New study finds shrooms to be effective against depression

A recent study has suggested that magic mushrooms may be a promising treatment option for depression in patients who have not otherwise responded to conventional medicine. Researchers from Imperial College London gave psilocybin, the psychedelic compound in mushrooms, to 12 clinically depressed people. After one week, all of them showed "a marked improvement in their symptoms."

From Scientific American:

"That is pretty remarkable in the context of currently available treatments," says Robin Carhart-Harris, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College London and first author of the latest study, which is published in The Lancet Psychiatry.

The equivalent remission rate for SSRIs is around 20%.

The study's authors are not suggesting that psilocybin should be a treatment of last resort for depressed patients. "Our conclusion is more sober than that—we are simply saying that this is doable," says Carhart-Harris. "We can give psilocybin to depressed patients, they can tolerate it, and it is safe. This gives us an initial impression of the effectiveness of the treatment."

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Weirdly Charming

If you’re a fan of art that makes you do a double-take, you need to check out Richard Brener . Based in the UK, Richard is an internationally collected artist who works primarily with ink, fineliners, and gouache. When you first see his pieces, they actually look pretty playful. Then you realize the entire canvas is packed with thousands of tiny, ghost-like shapes he calls "champs." They’re all squeezed together like commuters on a rush-hour train, and the level of detail is honestly mind-blowing. Richard spends hundreds of hours drawing these little guys over and over. It’s obsessive, very intentional, and a little bit wild. The cool part is that the longer you stare, the more the vibe shifts. Check out more photos below:

Stone horsemen invade River Thames

It's not uncommon to see huge art installations on River Thames: a giant fiberglass sperm whale , a floating house , a massive wooden hippo . If you happen to be in London, head down to Nine Elms, on the south bank of the waterway, any day this month, and — if it's a low tide — you'll see a group of stone horsemen by world-renowned underwater sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor , rising above the riverside beach. The artwork, titled The Rising Tide , is part of the Totally Thames arts festival and is the first of its kind to be installed in the famed river. Four three-meter tall working horses with riders are shown — two of the riders are businessmen and two are children — though horse heads have been replaced with oil pumps. The sculptures are on display until the end of September.

Print out and fold your own paper cameras

Totally want to make some of these Olympus mirrorless cameras with my daughter this weekend. They don't take pictures, but they sure would make my little girl very happy. The Japanese company has a webpage for kids , and you can easily create three-dimensional paper models of the OM-D or the PEN Lite by printing and folding those PDF templates in the papercraft section . Enjoy! [h/t: Pop Photo ]

finding cain

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