Researchers have created the first comprehensive roadmap of the protein interactions that enable cells in the pancreas to produce, store and secrete the hormone insulin. The finding makes possible a deeper scientific understanding of the insulin secretion process—and how it fails in insulin disorders such as type 2 diabetes.

Geologists and geophysicists have discovered traces of large ice sheets from the Pleistocene on a seamount off the north-eastern coast of Russia, confirming for the first time that within the past 800,000 years in the course of ice ages, ice sheets more than a kilometer thick also formed in the Arctic Ocean.

It's the 21st century for honoring the dead too - and among other "virtual tombstones", people are doing things like blending cremated remains into tattoos.

"Virtual tombstones" are also being created online, and mourners are displaying "Rest in Peace" car decals or T-shirts. These unconventional ideas are growing in popularity, according to Baylor University assistant professor of religion Candi Cann, who made a presentation at  the recent international conference, "Death, Dying and Disposal," of the Association for the Study of Death and Society. 

Propylene, a chemical used to make food-storage containers, car bumpers and other consumer products, has been detected on Saturn's moon Titan, the first definitive detection of the plastic ingredient on any moon or planet besides ours.

The propylene was identified in Titan's lower atmosphere by Cassini's Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS), which measures the infrared light emitted from Saturn and its moons in much the same way our hands feel the warmth of a fire.

CIRS can identify a particular gas glowing in the lower layers of the atmosphere from its unique thermal fingerprint. The challenge is to isolate this one signature from the signals of all other gases around it.

Most research has focused on the amount of global warming resulting from increased greenhouse gas concentrations but there has been relatively little study of the pace of the change following these increases.

A new paper concludes that about half of the warming occurs within the first 10 years after an instantaneous step increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration, but about one-quarter of the warming occurs more than a century after the step increase. The authors used results from the majority of the world's leading climate models - over 50 climate simulations, which were performed using 20 different climate models for the Climate Model Intercomparison Project, Phase 5 (CMIP5).  

More than half the people in Ontario who reported they had major depression did not use physician-based mental health services in the following year, according to a new paper based on OHIP data from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.

Estimates claim that up to one in four people suffer at some point in their lives from depression, which reduces quality of life and is associated with increased disability and lower productivity at work. Women are diagnosed with depression more than twice as often as men. The analysis set out to see whether gender plays a role in seeking mental health care. In general, women use mental health services about 10 per cent more than men, reflecting the fact they use health care services overall more than men.