City planners could learn a lesson or two from tiny cells on how to maximize traffic flow.

A protein naturally occurring in the brain improves recovery from stroke when injected up to three days after the onset of the stroke, and could be used as an effective stroke drug. A study in rats published today in the open access journal BMC Biology shows that an injection of Granulocyte-Colony Stimulating Factor (G-CSF), whose function in the brain is to control the formation of neurons and counteract neurone death, reduces the size of the area affected by a stroke by a third when injected four hours after the onset of the stroke. The study also shows that regular, delayed injections of G-CSF, starting up to three days after experimental stroke, are effective in restoring motor functions in rats.

Ever wondered how ants find their way straight to the uncovered food in your kitchen? Now scientists have discovered how the humble wood ant navigates over proportionally huge distances, using just very poor eyesight and confusing and changing natural landmarks. The research could have significant benefits in the development of autonomous robots and in furthering our understanding of basic animal learning processes.

Almost 50 years ago, Michael Armas, a mining engineer from the central Philippines, discovered some fossils in a tunnel he was excavating while exploring for phosphate. Forty years later, Dr. Hamilcar Intengan, a friend of his who now lives in Chicago, recognized the importance of the bones and donated them to The Field Museum.

Proteins keep cells humming. Some are enzymes that taxi electrons to chemicals outside the cell, to discharge excess energy generated during metabolism. This maintains energy flow in the cell and, in turn, keeps the cell alive.

Massive trauma, say from a sabertooth tiger attack, meant immediate death for the primitive human. Modern man is more likely to survive severe injury caused by a car crash, gunshot or fall thanks to high-tech emergency medicine. Unfortunately, the body does not know what to do when it survives an injury that would have been fatal until recently in human evolution. Nearly one third of the time, mechanisms in place to protect people from disease misfire seven to ten days after severe injury, causing multiple organ failure. That is one reason why trauma is the leading cause of death for Americans aged 44 and younger.

For the first time, researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada have been able to put a name and a description to an ancient mammal that still defies classification.

For years, the brain chemical dopamine has been thought of as the brain's "pleasure chemical," sending signals between brain cells in a way that rewards a person or animal for one activity or another. More recently, research has shown that certain drugs like cocaine and heroin amplify this effect – an action that may lie at the heart of drug addiction.

With public concerns at a fevered pitch over the bacterial contamination of spinach, it is easy to lose track of how bland and deprived our world would be without the contribution to our food supply of such benign microbial players as lactic acid-producing bacteria. Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) and the University of California, Davis, and their colleagues have characterized the genome sequences of nine different lactic acid-producing bacteria, or LAB, and have published their findings in the October 17 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0607117103v1). The small LAB genomes encode a diverse repertoire of genes for efficient carbon and nitrogen acquisition from the nutritionally rich environments they inhabit and reflect a limited range of biosynthetic capabilities promising broad industrial applications.

Federal scientists have developed a vaccine that protects mice against the killer 1918 influenza virus. They also have created a technique for identifying antibodies that neutralize this virus, a tool that could help contain future pandemic flu strains. These findings are important, the researchers say, to understanding and preventing the recurrence of the H1N1 influenza virus that caused the 1918 pandemic and to protecting against virulent flu strains in the future, including the H5N1 avian flu virus. Details of the research are available online this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Testing soldiers to see if they have been exposed to biological or chemical weapons could soon be much faster and easier, thanks to MIT researchers who are helping to develop a tiny diagnostic device that could be carried into battle.

Mothers have long exhorted their children to eat their fruit and vegetables. But once kids are beyond mom's watchful eye, the hated greens often go the way of Barbie dolls and power rangers. Now, there's another reason to reach for colorful fruits past adolescence.