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The common antibiotic doxycycline can disrupt the formation of negative associations in the brain, according to new research from UCL and the University of Zurich. The study, published in Molecular Psychiatry, was a pre-registered, placebo-controlled, double-blind randomised controlled trial in 76 healthy volunteers.

The most common reasons given for the breakdown of marriages or live-in partnerships in Britain are communication problems and growing apart, according to analysis by UCL researchers of the latest National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal-3). Arguments and unfaithfulness were the next most frequent reasons given by both men and women.

Using a satnav to get to your destination 'switches off' parts of the brain that would otherwise be used to simulate different routes, reveals new UCL research. The study, published and funded by Wellcome, involved 24 volunteers navigating a simulation of Soho in central London while undergoing brain scans.

Flower-rich habitats are key to enhancing the survival of bumblebee families, according to new research involving UCL scientists. The team led by the UK's Centre for Ecology & Hydrology found that increasing flowers provided by spring-flowering trees, hedgerow plants and crops across the landscape - in combination with summer flower resources - can increase the probability of family survival to the next year by up to four times.

Scientists at UCL have developed a way to use MRI scans to help identify when HIV is persisting in the brain despite effective drug treatment. The study, published in Clinical Infectious Diseases and funded by Wellcome, shows that patients can have HIV in the brain even when the disease is kept under control by treatment.

UCL and language learning app Memrise have announced the winner of the first 'Memprize', a competition to find the world's most efficient and effective vocabulary learning technique. A team from Radboud University in the Netherlands won the prize after over a year of in-depth real-life empirical experiments involving more than 10,000 Memrise users as volunteers.

In flies and mice, diets based on an organism's genome enhance growth and fertility with no costs to lifespan, according to a team of researchers from UCL and the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne. A moderate reduction in food intake, known as dietary restriction, protects against multiple ageing-related diseases and extends life span, but can also supress growth and fertility.

A huge mass of glowing stardust in a galaxy seen shortly after the Universe's formation has been detected by a UCL-led team of astronomers, providing new insights into the birth and explosive deaths of the very first stars. The galaxy is the most distant object ever observed by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and was seen when the Universe was only four percent of its present age, at about 600 million years old, when the first stars and galaxies were forming.

People who feel that they have been discriminated against because of their weight are much less likely to be physically active than people who don't perceive that they have suffered any such stigmatisation, according to new research led by UCL. The research was published in the journal BMJ Open .  It was the first study to examine the relationship between weight discrimination and physical activity in a large population sample.

Breast cancer patients who receive the drug Herceptin for nine weeks as part of their post-surgery chemotherapy regime may enjoy better health outcomes, according to new research led by UCL, compared to those who receive it for 12 months, the period currently recommended in the English NHS. The researchers calculated that switching to the nine-week course of Herceptin could also save the NHS over £100 million a year.

Remains of microorganisms at least 3,770 million years old have been discovered by an international team led by UCL scientists, providing direct evidence of one of the oldest life forms on Earth. Tiny filaments and tubes formed by bacteria that lived on iron were found encased in quartz layers in the Nuvvuagittuq Supracrustal Belt (NSB), Quebec, Canada.

Evidence of planetary debris surrounding a double sun, 'Tatooine-like' system has been found for the first time by a UCL-led team of researchers. Published today in Nature Astronomy and funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council and the European Research Council, the study reports on the remains of shattered asteroids orbiting a double sun consisting of a white dwarf and a brown dwarf roughly 1000 light-years away in a system called SDSS 1557.

People who suffer long-term stress may also be more prone to obesity, according to research by scientists at UCL which involved examining hair samples for levels of cortisol, a hormone which regulates the body's response to stress. The paper, published in the journal Obesity , showed that exposure to higher levels of cortisol over several months is associated with people being more heavily, and more persistently, overweight.

New UCL research has found no link between cat ownership and psychotic symptoms, casting doubt on previous suggestions that people who grew up with cats are at higher risk of mental illness. Recent research has suggested that cat ownership might contribute to some mental disorders, because cats are the primary host of the common parasite Toxoplasma Gondii (T.

Evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a potential cause of dementia caused by repeated blows to the head, has been found in the brains of former association football (soccer) players examined at the UCL Queen Square Brain Bank. The study, funded by The Drake Foundation and published in the journal Acta Neuropathologica , looked at 14 retired footballers with dementia who were referred to the Old Age Psychiatry Service in Swansea, Wales, between 1980 and 2010.

Close friendships facilitate the exchange of information and culture, making social networks more effective for cultural transmission, according to new UCL research that used wireless tracking technology to map social interactions in remote hunter-gatherer populations. The research demonstrates how increased network efficiency is achieved through investment in a few strong links between non-kin friends connecting unrelated families, as well as showing that strong friendships are more important than family ties in predicting levels of shared knowledge among individuals.

E-cigarettes are less toxic and safer to use compared to conventional cigarettes, according to research published in Annals of Internal Medicine . Scientists at UCL found that people who swapped smoking regular cigarettes for e-cigarettes or nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) for at least six months, had much lower levels of toxic and cancer causing substances in their body than people who continued to use conventional cigarettes.

Antibiotics can still kill drug-resistant bacteria if they 'push' hard enough into bacterial cells, finds new UCL-led research funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The study opens up a promising new way of overcoming antibiotic resistance and could help scientists to design even more effective drugs.

A new test for bladder cancer could enable GPs to test a urine sample and spare patients the discomfort of a cystoscopy in hospital, according to UCL research published today in Clinical Epigenetics. The test, called UroMark, has been developed by UCL researchers and uses cutting edge genomic sequencing to detect abnormal cancer DNA in a urine sample.

Scientists have discovered the gene essential for chemically reprogramming human amniotic stem cells into a more versatile state similar to embryonic stem cells, in research led by UCL and Heinrich Heine University. The finding is an important step towards deriving reprogrammed cells that could be stored and used in therapies and research, providing an ethical alternative to human embryonic stem cells.