The vocal learning process in the zebra finch offers a model system to study the neural and behavioral mechanisms by which humans learn to produce sounds. Songbirds such as zebra finches have specialized areas of their brains devoted to communication. That is why they have been used as animal models to study speech disorders, such as stuttering. It is estimated that more than 3 million Americans stutter.

Want to play the ultimate version of The X-Men's "Wolverine" this Halloween? You'll need self-healing skin after those claws come out. Researchers at the University of Illinois are here to help. They have invented the next generation of self-healing materials, which mimics human skin by healing itself time after time. The new materials rely upon embedded, three-dimensional microvascular networks that emulate biological circulatory systems.

Rome's Mayor Walter Veltroni will officiate at the first public viewing of "Rome Reborn 1.0," a 10-year project based at the University of Virginia and begun at UCLA to use advanced technology to digitally rebuild ancient Rome.

“Rome Reborn 1.0" shows almost the entire city within the 13-mile-long Aurelian Walls as it appeared in A.D. 320. At that time Rome was the multicultural capital of the western world and had reached the peak of its development with an estimated population of one million.

An international research team has discovered a gene that, when mutated, causes one of the most common forms of inherited blindness in babies. Scientists at the University of Leeds, working in collaboration with experts from other centres around the world, identified the gene, which is essential to photoreceptors in the eye, the cells that "see" light.

A human cell contains an enormous 1.8 metres of DNA partitioned into 46 chromosomes. These have to be copied and distributed equally into two daughter cells at every division.

Condensation, the shortening of chromosomes, allows the cell to handle such huge amounts of genetic material during cell division and helps preventing fatal defects in chromosome separation. Now researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) for the first time tracked chromosome condensation in mammalian cells over the entire course of cell division.

More time at the beach? It's hard to tell, but research in the British Journal of Dermatology says there is a correlation between skin cancer and income.

Skin cancer rates are up, based on their studies of trends in Northern Ireland. Analzying official cancer statistics for nearly 23,000 patients over a 12-year period, they reported a 20 percent increase in patients and a 62 percent increase in skin cancer samples processed by pathology laboratories.

Being wealthy didn't protect anyone. Women living in affluent areas were 29 percent more likely than people living in disadvantaged areas to suffer from basal cell carcinoma and nearly two and a half times more likely to suffer from malignant melanoma.

Men displayed a similar pattern.