Scientists' hunt for the cause of depression has implicated so many suspects and found so many treatments with different mechanisms that the condition remains an enigma. Now researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have identified one unifying principle that could explain how a range of causes and treatments for depression converge.

The first analysis of the genome of the sea anemone shows it to be nearly as complex as the human genome, providing major insights into the common ancestor of not only humans and sea anemones, but of nearly all multi-celled animals.

In this week’s issue of Science, researchers from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and Umeå University in Sweden report an important discovery about a critical new role that an enzyme called DNA polymerase epsilon plays in replicating DNA in higher organisms such as yeast and perhaps even humans.