Smile! It makes everyone in the room feel better because they, consciously or unconsciously, are smiling with you. Growing evidence shows that an instinct for facial mimicry allows us to empathize with and even experience other people's feelings. If we can't mirror another person's face, it limits our ability to read and properly react to their expressions. A Review of this emotional mirroring appears February 11 in Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

The human brain is wired to pay attention to previously pleasing things -- a finding that could help explain why it's hard to break bad habits or stick to New Year's resolutions.

In the new issue of Current Biology, Johns Hopkins University neuroscientists demonstrate for the first time that when people see something associated with a past reward, their brain flushes with dopamine -- even if they aren't expecting a reward and even if they don't realize they're paying it any attention. The results suggest we don't have as much self-control as we might think.

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Feb. 11, 2016--Gravitational waves were predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity in 1916, and now, almost exactly 100 years later, the faint ripples across space-time have been found. The advanced Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory (aLIGO) has achieved the first direct measurement.

"We already have indirect evidence of gravitational wave emission from binary pulsars like the Hulse-Taylor system. But this aLIGO measurement provides the first direct detection and confirms what our modeling and simulation results have been suggesting - Einstein was right," said Christopher Fryer, Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellow and longtime researcher in this field.

Members of a research collaboration have succeeded in experimentally verifying the properties of crystals of chiral magnetic materials, which may lead to the development of new types of magnetic memories with unprecedented storage capacities. The collaboration "A Consortium to Exploit Spin Chirality in Advanced Materials" was established in 2015 between scientists in several countries including Japan, Russia, and the UK.

"It is a great success for our international consortium, as we achieved the result effectively by taking advantage of the organization that is composed of experts in various research fields," said Katsuya Inoue, the Japanese coordinator of the consortium and professor Hiroshima University's Graduate School of Science.

PHILADELPHIA (February 11, 2016) - Public health efforts to reduce dietary sodium intake have been hindered by an incomplete understanding of the complex process by which humans and other mammals detect salty taste.

Now, a multidisciplinary team from the Monell Center has further characterized the identity and functionality of salt-responding taste cells on the tongue. The knowledge may lead to novel approaches to develop salt replacers or enhancers that can help reduce the sodium content of food.

Graphene is going to change the world -- or so we've been told.

Since its discovery a decade ago, scientists and tech gurus have hailed graphene as the wonder material that could replace silicon in electronics, increase the efficiency of batteries, the durability and conductivity of touch screens and pave the way for cheap thermal electric energy, among many other things.

It's one atom thick, stronger than steel, harder than diamond and one of the most conductive materials on earth.