An important prerequisite for intelligence is a good short-term memory which can store and process the information needed for ongoing processes. This 'working memory' is a kind of mental notepad – without it, we could not follow a conversation, do mental arithmetic or play any simple game.

A new study has discovered neurons allowing crows to remember short-term. In the animal kingdom, the group of birds including crows and ravens, the corvids, are known for their intelligence because they have just such a working memory, but their endbrain – which is highly-developed but has a fundamentally different structure from that of mammals – has no cerebral cortex; and that is the part of the brain which in mammals produces the working memory.

700 people under the age of 25 die by suicide in the UK per year. 160 young people under the age of 20 die by suicide in England each year and there are higher rates of suicide in young people in Scotland and Northern Ireland than in England and Wales.

Why? Is it economics? Copycat culture? 

The National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness (Inquiry), led by Professor Louis Appleby of the University of Manchester, is carrying out an investigation to examine causes and recommend prevention strategies. The investigation will look at the role of social media and Internet sites in suicides as well as suicides which appear to occur in clusters or follow a copy-cat pattern.  

The World Cup is fast approaching and with it come no end to projections, estimations and forecasts about who is going to do what. 

Using a Bayes analysis, once you reach the semifinal you have a 50 percent chance of being correct - just like flipping a coin. But can it work before then? Yes, is you do enough simulations.  But before you fire up your copy of Championship Manager and try to play 100 times, there is an easier solution.

Liberal critics have always panned 1965's "The Sound of Music" as conservative and schmaltzy, a throwback to the 1950s during a decade that claimed to be about revolution and progress.

Yet the public loves it. 

London academic Martin Gorsky has an explanation that critics seem to have missed: the film actually ‘helped constitute’ an understanding of society.

Gorsky explains that the film’s treatment of two contemporary issues - the importance of play and emotion in childrearing, and post-war perspectives of Fascism – were fundamental to the widespread popularity of the film.

Agricultural science has made magnificent strides in the last few decades. Where once was rampant concern about mass starvation and food riots, farmers in developed nations are now producing more food on more land than once thought possible.

But the quest to use even fewer pesticides continues. Products need to protect plants against fungal and insect attack but the goal is to do that with fewer negative effects on the environment. Researchers are working to improve plant protection and one strategy is optimizing the interaction between the plant's barrier, plant protection products and adjuvants that are added to increase the effect of plant protection. 

Young children instinctively use a ‘language-like’ structure to communicate through gestures, a result which suggests that children are not just learning language from older generations, but instead their preference for communication has shaped how languages look today.

In the paper, the research team examined how four-year-olds, 12-year-olds and adults used gestures to communicate in the absence of speech. The study investigated whether their gesturing breaks down complex information into simpler concepts. This is similar to the way that language expresses complex information by breaking it down into units (such as words) to express a simpler concept, which are then strung together into a phrase or sentence.