During recent years, omega-3 fatty acids have enjoyed increased popularity as numerous studies have shown that supplementing diets with fish oil (a natural source of this polyunsaturated fatty acid) does everything from reducing the risk of heart disease to preventing arthritis. There is also evidence that depression may be associated with a dietary deficiency in omega-3 fatty acids. This "phospholipid hypothesis" of depression has been supported by research showing that omega-3 fatty acid concentration in the blood of depressed patients is lower than that in control patients.

"The "phospholipid hypothesis" of depression postulates that decreased omega-3 fatty acid intake, and hence, perhaps decreased brain omega-3 fatty acid content, could be responsible for the disease," explains Dr. Pnina Green of Tel Aviv University. "In humans, because of high dietary variability and the obvious inability to examine brain tissue, the theory is backed up mainly by indirect evidence. The availability of the Flinders Sensitive Line rat, an animal model of depression, overcomes both these obstacles."

If you want to make a million dollars, all ya gotta do is put $5 in a bank account every day. Just about anyone can come up with $5 a day. It is not a huge deal -- heck, a pack of cigarettes costs $5 in a lot of places these days. You put the money into an account, like a stock mutual fund, that gives you 10% per year interest on average and presto. In 42 years you have a million bucks. What could be easier than that?

The problem is, who wants to wait 42 years? It takes too long. What do you do if you want to short-circuit the process and make a million bucks in a couple of years? There is only one way in America to accomplish that reliably...

A study conducted by Pointsec Mobile Technologies, a mobile-data protection software company in Chicago, found that the number of laptops abandoned in one London cab company's taxis rose 71 percent in the second half of last year from the same period in 2001, while the number of personal digital assistants left behind shot up 350 percent. One cab company in Chicago had the highest numbers: In the final six months of 2004, it found, in its 113 taxis, 387 mobile phones, 97 PDAs and Pocket PCs and 20 laptops. It did not have comparable 2001 data. Extrapolating from those numbers, Pointsec calculated that 85,600 mobile phones, 21,500 PDAs/Pocket PCs, and 4,425 laptops disappeared into Chicago's 25,000 cabs in those six months.

From the International Herald Tribune

Oh, by the way, Jerk:

Half of all U.S. bankruptcies are caused by soaring medical bills and most people sent into debt by illness are middle-class workers with health insurance. From the Harvard Medical School Study.

"Our study is frightening. Unless you're Bill Gates you're just one serious illness away from bankruptcy," said Dr. David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who led the study. "Most of the medically bankrupt were average Americans who happened to get sick. Health insurance offered little protection."

The 483-kilometer-wide (300-mile) region may be a "hot" spot -- an area possibly warmed by a recent asteroid impact or by a mixture of water ice and ammonia from a warm interior, oozing out of an ice volcano onto colder surrounding terrain. Other possibilities for the unusual bright spot include landscape features holding clouds in place or unusual materials on the surface.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was "the single greatest obstacle to doing anything effective" about Vioxx, said FDA drug safety officer David Graham at an unprecedented roundtable of medical whistleblowers sponsored by the Public Library of Science (PLoS) and the Government Accountability Project.

In comments that echoed his now infamous testimony to the US Senate Finance Committee, Graham said that, "Nearly 60,000 people probably died from that drug. That's as many of our soldiers that were killed in the Vietnam war [who] died as a result of Vioxx use. And FDA had the opportunity, the responsibility, to stop that and didn't."

Dear Dr. Michael,

I've been dating this girl for about six months and we got pretty serious rather quickly. I really like her, but all of a sudden she wants to slow down. I think she wants to date other people, or maybe she just isn't attracted to me.

When I confront her about it and suggest changing our relationship to a friendly one only, she tell me she still wants to date and that she is attracted to me. For the past six weeks though, our romantic involvement has been null. Should I stick with it or look for love somewhere else?

--Confused Crybaby

Dear Crybaby,

If she wants to date other guys and she is acting mean to you, I think you should wait until she gets really serious and firm. You can soften her up and say you don't want to go on dates with her anymore and say "You're a brat!"

If she gets mean, then cut the stuff. There are a lot of girls in college. A lot of good ones- like ones that wear make-up and always dress up!

Cut the other girl and get surrounded with all these other girls. Take out each one and once you like one take her back to the first girl and say "Well, I got a better one than you."

You can meet girls at work. A lot of girls go to the beauty salon. You can hang out on the wall and when girls come out you could say "Hey, how ya' doing?"

You could also get a dog shirt that says "I'm a dog," and when she comes out you can say "Bow wow WOW!"

--Dr. Michael

Bye-bye sharkey. The Monterrey Aquarium releases its great white shark into the wild. She was a beautiful creature, but had already killed two soupfin sharks in her tank and was beginning to stalk the hammerheads. She was the only great white shark to last more than a half-dozen days in captivity. She thrived for more than a hundred. From the San Francisco Chronicle and The Monterrey Aquarium.

I still don't understand how this Star Wars gaming world works, and I had a link up here before about a group of real-life people who train on-line as stormtroopers. But anyways, in Star Wars Galaxies News, Giant Ewoks attack, kill and maim. Relax though, it is just an April Fools. Still, this whole world is a little scary.

The polio vaccine has its fifty year birthday this April. I found this 1999 article/interview with people who'd lived for many years inside an Iron Lung. Definitely worth a read.