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Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL and Aarhus University in Denmark have found that the 'reward' area of the brain is activated when people agree with our opinions. The study, published today in the journal Current Biology , suggests that scientists may be able to predict how much people can be influenced by the opinions of others on the basis of the level of activity in the reward area.

The Summary Care Record (SCR) and HealthSpace technologies, introduced in the NHS as part of the National Programme for IT (NPfIT), have so far demonstrated only modest benefits according to the final report of a three-year independent evaluation carried out by UCL researchers. The report's publication coincides with the publication of a research paper based on the findings in the British Medical Journal .

Sculptures, paintings, installations and audiovisual work by this year's graduating MA students from the UCL Slade School of Fine Art are now on display on UCL's main campus. The final year students on the MA/MFA Fine Art programmes will be showcasing their work at the Slade School in UCL's main quad from 10'16 June.

The mechanism by which 'polycomb' proteins critical for embyronic stem cell function and fate are targeted to DNA has been identified by UCL scientists. The discovery, which has implications for the fields of stem cell and tissue engineering, is detailed in research published today in the journal Molecular Cell .

Second-hand smoke exposure is associated with psychological distress and risk of future psychiatric illness, according to new UCL research that suggests the harmful affects of passive smoking go beyond physical health. The new research, published today in the Archives of General Psychiatry , examined the associations between mental health and second hand smoke (SHS) exposure ? known as passive smoking ? by measuring the circulating biochemical marker cotinine, which is found in saliva and can be used to measure levels of exposure to tobacco smoke.

In the UK we each travel an annual 7,000 miles in the course of our daily routines - a distance equivalent to a return trip from London to New York. It has been assumed that if our finances allowed, we would travel even further in search of a greater choice of schools, shops and places of work. However, a new paper from the UCL Centre for Transport Studies shows that demand for routine 'daily travel' has already reached saturation point.

People with poor oral hygiene have an increased risk of heart disease compared to those who brush their teeth twice a day, according to UCL research published today on BMJ.com. In the last 20 years there has been increased interest in links between heart problems and gum disease.

PhD student Jay Stone (UCL MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology) discusses the implications for science of the current inequities in British libel law. In science, healthy debate and discussion of each other's work is crucial. We all read papers and discuss what we think about them; whether we agree with their controls, their statistical analysis, whether we would have drawn the same conclusions.

The publication seeks to demonstrate the contribution made by London universities and higher education colleges to their home town. To download the publication, or to find out more about UCL's London-related activities, use the links at the top of this article.

Is it possible to have the illusion that your body has changed radically, or that a different body is your body? Mel Slater, Professor of Virtual Environments at UCL Computer Science, describes the findings and scientific applications of research he has conducted into the phenomenon of 'body transfer' in virtual reality, published today in PLoS ONE .

Working overtime is bad for the heart according to the results from a long-running UCL-led study of more than 10,000 civil servants in London. The research, published online today in the European Heart Journal , found that, compared with people who did not work overtime, people who worked three or more hours longer than a normal, seven-hour day had a 60% higher risk of heart-related problems such as death due to heart disease, non-fatal heart attacks and angina.

The research, led by Dr Daniel Ndisang (UCL Institute of Child Health) and made possible by funding from the Association for International Research (AICR), could significantly reduce the death rate from the devastating disease. Cervical cancer accounts for about one in 10 female cancer deaths worldwide each year.

UCL scientists have discovered that stretches of human DNA act as a traitor to the body's defences by helping viruses infect people and trigger cancer-causing diseases. The research, which was undertaken at the UCL Cancer Institute and funded by Cancer Research UK, and published in Nature Cell Biology today, revealed that viruses can exploit the body's DNA ' dampening its antiviral immune response and allowing infection to take hold more easily.

In a study published earlier this month in The British Journal of Psychiatry , researchers from the UCL Institute of Child Health (ICH) have demonstrated that up to one-third of children who are at risk of being excluded from school for disruptive behaviour could have undiagnosed social communication problems of an autistic type.

Scientists from UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) have identified a heavyweight contender for the crown of biggest comet on record. Dr Geraint Jones and his colleagues used data from the ESA/NASA Ulysses spacecraft to gauge the size of the region of space disturbed by the Comet McNaught.

The merits of a new treatment method for advanced gall bladder and bile duct cancer, trialled by the Cancer Research UK & UCL Cancer Trials Centre, have been published today. Advanced gall bladder and bile duct cancer, for which patients currently can?t have operations, together affect fewer than 2,000 people per year in the UK, making trials harder to run.

UCL's Professor John Butterworth, who led the UK development of one of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) detectors, explains the significance of the record-breaking particle collisions achieved today. Protons collided at seven trillion volts ? the highest energies ever achieved by a man-made particle accelerator ? at CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research), which houses the LHC, near Geneva.

The ability to digest the milk sugar lactose ? also known as lactase persistence ? is a selectively advantageous and recent evolutionary genetic trait, which emerged about 7,500 years ago in Europe and probably later in other parts of the world. This means that, once weaned, people in most parts of the world (large parts of Africa, most of Asia, and Oceania) cannot digest milk for the rest of their life.

The dinosaurs died out as a result of a huge asteroid strike rather than the eruption of a super volcano, according to a study published today in the journal Science . Dr Paul Bown (UCL Earth Sciences) was part of a panel of researchers who analysed more than two decades? worth of evidence to determine the cause of the Cretaceous?Tertiary (KT) mass extinction.

Women's community groups have had a dramatic effect on reducing neonatal mortality rates in some of the poorest areas on India, according to new UCL research. The study, published today in The Lancet , reports that the groups provide a cost-effective intervention with added benefits such as reducing significantly maternal depression and improving decision-making amongst the women.