If you’re often paralyzed with worry and can’t utter a word in social situations, stop faulting your mother – your lack of intercalated (ITC) neurons is to blame. Neuroscientists from Rutgers University in New York shed a light on anxiety last week, when they published a paper that pinpoints which brain cells are responsible for fear.

The effects of smoking have been well documented. Heart disease and emphysema, lung cancer and yellow teeth; the list seems to go on forever. Well, add one more to that list: enhanced memory. A new study conducted at King’s College in London indicates that the addictive and highly toxic chemical nicotine might improve memory and stave off the onset of dementia.

The human brain is still largely an unsolved mystery. We only marginally understand how it works and are even less able to predict how it will behave in certain situations. One of the most frustrating of those situations is the coma. Anecdotes abound of people in comas who unexpectedly wake from them, much to their doctors' surprise. But what if doctors could get ahead of that surprise with a predictor of whether or not a patient will regain consciousness? A team of Belgian scientists have proposed just such a clue.

In my Science Confirms the Obvious post today, I discussed the first psychological proof (so say the authors) that humans can indeed experience emotions without immediately knowing why. We do this, they say, because we evolved that way. True, scientists love that explanation, but here its quite intriguing.

Say youre walking through the woods and encounter a grizzly bear. You see it and freeze that instant—even before your stomach drops with fear.

Alan Gevins and his team at SAM Technology in San Francisco are nearing the end of a large study analyzing the effects of various drugs on cognitive performance. An editor at Technology Review recently visited their offices, and downed a stiff cocktail, to experience their work first-hand.

Silicon Valley is mostly a world of practical technology—applying principles from pure science to create handy gadgets. But today, Hewlett Packard announced a new electrical component born of theoretical physics. The device, a nanoscale component called a "memristor," requires no power to retain data, which it can store more densely than a hard drive and access about as fast as a computers RAM memory—potentially allowing it to replace both components in the future.

Yet more news today about how our brains work and how they give off signals in advance of certain actions. We just told you about a study which detected brain activity slowdown in response to repetitive tasks and the way in which it can be an indicator for increased mistakes. We're seeing another study today about a different brain activity that may reveal a decision before that decision is actually made.

We probably didn't need a formalized brain study to tell us that we zone out during repetitive and/or monotonous tasks and that mistakes are more commonly made when we do. That much we've figured out for ourselves. Fortunately, though, the study by scientists at the University of Bergen in Norway and Southampton University in the UK discovered something else about those times when we space.

Last month, we looked at the ways in which language is tied to our perception of color. As it turns out, our understanding of color varies depending on which language we use to represent it. Now, new research from the University of Hong Kong is demonstrating a similar principle with dyslexia. It is not a disorder which manifests itself in the same way in every child. Instead, the research has shown that it appears in a different region of the brain depending on whether someone is a native English or Chinese speaker.

The Alzheimers Association released a report yesterday with some frightening estimates regarding the future of the brain-wasting disease. One out of every eight baby boomers are likely to develop Alzheimers at some point, and the disease is now the seventh deadliest in the country.

By 2010, there will be 500,000 new cases each year. By 2050, that number will jump to a million. This means the costs of caring for these patients are, naturally, going to jump dramatically.

For six years after a brutal beating, a 38-year-old man lay in a minimally conscious state, effectively unable to communicate. Then, with the permission of his family, a team of neuroscientists at New Yorkâ€Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical College and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation attempted a last-resort experimental treatment known as deep brain stimulation, or DBS. Using brain scans as a guide, they implanted tiny electrodes deep in the man´s head and wired them to a pacemaker-like device beneath his collarbone.

Though men do seem to be getting better at playing stay-at-home dad, they still can´t claim to be the best fathers in the animal kingdom. Among primates, that honor may belong to marmosets, small tree-dwelling monkeys whose males spend 70 percent of their time caring for newborns. The result of all this baby time, according to new research, adds up to more than just a sensitive monkey. The nurturing actually boosts mental activity.

Need to lose some flab?

Car engines have been governed by computers for years, but Honda’s iGX440 (honda.com) is the first power-equipment engine with a microchip. The electronically regulated iGX440which will show up in lawn mowers, water pumps and pressure washers later this yearruns at a constant engine speed even under changing loads. Thick grass usually causes mower engines to slow, bogging down whomever's pushing the machine, but the iGX440 maintains speed, and thus power, by giving the engine more gas and manipulating ignition timing.