How Acupuncture Works

No Excuse for Missing a Penalty in Future

A German inventor has come up with a way to ensure that his nation continue to beat England in the World cup in the foreseeable future - webbed goalie gloves. Peter Hochmuth's design incorporates a flexible band of material running between the index finger and thumb which makes the hand resemble a duck's webbed foot. As the goalie opens his hand to catch the ball the material stretches tight, "increasing the probability of catching the ball". It also stops the thumb being bent back on itself by the impact of the ball. Neat, but will the footballing authorities sanction it ?

3rd Aug 2002

Your Dog Can Count

Have your ever got the impression that your dog knows when there is another treat in your hand, or another plate to lick on the table ? Scientists showed this week that dogs show the same counting abilities as 5 month old babies. When babies are shown a row of dolls, which are then covered by a screen whilst an examiner adds or removed a number of dollies in full view of the baby, if an extra doll is surreptitiously added without the baby knowing so that the number of dolls on show is not what the baby expects, it shows surprise and stares at the dolls for much longer than if the 'correct' number are there. Researchers Rebecca West and Robert Young tried a similar experiment on 11 dogs, using treats added to their bowls. The dogs paid little attention when one treat plus one treat equalled 2, but when the number of treats in the bowl didn't add up to the number that the dogs thought should be there, they showed signs of confusion. The researchers suggest that the dogs counting ability is probably because they have a large neocortex, the part of the brain concerned with reasoning. Also, being descendents of wolves, which are pack animals, an ability to count was probably an important evolutionary skill because it enabled them to work out how many enemies they were facing and whether it was worth fighting, or running off !

3rd Aug 2002

An Rust-free Iron Pillar Yields its Secret at Last

It has stood exposed to the elements for over 1600 years without showing any traces of corrosion and no one knew why. But now materials scientist Ramamurthy Balasubramaniam from the Indian Institute of Technology has solved the mystery of why the 7 metre-high, 6 tonne iron pillar, erected next to the famous Qutub Minaret in Delhi, seems so rust-resistant. Analysis of the metal in the pillar has revealed that it contains a very high level of phosphorus which, on the surface of the pillar, reacts with air and water to produce a protective layer of a compound called iron hydrogen phosphate hydrate. This surface coating prevents the iron beneath coming into contact with the air and going rusty. In modern furnaces limestone is added to remove the phosphorus, but 1600 years agothis wasn't the case. The ancient Indian Iron Smiths who cast the pillar would have deliberately picked an iron-ore rich they knew from experience would be resistant to corrosion - they are still being proved right 1600 years later.

3rd Aug 2002

New Way to Access the Brain with Gene Therapy

It's very difficult to treat brains conditions using drugs or gene therapy because the brain is surrounded by a barricade of cells called the blood brain barrier, which is designed to keep unwanted things out, which unfortunately includes many drugs and gene-therapy treatments. But Boston researcher Ferenc Jolesz has found a way to temporarily open up tiny holes in the barrier using ultrasound waves. The researchers injected into the bloodstream tiny bubbles of protein which are already used by doctors to improve the quality of ultrasound images. They then focused the beam of ultrasound waves on a specific area of the brain. The ultrasound bursts the bubbles and generates small shock waves which open up the blood brain barrier nearby, allowing large drug molecules to get in. They have even shown that a genetically-engineered virus which can be used for gene-therapy, when injected into the blood stream, gets only into those parts of the brain that have received the treatment. The next step, they say, will be to package the virus inside the protein bubbles so that it is delivered more efficiently to the parts of the brain that need it.

3rd Aug 2002

The Weather's Caught a Cold - Microbes Cause Rain !

Scientists at the University of East London are testing the theory that bacteria and algae living in clouds could be responsible for downpours. The researchers are sending a plane armed with a cyclonic cloud catcher, which is a bit like a giant vacuum cleaner, to collect samples of clouds over Britain. Dr. Bruce Moffet, who is leading the research, believes that the bugs living in the clouds might possess special ways to trigger cloud formation and rainfall to enable them to reproduce and spread. By studying the behaviour of the colonies of bugs living in the clouds the scientists hope to harness their potential to make rain fall in drought-sticken areas, or find specialised organisms that can screen out harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun, or remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere (more details at www.uel.ac.uk).

