Neuroscientists have developed a new tool that lights up active conversations between neurons during a behavior or sensory experience, such as smelling a banana.

The scientists accomplished their feat by focusing on three of the sensory systems in Drosophila melanogaster - fruit flies, a model animal for learning about the brain and its communication channels.  Using fluorescent molecules of different colors to tag neurons in the brain to see which connections were active during a sensory experience that happened hours earlier.

People born with a rare genetic mutation are unable to feel pain, but previous attempts to recreate this effect with drugs have had surprisingly little success. Using mice modified to carry the same mutation, UCL researchers funded by the MRC and Wellcome Trust have now discovered the recipe for painlessness.

'Channels' that allow messages to pass along nerve cell membranes are vital for electrical signalling in the nervous system. In 2006, it was shown that sodium channel Nav1.7 is particularly important for signalling in pain pathways and people born with non-functioning Nav1.7 do not feel pain. Drugs that block Nav1.7 have since been developed but they had disappointingly weak effects.

Workplace incivility should be treated with the utmost seriousness. This is the finding of three psychologists at Lund University in Sweden who surveyed nearly 6 000 people on the social climate in the workplace. Their studies show that being subjected to rudeness is a major reason for dissatisfaction at work and that unpleasant behaviour spreads if nothing is done about it.

Nowadays, much emphasis is placed on sustainability. The degree to which people are willing to donate their own money for this depends on their level of oxytocin. Scientists at the University of Bonn Hospital have discovered that the willingness to donate increases with the quantity of this bonding hormone. However, oxytocin only has an effect with regard to social sustainability projects. The hormone does not increase the ability to participate in the case of purely environmentally oriented projects. The scientists are now reporting their results in "The Journal of Neuroscience".

Some children are born with cleft palates and, of those children, some have an asymmetrical face and a malformed ear. A team of scientists led by Berlin-based researcher Enno Klußmann of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) has taken an important step towards discovering the genetic causes of this condition, known as Goldenhar syndrome.

A collaboration between the University of Cambridge and MedImmune, the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca, has led researchers to identify a potentially significant new application for a well-known human enzyme, which may have implications for treating respiratory diseases such as asthma.

Enzymes are biological catalysts - molecules that speed up chemical reactions within living materials. Many enzymes are already well characterised and their functions fairly well understood. For example, the enzyme known as MMP8 is present in the connective tissue of most mammals, where it breaks the chemical bonds found in collagen.

Though most government workers enjoy a good life - in the last decade salaries rose to 'compete with the private sector' and they were the only group that has not suffered unemployment under the lingering recession - they are not immune from criticism. Recently there have been calls to reduce benefits for teachers and a group of academics are proactively defending them.

The difference between mild sexual difficulties and diagnosable sexual dysfunction is an ongoing debate among health professionals, but it has been stirred up recently by changes to diagnostic criteria. Unlike science and medicine, psychology still uses symptom-based diagnosis, and the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) is vague because it specifies symptoms lasting at least 6 months, occurring almost always in sexual encounters, and causing  distress in order to be considered a sexual dysfunction.

Though activists on the poles of science and religion see science and religion as being in conflict, most in science and most of the public do not. Instead, most recognize 'non-overlapping magisteria' and leave the philosophical subjects aside to theologians and explaining the universe according to natural laws to scientists.

Coastal communities around the world are being increasingly exposed to the hazards of rising sea levels, with global sea levels found to be rising faster over the past two decades than for the bulk of the 20th century.

But managing the impacts of rising seas for some communities is being made more difficult by the actions of governments, homeowners – and even some well-intentioned climate adaptation practitioners.