French CNRS scientists in collaboration have shown that a memory of a traumatic event can be wiped out, although other, associated recollections remain intact. This is what a scientist in the Laboratory for the Neurobiology of Learning, Memory and Communication (CNRS/Orsay University), working with an American team, has recently demonstrated in the rat. This result could be used to cure patients suffering from post-traumatic stress.

The last quadripolar magnet was brought down into the tunnel of the world’s largest particle accelerator; the CERN’s1 LHC, or Large Hadron Collidor. This magnet is part of a series of 392 units which will ensure that the beams are kept on track all along their trajectory through the tunnel. Its installation marks the completion of a long and fruitful collaboration between the CERN, the CNRS/IN2P32 and the CEA/DSM3 in the field of superconductivity and advanced cryogenics. This collaboration has lasted over ten years and was part of the special contribution made by France, as the host country, to the construction of the LHC.

Previously, only amorphous polymer materials approached such levels of performance. On the other hand, these “gigantic respiration” and their respiration, which takes place at constant overall shape, is reversible. This discovery, of interest for numerous industrial applications, is published in the journal Science on March 30, 2007.

The next time you are struggling to carry your bags home from the supermarket just remember that this could, in fact, be the reason you are able to walk upright on two legs at all! How we have evolved to walk on two legs remains a fundamental but, as yet, unresolved question for scientists. A popular explanation is that it is our ability to carry objects, particularly children, which forced early hominins onto two legs. Dr Johanna Watson (University of Manchester) will present work supporting this theory on Saturday 31st March 2007 at the Society for Experimental Biology's Annual Meeting in Glasgow.

Box jellyfish are much more active swimmers than other jellyfish – they exhibit strong directional swimming, are able to perform rapid 180 degree turns, and can deftly move in between objects. So how do they manage to manoeuvre the obstacle course that is in the sea bed? Given that they possess an impressive 24 eyes one would think they would be well equipped for this challenge! Dr Anders Garm (Lund University, Sweden) will present data demonstrating that it is one particular sub-set of eyes that performs this job, at the Society of Experimental Biology’s Annual Meeting in Glasgow (31st March – 2nd April).

Most people know that their nails always go soft and bendy when they immerse them in hot water for any length of time. Conversely when you cut your nails they dry up and become hard and brittle. But why is this? Biologists working with material scientists at the University of Manchester have worked out the best conditions for our nails which may ultimately help the cosmetic industry to mimic the real thing and refine their false nail and varnish products.

Dr Roland Ennos and his colleagues have found that our nails are at their best at a humidity of around 60%, which is the natural humidity of the fingernail bed in which the nail sits at the ends of our fingers.