3rd Aug 2002

Tongue Twister

Medics in Germany have successfully developed a replacement tongue for people that lose theirs through cancer or accidents. They made the tongue from muscles taken from the throat and connected it to he hypoglossal nerve that normally controls the tongue. The replacement was successfully transplanted into a pig.

3rd Aug 2002

Famine Looms for 6 Million People in Zimbabwe

President Mugabe's seizure of white-run farms in Zimbabwe has pushed the country close to economic ruin, and now threatens to inflict starvation on up to 6 million people. The World Food Programme, based in Rome, has shipped thousands of tonnes of US-grown Maize to Zimbabwe, but Mugabe won't accept the food because some of the crop has been genetically modified. Some feel that this is a reasonable objection and that peoples' rights to reject GM foods shouldn't be disregarded just because they are hungry. But at the same time they shouldn't be rejecting grain, even if it is GM, when peoples' lives are at stake.

3rd Aug 2002

Brain's Marijuana-like Chemicals Help you Forget

New research published this week suggests that cannabis-like substances made by the brain play a role in helping us to forget bad memories. Beat Lutz and his team at the Institute of Psychiatry in Munich genetically engineered mice so that they no longer made a receptor called CB1, which is needed to feel the effects of cannabis. They then trained the modified mice, together with normal unmodified mice, to expect a small electric shock when they played a musical tone. Both groups of mice learned the association very quickly, and showed signs of fear - freezing - whenever the tone was played. The researchers then stopped giving the electric shock and just played the tone. The normal mice very quickly stopped reacting to the tone, but the modified mice took 6 times longer to stop freezing whenever the tone was played. When the researchers looked at the brains of mice as they were unlearning the unpleasant association, they found high levels of the brain's own cannabis-like substances, suggesting that these chemicals help to erase bad memories. These findings might help us to develop new ways to help patients with mental illnesses caused by unpleasant memories, including phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder, say the researchers. It might also help to explain why people with mental illnesses are much more likely to be marijuana users than healthy individuals, and to explain why cannabis has been found to be bad for your memory.

3rd Aug 2002

Hypersonic Jet Engine Undergoes Tests this Week

A new hypersonic jet engine that would enable planes to fly from London to Sydney in as little as 3 hours has undergone its first test this week. But as they're still analysing the data we don't yet know whether it was a success or not.

3rd Aug 2002

Solar Powered Aircraft Sends Back Photos

NASA's Pathfinder-Plus, a solar powered aircraft, relayed TV pictures from 65,000 feet, that's nearly 20 km, above the Hawaiian Island of Kauai, demonstrating that craft like this could prove to be a viable alternative to using satellites.

3rd Aug 2002

Make your Guts Fluorescent

Within the last 2 years doctors have been testing minature pill-sized cameras that can be swallowed by patients, allowing medics to look for any signs of disease as the camera passes along the intestines. A problem with this technology is that the camera can run out of power before it has finished its journey. But this week Motorola have patented a neat solution to the problem. They have added a special filter to the camera lens so that it can only see light of a certain wavelength emitted by a fluorscent dye. The patient drinks a solution made of the dye linked to a spoecially engineered antibody that binds onto diseased tissue. Drinking water then flushes out the excess dye, except where the antibody has locked on to a disease 'hot-spot'. The camera can therefore save power by only switching on its transmitter when it is near to a fluorescing diseased-area.

3rd Aug 2002

It's a Man's World !

According to economist Professor Ian Walker from Warwick University, eating out, rather than cooking for yourself, might actually be a more cost-effective use of our time ! Using a formula that takes into account your salary, tax and local cost of living to work out how much your time is worth Professor Walker reckons that the value of our time has increased enormously over the last 25 years making it much more worthwhile paying for someone to come in an clean our houses, our eating out…

3rd Aug 2002

Old Relatives ? Then You'll Live a Long Time Too !

