Image: Flickr / Janels Katlaps (CC BY 2.0)

Supplements supplemented with real drugs, risking your health

Be careful with those supplements for dieting or sexual health -- turns out they often include real drugs like laxatives or sildenafil (you know it as Viagra). That's according to a US Food and Drug Administration database on contaminated supplements, analyzed in a new study by researchers at the California Department of Public Health. In fact, more than 700 types of supplements tested over a decade contained at least one extra pharmaceutical that was not supposed to be in the product ... and many had more than one. Surprised consumers can thank US Senator Orrin Hatch, among others, for this finding: he sponsored and helped get passed a law in 1994 that treats supplements as food rather than drugs, which means there are limited regulations in place for either safety or efficacy testing before vitamins and supplements reach American store shelves.

Image: Flickr / Tibor Nagy (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Where have all the bugs gone?

First Germany, now Puerto Rico: surveys by entomologists reveal that insect populations have crashed in the island's Luquillo rainforest -- and climate change may share some of the blame. Comparing surveys of arthropods -- insects and spiders and centipedes, oh my! -- from the 1970s and today revealed a massive population decline. In some cases, as little as an eighth of a population remains compared to 40 years ago. As a result, insect-eating species like lizards, frogs and birds have declined as well. And this is in a protected national forest, not a farm field. The researchers suggest global warming may be to blame, since insects cannot regulate their internal temperature, though not all researchers agree on the most likely culprit.

How to build a quantum internet

China has already shown that communication between a satellite and Earth is possible using entangled photons -- a hack-proof proof of principle for a quantum internet. But what would it take to really build such a network, and what would it be good for? Researchers from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands suggest such an internet could enable everything from secure communication to ever more accurate clock synchronization (important for GPS) -- as well as applications we haven't even thought of yet. As for how to build such a thing? Well, we'll need breakthroughs like quantum repeaters -- devices that can generate entanglement among particles to boost a signal to an even more distant end point -- among other things. NBD.

Recently discovered

Stephen Hawking's final vision
The late physicist Stephen Hawking's last writings predict that a breed of superhumans will take over, having used genetic engineering to surpass their fellow beings. In Brief Answers to the Big Questions, published Tuesday, Hawking pulls no punches on subjects like machines taking over, the biggest threat to earth and the possibilities of intelligent life in space. (Quartz)

Q: What does a working internal combustion engine look like from the inside?
A: Like this.

What a Gold Rush-era orchard could mean for the future of food
Scientists are beginning to study whether rare heirloom plants, revived for their flavor, might also be suited to enduring a warmer world. (National Geographic)

The Pentagon's push to program soldiers' brains
The military wants future super-soldiers to control robots with their thoughts.  One aspiration: the ability, via computer, to transfer knowledge and thoughts from one person's mind to another's. (The Atlantic)

Climate change is about to make your beer more expensive
More frequent droughts and heat waves in this century will reduce global production of barley, finds a study published Monday in Nature Plants. This will decrease the supply of beer and drive up prices, even under best-case-scenario models of climate change. (Nature)
 

On this day in science

On October 19 ... in 1900, Max Planck discovered the law that bears his name -- perhaps more commonly known as black-body radiation and involving the spectrum of electromagnetic energy given off by an object like a planet -- and in 1943 researchers isolated streptomycin, an antibiotic still in use today to treat diseases like tuberculosis.

Introducing: TED Science Club

Calling all science enthusiasts! Check out TED Science Club, a Facebook group where you can join TED's Science Curator, David Biello, and other science leaders in meaningful conversations about today's most critical ideas.