You know, I would be as excited about a blood test for depression as anybody else out there – but something tells me that, despite all the jazzy press it’s getting, a study with an n of 66 and an “82% success rate” (what does that even mean?) is probably not the answer.
The thing that bothers me the most about pop science reporting is how they never link to the journal article. Ever. And in this case, maybe there isn’t a journal article (pubmed brought up nothing but parathyroid stuff for “depression phosphoric acid”), but it’ll probably take me another 20 minutes of googling to be sure of it.
The thing that bothers me the second most about it is how the headlines never accurately report the content:
PhD Comics: so accurate.
The sad thing is, I always let myself get my hopes up when I see a cool headline like “A near-instant blood test for depression”. But it never pans out. Makes me think I’m crazy to still have hope that we’ll actually get there someday.
Action Potential 
What if the blood test is positive, but the patient doesn’t feel depressed and has no symptoms?
Awkward.
Awkward indeed…
“What you don’t know about A can kill you.”
“A causes B all the time. What will it mean for Obama?”
“A killer among us.”
Gee AP, I actually thought all these headlines were legit. Of course A causes B. Lighten up.
*inwardly dying of laughter*
It’s like the worst game ever of telephone.
That’s so accurate.
Have you read anything by Ben Goldacre? He pretty much spends his time criticising the press about that sort of thing.
How’d I ever miss this guy? Looked him up, and he’s awesome! Thanks for the heads-up.