They say long life begets long life, and it seems to be true. Recent analyses of 444 families in which a family member has lived to be over 100 has shown that the brothers and sisters of that person have roughly half the risk of dying at any given age (apart from as teenagers and young adults for the men) than an average person in the population. This, say the researchers, shows that genetics influences play a more important role in longevity that environmental factors.

3rd Aug 2002

More Secure Rent a Bike System

Anyone remember the Cambridge Green Bike idea ? Great though the idea of a borrow-a-bike scheme was, it was hampered by the fact that all of the bikes were rapidly stolen. So how do you stop them being stolen ? Londoners will soon be able to use their mobile phones to hire bikes which are locked up in racks dotted around the city. Each bike lock has a number. Dial it into your phone and you'll be sent back a code that will allow you to unlock the bike. Your phone account will be charged a fee until the bike is returned.

3rd Aug 2002

Hayfever and Panic Attacks

Researchers at Columbia University in New York have found that hayfever sufferers are twice as likely to suffer from panic attacks compared with non-sufferers, although Renee Goodwin, who carried out the study, did not find any relationship between hayfever and other mental disorders. The reason for this strange association is not clear, but Goodwin speculates that "there could be a common vulnerability to both".

3rd Aug 2002

Us Scientists Building Robot Fly

Most people hate flies, but under certain circumstances they might actually be useful. Engineers from the University of California, in America, are on course to build a minature robot 'fly' the size of a coin, by 2003 which they hope to use for spying or search and rescue missions. So far they have built a tiny bionic wing that can flap 150 times a second.

3rd Aug 2002

New Drug Delivery System

Most people know that all drugs have side effects, undesired effects produced by the drugs acting on parts of the body other than those affected by a disease. Chemotherapy agents used to treat cancer are a prime example. Part of the reason that drugs have these effects is because they cannot currently be targeted just to diseased cells or tissues and instead affect most cells in the body. But an American scientist has come up with an invention that might help to get around this problem. American scientist Professor Jerry Atwood has developed a unique 'nanocapsule' that can package up drug molecules and only release them where they are needed in the body. The capsules work by having special receptors on their surfaces, which recognise only certain cell types in the body, such as cancer cells for example. When the nanocapsule binds onto its target cells it discharges its payload of drug into the diseased area. The benefit of this technology is that because the therapy is selectively delivered to diseased tissues is the body, much higher doses of a drug can be used, yet unpleasant and harmful side effects are minimised. The other benefit is that many drugs developed over the years which have fallen by the wayside because they had too many side effects might become useful again when delivered selectively in this way.

3rd Aug 2002

Beating Bugs with Bugs

A major problem for hospitals these days are infections caused by a super-bug known as MRSA, - a strain of bacteria that have become resistent to all but a few antibiotics. But now, thanks to James Burnie and his team at the University of Manchester, doctors have a new weapon up their sleeves in the form of a new drug that mimics the bodies' own antibodies. The scientists took blood samples from people who had survived infections with the MRSA super-bug and isolated an antibody that they had produced against the bacterium. (The antibody binds to a protein called the ABC transporter which controls the movement of proteins and ions in and out of bacterial cells). Antibodies are made in immune cells by cleverly rearranging short pieces of DNA. The researchers used the MRSA antibodies from the patients to work out the DNA sequence coding for these antibodies, and inserted this piece of DNA into E. coli bacteria. When these genetically-modified bacteria grow they produce large amounts of the antibody which can then be harvested, purified and given to patients. In laboratory tests the new drug, called Aurograb, greatly reduced the growth of the MRSA super-bug, and trials are now underway on patients in UK hospitals. The greatest challenge facing this new idea is whether the super-bugs can change to become resistent to this new drug too. It's ironic that scientists are using bugs to produce substances to kill other bugs !

