Goats Have Accents; Vaccines Still Don't Cause Autism

Discovered: Goats can develop accents, drinking alcohol shrinks brains, another study confirms vaccines don't cause autism.

Discovered: Goats can develop accents, drinking alcohol shrinks brains, another study confirms vaccines don't cause autism. 

• Goats from different parts of goat country develop different goat accents. Just like people! "But the calls of kids raised in the same social groups were also similar to each other, and became more similar as the kids grew older," explained Dr Elodie Briefer, referring to goat kids, not human kids. "This suggests that goat kids modify their calls according their social surroundings, developing similar 'accents,'" he continued. Does that mean goats from New York say orange and coffee funny? We bet Canadian goats say 'eh' and aboot. They have to! [The Telegraph]
• Vaccines still don't cause autism. Crazy, overbearing parents, listen: vaccines do not cause autism. This recent study just confirms what other studies and doctors have found: zero link between the two things. Analyzing urine samples from autistic children and non-autistic kids, researchers determined no difference in the mercury concentration in their respective pees. Mercury is linked to learning disabilities and was back in the day used in vaccines -- but not anymore. Get it? Overprotective moms and dads, doctors are so fed up with this myth that they've started firing families like you for refusing vaccines on this basis. Take this study along with the rest and vaccinate. [Live Science]
• Drug use goes wireless. This is something we didn't know we wanted until science invented it. All it takes is a microchip implantation and voila: drugs without wires. "You could literally have a pharmacy on a chip," says researcher Robert Langer. "You can do remote control delivery, you can do pulsatile drug delivery, and you can deliver multiple drugs." No more pills, or whatever other method of drug-intake you prefer. Pain relief with just the press of that button over there. [MIT]
• Drinking makes brains smaller. Don't worry, only mouse brains, guys. We're in the clear. But, for our mouse readers: brain scans of certain alcoholic mice showed serious shrinkage in important regions. Like we said though, this only applies to mice. So, whatever. Right? "This pattern of brain damage mimics a unique aspect of brain pathology observed in human alcoholics, so this research extends the validity of using these mice as a model for studying human alcoholism," said researcher Peter Thanos. Uh oh. [Brookhaven Today]