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Despite almost no research, the pet CBD industry will grow to $1 billion
Veterinarians are concerned. Consumers appear not to be.

Charlie Gallacher, 35, gives a daily cannabis tincture to Dixie, his Catahoula, to treat her hip pain, in the Feeding Hills section of Agawam, MA on March 26, 2019.
- The pet CBD industry, valued at $8 million in 2017, is expected to grow to $1.16 billion by 2022.
- Despite the hype, there have been few clinical studies conducted on pets.
- While there is evidence of its potential therapeutic value, all evidence points to much higher dosages than offered on the consumer market.
In 1988, three researchers from the School of Pharmacy at Hebrew University in Jerusalem published a study investigating the effect of CBD on dogs. While the popular cannabinoid had shown efficacy in mice and rats through IV infusion, they wanted to know if oral administration would affect canine health. The dogs were given 180 mg of CBD orally. It turns out that CBD has low bioavailability when taken in this manner.
The researchers note that when ingested, CBD bioavailability is also low in humans—around 6 percent. Over three decades later and that still appears to be the case, though some studies have found bioavailability up to 15 percent. Your body (and your dog's body) wants to store the CBD as fat. Unfortunately that's where most of it stays, never passing the blood-brain barrier. NYU professor Esther Blessing, who researches clinical trials on CBD, puts it this way:
"There's no evidence that doses below 300 mg of CBD have any effect in any psychiatric measure. And in fact, dose-finding studies show that the lowest clinically effective dose of CBD for reducing anxiety is 300 mg."
Mayo Clinic Minute: Is CBD safe to use?
If taken orally, the most CBD you (or your dog) would get if ingesting such a high dose would be 45 mg. (Taking it intravenously or smoking it is another story, though it is not clear how much that story changes; a 2014 study on inhalation found 25 percent bioavailability.) To put that into perspective, consider Charlotte's Web Hemp Extract Drops 17 mg for Dogs. Retailing at $64.99, each prescribed dose contains 17 mg of CBD per mL. The dropper bottle is 30 mL, meaning it contains 510 mg of CBD. If you were to give your dog the entire bottle in one serving (which I don't advise), they would retain roughly 30.6 mg.
None of this is stopping the sales of pet (or human) CBD products, however. In 2017, the pet CBD industry was valued at $8 million. A year later it quadrupled to $32 million. By 2022, it is predicted to reach $1.16 billion.
None of this is to deny the potential therapeutic applications of CBD or any of the other hundred-plus cannabinoids found in cannabis. As a consumer since 1993, it's taken decades (and a move to California) for me to stop worrying about being caught—as ridiculous as this sounds, it's true—with a plant. I also know, anecdotally, what that plant has done for me.
The problem is that most evidence on the efficacy of THC and CBD has been anecdotal. Not all, mind you. Plenty of research has shown how effective CBD is in treating epilepsy, which is why the FDA scheduled Epidiolex for therapeutic use—the first cannabis-based medicine to be given a thumb's up by the agency. On top of this, the cannabis research field is vibrant, growing by the month. We should support that, as cannabis has many potential usages that are desperately needed.
CBD oil for pets on display at the Southern Hemp Expo at the Williamson County Agricultural Exposition Park in Franklin, TN on Friday, Sept. 6, 2019.
Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Whether or not the current products on the market are efficacious is another story. First off, CBD is more effective when used in conjunction with THC. That makes sense given that nature doesn't separate out lipids when constructing plants. It's the reason why golden rice was initially such a failure: you can't remove beta-carotene from carrots and expect it to work in a new context. Researchers had to create a second version with 23 more times beta-carotene for it to become effective at fighting childhood blindness.
Suggested doses of CBD are mostly guesswork. Sometimes those guesses prove to be pertinent. In fact—and again, this is only anecdote—when I posted my skepticism of the booming pet CBD industry on social media, a number of people reached out with examples of it working for their dogs. When I asked if it was full spectrum (including THC), all responded that it was. A few replied that they didn't like the psychological effects (sluggishness, "out of it"), but it seemed to do the trick.
At least now the FDA appears to be taking these supplements a little more seriously. The agency sent out warning letters to 15 CBD companies for illegally selling their products. The agency also notes that CBD has not achieved GRAS (generally recognized as safe) status. Apparently a regulatory framework for addressing the quickly-growing field of cannabis products is in the works. This is important given that numerous products turn out to have questionable ingredients (or no CBD at all).
Unfortunately, our pets cannot speak to us. Most observations of the efficacy of CBD will continue to be anecdotal, and we well know that the placebo effect shapes how we view reality. That this could extend to our furry friends should not be surprising; nor should the fact that companies are exploiting this questionable science.
In five years, or two, another magic bullet will be all the rage. Right now it's CBD and we're paying a premium for dropper bottles filled with questions.
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Stay in touch with Derek on Twitter and Facebook. His next book is Hero's Dose: The Case For Psychedelics in Ritual and Therapy.
Scientists find 16 'ultra-black' fish species that absorb 99.9% of light
These alien-like creatures are virtually invisible in the deep sea.
A female Pacific blackdragon
- A team of marine biologists used nets to catch 16 species of deep-sea fish that have evolved the ability to be virtually invisible to prey and predators.
- "Ultra-black" skin seems to be an evolutionary adaptation that helps fish camouflage themselves in the deep sea, which is illuminated by bioluminescent organisms.
