A 21-year study of over 2,300 rivers in Britain measured the presence of clean-river invertebrates - a yardstick for river health –   and found they are the cleanest they've been in over two decades. During the days of heavy industry and poor sewage treatment,
clean-river invertebrates
had declined considerably, but now appear to be making a comeback, say scholars
from Cardiff University 

Dr. Ian Vaughan and Professor Steve Ormerod from the University's School of Biosciences analyzed changes in the occurrence and spread of insects, snails and other mini-beasts from major rivers between 1991 and 2011. The researchers then asked whether water quality, temperature or river flow best explained the biological changes they observed.

New research in the journal Sleep
and being presented Wednesday, June 4th in Minneapolis at SLEEP 2014 suggests that marijuana use is associated with impaired sleep quality.

A new study in mice has shown that a previously developed male hormonal (testosterone) oral contraceptive method is unable to stop the production and / or the release of sperm.  

A group of researchers have erased memories in rats, profoundly altering the animals' reaction to past events. Then they put them back.

The study is the first to show the ability to selectively remove a memory and predictably reactivate it by stimulating nerves in the brain at frequencies that are known to weaken and strengthen the connections between nerve cells - synapses.

The scientists optically stimulated a group of nerves in a rat's brain that had been genetically modified to make them sensitive to light, and simultaneously delivered an electrical shock to the animal's foot. The rats soon learned to associate the optical nerve stimulation with pain and displayed fear behaviors when these nerves were stimulated.

New research reveals that bilingualism has a positive effect on cognition later in life. Findings published in Annals of Neurology, a journal of the American Neurological Association and Child Neurology Society, show that individuals who speak two or more languages, even those who acquired the second language in adulthood, may slow down cognitive decline from aging.

Like blonde hair? You can thank the Kit ligand gene.

A single-letter change in the genetic code is enough to generate blond hair in humans, according to a new analysis by Howard Hughes Medical Institute scientists which has pinpointed that change, common in the genomes of Northern Europeans.

A handful of genes likely determine hair color in humans and the precise molecular basis of the trait remains poorly understood, and discovery of the genetic hair-color switch didn't begin with a deep curiosity about golden locks. It began with fish.