3rd Aug 2002

Look Out for Sweet Tasting Drugs

New developments in tablet and drug design could be a godsend to people who find swallowing pills too much to stomach. Many labs are now developing pleasant-tasting melt-in-your-mouth varieties of their medicines to make their most successful brands more palatable. So how are they made ? The active drug is made into a fine powder and coated with a special polymer which masks its flavour. The coated particles are then compressed into tablets which disintegrate when placed in the mouth. Added flavourings can produce cherry, mint and even chocolate varieties. A major benefit of this technology is that patients are more likely to take their medicines if they taste nice and are easy to swallow. The composition of the tablets can also be tweaked to produce versions that dissolve slowly under the tongue to avoid irritating the stomach. But some people, especially parents, are worried that because the tablets taste nice, children might mistake them for sweets…

3rd Aug 2002

Clever Magnet - Plastic and Light Sensitive

American researchers have developed a magnetic plastic that changes its magnetic strength depending upon the colour of the light shining on it. When blue light is shone on the material it nearly doubles the strength of its magenetic field, an effect which the inventors think is due to the molecules of the substance changing shape when light of a certain wavelength hits it. They suggest that the new material might be useful for storing computer data.

3rd Aug 2002

Artificial Lung Could Buy you Breathing Space

Developers at MC3 of Ann Arbor, Michigan US, have developed an implantable artificial lung that could buy patients with serious chest diseases, such as cystic fibrosis and emphysema, breathing space whilst waiting for a lung transplant. Named the Biolung, the device is the size of a can of beer. It is inserted into the chest and plumbed into the heart so that blood from the pulmonary artery, which supplies the lungs, is forced through a fine series of porous tubes inside the device, allowing oxygen and carbon dioxide to be exchanged with the blood. The freshened-up blood is then returned to the circulation and pumped around the body. This is a far cry from the large electrically powered machines that sit outside the body currently used to oxygenate blood and remove carbon dioxide. The new biolung has so far been tested successfully on sheep and could make it into clinical trials as early as next year.

3rd Aug 2002

Old Relatives ? Then You'll Live a Long Time Too !

They say long life begets long life, and it seems to be true. Recent analyses of 444 families in which a family member has lived to be over 100 has shown that the brothers and sisters of that person have roughly half the risk of dying at any given age (apart from as teenagers and young adults for the men) than an average person in the population. This, say the researchers, shows that genetics influences play a more important role in longevity that environmental factors.

3rd Aug 2002

Big Head !

Some people object to a big head on their pint of beer because they argue it takes up space in the glass. But if you are a fan of a big head then this new device will interest you. Before the beer is poured a piston is pushed into the glass and the beer-delivery nozzle is poked through a hole in the middle. As the glass fills the piston is pushed up in the air. When the glass is nearly full the barman stops pouring and pulls the piston up and out. The low pressure momentarily generated above the beer as the piston is withdrawn pulls gas out of the liquid to form a big frothy head.

3rd Aug 2002

Another Secret to Smooth Ice-cream

We've all had ice cream that was crunchy. The reason is that with repeated thawing and re-freezing as happens when you take the tub out of the deep-freeze, the ice crystals grow too large and the smooth silky texture is lost. But scientist Douglas Goff from Guelph University, Canada, has identified a natural 'anti-freeze' protein, produced by wheat plants to help them resist freezing in the winter. The team have been extracting the protein from wheat seedlings and adding it to ice-cream to test the effects. The team suggest that this is a vegetarian-friendly way to make smooth ice-cream. Other attempts to keep ice-cream soft have included using proteins extracted from Arctic fish, and a bacterial protein marinomonin, isolated last year from bacteria inhabiting Antarctic lakes.

3rd Aug 2002

	Is it true that mixing your drinks makes you more drunk ? Lizzie, Cambridge
	NO, it's a fallacy ! As the total does of alcohol entering the body is the same no matter how you drink it, in theory it shouldn't make any difference. What does make a difference is whether you drink on an empty stomach or not.
	August 2002

	How does an eraser work ? John, Barr Hill
	When you write on a piece of paper with a pencil small particles of graphite (Carbon) which makes up the pencil lead become embedded in the paper matrix. An eraser works by sticking onto the graphite and tugging the particles out of the paper matrix. You cannot erase biro or other pens because the ink isn't made up of discrete particles that can easily be removed. To do so you physically need to remove alayer of paper.
	August 2002