Transplant truths
When potential US transplant recipients join the waiting list they should say how willing they’d be to accept “high-risk” organs that might, for example, be infected with HIV. This would help avoid litigation and costly delays, write researchers in The New England Journal of Medicine (vol 358, p 2832).
Pain-relieving peppers
Neuroscientists have confirmed what traditional Chinese medicine has known for centuries: that the molecule responsible for the buzzing tingle of Sichuan peppers – fruits of the so-called toothache tree – is an effective anaesthetic. It generates a feeling akin to “touching one’s tongue to the terminals…
