Researchers have determined that 97.9 percent of all white rice is derived from a mutation (a deletion of DNA) in a single gene originating in the Japonica subspecies of rice.

Their report, published in the journal PloS Genetics, suggests that early farmers favored, bred and spread white rice around the world.

The researchers report that this predominant mutation is also found in the Indica subspecies of white rice. They have found a second independent mutation (a single DNA substitution) in the same gene in several Aus varieties of rice in Bangladesh, accounting for the remaining 2.1 percent of white rice varieties. Neither of these two mutations is found in any wild red rice species.

Exploring life in the North Atlantic Ocean at various depths of 800 to 3,500 metres, a team of 31 scientists are returning from a five-week scientific expedition which has surfaced a wealth of new information and insights, stunning images and marine life specimens, with one species thought to be new to science.

Professor Monty Priede, Director of the University’s highly-acclaimed Oceanlab, along with colleague Dr Nicola King, and students Jessica Craig, Claudia Alt and James Hawkins, are part of the science team on board the ship.

Professor Priede said: “It is like surveying a new continent half way between America and Europe. We can recognise the creatures, but familiar ones are absent and unusual ones are common.

The chemical fingerprint of a burned-out star indicates that Earth-like planets may not be rare in the universe and could give clues to what our solar system will look like when our sun dies and becomes a white dwarf star some five billion years from now.

Astronomers from UCLA report that a white dwarf star known as GD 362, which is surrounded by dusty rings similar to those of Saturn, has been contaminated by a large asteroid that left more than a dozen observable chemical elements in the white dwarf's atmosphere. Such an observation is unprecedented in astronomy.

Some materials change their electrical resistance in the presence of an external electromagnetic field. This concept is fundamental to data storage. Understanding large resistance changes, known as colossal magnetoresistance, could lead to new devices with increased data density and reduced power requirements.

"This is an extremely important piece of work with broad potential application in developing the next generation of electronic and data-storage devices," said Brookhaven physicist Yimei Zhu.

The Brookhaven scientists were studying crystalline perovskite manganites that had been doped with extra charge carriers - electrons or "holes" (the absence of electrons) - using various state-of-the-art electron microscopy techniques.

Six American high-school students took the top honors in the 2007 International Linguistics Olympiad in St. Petersburg, Russia earlier this month. This year was the first time a delegation represented the United States at the annual competition. Their victory brings a new focus on computational linguistics.

This year's International Olympiad featured 15 teams representing 9 different countries, including the Netherlands, Russia and Spain. Competitors were given problem sets consisting of sentences in languages most people are not familiar with, including: Tatar; Georgian; a language spoken by indigenous people in Bolivia called Movima; the Papua New Guinean language Ndom; Hawaiian; Turkish; and their English translations.

Are too many people now diagnosed as having depression? Two experts give their views.

Professor Gordon Parker, a psychiatrist from Australia says the current threshold for what is considered to be ‘clinical depression’ is too low. He fears it could lead to a diagnosis of depression becoming less credible.

It is, he says, normal to be depressed and points to his own cohort study which followed 242 teachers. Fifteen years into the study, 79% of respondents had already met the symptom and duration criteria for major, minor or sub-syndromal depression.