we know these toads have a psychedelic effect because people have actually licked them in the past and found that it's produced a psychedelic trip.
Now, unfortunately, these toads are actually poisonous, so what scientists want to do is create a synthetic version of what these toads produce naturally and test it in human beings to see if it could potentially have therapeutic benefits.
A firm called Beckley SciTech has created the synthetic version of the substance named BPL-003.
A trial is now taking place at Imperial College London where up to 20 healthy volunteers will be given a placebo and a 12-milligram dose on separate occasions over one month.
They will also undergo brain scans to measure electrical activity in the brain.
So scientists are interested in what causes these kind of mystical psychedelic experiences, and we know that they're already investigating the potential therapeutic benefits of drugs like magic mushrooms or LSD.
And so by understanding better what kind of effect this drug 5-MeO-DMT could have on the brain, scientists could potentially find a kind of avenue for exploring whether it could treat mental illnesses.
And just to reiterate, absolutely no one should be trying to lick toads.
No, absolutely not.
In 2022, the US National Park Service was very clear in its warning saying that people should absolutely not be licking toads, they are poisonous.
They can cause some seriously harmful effects to your health.
So that's definitely not something that people should be doing.
The full results of the trial are expected by 2026.
Live Nation has confirmed that it's investigating a cyber attack at its Ticketmaster unit, which could potentially affect up to 560 million users.
The US entertainment giant said it had discovered unauthorized activity on the 20th of May in a third-party cloud database that mostly contained Ticketmaster data.
It's reported that a cybercrime group named Shiny Hunters are demanding around $500,000 in a ransom payment to prevent the data being sold.
Customers have been urged by cybersecurity experts to change their passwords after the hacking claims emerged.
Research suggests a new type of blood test can predict if breast cancer will return years before a relapse.
The ultra-sensitive test from researchers at the Institute of Cancer Research in London can pick up traces of a tumour’s DNA ahead of a full relapse when it becomes much harder to treat.
In the trial of 78 patients with different types of early breast cancer, the test was found to be 100% accurate at predicting which patients would see their cancer come back.
On average, the blood test detected cancer 15 months before symptoms appeared, or it showed up on scans.
With the earliest detection being 41 months before a scan.
Let's go to the ads.
Coming up, MrBeast breaks another YouTube record and how you can make food taste saltier without actually adding salt.
To stay up to date with all the latest tech and science news, just hit follow during the break.
Welcome back.
China has successfully landed a spacecraft on the far side of the moon in a mission to bring back samples for the first time.
The Chang'e-6 landing module will use a mechanical arm and drill to gather up to two kilograms of surface and underground material.
An ascender on top of the lander will then take the samples in a metal vacuum container back to another module orbiting the moon.
The container will then be transferred to a re-entry capsule which is due to return to Earth around the 25th of June.
MrBeast has overtaken T-Series as the biggest YouTube channel with the most subscribers.
Until now, Indian music label T-Series, which uploads trailers and music videos, held the record for the largest YouTube channel for five years.
Now MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, has made history on the platform with a whopping 269 million subscribers.
And finally,
There's now a way of adding the taste of salt to your food without actually adding salt.
A battery operated spoon that makes food taste saltier has gone on sale in Japan and is aimed at people struggling to reduce their salt intake.
The electric salt spoon works by passing a weak electric current through the tip of the device to concentrate sodium iron molecules on the tongue.
According to its Japanese maker, Kirin, this magnifies the perceived saltiness of the food by one and a half times.
Now if only they could do something similar for sugar, eh?
To hear this episode in full, search Tech & Science Daily wherever you find your podcasts.
