Posts

Deep depression that fails to respond to any other form of therapy can be moderated or reversed by stimulation of areas deep inside the brain. Now the first placebo-controlled study of this procedure shows that these responses can be maintained in the long term. Neurologist Helen Mayberg at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, followed ten patients with major depressive disorder and seven with bipolar disorder, or manic depression, after an electrode device was implanted in the subcallosal cingulate white matter of their brains and the area continuously stimulated....

Astronomers and Earth’s atmosphere are natural enemies. Stargazers want crisp, clear images of their celestial targets, whereas winds and clouds scatter and block starlight in ways that can scuttle even the most careful measurements. Minus the mild inconvenience of lacking air to breathe, many researchers might otherwise prefer our planet had no atmosphere at all—at least during their coveted observing nights at world-class telescopes. The Hubble Space Telescope and other giant off-world observatories can rise above the atmosphere’s complications but at costs that are, for lack of a better word, astronomical....

“By this month it should be possible for a New Yorker, a Chicagoan or a Washingtonian to communicate with someone in one of the other cities by televised telephoning. The device to use is called a Picturephone and is described by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, which developed it, as ‘the first dialable visual telephone system with an acceptable picture that has been brought within the range of economic feasibility....

The mammal ear is a very precise system for hearing—enabling everything from human appreciation of music to the echolocation of bats. Three tiny bones known as ossicles—the hammer (malleus), anvil (incus) and stirrup (stapes)—work together to propagate sound from the outside world to the tympanic membrane, otherwise known as the eardrum. From there, the sound is transmitted to the brain and informs the listener about pitch, intensity and even location....

Last year I met my four-month-old nephew, Landon, for the first time. During the weekend I spent visiting him in San Diego, my inner science nerd often got the best of me. I would find myself probing my nephew’s foot reflexes and offering unsolicited explanations for why his toes curled this way or that, only to be met by my wife’s disapproving looks and the new parents’ blank stares. Soon enough I dropped the shoptalk in favor of baby talk....

On November 11, 1572, Danish astronomer and nobleman Tycho Brahe saw a new star in the constellation Cassiopeia, blazing as bright as Jupiter. In many ways, it was the birth of modern astronomy–a shining disproof of the belief that the heavens were fixed and unchanging. Such “new stars” have not ceased to surprise. Some 400 years later astronomers realized that they briefly outshine billions of ordinary stars and must therefore be spectacular explosions....

From Nature magazine. Our ancestors bred with other species in the Homo genus, according to a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The authors say that up to 2% of the genomes of some modern African populations may originally came from a closely related species. Paleontologists have long wondered whether modern humans came from a single, genetically isolated population of hominins or whether we are a genetic mix of various hominin species....

By Randi Belisomo (Reuters Health) - It’s something we do to job applicants, first dates, former lovers and the quiet co-worker in the next cubicle. The practice of “googling” others for professional reasons or out of personal curiosity is so ubiquitous that the name of the popular Internet search engine has turned into a verb. In healthcare, patients often head online for diagnoses, drug information and details about their doctors. But do professional standards prevent physicians from doing the same to patients?...

If you haven’t heard by now, newspapers and blogs are reporting that a photo of an Iranian missile test yesterday was digitally manipulated. There were allegedly just three missiles in the original photo, but four in the doctored one. The New York Times reports that Agence France-Presse obtained the image from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s news Web site, Sepah News. The Associated Press later released an identical-looking photo, except instead of a fourth missile, there was a military vehicle on the ground with a missile on its back ready to fire....

As Operation Enduring Freedom, the war on terror in Afghanistan, winds down and some 33,000 U.S. servicemen and servicewomen return from overseas in the next year, a plan announced by President Obama on June 22, the psychological issues that veterans face back home are likely to increase. Some of the key psychological issues affecting the approximately two million American troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 have been traumatic brain injury (TBI), depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)—and the diagnoses often overlap....

