Curated playlist
World Health Organization essential medicines
- GlucoseWhy did nature settle on glucose, of all the possible sugars? One idea says it sticks to proteins less than its rivals.
- LorazepamLorazepam ranked 100th among the most commonly prescribed medications in the United States in 2023, with more than 6 million prescriptions. That is a striking figure for a drug meant for short stretches of use. Lorazepam is a…
- MorphineIn 1817, a German pharmacist tested morphine on himself, three boys, three dogs and a mouse.
- CalciumPure calcium metal burns skin the moment you touch it. Yet the same element holds your skeleton together.
- Acetic acidRoman aristocrats ate a sweet syrup made in lead pots. Historians believe it fed their lead poisoning.
- IbuprofenStewart Adams, a researcher at Boots the Chemists in Nottingham, first tried the compound that became ibuprofen as a cure for his own hangover. A patent application followed in 1961. Ibuprofen is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug,…
- AspirinEvery year, people swallow an estimated 40000 tonne of aspirin, somewhere between 50 and 120 billion pills. In the United States alone, doctors wrote more than 14 million prescriptions for it in 2023, which made it the 46th most commonly…
- ParacetamolParacetamol, called acetaminophen in the United States, was the 112th most commonly prescribed medication there in 2023, with more than 5 million prescriptions. That count misses the far larger number of people who buy it without a…
- KetamineKetamine owes its best-known label to a pharmacologist's wife. Researchers testing the drug wanted to call its anesthetic state "dreaming," but the manufacturer, Parke-Davis, would not approve the word. Mrs. Edward F. Domino, whose husband…
- BupropionBupropion, sold under the brand name Wellbutrin among others, was prescribed more than 30 million times in the United States in 2023. That made it the seventeenth most commonly prescribed medication in the country and the third most common…
- QuinineQuinine is the reason that, behind many bars, the tonic water button on the soda gun is marked with a single letter, Q. That letter stands for a bitter compound taken from the bark of a tree native to Peru. Using it against malaria marks…
- Nitrous oxideNitrous oxide, also called dinitrogen oxide, dinitrogen monoxide, laughing gas or simply nitrous, is a colourless gas with a faint, slightly sweet scent and taste. By 2020, every billion molecules of air held 333 of its molecules, and that…