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Major depressive disorder is a significant health problem, but its biological underpinnings aren't well understood. That's in part because there’s variability in both the disease's symptoms and its heritability. A recent study published in Nature Genetics identified five independent gene variants from four genome regions that are associated with depression, raising hopes that we can get a better handle on the disorder.

The study used a meta analysis of data collected by consumer genetics company 23andMe as well as previously published studies of depression. These studies can identify regions of the chromosome—and sometimes individual genes—that are frequently inherited along with the disorder. A correlation can imply causation.

The most significantly associated gene was OFLM4, which encodes for olfactomedin-4, a protein that promotes tumor growth and cell adhesion. This gene has not been previously associated with any psychiatric disorders, but it is known to be expressed in some brain regions, including the amygdala and the temporal lobe.

(credit: NASA)

SpaceX appears to have taken a significant step forward with the development of a key component of its Mars mission architecture. According to multiple reports, during the Small Satellite Conference Tuesday in Logan, Utah, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said the company has shipped a Raptor engine to its test site in MacGregor, Texas. A spokesman confirmed to Ars that the engine has indeed been moved to Texas for developmental tests.

The Raptor is SpaceX's next generation of rocket engine. It may be as much as three times more powerful than the Merlin engines that power its Falcon 9 rocket and will also be used in the Falcon Heavy rocket that may fly in late 2016 or early 2017. The Raptor will power SpaceX's next generation of rocket after the Falcon Heavy, the so-called Mars Colonial Transporter.

Although official details regarding the Raptor engine remain scarce, SpaceX founder Elon Musk has suggested the engine will have a thrust of about 500,000 pounds, roughly the same power as a space shuttle's main engines. Whereas the shuttle was powered by three main engines and two booster rockets, however, it is believed the large rocket SpaceX uses to colonize Mars would likely be powered by a cluster of nine Raptor engines.

For months now, the digital rights management solution known as Denuvo has proven utterly impervious to cracks and workarounds—so impervious that a major piracy group warned games may become completely "crack-proof" within two years (that same group later took a public break from even attempting any more single-player hacks). In recent days, however, the first cracks have started to develop in Denuvo's digital armor (pun intended).

Denuvo works by creating a unique key for a game based on the specific hardware configuration of the legitimate purchaser's machine. If those game files are shared with another player using another computer, Denuvo's protection will detect the hardware differences and make sure the game doesn't work as intended.

Over the weekend, a hacker going by the handle Voksi crafted a workaround for this protection by building off the demo for id Software's recent Doom remake. Using a custom loader program, Voksi managed to swap the Steam AppID for a pirated copy of the full Doom game with that of a legitimately downloaded free demo. With that change, Steam and Denuvo apparently viewed the full game as if it was the legitimate demo and allowed it to load without issue. The same essential workaround was adapted for other Denuvo-protected games, including Rise of the Tomb Raider.

Asus’ ZenBook UX305C was almost a perfect midrange laptop, at least by my estimation. The cheaper models were missing extras like touchscreens or backlit keyboards and they weren’t as fast as Dell’s XPS 13 or the MacBook Pro, but they offered enough speed for most people and Asus got a lot of stuff right: $700 for a 1080p IPS screen, a sturdy build, a decent keyboard and trackpad, and a respectable 256GB of storage and 8GB of RAM. There are better laptops and there are cheaper laptops but that one sat right at the intersection of both.

Asus’ follow-up to the UX305C is a slightly different riff on the same idea. The Zenbook Flip UX360CA (hereafter Zenbook Flip or just Flip) still uses Intel’s Skylake Core M processors, still includes 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, still uses a 1080p screen, is still really thin, and still starts at $700. But it’s got a Lenovo Yoga-style 360-degree hinge and a standard touchscreen, turning what was once a basic laptop into a basic laptop that can pretend to be a tablet.

A lot of what I liked about the old Zenbook design is still here, but a few things have been improved and, sadly, a few things have gotten worse.

(credit: Jim Resnick)

Judged by its reputation, the Mini Cooper S should be a sporty little thing with telepathic steering, go-kart handling, and zippy throttle response. Yet, my very first impression—and this continued on throughout the test—is to ask no one in particular, yet everyone collectively: "Where the hell is its engine?" I certainly couldn't hear it.

Top up, down, engine idling, engaging the clutch, launching hard—even bouncing off the soft rev limiter—was there mechanical music? Was there merely mechanical? No. They've over-silenced the engine. The 189hp (141kW) turbocharged four-cylinder unit actually makes decent power, but it's either so stuffed full of turbo plumbing or blanketed by NVH nannies that you'll simply never hear evidence that it exists.

Inside, the Mini is expectedly quirky. Some quirks of past Minis have gone conventional, like the old dash-mounted chrome window levers. Those are gone, replaced by press-and-lift buttons on the doors like almost every other car on the lot. However, some of its quirks feel more like simple mistakes. The center armrest is in the way of the car's iDrive-like infotainment control on the center console. This armrest also impedes your right arm's freedom of movement, an unforgivable error in a car with a manual transmission. (Pivoting it backwards helps only marginally.)

The business end of the University of Rochester's Omega laser. (credit: Lawrence Livermore National Lab)

Last month, we reported on a small but enduring mystery in cosmology: why is there so much of one isotope of lithium around? Both ⁶Li and ⁷Li should have been produced when the first atoms formed after the Big Bang. But how much of them should have been made.

The question comes down to basic nuclear physics. When two hydrogen atoms collide under pressure, what is the probability that they will make helium? That sort of physics also applies to collisions between other elements, some of which produce lithium. It is an astonishing achievement that cosmologists can, from basic physics, predict the relative fractions of hydrogen and helium produced in the Big Bang. It is just as astonishing that we can look back in time and measure these fractions and know that cosmologists have it almost exactly right.

Almost. These calculations fall flat when it comes to lithium. They suggest there should be much more ⁷Li than we observe in the Universe and a lot less ⁶Li. Does that mean the estimates are wrong, or is there a real discrepancy? New experiments indicate that when it comes to ⁶Li, the problem seems to be with the Universe and not our calculations.