Welcome to another edition of Cool Stuff Ride Home. My name's Marcus Path and coming up on this episode,

Generalized Anxiety Disorder, a crippling condition for many, but new research suggests relief

could come in a very unexpected form. Plus, for centuries, we thought we knew why ice was slippery.

Well, it turns out we had it all wrong. That plus this day in history coming up on cool stuff.

Turning once again to ZME science and author Mahai Andre. People suffering from generalized anxiety disorder or GAD often describe a constant feeling

of overwhelming, crippling worry. It's like a radio in your brain that's always catching static,

and it's so loud you can't focus on anything else. Now for decades, the primary tools to turn

down that static have been daily medications

and talk therapy. They sometimes work, but for roughly half of those who suffer, the noise

persists and there's no real treatment. A landmark study published in the Journal of the American

Medical Association suggests a radical new approach, turning the radio off and on again with LSD.

According to the study, a single medically supervised dose of lysurgic acid diethelamide, or LSD,

can provide profound and lasting relief from severe anxiety. In the most rigorous clinical trial of its kind,

a 100-microgram dose of the psychedelic compound silenced the debilitating worry of GAS for up to

12 weeks, offering a glimpse into what could be a revolutionary new chapter in mental health care.

Now, to be clear, generalized anxiety disorder is

not the feeling of worry you feel before a big presentation or some stressful event. It's a chronic

and debilitating condition characterized by what Dr. David Fifell, one of the studies investigators,

calls, quote, continuous worry, inability to relax, and all the physical manifestations,

racing heart rates and sweatiness, end quote.

It erodes your ability to work, maintain relationships, and simply enjoy your life.

And when conventional treatments don't work, patients are left with few options.

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