Gene Gives Smokers a Buzz

Genetics may help explain why some smokers are hooked from their first cigarette while other people seem immune to the addictive properties of tobacco, according to the second study in a month to spotlight a connection.

Researchers uncovered a variation in a nicotine-receptor gene that is far more common among smokers than in those who have the occasional cigarette, according to a report in the journal Addiction. People with the genetic mutation were also eight times more likely to have had a positive first experience with smoking, such as a pleasurable buzz that encourages further use.

The findings are particularly alarming because the same receptor has been linked to increased rates of lung cancer in previous research, according to the founder of the University of Michigan’s Nicotine Research Laboratory, Ovide Pomerleau. The gene variation helps ensure the first cigarette is pleasurable, increasing the chances of addiction and raising the risk of lung cancer, he said.

“It’s a triple whammy,” Mr. Pomerleau said in a telephone interview. “This puts the biology, genetics, behavior, and traits of addiction together with one another. In the hands of a medical geneticist, this could be used to identify families that are at extremely high risk and encourage the young people to not even experiment.” – nysun

I must not have the gene. I tried smoking once and found it nauseating.

Invisibility Cloak only a few hundred years away….

Scientists say they are a step closer to developing materials that will render people and other objects invisible.

Researchers say they can redirect light around three-dimensional objects using metamaterials–artificially engineered structures created at a nano scale that contain optical properties not found in nature, according to an Associated Press report.

People see objects as a result of the light reflecting or scattering off them. This new mixture of materials has “negative refractive” properties that keep light from being absorbed or reflected by the object, allowing only the light from behind the object to be seen. Essentially, the material bends visible light in a way that eliminates the creation of reflections or shadows in much the way water flows around a stone. .. The research, which was funded in part by the U.S. Army Research Office and the National Science Foundation’s Nano-Scale Science and Engineering Center, could have broad applications, including for the military. – cnet