When we learn, we associate a sensory experience with other stimuli or with a certain type of behavior.

The neurons in the cerebral cortex that transmit the information modify the synaptic connections that they have with the other neurons and according to a generally accepted model of synaptic plasticity, a neuron that communicates with others of the same kind emits an electrical impulse as well as activating its synapses transiently. This electrical pulse, combined with the signal received from other neurons, acts to stimulate the synapses.

Energy drinks can cause heart problems according to research presented yesterday at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2014 today by Professor Milou-Daniel Drici from France.

Image credit:  Peter Blanchard via flickr | http://bit.ly/1q1sNlt. Rights information: http://bit.ly/c34Awz

By:  Benjamin Plackett,  Inside Science

(Inside Science) -- It may be unintentional, but it’s possible that your car insurer may know a lot more about where you go than you’d like.

Checking for glaucoma. Image credit: communityeyehealth,  CC BY-NC

By David Crabb, City University London

Scientists have proposed a way to monitor glaucoma using a tiny device implanted in the eye. Readings from the device could be monitored by a smartphone. The technology could help prevent some people from going blind.

A new study finds that 'good' cholesterol is damaged by a sugar-derived substance, methylglyoxal (MG), was found to damage the 'good' cholesterol High Density Lipoprotein - HDL - which removes excess levels of bad cholesterol from the body.

Methylglyoxal is formed from glucose in the body. It is 40,000 times more reactive than glucose and damages arginine residue (amino acid) in HDL at functionally important site causing the particle to become unstable.

Research that found links between abortion and breast cancer also found men who had 'much opportunity to participate in parties' were more likely to have stomach cancer. Credit: burningmax/Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA

By Louise Keogh, University of Melbourne

New research on the treatment of 'hardcore' female Mau Mau prisoners by the British in the late 1950s sheds new light on how ideas about gender, deviancy and mental health shaped colonial practices of punishment.

The treatment of the Mau Mau by the British has led to compensation claims in the courts. Last year the British government agreed to pay out £19.9m in costs and compensation to more than 5,000 elderly Kenyans who suffered torture and abuse during the Mau Mau uprising in the 50s. Two of those involved in the recent case were women and further female compensation cases are pending.

Nitrous oxide (N₂O) is a potent greenhouse gas that is also responsible for destroying the ozone layer. 

INRA researchers in Dijon have shown that the ability of soils to eliminate N₂O can mainly be explained by the diversity and abundance of a new group of micro-organisms that are capable of transforming it into atmospheric nitrogen (N₂). The results underline the importance of microbial diversity to the functioning of soils and the services they deliver.

Until the second half of the nineties, when the LEP collider started to be upgraded to investigate higher centre-of-mass energies of electron-positron collisions than those until then produced at the Z mass, the Higgs boson was not the main focus of experiments exploring the high-energy frontier. The reason is that the expected cross section of that particle was prohibitively small for the comparatively low luminosities provided by the facilities available at the time. Of course, one could still look for anomalously high-rate production of final states possessing the characteristics of a Higgs boson decay; but those searches had a limited appeal.

Jack The Ripper is famous - everyone in the Western world has heard of the unsolved case of the Whitechapel serial killer who preyed on prostitutes for a few months in 1888.

There were only five (or six) of those murders almost 130 years ago yet today there are 17 different grisly tours in London's East End about them.