SciAm: Undertakers' New Year's message to drunk drivers: It's your own funeral (12/31/09)

Unexpected and catchy - what an effective way to combat drunk driving.

In the days leading up to New Year's Eve, people in Rome, Georgia, outside Atlanta, could see an unusual type of campaign to discourage drunk driving. TV stations and newspapers are announcing that, between 9 A.M. on December 28 and noon on December 31, the local McGuire, Jennings and Miller funeral homes will sign a contract with anyone who plans to drink or use drugs and drive on New Year's Eve. The contract states that, if the person dies in a car accident on the 31st, he or she will get a free funeral.

How do people respond? Check out the full story below.

Full Story: http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=undertakers-new-years-message-to-dr-2009-12-31

Wired Science: Dark Liquor Makes for Worse Hangovers (12/18/09)

How does liquor affect sleep? A study conducted by Damaris Rohsenow of Brown University may hold the answer.

The researchers recruited 95 healthy young adults, ages 21 to 33, and gave them caffeine-free cola mixed with bourbon, vodka or tonic water. The drinking ended when participants’ breath-alcohol concentrations hit an average of 0.11, well over the legal intoxication limit. Participants were then hooked up to sleep monitors, which record brain activity, and allowed to sleep it off. At 7 a.m. the next day, the researchers roused the subjects from bed (a wake-up that did not include coffee or aspirin) and asked them to rate the severity of their hangovers.

Results?

Both the bourbon drinkers and vodka drinkers slept poorly compared to the nondrinkers, the team found. The next morning, when the participants performed cognitive tests that required attention and quick reaction times, the drinkers performed worse than the nondrinkers, but the type of alcohol had no effect on performance. Both groups of drinkers were impaired equally.

Full Story: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/dark-liquor-makes-for-worse-hangovers

SciAm 60-Second Science: Drink Now, Pay Later (9/23/09)

People who abuse alcohol when they’re young don’t always make good choices as adults. But it’s been unclear whether the drink gives them the stupids, or whether folks prone to poor choices are predisposed to drink.

One way to tackle the question is by studying alcohol intake in animals, like rats. But rats don’t like to drink. So to make the alcohol more palatable, scientists infused it into a tasty “gel matrix”. Yes, the researchers gave teenage rats Jello shots. And the animals’ decision-making ability stayed impaired well into adulthood…as measured by their tendency to chase after rewards with associated high risk rather than taking a sure thing. So, young party animals, remember the words of Faber’s Dean Wormer: “Drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”

Full Story: http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=drink-now-pay-later-09-09-23