One of the fundamental questions in low energy nuclear theory is how to extend the nuclear interaction beyond the conventional model of a nonrelativistic two-body force that is constrained by two-nucleon scattering data and the properties of the deuteron. We revisit the original Brown-Rho scaling hypothesis, in which the in-medium nuclear interaction is modified through changes in the masses of the exchanged mesons. We discuss recent theoretical and experimental work to determine hadronic masses in a nuclear medium and use these results to construct a density-dependent nuclear interaction. This potential is used to calculate the bulk equilibrium properties of nuclear matter and the anomalously long lifetime of carbon-14.