It is not surprising that a good night's sleep improves our ability to remember what we learned during the day. Now, researchers at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan have discovered a brain circuit that governs how certain memories are consolidated in the brain during sleep. Published in the May 26 issue of Science magazine, the study shows how experimentally manipulating the identified neural connection during non-REM sleep (deep sleep) can prevent or enhance memory retention in mice.

In our daily lives we constantly have to shift between habitual and goal-directed actions. For example, having to drive to a new place instead of driving home. Difficulties with stopping habits and shifting to goal-directed control underlie a number of neuropsychiatric disorders, including obsessive-compulsive disorder and addiction.

Malnourished children are most likely to die from common infections, not starvation alone, and immune disorder may be part of the cause, according to a review led by Queen Mary University of London.

The paper, published in Trends in Immunology, also indicates that even with a healthy diet, defects in immune system function from birth could contribute to a malnourished state throughout life. These altered immune systems could be passed down from generation to generation regardless of the diet of any offspring.

Researchers speculate that targeting immune pathways could be a new approach to reduce the poor health and mortality caused by under- and overnutrition.

Medical societies recommend that patients with advanced cancer receive palliative care soon after diagnosis, and receive hospice care for at least the last three days of their life. Those recommendations don't match real-life practice, according to Risha Gidwani, DrPH, a health economist at Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Economics Resource Center and colleagues who examined care received by all veterans over the age of 65 with cancer who died in 2012, a total of 11,896 individuals.

In the 1970s, current Obama administration science czar Dr. John Holdren wrote a book advocating various measures to stop global starvation, including a world government and mandatory birth control.

Food is no longer an issue, science took care of that despite the protestations of Holdren and fellow doomsday prophet Professor Paul Ehrlich, so culture moved onto something new that would require social engineering and selecting who gets to give birth: global warming.

250 methane flares release the climate gas methane from the seabed and into the Arctic Ocean. During the summer months this leads to an increased methane concentration in the ocean. But surprisingly, very little of the climate gas rising up through the sea reaches the atmosphere.

"Our results are exciting and controversial", says senior scientist Cathrine Lund Myhre from NILU - Norwegian Institute for Air Research, who is cooperating with CAGE through MOCA project.

The results were published in Geophysical Research Letters.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Prescribing certain medications on the basis of a patient's race has long come under fire from those uneasy with using race as a surrogate for biology when treating disease.

But there are multiple challenges to overcome before we can move beyond race-based treatment decisions, writes Duke University geneticist and bioethicist Charmaine Royal in a perspective piece published May 25 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

In "Will Precision Medicine Move Us beyond Race?" Royal and colleagues Vence Bonham of the National Institutes of Health and Shawneequa Callier of The George Washington University describe some of the thorny issues raised by race-based drugs.

Cincinnati, OH, May 27, 2016 -- Many pediatricians and pediatric subspecialists believe that their clinical care extends from treating ill children through end-of-life care. However, are pediatricians actually meeting the needs of families and their dying child? In a new study scheduled for publication in The Journal of Pediatrics, researchers surveyed bereaved parents and found that pediatric end-of-life care needs improvement.

A year and a half ago, researchers at Brown University found a molecular gas pedal for melanin production. Now they've found a brake. For scientists, the finding deepens not only the basic understanding of how eyes, skin and hair gain color, but also what perhaps can be done in disorders, such as albinism, when that doesn't happen.

The study in the Nature journal Scientific Reports shows that pigmentation is reduced by the activity of "TPC2," a protein that channels the flow of positive sodium ions out of the melanosomes, compartments that produce melanin in cells. When TPC2 lets those ions out, the inside of the melanosomes become more acidic, the researchers found, and that shuts down the enzyme that drives melanin production.

Government subsidies should be used to encourage investment in energy storage systems if renewable power is to be fully integrated into the sector, according to researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA).

Variable output renewable energy systems, such as wind turbines and solar panels, are growing across Europe and contribute to supply and price volatility in electricity markets.

Systems for energy storage, for example reversed hydro power plants, large scale compressed air systems and batteries, provide ways to compensate for this variable power supply by storing excess power and releasing it when there is a production shortage.