TV News LIES

When a wild orangutan in Indonesia suffered a painful wound to his cheek, he did something that stunned researchers: He chewed plant leaves known to have pain-relieving and healing properties, rubbed the juice on the open wound — and then used the leaves as a poultice to cover his injury.

"This case represents the first known case of active wound treatment in a wild animal with a medical plant," biologist Isabelle Laumer, the first author of a paper about the revelation, told NPR.

She says she was "very excited" about the orangutan's seeming innovation, which was documented at the Suaq Balimbing research site in the Gunung Leuser National Park in northwest Sumatra, where some 150 orangutans live in a protected rainforest.

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In recent weeks, COVID-19 forecasters have reported on a new set of variants picked up in wastewater surveillance. Nicknamed FLiRT, they’re threatening to cause a new wave of COVID infections, which recently bottomed out after spiking in December.

Models released last week from Jay Weiland, a data scientist who has accurately predicted COVID waves since the beginning of the pandemic, warns that a surge is on the horizon. “He’s someone who many experts like myself follow because he’s been pretty accurate so far,” said Megan L. Ranney, MD, dean of the Yale School of Public Health.

Host vulnerability is another troubling factor, given that only 22% of American adults have gotten the latest COVID vaccine. And since many people may not have had the virus in a while, they’re ripe for reinfection.

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The Biden administration is poised to make a landmark change to the federal government's position on marijuana with a proposed plan that would no longer consider marijuana among the most dangerous and addictive substances.

In what would be the biggest change in marijuana policy the federal government has taken since pot was first outlawed, the Drug Enforcement Administration will take public comments on a plan to recategorize marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act, according to a source familiar with the process. The news was first reported by The Associated Press.

The Department of Justice will send its recommendation to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug to the White House Office of Management and Budget, according to the source, who was not authorized to speak publicly. The Justice Department is expected to transmit the recommendation today, the source said.

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Three women who were diagnosed with HIV after getting “vampire facial” procedures at an unlicensed New Mexico medical spa are believed to be the first documented cases of people contracting the virus through a cosmetic procedure using needles, federal health officials said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in its Morbidity and Mortality Report last week that an investigation into the clinic from 2018 through 2023 showed it apparently reused disposable equipment intended for one-time use.

Although HIV transmission from contaminated blood through unsterile injection is a well-known risk, the report said this is the first documentation of probable infections involving cosmetic services.

Many popular cosmetic treatments are delivered with needles, such as Botox to iron out wrinkles and fillers to plump lips. A “vampire facial”, or platelet-rich plasma microneedling procedure, involves drawing a client’s own blood, separating its components, and then using tiny needles to inject plasma into the face to rejuvenate the skin. Tattoos also require needles.

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Nearly half of all pregnancies worldwide are unplanned. And despite the many birth control options for women in the U.S., 1 in 5 say they aren’t using their ideal method. A startup biotech company in Flagstaff says the answer is birth control for men. And they’re working to make that idea a reality.

In a conference room at NEXT Life, chief science officer Rob Kellar holds up a vial of amber-colored liquid. It’s birth control in a bottle, but it’s not a pill.

"If you could see what I have in my hand as I tilt it, the hydrogel in its liquid form looks a lot like fluid honey, pretty fluid honey," explains Kellar.

It’s called Plan A, and Kellar says it’s meant to be injected into the vas deferens—the tube that carries sperm—where it interacts with the chemistry of the human body and solidifies, "kind of like the bottom of the Jello pan," Kellar says. "But it has a porosity, it has a micro-architecture that has holes in it. So it will allow fluid to flow through, but it won’t allow larger particles like sperm cells to pass."

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Treating gunshot wounds on children was not what Mikael Petrosyan expected when he entered pediatrics.

Petrosyan has been working as a pediatric surgeon at the Children's National Hospital for more than a decade, and he has treated many children injured by guns.

He hasn't been able to save them all and has had to tell parents that their children have died from gunshot wounds.