Alexandra Sifferlin

Blacking out, or getting so drunk that you can’t remember anything that happened the night before, is all too common among underage drinkers, according to a new study published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

In the study, Marc Schuckit, professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Diego, and his colleagues looked at data on 1,402 drinking teenagers in England when they were 15, 16, 18 and 19. They discovered that by the time the teens reached 19, 90% of them had drank so much they experienced a blackout. About half of them had blacked out multiple times.

More than half of people reported having a blackout at every year of follow-up.

Teens who blacked out while drinking tended to be female—likely because they weigh less and have less body water to dilute the alcohol—to smoke, have sensation-seeking and impulsive behaviors, lack conscientiousness and have friends who also drank or used other substances. “It’s not as if a blackout in these kids was an isolated phenomenon,” says Schuckit. “Blackouts are unfortunately often considered to be a funny thing as opposed to dangerous. I am not sure the average person realizes the dangers associated with blackouts.”

A blackout can occur when someone drinks well over their limit. Alcohol is considered a depressant, and when the dose is high enough, depressants are known to impair memory acquisition. When someone blacks out, it means that while they appear to be awake, alert and intoxicated, their brain is actually not making long-term memories of what’s happening. If a person experiencing a blackout is asked what happened to them just 10 minutes ago, they will have no idea.

There are very few, if any, longitudinal studies that have looked at the impact of blacking out on the brain, but experts guess that it isn’t good. High blood alcohol levels are known to cause memory problems later in life, and blacking out is an indicator of drinking too much. Some people may hit that point with fewer drinks than others, and it’s possible that some have a genetically predisposed sensitivity to alcohol’s effects—but blacking out always means you’ve drank too much.

For young people, that behavior concerns experts. “When you really get drunk, literature shows you are opening yourself up to a huge number of problems,” says Schuckit, citing a greater likelihood of getting into accidents and fights, or doing things that one may later regret, including sex.

The study looked at British students, and prior data suggests that they drink more than American students. Still, Schuckit says it should be taken more seriously among young drinkers everywhere.

Why saving the environment can help prevent it

A new study shows people who feel younger than their actual age live longer

People who feel three or more years younger than they actually are had lower death rates compared to people who felt their age or older, according to a recent study.

Two University College London researchers studied data collected from 6,489 men and women whose average age was 65.8. On average, people in the study, published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, felt closer to 56.8. Among the participants, 69.6% said their self-perceived age was three or more years younger than their chronological age, 25.6% said they felt their age or close to it, and only 4.8% felt older than they actually were.

When the researchers compared the self-perceived ages to death rates, they found that rates were lower among those who felt younger, compared to participants who felt their age or older.

Of course unrelated factors like disabilities and overall health played a role, but when the researchers adjusted for those factors, they still noted a 41% greater mortality risk for the people who said they felt old.

What’s driving this apparent phenomenon needs further assessment, but the authors suggested that people who feel younger may have greater resilience and will to live. “Self-perceived age has the potential to change, so interventions may be possible,” the authors write. “Individuals who feel older than their actual age could be targeted with health messages promoting positive health behaviors and attitudes toward aging,” the study concluded.

The turtle breathes out of its butt

A white-throated snapping turtle (Elseya albagula) native to Australia is critically endangered.

James Cook University researchers are raising awareness for the turtle’s plight. The turtle, which lives in the Queensland’s Connors River, has a unique breathing mechanism: it breathes out of its rear. It’s a breathing process called “cloacal respiration.”

The now critically endangered turtle does best in clear-flowing water, but construction projects like dams have restricted the turtles’ movement, and increased land use has caused sedimentation and erosion that harms the animal’s nesting spots.

“If the increased water infrastructure development and drought in northern Australia continues, they will continue to get hammered,” says James Cook University researcher Jason Schaffer who has been studying the turtle for the last eight years.

“These turtles breathe out of their ass, which is super awesome,” Schaffer told Scientific American.

Schaffer is calling for more nest and habitat protection.

You no longer have any excuses

We get it, you’re busy. But it turns out you don’t need very much time in the gym to improve your health. In fact, it might only take one—yes one—high intensity minute of exercise to do the trick.

New research published in the journal PLOS One shows sedentary men and women who did one minute of intense, all-out exercise as part of a full 10-minute workout three times a week for six weeks improved their endurance and lowered their blood pressure.

A total of 14 sedentary and overweight men and women agreed to have their muscles biopsied and their aerobic endurance and blood pressure and sugar levels measured by researchers at McMaster University in Ontario. Then, they hopped on stationary bikes and warmed up for two minutes. After the warmup, the participants biked as hard as they possibly could for three 20 second intervals followed by two minutes of slow pedaling. They ended with a three minute cool-down, adding up to a total of 10 minutes. They did this three times a week, coming out to 30 minutes of exercise a week.

