For mice, carbon dioxide often means danger - too many animals breathing in too small a space or a hungry predator exhaling nearby. Mice have a way of detecting carbon dioxide, and new research from Rockefeller University shows that a special set of olfactory neurons is involved, a finding that may have implications for how predicted increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide may affect animal behavior. The finding is reported in the August 17 issue of the journal Science.

The “memory storage molecule” – PKMzeta – maintains long-term memories in the neocortex and its presence is continually required in order for the memory to endure, according to a finding by researchers at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel and SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York. The study results were published in the current edition of Science magazine (www.sciencemag.org). The title of the paper is “Rapid Erasure of Long-Term Memory Associations in Cortex by an Inhibitor of PKMzeta.”

A detailed map that pinpoints the location of every atom in a 450-million-yeard-old resurrected protein reveals the precise evolutionary steps needed to create the molecule’s modern version, according to researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Oregon.

Scientists have discovered a new protein that may offer fresh insights into brain function in mad cow disease. “Our team has defined a second prion protein called ‘Shadoo’, that exists in addition to the well-known prion protein called ‘PrP’ ” said Professor David Westaway, director of the Centre for Prions and Protein Folding Diseases at the University of Alberta.

Brain imaging has revealed a breakdown in normal patterns of emotional processing that impairs the ability of people with clinical depression to suppress negative emotional states. Efforts by depressed patients to suppress their feelings when viewing emotionally negative images enhanced activity in several brain areas, including the amygdala, known to play a role in generating emotion, according to a report in the August 15 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

Researchers have found that New Caledonian crows—which are known to make complex food-getting tools in the wild—can also spontaneously use one tool on another to get a snack. The researchers report their findings online August 16 in Current Biology, a publication of Cell Press.

Rather than striking out to raise their family, members of some bird species cooperate to help raise their siblings, nephews, nieces, cousins -- or even unrelated young. Researchers have long noted which factors lead to these seemingly altruistic decisions, but now for the first time, Cornell researchers have linked a specific environmental factor to the evolution of cooperative family life in numerous bird species: unpredictable rainfall.

Research from The University of Nottingham sheds new light on a fascinating phenomenon of the natural world — the ability of some species to reproduce sexually without a partner.

A vaccine against anthrax that is more effective and easier to administer than the present vaccine has proved highly effective in tests in mice and guinea pigs, report University of Michigan Medical School scientists in the August issue of Infection and Immunity.

Two University of Chicago psychologists, Louise Hawkley and John Cacioppo, have been trying to disentangle social isolation, loneliness, and the physical deterioration and diseases of aging, right down to the cellular level.