Tag: nerf

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Beware, everyone: Murph, Nerf’s horrifying new mascot, has joined Twitter

Murph, the bizarre new mascot for Nerf that’s taken the internet by storm, now has his own Twitter account.

On June 23rd, the toy weapons company’s demonic foam creature, which has the handle of @MurphFromNerf, made their first tweet. (Nerf says Murph is non-binary and uses “they/them” pronouns.)

“Ok Twitter, I’m here now. I had foam-o,” tweeted Murph with a selfie.

Murph is part of Nerf’s new “Unleash the Play in You” campaign, which aims to get people to go outside and play.

“We wanted to introduce a mascot that represents this ageless, unbridled fun that lives in all of us and creates a physical embodiment of that feeling you get when you play with Nerf,” Adam Kleinman, Hasbro’s senior vice president and general manager, recently said in a press statement.

It’s unclear how this Nerf dart-covered entity is meant to do that, exactly. In fact, it seems as though this would be a monster that terrorizes children, Pennywise the Clown-style, rather than fill them with excitement. Now, Murph can haunt adults on Twitter, as well.

Image credit: Nerf

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Tinnitus may be treatable

 

Stimulation of the vagus nerve in the neck may be the cure to tinnitus – a persistent ringing in the ears – finds a new study from the University of Texas at Dallas. Currently there is no cure for tinnitus, and treatments involve simply masking the sound or learning to ignore it.

For the study, researchers first caused tinnitus in rats by repeatedly exposing them to the same high-pitched frequencies. They were then able to reverse the effects by pairing vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) with exposure to the same high frequency, says the report, published in the journal Nature.

 

When stimulated, the vagus nerve releases certain chemicals which work to essentially "reset" the brain. "We are retuning the brain from a state where it generates tinnitus to a state that does not generate tinnitus. We are eliminating the source of the tinnitus," explained Dr. Michael Kilgard, one of the lead authors of the study.

Although its causes are not fully understood, tinnitus develops as a symptom of hearing loss, and effects as many as 23 million adults in the U.S., including about ten percent of senior citizens and 40 percent of military veterans.

VNS is currently used to treat certain cases of epilepsy and depression. Researchers hope to begin clinical trials of VNS treatment for tinnitus sufferers.