The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- How to improve your working memory   
- The plain old solution to stress?
- Progress on a deadly cancer for first time since 1995*
- Rise of the robot surgeon
- Tomato brain power

And in an honorable mention this week, new research on the gut connection to better brain health after strokes.

* The methodology for this study has come under scrutiny here.

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs