My picks from ScienceDaily

Fruit Flies And Global Warming: Some Like It Hot:

Researchers working in Australia have discovered ways in which fruit flies might react to extreme fluctuations in temperature. Short-term exposure to high heat stress ("heat hardening") has been known to have negative effects on Drosophila. But Loeschcke and Hoffmann discovered that it can have advantages too. Flies exposed to heat hardening were much more able to find their way to bait on very hot days than were the flies that were exposed to cooler temperatures, but the heat hardened flies did poorly on cool days.

Beating Heart Muscle With Built-In Blood Supply Created From Stem Cells:

Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have created new heart muscle with its own blood supply using human embryonic stem cells. The researchers say the newly engineered muscle could replace cardiac tissue damaged in heart attacks. Their study was published online January 11 in the journal Circulation Research.

Complex Channels: Scientists Discover How Ion Channels Are Organized To Control Nerve Cell Communication:

The messages passed in a neuronal network can target something like 100 billion nerve cells in the brain alone. These, in turn communicate with millions of other cells and organs in the body. How, then, do whole cascades of events trigger responses that are highly specific, quick and precisely timed? A team at the Weizmann Institute of Science has now shed light on this mysterious mechanism. Their discovery could have important implications for the future development of drugs for epilepsy and other nervous system diseases. These findings were recently published in the journal Neuron.

The secret is in the control over electrical signals generated by cells. These signals depend on ion channels -- membrane proteins found in excitable cells, such as nerve cells -- that allow them to generate electrical signals, depending on whether the channels are opened or closed. Prof. Eitan Reuveny, together with Ph.D. students Inbal Riven and Shachar Iwanir of the Weizmann Institute's Biological Chemistry Department, studied channels that work on potassium ions and are coupled to a protein called the G protein, which when activated, causes the channel to open. Opening the channel inhibits the conductance of electrical signals, a fact that might be relevant, for example, in the control of seizures.