A 2-year field study has demonstrated that volatile compounds produced by plants when they are attacked by herbivores act as defenses by attracting predators to the herbivores and increasing the reproduction of the plants.

Novel imaging experiments suggest that fruit flies modify their neural circuitry for walking at slow, medium and fast speeds, and that proprioception is not essential for coordinated walking.

Simulations and experiments on systems containing two different populations of microorganisms show that interactions that benefit at least one of the populations can lead to communities with stable compositions, and that strong cooperation between two populations can lead to communities in which both populations are mixed together.

Charybdotoxin, a toxin produced by scorpions, blocks a K⁺ channel by binding in a lock-and-key fashion to the mouth of the channel and presenting a lysine amino group, which serves as a K⁺ mimic in the selectivity filter.

Cells repair damage to their outer membranes not by patching them as previously thought, but by using proteins called caveolins to remove the damaged regions by endocytosis.

Potassium ions enter and leave human sperm cells via a calcium-dependent ion channel that is also pH-independent.

The cancer drug vemurafenib has potent off-target effects on JNK signaling that contribute to the development of squamous cell carcinomas in humans and in mice.

A set of genes that are turned on only within time-limited windows—including genes encoding RNA binding molecules, let-7 microRNAs and IMP1—control developmental switches in stem cell properties between fetal development and adulthood.

A transport protein enables leaf beetle larvae to take up and store plant toxins and use them as part of their own defense strategy.

Natural sugars are preferred over artificial sweeteners because of their nutritional content, which is sensed by MCH neurons in the lateral hypothalamus.