Sisun Lee used to work as an engineer at Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors. Many would call that a dream job, and he loved it, but he decided to walk away so he could focus on a higher goal – giving the world a hangover cure that works.

Lee, who previously worked as a product manager for Uber and Facebook, says he got the idea for “Morning Recovery”, his science-based hangover cure, about a year ago, after a vacation in his native South Korea. He and his friends spent most of their time partying and getting drunk, but thanks to the traditional anti-hangover drinks his buddies gave him after a wild night on the town, he always woke up feeling great. He was fascinated by their effect, and started looking for similar products as soon as he got back to the United States.

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A reinterpreted article in Colombia’s Labor Code was recently approved by the country’s Constitutional Court, thus allowing people to show up for work drunk or under the influence of narcotics as long as their productivity is not affected.

As in most countries around the world, going to work under the influence of alcohol or narcotics was prohibited in Colombia, but the modified article now protects workers from contract termination or disciplinary action, as long as these substances don’t affect their performance on the job. The recent ruling on the Constitutional Court puts alcohol consumption and narcotic addiction at the same level as occupational illness and argues that “these substances don’t always hinder how one performs at work”.

It all started last year, when two students at the University of Uniciencia in Bucaramanga challenged the country’s labor law at the Constitutional Court, arguing that it was in violation of two articles of the constitution: one which states that “all people are equal before the law and asserts that the state has an obligation to provide special protections for people who, owing to their economic circumstances or physical or mental condition, find themselves in a manifestly weak position,” and another that guarantees “equality of opportunity for all workers”.

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Bellion Vodka is the world’s first commercially-available alcoholic drink made with NTX technology, which significantly reduces the damage caused by alcohol to our liver and DNA.

While some of us may enjoy frequently consuming high quantities of alcohol, our livers certainly do not. Because our body doesn’t have a way of storing alcohol, it must metabolize it quickly, so the liver has to work overtime to filter the alcohol from the bloodstream and detoxify the body. While it’s being doing that, the liver is not processing anything else (stuff like carbohydrates or fat). According to the Cleveland Clinic, if alcohol is consumed often enough, it can lead to a dangerous condition known as fatty liver, an early stage of alcoholic liver disease which can eventually lead to cirrhosis.

But thanks to the revolutionary NTX technology, we apparently no longer have to worry about the harmful effects of alcohol on our liver and DNA. Developed by Indian entrepreneur Harsha Chigurupati and his team at Chigurupati Technologies, NTX is a “proprietary blend of ingredients” that works by shielding the liver from the harmful effects of consuming alcohol without affecting the taste of the drink itself. It sounds to be good to be true, but during human trails the technology has managed to reduce the negative effects of alcohol on the liver and DNA by 93%.

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Quitting cold turkey is one of the toughest things to do, which is why this homeless shelter in Ottawa is helping chronic alcoholics by handing out measured quantities of alcohol by the hour. Miraculously, the Managed Alcohol Program (MAP) has not only improved the overall health of its participants, but also reduced their average alcohol intake and helped them refrain from criminal activity.

The existence of the MAP is a miracle in itself, given that most other homeless shelters have a strict no-alcohol policy. But at the Oaks shelter for the homeless, five ounces of white wine are handed out in coffee cups every hour between 7.30 am and 9.30 pm, seven days a week. That’s a calculated amount, just enough for each resident to be able to shake off the symptoms of alcohol deprivation. No alcohol is handed out to anyone who comes in intoxicated. The routine began in the early 2000s, and continues to this day, with several residents lining up every single day for their share.

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A college professor in China has been suspended after giving his students a rather controversial test during their final exam. In a bid to prepare them for real life, he asked his students to gulp down glasses of baijiu, a Chinese liquor, grading them based on how much they were able consume.

“You’re all going to do sales jobs after graduation, drinking baijiu is the thing you must learn!” Gu Ming told the students of his Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) class at Guizhou Anshun Vocational Institute. He had poured the alcohol into dozens of plastic cups and laid them out on the desk in his office, asking his students to drink up.

“Those who ‘ganbeied’ (finished) a full glass of liquor get a full 100 mark for their exam, half glass gets 90 marks, and a sip gets 60,” one of Gu Ming’s students later posted on Chinese social media website Weibo. “Those who do not drink at all will fail.”

