Tech

Insects in flight must somehow calculate and control their height above the ground, and researchers reporting online on August 19 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, have new insight into how fruit flies do it. The answer is simpler than expected.

The flies establish an altitude set point on the basis of nearby horizontal edges and tend to fly at the same height as those features, the researchers report.

URBANA – A University of Illinois metabolic engineer has taken the first step toward the more efficient and economical production of biofuels by developing a strain of yeast with increased alcohol tolerance.

Biofuels are produced through microbial fermentation of biomass crops, which yield the alcohol-based fuels ethanol and iso-butanol if yeast is used as the microbe to convert sugars from biomass into biofuels.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have identified a subgroup of patients with necrotizing myopathy who have a novel autoantibody specificity that makes them potential candidates for immunosuppressive therapy. The complete study is published in the September issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology.

Integrating palliative care early in the treatment of patients with advanced lung cancer not only improved their mood and quality of life, it also extended their lives. In the August 19 New England Journal of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators report that patients with metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who received early palliative care along with standard treatment lived more than two months longer than patients receiving standard care only.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Two University at Buffalo researchers are challenging the "myth of the well-adjusted Asian American," detailing how members of one of the country's fastest-growing ethnic groups face crucial disadvantages preventing them from receiving quality health care taken for granted by other, more culturally assimilated Americans.

Tropical Depression Five's remnants continue to linger over Louisiana and Mississippi, and NASA satellite data continues to capture its cloud temperatures and extent. The slow moving remnants and an associated tropical air mass are expected to creep across the Louisiana and Mississippi and into Arkansas for the next couple of days.

NIST will use the new ultra-dark detector, described in a new paper in Nano Letters,* to make precision laser power measurements for advanced technologies such as optical communications, laser-based manufacturing, solar energy conversion, and industrial and satellite-borne sensors.

Researchers at the Rabin Medical Center in Israel have determined that the use of drug-eluting stents (DES) improves the long-term clinical outcome for patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), commonly known as angioplasty. Results of this study appear in the September issue of Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions.

Reducing the runoff from plant nutrients that can eventually wash into the Chesapeake Bay could someday be as easy as checking the weather forecast, thanks in part to work by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists.

ROCHESTER, Minn. - Mayo Clinic researchers found that healthy young people who put on as little as 9 pounds of fat, specifically in the abdomen, are at risk for developing endothelial cell dysfunction. Endothelial cells line the blood vessels and control the ability of the vessels to expand and contract.

A 48-million-year-old fossilised leaf has revealed the oldest known evidence of a macabre part of nature – parasites taking control of their hosts to turn them into zombies.

The discovery has been made by a research team led by Dr David P Hughes, from the University of Exeter, who studies parasites that can take over the minds of their hosts.

A new study by a team including a professor from North Carolina State University has found a way to implement wireless monitoring technology – with uses ranging from climate control to health and safety applications – by tapping into a building's heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) ducts. The finding could lead to significant time and cost savings for builders and building managers, since the systems can be put into place without the expense and effort of running wires throughout the buildings.