After six weeks, the participants were measured again, and the researchers discovered the they improved their endurance levels by about 12%, had better blood pressure levels, and improved muscle activity. The men in the group also had improved blood sugar levels.

MORE: Short bursts of exercise are better than exercising nonstop

This isn’t the first time researchers from McMaster University have touted the positive effects of short bursts of high-tensity exercise. Martin Gibala, the chairman of the department of kinesiology at McMaster University, has spent years studying the benefits of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and whether it’s equally beneficial as moderate exercise over a longer period. In fact, high intensity interval training has become somewhat of a mainstay in the fitness circuit, many also crediting Japanese researcher Izumi Tabata for coming up with the The Tabata Protocol: 20 seconds of intense work followed by 10 seconds of resting, repeated many times.

The problem with high intensity intervals is that, well, it can suck. It’s truly hard to really get your body to that level of intensity, especially if you’re not in tip top shape. Even proponents of the seven-minute workout say: “Those seven minutes should be, in a word, unpleasant.”

Critics of short spurt workouts—the seven-minute workout is a popular version—argue that while some exercise is better than no exercise, more is usually better and people who really need to exercise like the elderly and people who are overweight, might find it too difficult or even dangerous.

That’s why the researchers decided to investigate just how short they could cut the workout to and still get some of the same health benefits, The New York Times reports. As it turns out, you really can gain a fitness advantage from a short period of time. People will gain more or less from the workout based on their starting level of fitness, and most exercise enthusiasts recommend mixing up your routine over doing the same workout everyday to avoid injuries and work different muscles. But if you hit snooze one too many times, rest assured you can still get in a quality workout in less time than you may think.

Read next: 5 Fitness Trends to Try in 2015

Chikungunya virus has infected over one million people this year, but Big Pharma still isn't stepping up

It’s a tale scientists are tired of telling: a disease that’s been carefully watched and studied for years is suddenly infecting an unprecedented number of people while promising drugs and vaccines sit on shelved, unfunded.

This time it’s not Ebola but a mosquito-borne disease called chikungunya, which causes debilitating joint pain and has infected more than 1 million people just this year. Originating in Africa, the virus has rapidly spread into the Caribbean and Central and South Americas, with a smattering of cases in the United States. Chikungunya is nothing like Ebola, but scientists who study it find themselves in a predicament similar to Ebola researchers: Despite decades of study, there’s still no way to treat or prevent it, due in part to a lack of interest from drug companies.

“[Chikungunya] is another example of an emerging infectious disease that we clearly have a light at the end of the tunnel for in a vaccine, and it’s pharmaceutical interest that really seems to be the road block,” says Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who is trying to get support for a chikungunya vaccine his team developed. “It’s the big dilemma. The frustration. Back when Ebola was not on the front pages, we didn’t have very many enthusiastic pharmaceutical companies.”

MORE: TIME Person of the Year: The Ebola Fighters

In late 2013, chikungunya hit the west for the first time, in St. Martin. Now, in Puerto Rico alone, there were 10,201 reported cases from May to August 2014. In prior years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would only see an average of about 28 cases of chikungunya in the United States brought by travelers who had visited affected countries, primarily in Asia. But so far in 2014, there’s been over 1,900 recorded cases stateside.

Often, chikungunya is compared to dengue fever, but while chikungunya is not often fatal, up to 80% of people infected will show symptoms, which can be excruciating, says Dr. Pilar Ramon-Pardo, a PAHO/World Health Organization adviser in clinical management. “People cannot move because it’s so painful. There are tears in their eyes,” she says. “Sometimes there’s not an appreciation for chikungunya because it has a low fatality rate, but it’s a real public health problem. The economic impact from disability is high.”

Chikungunya was first identified in 1952 in Tanzania, and the more recent outbreaks started emerging in 2003 in East Africa, then spread into Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and eventually to India, where millions of people were infected in 2006. In 2007, it touched down in Italy, at which point the CDC with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) doubled down to ensure countries were equipped to keep an eye on—and diagnose—the disease.

“We are very concerned about chikungunya moving into the Western Hemisphere,” says Dr. Roger Nasci of the CDC. “We have the two different species of mosquitoes in the U.S. capable of spreading the virus.” Massive outbreaks in the United States are unlikely; the temperate U.S. climate isn’t especially mosquito friendly, and widespread use of window screens and bug spray limit most Americans’ risk. Still, the disease takes a toll, and other countries are at risk of even more massive outbreaks.

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently published results from a successful vaccine trial for chikungunya showing it’s safe but in order to take that vaccine to the masses, it needs to undergo an efficacy trial—and then it needs a distributor. Without a pharmaceutical partner, Fauci says a timeline for a chikungunya vaccine is “impossible to predict,” though the NIH is currently meeting with two undisclosed companies for possible partnerships.

