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Certain types of video games can help to train the brain to become more agile and improve strategic thinking, according to scientists from UCL and Queen Mary University of London. The researchers recruited 72 volunteers and measured their 'cognitive flexibility', described as a person's ability to adapt and switch between tasks, and think about multiple ideas at a given time to solve problems.

Researchers have shown that ancient Egyptian iron beads held at the UCL Petrie Museum were hammered from pieces of meteorites, rather than iron ore. The objects, which trace their origins to outer space, also predate the emergence of iron smelting by two millennia. Carefully hammered into thin sheets before being rolled into tubes, the nine beads - which are over 5000 years-old - were originally strung into a necklace together with other exotic minerals such as gold and gemstones, revealing the high value of this exotic material in ancient times.

The essence of male beauty is down to the way males use their genes rather than what genes they have, according to a new study into the sexual attractiveness of turkeys. Geneticists have long puzzled over why individuals of the same sex show a greater or lesser degree of sexual attractiveness. In other words - why are some people better looking than others when they're genetically similar? In a new study, published today in the journal PLoS Genetics, scientists turned to male wild turkeys to solve the problem.

A team of astronomers including two researchers from UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory has made the first ever measurement of the magnetic field at a specific spot on the surface of a magnetar. Magnetars are a type of neutron star, the dense and compact core of a giant star which has blasted away its outer layers in a supernova explosion.

Researchers at the UCL Institute of Child Health (ICH) are investigating a new treatment that could work alongside folic acid to boost its effectiveness and prevent a greater proportion of neural tube defects - such as spina bifida - in early pregnancy. A new study published in the journal Brain shows that the new treatment, when tested in mice, reduced the incidence of neural tube defects (NTDs) by 85 per cent.

Researchers have discovered how genetic mutations linked to Parkinson's disease might play a key role in the death of brain cells, potentially paving the way for the development of more effective drug treatments. In the new study, published , a team of researchers from UCL, the University of Cambridge and the University of Sheffield showed how defects in the Parkinson's gene Fbxo7 cause problems with 'mitaphagy' - an essential process through which our bodies are able to get rid of damaged cells.

New research from UCLPartners, and funded by the NHS in London, has shown that centralising acute stroke services in particular London hospitals has led to significant reductions in both mortality and costs. Before 2010, stroke services in London were provided in 30 acute hospitals across the region.

The threat of infants being killed by unrelated males is the key driver of monogamy in humans and other primates. The study by academics from UCL, University of Manchester, University of Oxford and University of Auckland, is the first to reveal this evolutionary pathway for the emergence of pair living.

The final biological events in the life of a worm have been described by scientists at UCL, revealing how death spreads like a wave from cell to cell until the whole organism is dead. Watch video When individual cells die, it triggers a chemical chain reaction that leads to the breakdown of cell components and a build-up of molecular debris.

UCL scientists have carried out the first successful transplant of light-sensitive photoreceptor cells extracted from a synthetic retina, grown 'in a dish' from embryonic stem cells. When transplanted into night-blind mice these cells appeared to develop normally, integrating into the existing retina and forming the nerve connections needed to transmit visual information to the brain.

Researchers at UCL and University College London Hospital NHS Foundation Trust are involved in a landmark study to unlock the secrets of lung cancer, tracking in real time how lung tumours develop and evolve as patients receive treatment. This is one of the largest ever studies of lung cancer patients globally and over nine years it will examine exactly how lung cancers mutate, adapt and become resistant to treatments.

The discovery of a protein that encourages blood vessel growth, and especially 'bad' blood vessels - the kind that characterise diseases as diverse as cancer, age-related macular degeneration and rheumatoid arthritis - has been reported in the journal Nature . The team at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology discovered the new protein, called LRG1, by screening for mouse genes that are over-expressed in abnormal retinal blood vessels in diseased eyes.

An international team of researchers has discovered why people with a variation of the FTO gene that affects one in six of the population are 70 per cent more likely to become obese. A new study led by scientists at UCL, the Medical Research Council (MRC) and King's College London Institute of Psychiatry shows that people with the obesity-risk FTO variant have higher circulating levels of the 'hunger hormone', ghrelin, in their blood.

A major study published today in the Lancet Neurology , funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Stroke Association, found that stenting in the carotid artery (in the neck) is as safe as carotid artery surgery at reducing stroke risk in some patients. The research, which was part of the International Carotid Stenting Study (ICSS), reveals that stenting is equally as safe as surgery in patients who show few signs of changes to brain tissue (known as white matter lesions) in a brain scan.

A solar tsunami observed by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and the Japanese Hinode spacecraft has been used to provide the first accurate estimates of the Sun's magnetic field. Solar tsunamis are produced by enormous explosions in the Sun's atmosphere called coronal mass ejections (CMEs). As the CME travels out into space, the tsunami travels across the Sun at speeds of up to 1000 kilometres per second.

The combination of smoking and heavy drinking speeds up cognitive decline, according to a new study by researchers in UCL Epidemiology & Public Health. The research, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry , found that smokers who drank alcohol heavily had a 36% faster cognitive decline compared to non-smoking moderate drinkers.

A breakthrough in our understanding of the properties of titania (titanium dioxide) - the basis of self-cleaning window technology - has been made by scientists at UCL, uncovering a decades old misunderstanding that has clouded our knowledge of how mixed phase titania catalysts operate. By carrying out cutting-edge computational simulations alongside precise experimental measurements of physical samples of the mineral, scientists at UCL found that the widely accepted explanation for how mixed phase titania catalysts operate was misguided.

A new technique for detecting cancer by imaging the consumption of sugar with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been unveiled by UCL scientists. The breakthrough could provide a safer and simpler alternative to standard radioactive techniques and enable radiologists to image tumours in greater detail.

The rate and extent of damage to the spinal cord and brain following spinal cord injury have long been a mystery. Now, a joint research effort by UCL, the University of Zurich and University Hospital Balgrist has found evidence that patients already have irreversible tissue loss in the spinal cord within 40 days of injury.

Epidemiology and gene sequencing technologies have been used by researchers in the UK, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the US and Canada to show that the novel Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus can spread between people in healthcare settings. The work is published in the New England Journal of Medicine today .