Tech

Clever as a blind fish, the underwater robot "Snookie" can orient itself in murky waters with an artificial sensory organ inspired by the so-called lateral-line system, found in fish and some amphibians. The experimental vehicle was developed by researchers at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen within the framework of the CoTeSys (Cognition for Technical Systems) excellence cluster. In the future, the researchers expect such capabilities to enable underwater robots to work autonomously in operations ranging from deep sea exploration to inspection of sewer pipes.

A new study by the Center for Integrated Manufacturing Studies at Rochester Institute of Technology indicates that the use of E20 fuel, which blends 20 percent ethanol with gasoline, reduces the tail pipe emissions of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide, compared with traditional gasoline or E10 blends. In addition, the research team found no measurable impact to vehicle drivability or maintenance in conventional internal combustion engines.

This release is available in Spanish.

Delicious new cakes and frostings may someday contain less fat and fewer calories, thanks to work by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists such as Mukti Singh. She's based at the ARS National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research (NCAUR) in Peoria, Ill.

How do we handle the ethical dilemmas of research on adults who can't give their informed consent? In a recent article in the journal Bioethics, ethicist Stefan Eriksson proposes a new approach to the dilemma of including dementia patients and others with limited decision making capabilities in research.

Imagine if your computer only allowed you to see one line at a time, no matter what you were doing – reading e-mail, looking at a Web site, doing research. That's the challenge facing blind computer users today. But new research from North Carolina State University is moving us closer to the development of a display system that would allow the blind to take full advantage of the Web and other computer applications.

A small study of children with cancer enrolled in therapeutic clinical research trials shows that they don't fully understand what physicians and parents tell them about their participation, nor do they feel they are genuinely involved in the choice to take part.

The study, led by Yoram Unguru, M.D., an associate faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, will be published online March 29 in the journal Pediatrics.

DALLAS – March 29, 2010 – Minority children in the U.S. face a pervasive gap in the quality and extent of health care received compared to Caucasians, according to a report from the American Academy of Pediatrics written by a UT Southwestern Medical Center physician.

The country's 31.4 million minority children face higher overall death rates than Caucasians, and certain groups face greater violence and higher incidence of HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, asthma, ADHD and certain types of cancers, according to the report.

Engineering yeast to transform sugars more efficiently into alcohols could be an economically and environmentally sound way to replace fossil fuels, say scientists presenting at the Society for General Microbiology's spring meeting in Edinburgh today.

Dr Christian Weber and Professor Eckhard Boles from Frankfurt University, Germany, have worked out how to modify yeast cells so that they successfully convert a wider range of sugars from plant waste such as wheat and rice straw into alcohol that can be used as biofuel.

By combining a new generation of piezoelectric nanogenerators with two types of nanowire sensors, researchers have created what are believed to be the first self-powered nanometer-scale sensing devices that draw power from the conversion of mechanical energy. The new devices can measure the pH of liquids or detect the presence of ultraviolet light using electrical current produced from mechanical energy in the environment.

University students have developed a computer game that is operated by eye movements, which could allow people with severe physical disabilities to become 'gamers' for the first time, they announce today.

The students, from Imperial College London, have adapted an open source game called 'Pong', where a player moves a bat to hit a ball as it bounces around the screen. The adaptation enables the player to move the bat using their eye.

To play the game, the user wears special glasses containing an infrared light and a webcam that records the movement of one eye.

University of California, Berkeley, biologists have found a signal that keeps stem cells alive in the adult brain, providing a focus for scientists looking for ways to re-grow or re-seed stem cells in the brain to allow injured areas to repair themselves.

The researchers discovered in fruit flies that keeping the insulin receptor revved up in the brain prevents the die-off of neural stem cells that occurs when most regions of the brain mature into their adult forms. Whether the same technique will work in humans is unknown, but the UC Berkeley team hopes to find out.

The Applied Forensic Sciences Department at Mercyhurst College continues its landmark research into the recovery and interpretation of burned human remains from fatal fire scenes with a mock fire and excavation in Montgomery County, Pa., this weekend.

Most people have experienced back pain – and many hope that massage will relieve it. But not all forms of massage have been scientifically proven to help against low back pain. That is what the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) pointed out in information published on informedhealthonline.org today.

Once considered a hospital anomaly, community-acquired infections with drug-resistant strains of the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus now turn up regularly among children hospitalized in the intensive-care unit, according to research from the Johns Hopkins Children's Center.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) is part of an international sea search operation formed to locate the deep-sea wreck site of Air France Flight 447 and to retrieve the flight recorders from the Airbus A 330.