In Mood Genes, leading psychiatrist and biological researcher Samuel B arondes answers these questions in a way that renders a complex subjec t both exciting and understandable. Focusing on manic depressive illne ss, which affects about one percent of the population and has long bee n known to run in families, Barondes describes the fascinating hunt fo r genes--called mood genes--that influence the inherited vulnerability to severe mood disorders. He builds the compelling story of this hunt on the histories of two families riddled with manic-depression, expla ining what it means to have an...

This volume in the Long-Term Ecological Research Network Series would present the work that has been done and the understanding and database that have been developed by work on climate change done at all the LTER sites. Global climate change is a central issue facing the world, which is being worked on by a very large number of scientists across a wide range of fields. The LTER sites hold some of the best available data measuring long term impacts and changes in the environment, and the research done at these sites has not previously been made widely available to the broader climate change...

Every day millions of people take psychiatric drugs. In Better Than Prozac Samuel Barondes considers the benefits and limitations of Prozac, Ritalin, Valium, Risperdal, and other widely used medications and the ways that superior ones are being created.
In tracing the early history of these drugs Barondes describes the accidental observations that led to their discovery and their great impact on our view of mental illness. He goes on to show how their unexpected therapeutic effects were attributed to their influence on neurotransmitters that carry signals in the brain and how this guided...