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Even though it was introduced more than fifty years ago as a treatment for bipolar disease lithium remains an enigma. It is one of the few medicines that retains its place as the main therapy for treating its targeted disease over the course of its lengthy life. But no one knows for sure how it works.

No joke: today may be April Fool’s Day, but the ӳýMinded Blog crew isn’t fooling around. We’ve gathered some of our favorite strange but true facts about chemical biology, population genetics, and the twists and turns of the genome. A special thanks to Alice McCarthy and Leah Eisenstadt for helping gather these.

Scientists have unveiled the most comprehensive picture to date of the full genetic blueprint of multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer. A study of the genomes from 38 cancer samples has yielded new and unexpected insights into the events that lead to this form of cancer and could influence the direction of multiple myeloma research. This work, led by scientists at the ӳý and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, appears in the March 24 issue of Nature.

Genes make up only a tiny percentage of the human genome. The rest, which has remained measurable but mysterious, may hold vital clues about the genetic origins of disease. Using a new mapping strategy, a collaborative team led by researchers at the ӳý of MIT and Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and MIT has begun to assign meaning to the regions beyond our genes and has revealed how minute changes in these regions might be connected to common diseases. The researchers’ findings appear in the March 23 advance online issue of Nature.