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Alcohol generally does nothing good for the skin, but the makers of this new brand of gin are claiming otherwise. Aptly named ‘Anti-aGin’, the 40 percent spirit supposedly contains several skin-boosting ingredients like collagen and other antioxidants, giving it anti-aging properties. So with Anti-aGin, you don’t need to worry about your drinking habit showing up on your skin.

Created by UK-based Warner Leisure Hotels, in collaboration with contemporary food design company Bompas & Parr, the age-defying gin has been distilled with pure collagen – the glue that holds our skin together. As we grow older the collagen level in our skin declines, leading to wrinkles and sagging, so the supplement present in the gin is meant to reverse that.

The beverage also contains antioxidant rich ‘skin-healing’ ingredients like green tea for detox, witch hazel oil to kill bacteria, gotu kola that helps reduce cellulite and sun damage, chamomile for healing and relaxation, and burdock to repair cracked skin. Other ingredients include angelica root, coriander, liquorice, and cardamom.

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Staying sober is a real struggle for alcoholics, and the protagonist of this sad story is no exception. 30-year-old Zhang Rui had been trying to kick the habit for a while, but when all his attempts failed, both he and his family got desperate. After what must have been a serious intervention, he agreed to let his mother chain him by the neck in a room, to prevent him from buying or stealing booze.

Zhang, who is still locked in his attic room in Bengbu, east China, told reporters that he couldn’t think of any other way to stop himself from harming others or drinking himself to death. Despite his poor living conditions, Zhang believes that confining himself is the only way to beat the addiction that has ruined his life. In fact, he wants to stay chained up and locked in there for at least six months, until he no longer feels the need to consume alcohol.

The tiny 10-square-meter space is sparsely furnished, with only a mattress for sleeping, a laptop and a small TV to keep him entertained. He doesn’t even have a toilet – just a bucket and a large bottle of water to keep himself clean. The chain around his neck is four meters long and weighs about 22 lbs, so he can hardly stand up on his own in his current state. It allows him to walk around the room as exercise, but not much else.

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True to its name, ‘Anty Gin’ is literally made from red wood ants. British distiller Will Lowe collects thousands of ants from the forests of Kent and prepares the gin at his lab-style distillery in Cambridge. The bizarre concoction is the world’s first gin to be made from insects, so naturally, it doesn’t come cheap. Each 70cl bottle costs £200 ($313), and contains the essence of 62 ants.

The idea for Anty Gin came about when Danish organisation Nordic Food Lab contacted Lowe, who makes custom gins for a living. “We were approached by a company from Copenhagen called Nordic Food Lab who explore the culinary qualities of insects and argue for the eating of them in western cuisine. They asked us to come up with a gin where the typical citrus flavor came not from lemon or lime peel, but from ants.” Lowe said.

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Believe it or not, the hospital at National Institutes of Health in Washington now has a fully stocked bar! Well, don’t worry, the bar is fake and all the bottles are actually filled with colored water. The whole setup is a part of an experiment to test the effectiveness of a new anti-drinking drug. The dimly lit replica bar is designed to amplify the alcohol craving of test participants in order to determine if the pill is able to counter the urge to drink.

“The goal is to create almost a real-world environment, but to control it very strictly,” said Dr. Lorenzo Leggio, lead researcher of the project. He revealed that the pill contains a hormone called ghrelin that is believed to increase appetite for food and perhaps inhibit the desire for alcohol.

NIH’s bar lab is one of about a dozen other versions in the US that are focused on experimenting with ghrelin. The hormone is produced by the stomach, and controls appetite via receptors in the brain. Researchers have discovered an overlap between receptors that fuel overeating and those that encourage alcohol cravings in the body. Dr. Leggio is now involved in testing whether blocking ghrelin’s actions also blocks those cravings, using an experimental drug that was originally developed for diabetes but never sold.

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Kickstarter features the most awesome inventions! The latest one we’ve found is the ‘Whiskey Element’, a simple tool that claims to make cheap whiskey taste like fine expensive liquor in just 24 hours. “Customize your whiskey in 24 hours,” the product page reads. “It’s your whiskey, drink it the way you want.”

The product is the brainchild of a Portland-based company called Time & Oak. They argue that the best and most expensive whiskeys are made after they are aged in quality oak barrels. But if you can’t afford to buy the finest whiskeys, you can probably settle for their Whiskey Elements, which are nothing more than specially designed oak sticks.

By simply adding the stick to a bottle of cheap whiskey, they claim that you can replicate the taste of high quality liquor in no time at all. That’s because their ‘accelerated transpiration through capillary action’ can properly age cheap whiskey into a quality one by filtering impurities and infusing additional wood flavor in the spirit.