A frequent source of funding for neglected infectious diseases, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, does not have any active grants or investment in chikungunya. Meanwhile, for Fauci, getting backing for chikunhunya is a “here we go again” task of trying to churn up interest in a disease that doesn’t make headlines. “It’s a theme that continues to recur among my colleagues and I,” says Fauci.

Read next: The Unexpected Animal Group Dying from Climate Change

High schoolers are more likely to smoke e-cigs than regular cigarettes

Electronic cigarettes are hugely popular with teenagers all across the United States, new government data shows, but fewer teens are smoking regular cigarettes—suggesting that e-cigs may attract young people who wouldn’t otherwise smoke.

Researchers surveyed 1,941 Hawaii high school students about their smoking behaviors as well as their relative risk for picking up smoking. Risk was assessed based on factors like sensation-seeking and prevalence of smoking among peers, parent support and academic involvement.

They found, in their study published in the journal Pediatrics, that about 17% of the high schoolers smoked e-cigarettes only, 12% smoked both e-cigarettes and conventional cigarettes, 3% only smoked conventional cigarettes, and 68% said they did not smoke.

MORE: Debate Over E-Cigs Lights Up

Students who smoked tobacco cigarettes, or who smoked both cigarettes and e-cigs, fell within the highest risk category for picking up the habit. E-cigarette users were lower on the risk threshold than those two groups, suggesting it’s attracting young people who wouldn’t necessarily be interested in conventional smoking. E-cigarette users and dual smokers were also more likely that nonsmokers to believe e-cigarettes are healthier than regular cigarettes.

“The fact that e-cigarette only users were intermediate in risk status between nonusers and dual users raises the possibility that e-cigarettes are recruiting medium-risk adolescents, who otherwise would be less susceptible to tobacco product use,” the authors write.

Part of this perception and attraction to e-cigs could be the fact that they are heavily marketed in public places the authors suggest.

MORE: In Children’s Hands, E-Cigarettes Can Be Deadly

The trouble with e-cigs is that there’s still not enough research to make any definitive conclusions on their risks or benefits. Some experts argue that since e-cigarettes have fewer unhealthy components than traditional cigarettes, they are a better option. They have even been trumpeted as a possible quitting device. Other experts argue that e-cigarettes are just another gateway to nicotine use, and are therefore unacceptable. Whether young people can access them and get hooked is of great concern.

Currently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) only regulates e-cigarettes marketed for therapeutic purposes, and many products continue to be marketed and sold with little FDA interference. The agency has proposed a rule that would give it more regulatory power over e-cigarettes that would look similar to other tobacco products, but nothing has been finalized. The FDA has also suggested a ban on sale of e-cigs to minors. The agency admits there’s a lot that consumers don’t know about e-cigs, like if they lead young people to smoke other tobacco products or how much nicotine is actually inhaled in each use.

Looks like the pill has some competition

About 62% of U.S. women from ages 15 to 44 use some form of contraception, and predictably, the pill is still the most popular. About 16% of women used it in 2011-2013, finds the latest report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics.

But the second most popular contraceptive may come as a surprise to many: 15.5% of women—just a hair behind the pill—choose female sterilization. The CDC report shows that nearly one in three women ages 35 to 44 opted for female sterilization. By contrast, fewer than 1% of women between ages 15 to 24 chose it.

The rates of women choosing to undergo the simple, yet irreversible, surgical procedure might seem high, “until you start to peel back the layers and intricacies around forming a family,” says Dr. Vanessa Cullins, vice president of external medical affairs at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, who was not involved with the research. “Consider the fact that the majority of women in this country have had the number of children they want to have by mid-twenties to thirty or so—and they still have the capacity to get pregnant until they are 50 years old.” For a lot of women, that can mean 20 fertile years during which a woman may not want to become pregnant.

Cullins says women who tend to ask about sterilization don’t want to be bothered by other methods, even those that only require intervention every few years. The overall rate is slightly less than previous years, the CDC says, and Cullins says she expects the rate to continue to decline as long-acting contraceptives, especially the intrauterine device (IUD), become more popular and more affordable in the U.S.

But for now, the pill, female sterilization and condoms are more popular than the IUD. Long-acting reversible contraceptives, like the IUD and implant, remained stable from prior years, at 7.2% of women. They were most popular among women aged 25 to 34 and less popular among younger, sexually active women between ages 15 to 24. Women between ages 35 and 44 were the least likely to use them.

Because the IUD is much more convenient than the pill, with a lower failure rate, it may prove to be a bigger birth control contender in the future, some health experts say. And there are signs that with increased affordability and access, young women will opt for it. One recent study showed that when teenage girls were counseled about birth control and given their pick for free, a full 72% of them chose the IUD.

The country has surpassed Liberia