Around the world, about 188 million people use marijuana every year. The drug has been legalized for recreational use in 11 U.S. states, and it may eventually become legal at the federal level. In a Gallup survey conducted last summer, 12 percent of American adults reported that they smoked marijuana, including 22 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds. Those are the stats. The consequences remain a mystery. As access to marijuana increases—and while acceptance of the drug grows and perception of its harmfulness diminishes—it is important to consider the potential for long-term ill effects, especially in users who start young....

Millions of drinking wells around the world may soon be at risk of running dry. Overpumping, drought and the steady influence of climate change are depleting groundwater resources all over the globe, according to new research. As much as 20% of the world’s groundwater wells may be facing imminent failure, potentially depriving billions of people of fresh water. “We found that this undesirable result is happening across the world, from the western United States to India,” said Debra Perrone, a water resources expert at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and co-author of the study....

The psychologist smiles at Manuela, a new mother in her late 30s. “Please play with your baby for two minutes,” the therapist instructs her and then leaves the room. Two video cameras film Manuela (which is not her real name) and her three-month-old daughter. In the next room, a split-screen monitor shows the mother’s profile on the left and her infant in a baby chair on the right. At first, Manuela appears to be at a loss for what to do....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Tuesday unveiled efforts to expand protection of vast areas of the Pacific Ocean controlled by the United States from over fishing and environmental damage. President Barack Obama’s proposal, to go into effect later this year, would create a vast marine sanctuary and is part of an effort to safeguard more ocean territory, which is under threat from several factors, including overfishing and climate change, the White House said....

Editor’s Note: We are posting this feature from our September 2006 issue in light of the Obama administration’s renewed focus on how to power the country without overloading the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. To keep this world tolerable for life as we like it, humanity must complete a marathon of technological change whose finish line lies far over the horizon. Robert H. Socolow and Stephen W. Pacala of Princeton University have compared the feat to a multigenerational relay race....

The following haiku, written in the traditional three-line, 17-syllable format by teams of planetary scientists, summarize research results reported at the 52nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, which was held virtually March 15–19, 2021. “Detailed Chloride Mapping in Terra Sirenum, Mars” Oceans long since past Dry, cracked ground, no trace remains But the taste of salt. —E. M. Harrington, B. B. Bultel, A. M. Krzesi□nska and S. Werner “Identifying Landing and Sample Tube Depot Sites and Characterizing Traverse Terrains for Mars Sample Return” Three summer interns Helping a little rover Return rocks from Mars....

Witnesses were absent for the comings and goings of the first life some four billion years ago, but scientists are pretty sure the typical Earth creature in those days consisted of no more than a single cell. That doesn’t mean the planet was a dull sea of sameness. Single-celled creatures may have acquired genetic diversity early on. Here’s why. When cells divide, mistakes have a way of creeping into genetic material....

ARGENTINA As ice fields in the Patagonian Andes shrink, the tectonic plates underneath them are simultaneously pushing upward. Researchers found that the heavy glaciers weigh down buoyant sections of mantle; when the ice melts, the ground below springs up rapidly. ICELAND The “Blue Blob,” a mysterious patch of frigid water in the northern Atlantic Ocean, appears to have slowed the melt rate of Iceland’s glaciers by up to 50 percent. But experts warn that unimpeded climate change may overcome this cooling effect by the 2050s....

Schizophrenia is famous for its symptoms of hallucinations and delusions, but sufferers also face debilitating cognitive impairment —and standard treatments with antipsychotic medications do little to compensate for intellectual loss. Seeking improved mental clarity, many patients turn to a seemingly mundane source: cigarettes. The extraordinarily high incidence of smoking in individuals with schizophrenia —about 85 percent of patients smoke compared with some 20 percent of the general population —has spurred researchers to investigate the therapeutic effects of nicotine in the diseased brain....

Faculty members of the University of California, Berkeley, have received 22 Nobel Prizes. But some of the most impressive displays of intelligence in recent years on the Berkeley campus have been made by squirrels. “I dedicated seven years of my life to squirrels,” said the also cerebral Mikel Delgado when I spoke to her in September, the month after she’d completed her doctorate at Berkeley. (She’s now a postdoc at the University of California, Davis....