Author and journalist 
I've been remiss in not posting several articles I wrote reporting on findings presented at the Society for Neuroscience conference last week. So, last first:
This story, posted today at sciam.com, is about a nice piece of research done by the University of Milan's Maria Abbracchio, who found that blocking the receptor that opened a particular cellular gate (a fairly simple task, actually) could prevent almost all damage from strokes in lab rats.
Check it out at:
Scientific American: Controlling Cellular Gates Curbs Damage after Strokes
