Word: bipolar
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Imagine, just as a mind game, a world without the cold war. What a strange and different place it would be! The bipolar world would grow other centers of power, ones based more on economic than on military might. Although the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. would no doubt remain competitors, their rivalry would begin to resemble the ones that have always existed between powerful nations rather than a Manichaean struggle between two profoundly incompatible views about individuals and society. This could ease the nuclear threat that has long defined the cold war. Instead, that threat could serve to define...
Cambridge attorney Martin C. Foster called the city council "a bipolar political organization--a Darwinian type system...
Usually beginning somewhere between the ages of 15 and 35, manic depression afflicts about 1 in every 100 people. Because it causes its victims to oscillate between two extreme emotional states, it is also known to psychiatrists as bipolar affective disorder. In the manic phase, victims become expansive and extravagant, are often unable to sleep or eat, and may talk incessantly. Some assume airs of grandeur. The depressive phase plunges them into hopelessness, loneliness and boundless guilt, feelings that sometimes lead to suicide...
Researchers have long suspected that heredity plays a role in some if not all cases, and the Amish present an ideal setting in which to test that hypothesis. Not only does bipolar behavior contrast sharply with the community's quiet ways, making it easy to diagnose, but a number of confounding factors that might contribute to such behavior are absent: alcoholism, drug abuse, unemployment, divorce and violence are extremely rare. In addition, the Amish have large families (seven children on average) and keep genealogical records worthy of Mendel. Best of all, they represent a closed genetic pool...
...manic depression. This will enable them to understand the biochemical basis for the disease, which could lead to better treatments. (The drug lithium carbonate is effective in 70% to 75% of cases.) It could also lead to tests for the diagnosis and identification of people at risk for bipolar disorder...