Researchers at Binghamton University, New York, say their laboratory studies indicate that teenagers’ brains can compensate for hangovers and intoxication in ways that older people’s cannot.

They report in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research that fast-changing adolescent brains seem to adapt quickly to the effects of alcohol, particularly in areas such as the prefrontal cortex, which controls our co-ordination and reflexes.

As well as being able to recover better the morning after, it means that teens may also get less slurry and clumsy, too. Lucky old teens, eh? Hardly, says Professor Elena Valinskaya, the lead researcher. She believes that hangovers are there to teach us the sort of tough lesson that we might even remember the next time we are propping up a bar.

“Unpleasant physical symptoms associated with alcohol intoxication and hangover, which make adults stop drinking, are not experienced to the same degree by adolescents,” she says. “A lack of overt signs of intoxication may mask the more potentially harmful effects of alcohol on neural systems involved in learning and memory.” So let’s be thankful for the headaches.

Plenty of sting in this health tale

SEA ANEMONES could be our friends, say Israeli scientists who have discovered how to use the sea creatures’ stings to deliver therapeutic drugs.

The developers say their system has been used successfully to inject drugs such as insulin painlessly into 100 volunteers, and may be on sale by the end of the year.

They have adapted the sting mechanism used by sea anemones and jellyfish, which employs microcapsules to shoot out hollow threads less than 1 micron wide that penetrate their victims’ flesh and inject poisons.

The scientists “milked” the microcapsules from a species of sea anemone whose sting is toxic only to plankton, then neutralised their contents, dehydrated them and soaked them in therapeutic drugs.

The capsules can then be put in a membrane patch that breaks when stuck on human skin. Thousands of cells then shoot their tiny drug-carrying threads into the flesh. The anemones remain unharmed, says Tamar Lotan, the head of the developers, NanoCyte. And the injections are painless because each thread is 500 times thinner than a conventional needle.

NanoCyte was inspired by the fact that in nature, sea anemones’ stings are hijacked by other creatures for their own use: sea slugs often steal them to mount on their skin to use for their own defence.

Call me a cynic

BEING a stressy cynic boosts your risk of developing type 2 diabetes significantly, claims a Psychosomatic Medicine study of 643 men. Previous studies have linked hostility to raised diabetes risk but the results were inconsistent. Now Cleveland Clinic in Ohio says it has pinpointed cynicism as the personality trait in hostility that raises a body’s resistance to insulin. It adds that this link gets much stronger when a person is heavily stressed.

Eyes right

SO YOU’VE been Botoxed, nipped, tucked, augmented, sucked, lasered and lifted. What next? To our rescue come eyelash transplants.

The Californian cosmetic surgeon Dr Alan Bauman has held his first live eyelash surgery workshop for 40 surgeons around the world.

His technique takes up to 40 hair follicles from the back of the scalp and carefully sews them on to the patient’s eyelids, thus creating luxuriant sweeping lashes that are normally achieved only by glue-on falsies. And like scalp hair, the lashes keep growing.

Marks & Spencer joined the miracle cosmetic-cure market this week by launching it’s anti-ageing nail polish, which contains “antioxidising” Q10, vitamins and amino acids. We’re rather sceptical, but it claims that the product will ensure you don’t have any extra time on your hands.

Robot nanny

SCIENTISTS in Japan are selling a robot nanny that follows your toddlers around the house and sends pictures of what they’re doing to your mobile. The PaPeRo (Partner-type Personal Robot), also plays with the kids and can remember people’s faces. Parents can even talk to their children via its inbuilt speakers. The inventors say it develops its own personality, obeys orders and follows your favourite football team. Why not dump the kids altogether?

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