Positive attitude a patient can double the effect of the drugs, while negative to reduce it to zero, the scientists said. Researchers from Oxford and Cambridge and two German universities have made their conclusions based on an innovative experiment to study the role of conscious thought in the perception of pain.

22-m volunteers put on the skin heating device and asked to rate the pain level. Average score on a scale from 0 to 100 was 66. After that, the subject began to enter the painkiller based on opiates. The average score dropped to 55. When subjects were told the experts that they have started to receive a painkiller score dropped to 39. However, when subjects were told that the entry of the painkiller discontinued, although it was not a true evaluation of pain increased again to 64.

At the same time, volunteers monitored the brain activity using MRI. It turned out parts of the brain responsible for pain intensified when people thought that no painkiller, but positive thoughts slowed the activity of these brain regions.

"Physicians should not underestimate the significant impact that the experience of patients may have on treatment outcome," - said the professor who led the study from the Center for Functional MRI of the brain at Oxford University, Irene Tracey.

In the experiments conducted in Japan dog breed Labrador has proven its ability to sniff out cancer in humans.

Data on the study published medical journal Gut. They confirm earlier speculation that the dogs are able to recognize early stages of the disease by various forms of cancer, including skin cancer, bladder, lung, ovarian and breast cancer.

Researchers from Kyushu University, used an 8-year-old female Labrador, which were offered five samples of his chair and exhaled air, four of them are healthy people and one - a cancer patient.

The dog successfully distinguished specimen of breath in 33 out of 36 cases. Even more accurate were the results in the analysis of stool samples - 37 of 38. In this case, she identified symptoms even early stage bowel cancer, which is difficult to diagnose.

Used in Britain program for identifying colorectal cancer determine the level of blood in the stool, but researchers suggest that their effectiveness is only 10%. Meanwhile, this type of cancer is sick each 20-second Briton, and each year more than 16,000 people nationwide die from it.

Dr. Hideto Sonoda from Kyushu University, points out that "the method of sniffing dog may be difficult to implement in a clinical setting because of the high cost of dog training and expertise." However, already are working on creating an electronic analyzer which simulates a dog's sense of smell.

"Odor of cancer is really exists, but nobody knows what chemical compounds are of it. Only the dog knows the answer to this question, - said Dr. Sonoda, told BBC. - It is therefore necessary to determine the characteristic of cancer and volatile organic compounds who find a dog, and create an electronic sensor that will replace the dog's nose. This would require a lot of time

Sleep helps to remember new information proved by scientists from the University of Luebeck in Germany.

The results of a study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience shows that the brain is better at remembering if you do not miss while you sleep. In the experiment, 24 volunteers took part, which showed 15 pairs of images of animals and household items with a request to remember them.

After 40 minutes, half the participants showed slightly altered image. The other half of the participants at this time asleep. At the end of the experiment, both groups again suggested that the first cards with images, offering to find them.

The experimental results showed that the group who slept during the experiment, showed much better results in remembering - an average of 85 percent versus 65 percent among those who had not slept.

"The processing of memories is quite different during sleep or bodrostvovaniya - says lead researcher Susanna Dikelmann. - Based on the results of the study, we assume that the transfer of information from the hippocampus to the new cerebral cortex occurs in the first few minutes of sleep. "

Only after 40 minutes of sleep most of the information received "is loaded and stored in a part of the brain where it can not be broken by new flows of information, encoded in the hippocampus.

The hippocampus - a brain region responsible for memorizing. Studies in the U.S., show the same results when studying the impact of sleep on long-term memory. Conclusion: to remember all, we must not learn of sleepless nights, and sleep.