Today in Mice

Bipolar disorder affects millions of people around the globe, and its effects - which range from deep depression to mania -- make it one of the world's most serious mental illnesses.

As regular readers of this space know, there aren't many things better about being a mouse than being a human. But here's one:

OK, now this one's weird: The toxic gas that's responsible for making sewers and rotten eggs so stinky produces a suspended-animation-like state in mice.

Italian researchers have discovered that Gamma- Hydroxybutyric acid — also known as GHB, the so-called "date rape drug" — reduces alcohol consumption, promotes abstinence from drinking, suppresses cravings for liquor, and even eases withdrawal symptoms in alcoholics.

It's seldom nice to lose your job in a lagging economy - except, perhaps, in the following case.

Mice with muscular dystrophy bulk up when injected with a gene that's responsible for making a specific protein, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Late last year, four leading popcorn makers -- Weaver Popcorn Company, ConAgra Foods (manufacturer of Orville Redenbacher's and ACT II), General Mills (Pop Secret) and American Pop Corn Company (Jolly Time) -- announced plans to cut an artificial butter flavor from their products.

Shortly before Hurricane Ivan slammed into the Gulf Coast on Sept. 16, 2004, wreaking havoc across Alabama, Florida, and Virginia, a few employees of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission hurried to the beach and scooped up eight tiny rodents.

Clinical trials are under way for a drug and vaccine that may inhibit the neurotoxin Aβ (or Abeta, if that's Greek to you), which has been linked to Alzheimer's disease.

Researchers from the University of Vanderbilt have shown that aggression is just as rewarding as sex, food, and drugs – although not, we assume, in that order.