Manic depression, also known as bipolar disorder, is a psychiatric condition characterized by alternating mania and depression, affecting about one in every hundred people worldwide. Although it is known that the condition can be treated relatively effectively using the mood-stabilising drugs lithium and valproic acid, the reasons why these treatments work are poorly understood.

People with manic depression have a distinct chemical signature in their brains, according to a new study. The research may also indicate how the mood stabilisers used to treat the disorder counteract the changes in the brain that it appears to cause.

BOSTON, February 5 /PRNewswire/ --

A new study led by researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center has identified insulin resistance in the liver as a key factor in the cause of metabolic syndrome and its associated atherosclerosis, disorders that put tens of millions of Americans at high risk of cardiovascular disease.

The findings, published in the February issue of Cell Metabolism, provide not only an understanding of how metabolic syndrome occurs, but also pinpoint a target for treatment of the condition. This represents the work of Sudha Biddinger, M.D., Ph.D., and a team led by C. Ronald Kahn, M.D., Head of the Joslin Research Section on Obesity and Hormone Action and the Mary K. Iacocca Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Ethylene, the world's most commonly produced organic compound, is used many types of industries. Farmers and horticulturalists use it as a plant hormone to promote flowering and ripening, especially in bananas while doctors and surgeons have long used ethylene as an anesthetic and ethylene-based polymers are found in everything from freezer bags to fiberglass.

Its current production methods result in a number of greenhouse gases. A new environmentally friendly technology created by scientists at Argonne National Laboratory may revolutionize creation of this compound by use of a high-temperature membrane that can produce ethylene from an ethane stream by removing pure hydrogen. Says senior ceramist Balu Balachandran, “This is a clean, energy-efficient way of producing a chemical that before required methods that were expensive and wasteful and also emitted a great deal of pollution.”

The elliptical galaxy NGC 1132 (Hubble picture and video below) belongs to a category of galaxies called giant ellipticals. NGC 1132, together with the small dwarf galaxies surrounding it, are dubbed a “fossil group” as they are most likely the remains of a group of galaxies that merged together in the recent past.

In visible light NGC 1132 appears as a single, isolated, giant elliptical galaxy, but this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Scientists have found that NGC 1132 resides in an enormous halo of dark matter, comparable to the amount of dark matter usually found in an entire group of tens or hundreds of galaxies.

A 'barcode' gene that can be used to distinguish between the majority of plant species on Earth has been identified.

This gene, which can be used to identify plants using a small sample, could lead to new ways of easily cataloguing different types of plants in species-rich areas like rainforests. It could also lead to accurate methods for identifying plant ingredients in powdered substances, such as in traditional Chinese medicines, and could help to monitor and prevent the illegal transportation of endangered plant species.

The team behind the discovery found that DNA sequences of the gene 'matK' differ among plant species, but are nearly identical in plants of the same species. This means that the matK gene can provide scientists with an easy way of distinguishing between different plants, even closely related species that may look the same to the human eye.

Africa and Europe get about 4 mm closer every year in a northeast convergence direction. The exact position and geometry of the boundary between the African and Eurasian plates is unknown, but it is located near the Gibraltar Arc — an area of intense seismic activity.

A group of researchers from the Andalusian Institute for Earth Sciences (CSIC) and the Department of Geodynamics of the University of Granada described for the first time the physical and mechanical properties of the uppermost part of the Earth’s crust — to a depth of 30 km which is where the highest magnitude earthquakes occur.

This study has made it possible to establish the exact position of the active faults of the Gibraltar Arc area which cause earthquakes, thus obtaining valuable geological information which could help determine the areas in which earthquakes are most likely to occur.

A burger and fries may be the quintessential North American meal but it can also be viewed as the perfect example of humanity’s increasingly varied diet, according to researchers who have conducted a unique study of the plants used around the world for food.

“Generally speaking, we eat very broadly from the tree of life,” University of Calgary plant evolutionary ecologist Jana Vamosi said. “Others have looked at the sheer number of plant species we consume but nobody has ever examined whether the plants we eat are clustered in certain branches. It turns out that they are not.”

In the first-ever study of the “phylogenetic distribution” of the human diet, Vamosi, working with a team led by Serban Proches from Stellenbosch University in South Africa, found that humans likely stand alone when it comes to the spectrum of species we consume.

Optical clocks might become the atomic clocks of the future. Their "pendulum", i.e. the regular oscillation process which each clock needs, is an oscillation in the range of the visible light.

As its frequency is higher than that of the microwave oscillations of the cesium atomic clocks, physicists expect another increase in the accuracy, stability and reliability. In the case of one of the candidates for an optical clock which is developed at Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), strontium atoms are retained in the interference pattern of two laser beams.

DALLAS, February 5 /PRNewswire/ --

- Large Equity Investment from Kuwait Announced Today

Just as oil is reaching the US$100 per barrel mark, Dallas-based Synfuels International, Inc. announced a transaction, which will make it practical to produce millions of barrels of new petroleum products and help reduce sources of global warming.

SANTA CLARA, California, February 5 /PRNewswire/ --

- Samsung Selects Marvell Processor for Accelerated Processing and Superior Multimedia Capabilities