Transmission electron micrograph of S. sanguinis. Virginia Commonwealth University researchers have decoded the genome of a bacteria normally present in the healthy human mouth that can cause a deadly heart infection if it enters the bloodstream.

This week's BMJ investigates a bitter row over a scientific paper that is putting Korea's scientific community under scrutiny once again.

Brain damage that was thought to be caused by hypoglycemic coma actually occurs when glucose is administered to treat the coma, according to a study in rodents led by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center.

While nicotine is highly addictive, researchers have also shown the drug to enhance learning and memory—a property that has launched efforts to develop nicotine-like drugs to treat cognitive deficits in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, schizophrenia, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Every thought, feeling and action originates from the electrical signals emitted by diverse brain cells enmeshed in a tangle of circuits. At this fundamental level, scientists struggle to explain the mind. Worse yet, they have lacked tools to understand what's going wrong in patients with ailments such as depression or Parkinson's disease. New Stanford-led research published in the April 5 issue of Nature describes a technique to directly control brain cell activity with light. It is a novel means for experimenting with neural circuits and could eventually lead to therapies for some disorders.