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A special project in the town of Essen, Germany, is designed to engage alcoholics and drug addicts in cleaning up the city’s streets, giving them a chance to pick themselves up and rejoin society. The project is called ‘Pick-Up’, and it pays the participants with a small hourly wage, along with free beer!

Although the beer is meant to be an incentive, the amount given away is small, so it won’t really cause a lot of damage. “The beer is distributed on the individual needs of the participants,” read a fact sheet from the organisation that manages the project. “Not everyone gets beer. Only the participants who aren’t able to do their work without it.”

The statement also mentioned that “Pick-UP isn’t about just cleaning the streets. The project has nothing to do with exploiting people. The idea is to allow participants, who are not forced to take part, to contribute to society in a way they otherwise wouldn’t.”

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Toddler Cheng Cheng, from eastern China’s Anhui province, got his first taste of wine when he was only 10 months old. His father put wine-dipped chopsticks into his mouth just to get him to stop crying, and the boy developed a taste for it instantly. As he grew older, he started to consume alcohol in increasing quantities. Now, at age two, he is probably the world’s youngest alcoholic. He’s been dubbed the ‘Little Winebibber’ because he prefers alcohol over milk.

At first, Cheng Cheng’s parents and relatives joked about his affinity towards alcohol. They found it funny and cute as he guzzled an entire bottle of beer without any side effects – something highly unusual and unexpected of a child. He didn’t experience any of the symptoms of alcohol consumption, not even an increased heart rate. Cheng Cheng simply emptied the bottle without batting an eyelid, and then asked for some more! “At that time, all of us in the family have already thought that this child can really drink a lot when he grows up,” said his aunt, Cai Teng.

But now that the toddler’s story is out, the family has been severely criticized for encouraging such behavior. The local media has displayed outrage, while doctors have urged the parents to immediately put a stop to Cheng Cheng’s drinking habit. Several pediatricians have warned that since children of his age do not have well developed body organs, even a little bit of alcohol can seriously damage their health. Read More »

The ‘Vaportini’ is a controversial new device that promises a ‘revolutionary way of consuming alcohol’. People can to use it to speed up the effects of alcohol consumption, without the calories, carbs or impurities that usually come with drinking. The device heats up alcohol to 140 degrees F and allows users to breathe in the vapor through a straw. The crazy contraption can be purchased for just $45 from an American website.

Needless to say, inhaling alcohol is just as bad as it sounds. Professor Chris Day of Newcastle University and advisor to Drinkaware (a charity that promotes responsible drinking), said: “Inhaling alcohol is a very new trend so there isn’t yet any scientific data of the effects but it has the potential to be a very dangerous phenomenon and as such, we would advise people to be cautious if indeed they do decide to try it.” The professor also pointed out that the vapor bypasses the body’s natural defence mechanisms, so it has to be unsafe.

Professor Jonathan Chick, a psychiatrist from Edinburgh, was in agreement. “There is a greater ‘hit’ on the brain than when alcohol is taken by mouth, because some of it has not already been broken down on its way through the liver and this will increase the risk of damage to brain cells. So the method cannot be called safer to the body organs,” he said. He pointed out that there is an added risk of inhalation which is due to the direct impact on the brain – that is, risk of unsteadiness, falling or impulsive behavior. The vapor also bypasses the stomach (which limits alcohol intake through vomiting), making it dangerous and unsafe.

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34-year-old Matthew Hogg has a rare condition – auto-brewery syndrome. Every time he eats starchy or sugary foods, his body converts the food into alcohol that is released into his blood stream. This alcohol is so strong that he ends up intoxicated without even touching a single drink.

While this might sound like an alcoholic’s dream, for Matthew, it’s nothing short of a nightmare. He’s been suffering from the rare condition since primary school and his parents have spent their entire life savings of over $80,000 on diagnosing his illness. After seeing several specialists, the condition was finally identified when a test by Dr. Keith Eaton in London revealed high levels of ethanol in his blood and indicated bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine. It is this yeast overgrowth that converts his meals into alcohol.

“I have experienced symptoms from birth and during my childhood there were countless times I suffered drunkenness without having consumed an alcoholic beverage,” said Matthew. “Every time I eat bread, potatoes or starchy rice I produce 100 percent proof drinking alcohol that travels around my body through my bloodstream – if I eat a portion of rice I would suffer a hangover equivalent of having glugged three bottles of red wine the night before.”

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