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Morphine's little helper. Glia (green) contribute to the opioid's downsides.Credit: Steven Pollard/Wellcome Images SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA--Opioid drugs such as morphine are the most powerful painkillers. Unfortunately, in some patients their narcotic effects lead to addiction and the need for ever-escalating doses to quell pain. New research with rats shows that blocking morphine's action on glia--a type of support cell in the nervous system--can reduce these downsides while heightening its potency against pain. Over the past decade, scientists have discovered that glial cells heighten nerve pain, such as sciatica, by exciting the neurons that transmit pain signals. Morphine deadens pain by...

Opening King Tut's tomb brought to light treasures and curses hidden for thousands of years. One of the lat ter still haunts us -- the curse of King Tut's tooth. Tut, like many teenagers, needed a tooth extraction, in his case, an impacted wisdom tooth. Sadly, ancient Egyptian dentistry was unable to help the boy-pharaoh, as extractions were done only on very loose teeth, by the gentle touch of fingers. Even forceps (pliers) were probably not employed until long after Tut died. Astonishingly, modern dental extraction procedures are still mired in the technology of the an cient world. Recently, I...