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The Food and Drug Administration’s approval in March of a depression treatment based on ketamine generated headlines, in part, because the drug represents a completely new approach for dealing with a condition the World Health Organization has labeled the leading cause of disability worldwide. The FDA’s approval marks the first genuinely new type of psychiatric drug—for any condition—to be brought to market in more than 30 years. Although better known as a party drug, the anesthetic ketamine has spurred excitement in psychiatry for almost 20 years, since researchers first showed that it alleviated depression in a matter of hours....

“If, as appears to be probable, vegetation exists on Mars, life has developed on two out of the three planets in our system where it has any chance to do so. With this as a guide, it appears now to be probable that the whole number of inhabited worlds within the Galaxy is considerable. To think of thousands, or even more, now appears far more reasonable than to suppose that our planet alone is the abode of life and reason....

Everyone has unwelcome thoughts from time to time. But such intrusions can signal serious psychiatric conditions—from “flashbacks” in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to obsessive negative thinking in depression to hallucinations in schizophrenia. “These are some of the most debilitating symptoms,” says neuroscientist Michael Anderson of the University of Cambridge. New research led by Anderson and neuroscientist Taylor Schmitz, now at McGill University, suggests these symptoms may all stem from a faulty brain mechanism responsible for blocking thoughts....

The view from Stoney River Lodge, just off U.S. 34 between Loveland and Estes Park, Colo., is what owner Linda Napier calls a slice of heaven carved from ancient rock. The steep ledge of Palisade Mountain rises just across the highway, while the sound of water crashing over boulders in Big Thompson River often fills the piney mountain air. But today Napier and her guests look out upon a closed road, dust clouds and a river muddied with silt....

Good news for couch potatoes. There may be a pill that lets them watch their TV and get their exercise, too—without moving a muscle. Scientists have found a drug that mimics the effects of a workout by, among other things, increasing the body’s ability to burn fat. The study shows the pill can also increase endurance; lab mice that took it ran more than 40 percent longer on a treadmill than their untreated peers....

By Cindy Silviana and Kanupriya Kapoor JAKARTA/PANGKALAN BUN, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Indonesian search and rescue teams plan to start lifting the crashed AirAsia jet’s tail off the sea bed on Friday, officials said, raising hopes that “black box” recorders can be retrieved to reveal the cause of the disaster. Scores of divers plunged into the Java Sea on Thursday to search the wreckage of Flight QZ8501, which vanished from radar screens on Dec....

How old we look is not just about counting the wrinkles at the corners of our eyes or the sunspots that dapple our skin. Scientists may have discovered the first gene responsible for how young—or old—we look to others. New genome-sequencing research suggests white European people with two copies of variant forms of MC1R, a gene linked to pale skin and red hair, have faces that appear up to two years older than those who are the same age but don’t have both copies....

Like ivy plants that send runners out searching for something to cling to, the brain’s neurons send out shoots that connect with other neurons throughout the organ. A new digital reconstruction method shows three neurons that branch extensively throughout the brain, including one that wraps around its entire outer layer. The finding may help to explain how the brain creates consciousness. Christof Koch, president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, Washington, explained his group’s new technique at a February 15 meeting of the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies initiative in Bethesda, Maryland....

Academic disputes are different from bar fights. At a House hearing last month, someone suggested to Sarah Green she meet Richard Tol, a climate change economist who had attacked her research moments before in front of a panel of lawmakers. Green declined politely, with a wry smile. Tol, a professor of economics at Britain’s University of Sussex, had no idea Green was in the hearing room. The two have never met, although they have been tussling in obscure journals....

Last December a Senate Intelligence Committee report revealed how two psychologists were involved in shaping the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” methods, using psychologist Martin Seligman’s theory of learned helplessness to justify controversial practices such as waterboarding and sleep deprivation—something Seligman himself has repudiated.* The problem is that in addition to being morally reprehensible, interrogation methods based on force and intimidation don’t work. “Coercive, confrontational methods actually lead to the detainee shutting down,” says psychologist Christian Meissner of Iowa State University, who studies interrogation techniques....

