When the brain’s primary “learning center” is damaged, complex new neural circuits arise to compensate for the lost function, say life scientists from UCLA and Australia who have pinpointed the regions of the brain involved in creating those alternate pathways — often far from the damaged site.

UCLA Psychology Professor, Robert Bjork, is among the newest class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and independent policy research centers.

Humans could learn a thing or two from turtles, and scientists who have just sequenced the first turtle genome uncovered clues about how people can benefit from the shelled creatures’ remarkable longevity and ability to survive for months without breathing.

Thomas Smith, director of the UCLA Center for Tropical Research and professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Trevon Fuller, a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Tropical Research have developed a technique that allows us to predict sites where human and bird viruses could mix and generate a future pandemic.

UCLA postdoctoral scholar in Psychology, Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook,led new research showing that women with strong social support from their families during pregnancy appear to be protected from sharp increases in a particular stress hormone, making them less likely to experience post-partum depression.