- There are likely more, and potentially much darker, ultra-black fish lurking deep in the ocean.
The Pacific blackdragon
Credit: Karen Osborn/Smithsonian
<p>When researchers first saw the deep-sea species, it wasn't immediately obvious that their skin was ultra-black. Then, marine biologist Karen Osborn, a co-author on the new paper, noticed something strange about the photos she took of the fish.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"I had tried to take pictures of deep-sea fish before and got nothing but these really horrible pictures, where you can't see any detail," Osborn told <em><a href="https://www.wired.com/story/meet-the-ultra-black-vantafish/" target="_blank">Wired</a></em>. "How is it that I can shine two strobe lights at them and all that light just disappears?"</p><p>After examining samples of fish skin under the microscope, the researchers discovered that the fish skin contains a layer of organelles called melanosomes, which contain melanin, the same pigment that gives color to human skin and hair. This layer of melanosomes absorbs most of the light that hits them.</p>A crested bigscale
Credit: Karen Osborn/Smithsonian
<p style="margin-left: 20px;">"But what isn't absorbed side-scatters into the layer, and it's absorbed by the neighboring pigments that are all packed right up close to it," Osborn told <em>Wired</em>. "And so what they've done is create this super-efficient, very-little-material system where they can basically build a light trap with just the pigment particles and nothing else."</p><p>The result? Strange and terrifying deep-sea species, like the crested bigscale, fangtooth, and Pacific blackdragon, all of which appear in the deep sea as barely more than faint silhouettes.</p>Pacific viperfish
David Csepp, NMFS/AKFSC/ABL
<p>But interestingly, this unique disappearing trick wasn't passed on to these species by a common ancestor. Rather, they each developed it independently. As such, the different species use their ultra-blackness for different purposes. For example, the threadfin dragonfish only has ultra-black skin during its adolescent years, when it's rather defenseless, as <em>Wired</em> <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/meet-the-ultra-black-vantafish/" target="_blank">notes</a>.</p><p>Other fish—like the <a href="http://onebugaday.blogspot.com/2016/06/a-new-anglerfish-oneirodes-amaokai.html" target="_blank">oneirodes species</a>, which use bioluminescent lures to bait prey—probably evolved ultra-black skin to avoid reflecting the light their own bodies produce. Meanwhile, species like <em>C. acclinidens</em> only have ultra-black skin around their gut, possibly to hide light of bioluminescent fish they've eaten.</p><p>Given that these newly described species are just ones that this team found off the coast of California, there are likely many more, and possibly much darker, ultra-black fish swimming in the deep ocean. </p>'Deep Nostalgia' AI brings old photos to life through animation
Using machine-learning technology, the genealogy company My Heritage enables users to animate static images of their relatives.
- Deep Nostalgia uses machine learning to animate static images.
- The AI can animate images by "looking" at a single facial image, and the animations include movements such as blinking, smiling and head tilting.
- As deepfake technology becomes increasingly sophisticated, some are concerned about how bad actors might abuse the technology to manipulate the pubic.
My Heritage/Deep Nostalgia
<p>But that's not to say the animations are perfect. As with most deep-fake technology, there's still an uncanny air to the images, with some of the facial movements appearing slightly unnatural. What's more, Deep Nostalgia is only able to create deepfakes of one person's face from the neck up, so you couldn't use it to animate group photos, or photos of people doing any sort of physical activity.</p>My Heritage/Deep Nostalgia
<p>But for a free deep-fake service, Deep Nostalgia is pretty impressive, especially considering you can use it to create deepfakes of <em>any </em>face, human or not. </p>When does an idea die? Plato and string theory clash with data
How long should one wait until an idea like string theory, seductive as it may be, is deemed unrealistic?
- How far should we defend an idea in the face of contrarian evidence?
- Who decides when it's time to abandon an idea and deem it wrong?
- Science carries within it its seeds from ancient Greece, including certain prejudices of how reality should or shouldn't be.
Plato used the allegory of the cave to explain that what humans see and experience is not the true reality.
Credit: Gothika via Wikimedia Commons CC 4.0
<p>When scientists and mathematicians use the term <em>Platonic worldview</em>, that's what they mean in general: The unbound capacity of reason to unlock the secrets of creation, one by one. Einstein, for one, was a believer, preaching the fundamental reasonableness of nature; no weird unexplainable stuff, like a god that plays dice—his tongue-in-cheek critique of the belief that the unpredictability of the quantum world was truly fundamental to nature and not just a shortcoming of our current understanding. Despite his strong belief in such underlying order, Einstein recognized the imperfection of human knowledge: "What I see of Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility." (Quoted by Dukas and Hoffmann in <em>Albert Einstein, The Human Side: Glimpses from His Archives</em> (1979), 39.)</p> <p>Einstein embodies the tension between these two clashing worldviews, a tension that is still very much with us today: On the one hand, the Platonic ideology that the fundamental stuff of reality is logical and understandable to the human mind, and, on the other, the acknowledgment that our reasoning has limitations, that our tools have limitations and thus that to reach some sort of final or complete understanding of the material world is nothing but an impossible, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01K2JTGIA?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">semi-religious dream</a>.</p>Can you still spread coronavirus after getting the vaccine?
The vaccine will shorten the "shedding" time.
