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Scientists are developing a new treatment for pain that is eight times the strength of morphine. Researchers at the University of North Carolina Medical School have pinpointed the identity of a particular protein — prostatic acid phosphatase or PAP — that can convert the chemical messages that cause pain into ones that suppress it. One injection of PAP is eight times stronger than a similar dose of morphine and lasts 14 times as long. So long, headache. See you in about two weeks.

Scientists think they may be able to convert PAP into an easy-to-use pill form, and believe it would have few side effects.

The question now is how long before a modified version of this new super painkiller shows up on the cover of Time Magazine as the latest scary illegal drug epidemic to sweep across the nation.