Depression medication usually takes weeks to kick in. But one drug, ketamine, starts working in hours. In new research published this week in the journal Biological Psychiatry, scientists say they have a better idea of how the drug, also used as an anesthetic, may be affecting the brain. In this hour of Science Friday, guest host Joe Palca talks to the Director of the National Institute of Mental Health about what this drug reveals about depression and what it could mean for the future of depression treatment.

Then, a computer program may explain how babies learn to talk. Researchers have studied how babies learn to distinguish vowel sounds in different languages, and they've created a computer program that can learn in the same way. We'll talk with one of the researchers about the work.

Finally, a look at search engines--how they work and where they are headed. With the online world becoming ever more important in people's day to day lives, how will people be able to better manage the flood of information available on the internet? We'll talk about search engine technology, and the challenge of protecting privacy in a web-searching world.

Call in with your questions and comments at 1-800-989-8255 (3-4 Eastern). Teachers, find more information about using Science Friday as a classroom resource in the Kids' Connection.

Guests:
Thomas Insel
Director
National Institute of Mental Health
Bethesda, Maryland

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James McClelland
Professor of Psychology
Stanford University
Palo Alto, California

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Andrew Keen
Author, "Cult of the Amateur:How Today's Internet is Killing our Culture" (Doubleday 2007)
San Francisco, California

Javed Mostafa
Professor of Informatics
Indiana School of Informatics
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana

Books/Articles Discussed:

"Cult of the Amateur:How Today's Internet is Killing our Culture" by Andrew Keen. Doubleday, 2007.

(find books discussed on previous broadcasts)

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This segment produced by Flora Lichtman