Washington, Oct 23: Scientists have selectively and safely managed to remove new and old memories from mice, says a new study.

In the collaborative study, researchers were able to eliminate new and old memories alike by over-expressing a protein, called aCaMKII, critical to brain cell communication just as the memory was recalled.

"While memories are great teachers and obviously crucial for survival and adaptation, selectively removing incapacitating memories, such as traumatic war memories or an unwanted fear, could help many people live better lives," said Dr. Joe Z. Tsien, brain scientist and co-director of the Brain & Behavior Discovery Institute at the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine.

Washington, Oct 23: Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has gained a nine-point lead over his opponent John McCain.

Less than two weeks before Election Day, Obama leads John McCain 49 percent to 40 percent among likely voters, according to a FOX News poll.

Obama’s advantage comes mainly from independents, and from the fact that more voters identify themselves as Democrats these days and almost all of them back their party’s nominee.

Washington, Oct 23: Boxers will now be able to assess the fighting ability of their opponents - by just looking at their faces, at least that''s what scientists at University of California suggest.

Scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara has found that people can determine with uncanny accuracy the fighting ability of men around them by honing in on their upper body strength, by just looking at their faces.

"Assessing fighting ability was important for our ancestors, and the characteristic that the mind implicitly equates with fighting ability is upper body strength," said Aaron Sell, a postdoctoral fellow at UCSB''s Center for Evolutionary Psychology and the paper''s lead author.

Washington, Oct. 22: Republican presidential candidate John McCain continues to trail behind Democratic rival Barack Obama in states that were won by incumbent President George W Bush in 2004.

McCain''s move to distance himself from Bush appears to be reaching voters, despite a barrage of ads from the Obama campaign accusing the Arizona senator of being in lock step with the president.

A CNN/Opinion Research poll found that 52 percent of voters think McCain’s policies would be different from Bush''s, up eight percentage points in just two weeks.

Washington, Oct 22: Using multiple tactics to boost both innate and adaptive immunity in mice, scientists at Scripps Research Department of Immunology have successfully enhanced their body''s ability to fight cancer.

The researchers hope that their work may pave the way for developing new human immunotherapy.

"The problem with cancer is that it becomes part of what the immune system identifies as ''self'' and there are ways the body learns to tolerate ''self'' to prevent immune attack. Hitting it with these new tools basically gets the immune system to pay attention to the cancer, and go after it," said the study''s senior investigator, Dr. Linda Sherman.

Washington, October 21: A team of Austrian and American researches has discovered that ripening bananas appear bright blue under black light.

Scientists at the University of Innsbruck and Columbia University say that the blue glow is connected to the degradation of chlorophyll that occurs during ripening.

Lead researcher Bernhard Krautler says that, in this process, colourless but fluorescing breakdown products of chlorophyll are concentrated in the banana peel.

The usual appearance of bananas is mainly the result of the natural pigments carotenoids, which appear yellow under normal light.

However, when exposed to UV light, known to partygoers as black light, ripening bananas appear blue instead.