When it comes to accurately identifying a criminal suspect, it makes a difference how sure an eyewitness is, finds a study led by a memory expert at the University of California, San Diego. The American justice system should take note of eyewitness confidence, but only at the time of the initial identification and not at a later date in court. Working with victims and bystanders of actual robberies, the study also finds in favor of the traditional lineup procedure that presents suspects at the same time as known innocents, instead of individually.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a novel electrolyte for use in solid-state lithium batteries that overcomes many of the problems that plague other solid electrolytes while also showing signs of being compatible with next-generation cathodes.

Berkeley Lab battery scientist Nitash Balsara, working with collaborator Joseph DeSimone of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, came up with a highly conductive hybrid electrolyte, combining the two primary types of solid electrolytes--polymer and glass.

The brains of children who suffer clinical depression as preschoolers develop abnormally, compared with the brains of preschoolers unaffected by the disorder, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Their gray matter -- tissue that connects brain cells and carries signals between those cells and is involved in seeing, hearing, memory, decision-making and emotion -- is lower in volume and thinner in the cortex, a part of the brain important in the processing of emotions.

The new study is published Dec. 16 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Ice core records are rich archives of the climate history during glacial-interglacial cycles over timescales of up to ~800 kyr before the current age. In ice core studies, the accurate and precise dating of the core samples is a central issue that must be investigated to better constrain the timing, sequence, and duration of past climatic events.

It may be your liver (and not your better judgement) that keeps you away from excess sweets this holiday season. Two independent research groups have found the first evidence of a liver-derived hormone that specifically regulates intake of sugars and alcohol in mice. One of the studies also found that the same hormone suppresses the consumption of sweets in primates.

"A lot of work has examined the central mechanisms regulating sugar-seeking behavior, but the post-ingestive mechanisms regulating sugar appetite are poorly understood," says Matthew Potthoff of the University of Iowa, a senior author on one of the papers.

Australian scientists have for the first time revealed how malaria parasites cause an inflammatory reaction that sabotages our body's ability to protect itself against the disease.

The discovery opens up the possibility of improving new or existing malaria vaccines by boosting key immune cells needed for long-lasting immunity. This could even include vaccines that have previously been ineffective in clinical trials.

Researchers from Melbourne's Walter and Eliza Hall Institute discovered that the same inflammatory molecules that drive the immune response in clinical and severe malaria also prevent the body from developing protective antibodies against the parasite.