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The Food and Drug Administration today approved Emsam, the first skin patch for use in treating major depression. The once a day patch works by delivering selegiline, a monoamine oxidase inhibitor or MAOI, through the skin and into the bloodstream. At its lowest strength, Emsam can be used without the dietary restrictions that are needed for all oral MAO inhibitors that are approved for treating major depression.

Scientists from NASA and Columbia University, New York, have used computer modeling to successfully reproduce an abrupt climate change that took place 8,200 years ago. At that time, the beginning of the current warm period, climate changes were caused by a massive flood of freshwater into the North Atlantic Ocean.

In addition to triggering a depression-like social withdrawal syndrome, repeated social defeat by dominant animals leaves a mouse with an enduring “molecular scar” in its brain that could help to explain why depression is so difficult to cure, suggest researchers funded by NIMH.

Group living has its price. At least that’s the case for the millions of Mormon crickets that trekked together across the grasslands of southern Idaho last summer. In observing this massive march, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) ecologist Gregory Sword and colleagues discovered that while the insects’ banding together shielded them from predatory birds and mammals, food deprivation brought on by a competition for certain nutrients led the crickets to cannibalism.

In the first study of native African honeybees and honey-making stingless bees in the same habitat, humans and chimpanzees are the primary bee nest predators. Robert Kajobe of the Dutch Tropical Bee Research Unit and David Roubik from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute report this finding in the March, 2006 issue of Biotropica.

The inability to perform sexually can have a significant negative psychosocial impact on a man’s overall health including depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. New research shows that safe and effective oral treatment of erectile dysfunction (ED) can improve relationships, sexual confidence, and self-esteem in men with ED.

A study by researchers at UC San Diego School of Medicine indicates that the rate of HIV/AIDS infection in Tijuana, Mexico is increasing, and much higher than had been previously estimated. The findings are based on data compiled by a team of researchers working in San Diego and Mexico to create a population-based model in order to estimate HIV infection rates.

This new Hubble image reveals the gigantic Pinwheel galaxy, one of the best known examples of “grand design spirals”, and its supergiant star-forming regions in unprecedented detail. The image is the largest and most detailed photo of a spiral galaxy ever released from Hubble.

Scientists have reprogrammed malignant melanoma cells to become normal melanocytes, or pigment cells, a development that may hold promise in treating of one of the deadliest forms of cancer.

NASA engineers and detectives now have something in common — a new NASA-developed camera accessory that uses a laser to “shoot” photos that can precisely measure damage on the Space Shuttle as well as details of crime scenes.

Mangroves, the backbone of the tropical ocean coastlines, are far more important to the global ocean’s biosphere than previously thought. And while the foul-smelling muddy forests may not have the scientific allure of tropical reefs or rain forests, a team of researchers has noted that the woody coastline-dwelling plants provide more than 10 percent of essential dissolved organic carbon that is supplied to the global ocean from land, according to a new report.

How are things going at work? While plenty has been written on a wide variety of factors affecting employee well-being – on everything from management style and organizational structure to the effects of ergonomic furniture and natural lighting – the “elephant in the room” in our workplaces is something that almost everyone complains about but no one has studied: how much time we spend in meetings.

Combining aggressive HIV therapy and chemotherapy significantly improves the survival rates of HIV-positive men and women treated for lymphoma, according to a new study. Published in the April 1, 2006 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study reveals that combination therapy showed the greatest benefit for HIV patients suffering from aggressive malignant non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. This benefit was most pronounced in HIV patients without severely impaired immune functions. These so-called “standard risk” patients responded as well to therapy and survived as long as lymphoma patients without HIV.

A real-time sensor for detecting cocaine –– made with inexpensive, off-the-shelf electronics –– has been developed by a team of researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Two local high school students and a Nobel laureate participated in the discovery. The potential applications of the sensor are far-reaching and include bioterrorism detection and important medical uses.

A simple, low-tech garment has the potential to prevent a major cause of death among women who give birth in many Third World countries, according to a new study by maternal health researchers. Study findings show the use of a neoprene suit can save the lives of women suffering from obstetrical hemorrhaging due to childbirth. Hemorrhaging accounts for about 30 percent of the more than 500,000 maternal deaths worldwide each year due to childbirth, nearly all in poor countries, according to the researchers.

Scientists can now predict memory of an event before it even happens. A team at UCL (University College London) can now tell how well memory will serve us before we have seen what we will remember. Scans of brain activity, published online in the journal Nature Neuroscience, indicate that the brain can actually get into the ‘right frame of mind’ to store new information and that we perform at our best if the brain is active not only at the moment we get new information but also in the seconds before.

Gold compounds have been used for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases for more than 75 years, but until now, how the metals work has been a mystery. Harvard Medical School researchers report in the Feb. 27 issue of Nature Chemical Biology that special forms of gold, platinum, and other classes of medicinal metals work by stripping bacteria and virus particles from the grasp of a key immune system protein.

As it nears Mars on March 10, a NASA spacecraft designed to examine the red planet in unprecedented detail from low orbit will point its main thrusters forward, then fire them to slow itself enough for Mars’ gravity to grab it into orbit.

Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have discovered that our ears use the most efficient way to process the sounds we hear, from babbling brooks to wailing babies. These results represent a significant advance in understanding how sound is encoded for transmission to the brain, according to the authors, whose work is published with an accompanying “News and Views” editorial in the Feb. 23 issue of Nature.

The latest national poll conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) Project on the Public and Biological Security finds that at the moment, the majority of the American public is concerned about the threat of avian flu, but only a small proportion is very concerned. However, should cases of avian flu emerge in poultry or humans in this country, the public reaction could lead to significant disruption of the economy and the health care system.