The fortuitous flare-up of a black hole last active in the mid-1990s solidifies an assumption sometimes used to estimate a black hole’s spin, one of its two most important properties. (The other is mass.) As matter whips around a black hole, it radiates light perpendicular to its orbital radius, like a lighthouse. The mass and spin of the black hole can furrow a groove in spacetime that makes this orbit wobble in various ways, creating additional fluctuations in its radiation....

Scientists have found that a gene controlled by the mammalian circadian clock also plays a role in weight gain from high-fat diets. A team led by Joseph Besharse of the Medical College of Wisconsin and Carla Green of the University of Virginia report in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA that when the clock gene Nocturnin was disabled in mice, the animals did not plump up when fed fatty fare....

LONDON – Several leading authorities on climate change have given a guarded welcome to research suggesting the Earth may warm more slowly than scientists had expected. An international research team led by Alexander Otto of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford has reported its conclusions in the journal Nature Geoscience. The Earth is now warming faster than at any time in the last 11,000 years, but scientists do not understand clearly why the atmosphere has warmed less than they expected over the last decade or so – and more slowly than in the 1990s....

The world’s melting ice sheets may have consequences far beyond global sea-level rise, scientists say. They may also change the ocean’s circulation, alter global temperature patterns and even drive extreme weather events around the world. Under a business-as-usual climate scenario, with warming likely exceeding 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, a major ocean current could slow down. Some parts of the world may cool off, while others could warm up even faster....

Astronauts need to travel light. Every extra ounce of provisions can hinder a rocket, and certain crucial foods may not survive journeys as long as NASA’s proposed mission to Mars. But scientists are devising creative ways to maximize storage efficiency—including recycling astronauts’ urine and breath. “As missions become longer in duration, astronauts will be generating more waste. So the question is, What do we do with all that waste?” asks Mark Blenner, a chemical engineer and synthetic biologist at Clemson University....

“When do you believe life begins?” Johnny DuPree, Democratic candidate for governor of Mississippi, asked during a public debate on October 14. The question was rhetorical, and DuPree’s answer—not a surprise in one of the most socially conservative US states—was the same as that of his Republican opponent: “I believe life begins at conception.” On November 8, Mississippi voters will not only decide who should lead the state, but also indicate whether they agree with the candidates about the status of embryos....

One of the biggest and one of the smallest commercial airplanes took to the skies during the past year. In April, the world’s largest passenger airliner, the Airbus A380 Navigator, made its maiden flight over the company’s Toulouse, France, assembly plant. Soon thereafter the first alcohol-powered aircraft, the EMB 202 Ipanema crop duster, was introduced by Brazil’s Indústria Aeronáutica Neiva, a subsidiary of Embraer SA. A few months later at the Paris Air Show, the massive A380 superjumbo jet wowed the crowds of onlookers, who were amazed to hear how quiet it was....

Windows XP: the 13-year-old operating system refuses to die. (Credit: CNET) Windows XP will not die, according to January numbers from Web tracker Net Applications. But the not so well loved Windows 8.1 is also seeing some life too. The doomed operating system – that would be XP, support for which will end on April 8 – actually gained a fraction of a percentage point of desktop OS share, rising to 29....

A hornet senses a chemical distress signal from an agarwood tree and zips over, hoping to devour a customary meal of attacking caterpillars. But when it arrives, there are no caterpillars, and it has to settle for agarwood seeds—which the duped insect carries away, unwittingly helping the tree reproduce. A new study in Current Biology says this is the first-known case of a plant deploying such defensive chemicals to spread its seeds....

In recent months a growing number of mental health experts and members of the media have offered opinions on Pres. Donald Trump’s psychiatric fitness. On Tuesday 35 U.S. psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers signed a letter to the editor of The New York Times warning about Trump’s mental health.* Its signatories state—despite a self-imposed ethics rule forbidding psychiatrists from offering professional opinions about public figures they have not personally evaluated—they “believe that the grave emotional instability indicated by Mr....