Enhancing the effects of dopamine influences how people make life choices by affecting expectations of pleasure, according to new research from the UCL Institute of Neurology.

 Published today in Current Biology, the study confirms an important role for dopamine in how human expectations are formed and how people make complex decisions. It also contributes to an understanding of how pleasure expectation can go awry, for example in drug addiction.

The study builds on earlier research which used brain imaging as participants imagined holiday destinations. An area of the brain called the straitum tracked expectations and the

The concept of altruism, a selfless concern for the welfare of others, a traditional virtue in many cultures and a core aspect of various religious traditions,  has long been debated in philosophical circles.  More recently, evolutionary biologists have joined the debate, saying that altruism may have evolved because any action that improves the likelihood of a relative's survival and reproduction increases the chance of an individual's DNA being passed on.

With the COP15 conference fast approaching, the world's political leaders are gearing up to hash out a global agreement that will save us from ever increasing greenhouse gas emissions and the unstoppable climate change that will follow.

New research published this week in Geophysical Research Letters, however, may complicate their plans. The new research, conducted by a professor of Earth Science at the University of Bristol, shows that the balance between the airborne and the absorbed fraction of CO2 has stayed approximately constant since 1850, despite emissions of CO2 having risen from about 2 billion tons a year in 1850 to 35 billion tons a year now.

After the successful introduction of myspace, facebook, twitter and however many other social networking sites that now exist, researchers at London's Natural History Museum have created a social networking tool called 'Scratchpads' just for natural historians. The platform is designed to get specialists together to share their data and prevent the discipline from being buried under a landslide of painstakingly collected data that isn't always used.

If you're sore from a strenuous workout or your thumb is pulsating because you hit it with a hammer, look at a pretty picture or listen to your favorite song. It just might help you cope with whatever unpleasant feeling you're experiencing . That's the conclusion of a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that looked at the connection between human emotions and physical pain.

"Emotions – or mood – can alter how we react to pain since they're interlinked," says lead author Mathieu Roy. "Our tests revealed when pain is perceived by our brain and how that pain can be amplified when combined with negative emotions."

Scientists say they can now tell the condition of an old book by its odor. In a report published in Analytical Chemistry, a team of researchers describe development of a new test that can measure the degradation of old books and precious historical documents on the basis of their aroma. The non-destructive "sniff" test could help libraries and museums preserve a range of prized paper-based objects, some of which are degrading rapidly due to advancing age, the scientists say.

The new technique — an approach called "material degradomics" — analyzes the gases emitted by old books and documents without altering the documents themselves. The scientists used it to "sniff" 72 historical papers from the 19th and 20th centuries.