Depression may be an early symptom of Parkinson's disease, according to research that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 59th Annual Meeting in Boston, April 28 – May 5, 2007.

The study looked at whether people who are taking antidepressant medications are more likely to develop Parkinson's disease than people who are not taking the medications. It found that, in the year before their Parkinson's disease was diagnosed, people who were taking antidepressants were nearly twice as likely to develop Parkinson's disease as those who were not taking antidepressants.

Brains are able to adjust automatically to the demands of distinguishing between small differences in smell, new research at the University of Chicago shows.

The research, which was conducted on rats, suggests that the human brain may be more adept at distinguishing smells than previously thought. The work comes from studies in the laboratory of Leslie Kay, Assistant Professor in Psychology at the University, who is looking at the ways animals perceive sensory stimuli by focusing on the neural basis of olfactory perception and how context and experience influence it.

Vitamin C is possibly the most important small molecule whose biosynthetic pathway remained a mystery. That is until now.

A group of Dartmouth and UCLA researchers, who normally work on genes involved in aging and cancer in animals, discovered the last piece of the puzzle, they report in a study published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Many studies in coaching literature have found that male athletes tend to prefer a male coach. Newly released research from the University of Alberta has indicated that male athletes actually prefer a female team physician to attend to their medical issues, including those related to sexual health.

With gold nanoparticles, DNA and some smart chemistry as their tools, scientists at Northwestern University have developed a simple "litmus test" for mercury that eventually could be used for on-the-spot environmental monitoring of bodies of water, such as rivers, streams, lakes and oceans, to evaluate their safety as food and drinking water sources.

An article detailing the colorimetric screening technology and its success detecting mercury will be published online April 27 by Angewandte Chemie, the prestigious European journal of applied chemistry.

Arthritis cases on the rise, finds comparative national study, underscoring the need for cost-effective care and disability-reduction efforts

"Arthritis and other rheumatic conditions exact a large and growing economic toll on the nation as a result of the increase in numbers of persons affected, rather than an increase in mean expenditures and earnings losses," attests Charles G. Helmick, M.D., at the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He bases his conclusion on a nationwide assessment of medical expenditures and earnings losses associated with arthritis in 2003, compared with figures six years before.