A brain isn't born fully organized. It builds its abilities through experience, making physical connections between neurons and organizing circuits to store and retrieve information in milliseconds for years afterwards.

Much of human DNA is the genetic equivalent of e-mail spam: short repeated sequences that have no obvious function other than making more of themselves.

New and old memories have been selectively and safely removed from mice by scientists.

Columbia University's International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) has received $900,000 from Google.org to improve the use of climate information to predict disease outbreaks in East Africa. The award is part of a wider Google program that funds projects to map hot spots of emerging diseases and improve early-warning systems in resource-poor countries.

The work follows a study carried out by Oregon Health and Science University, which suggested a link between a gene mutation in mice and tolerance to alcohol. Researchers at Liverpool have investigated this in worms, looking specifically at the role the gene plays in communication between cells in the nervous system.

A new anti-cancer compound that works by blocking a part of the cell's machinery that is crucial for cell division has shown promising results in a phase I clinical trial in patients who have failed to respond to other treatments. Now it is going forward into a phase II clinical trial programme. In addition, the compound will also be tested in combination with other anti-cancer drugs to see whether combined therapies could be even more effective.

Blocking the signals from a protein that activates cells in the immune system could help kill cells that cause a rare form of blood cancer, according to physicists and oncologists who combined computer modeling and molecular biology in their discovery.

Hypnosis can induce synaesthetic experiences – where one sense triggers the involuntary use of another – according to a new study by UCL (University College London) researchers. The findings suggests that people with synaesthesia, contrary to popular belief, do not necessarily have extra connections in their brain; rather, their brains may simply do more 'cross talking' and this can be induced by changing inhibitory processes in the average brain.