The researchers studied well-preserved brain tissue from 30 people, aged 26 to 106 at the time of death. The changes they found occurred in a wide variety of genes, with functions that range from regulating sleep to metabolizing fat. But most interesting was a marked decline in function among 20 genes involved in learning, memory and the plasticity, or flexibility, of brain function. As the subjects aged, these genes became damaged, reducing their effectiveness. "Some genes begin to decline much earlier than expected, as early as the early 40s," says senior author Bruce Yanker, a professor of neurology and neuroscience at Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital in Boston.

Here's the link to the full Wall St. Journal article. The link should work for a few days.

The most recent evidence of culture among animals comes from studies of olive baboons. It stands out because the learned behavior is so at odds with how badly baboons customarily behave.

Baboons tend to be fierce and aggressive, and the "Forest Troop" in Kenya's Masai Mara Reserve fits the mold. Males fought over everything (grub, girls ...) and nothing. But in 1982, the aggressive males began raiding the garbage pit of a nearby tourist lodge, gorging on rotten meat. Almost half of the troop's males -- and all the aggressive ones -- died of tuberculosis, leaving, as Stanford University biologist Robert Sapolsky puts it, "a cohort of atypically unaggressive survivors."

The above photo was released today from Nasa.

Mars is closer to earth than it has been for over 50,000 years. Here are some of the best photos of the red planet, including the controversial "face of Mars".