Virus-built batteries to provide power
Batteries built by viruses could soon power your mobile phone or be sprayed onto uniforms as wearable power sources.
Teams of researchers, one from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one from the University of Maryland, have used two different viruses to create the cathode and anode for a lithium ion battery.
If the Maryland research pans out, the parts for lithium ion batteries could be grown in and harvested from tobacco plants. If the MIT research pans out, lithium ion batteries could be woven into clothing to power a wide range of electronic devices, from unmanned aerial vehicles to cell phones.
"Typical soldiers have to carry several pounds (kilograms) of batteries. But if you could turn their clothing into a battery pack, they could drop a lot of weight," says Dr Mark Allen of MIT. "The same could be true for frequent business travellers, the road warriors."
Efficient builders
Viruses are amazingly efficient at breaking into cells, hijacking their machinery, and then using that machinery to make new copies of themselves.
For centuries doctors have done everything in their power to stop or slow viruses. Now scientists are turning viruses' extraordinary ability to produce large amounts of identical, microscopic structures to the benefit of humanity.
Scientists can already build similar structures, but not as quickly or as efficiently as viruses.
Baby dies after body flushed with alcohol
A BABY boy has reportedly died in an Ohio hospital after medics flushed his system with alcohol instead of saline solution during surgery.
The terrible mistake happened as seven-month-old Tressel Meinardi underwent heart surgery at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center on August 21, Cincinnati.com reported.
Hospital bosses alerted Hamilton County Coroner's Office, which is now investigating.
The injection of alcohol caused organ failure in the baby, from Richmond, Ind.
"There's no question a mistake was made," Coroner O'dell Owens said. "The family knows the alcohol was the cause of death."
He added that the hospital was "very upfront" and said he now had to find out how the bungle occurred.
Ponzi scheme shakes tiny Benin
MORE than 100,000 people in the tiny West African nation of Benin have lost their savings in a Ponzi scheme run by a now-defunct company that appeared to be publicly endorsed by the country's president.
The government said in August that more than 130,000 people gave their savings to Investment Consultancy and Computering Services. Together they lost more than $US130 million ($142.87 million).
The corporation was registered as a nonprofit computer service company and was operating illegally as a banking institution. ICC was forced to close on July 1, and more than a dozen of its employees were jailed.
But the reverberations have echoed to the top of Benin's power pyramid and now threaten President Boni Yayi, who appeared on television with ICC managers.
Television news shows showed Mr Yayi and other top government officials posing alongside the managers of the investment firm. The images were reproduced on T-shirts. While investors interpreted Mr Yayi's presence as an endorsement, the president did not officially speak in favour of ICC during the appearances.In this country of 8.7 million people, the average yearly income hovers at $US750 ($824). Many lost months to years of savings in the scam.
Electrician Lambert Saizonou, 40, planned to use his investment earnings to buy his first house. Now he has lost allof his savings. Jobs are scarce, and Mr Saizonou worries it will take years to save to buy a home for his family.
"They promised me an interest rate of 200 per cent," he said. "Now I must start saving again, little by little."
Danish rocketeers ready to launch British dummy
Go, Randy. Go! A group of Danish rocketeers has headed out into the Baltic Sea to launch a British dummy about 30km into the sky.
The dumb doll will sit atop the Heat-1X booster when it flies from a restricted military range, perhaps as early as Thursday.
The Heat-1X is the latest iteration in Copenhagen Suborbitals' quest to develop the ultimate is personal space transportation.If all goes well in this test - and the others that will follow - then Randy will be replaced with a real human.
The idea is that this passenger would half-sit, half-stand inside a tube little wider than their shoulders. Above their head would be a see-through dome that could afford them the most spectacular view as the rocket climbed above the blue of Earth.At a predetermined moment, the tubular spacecraft would separate from the booster and the passenger would then follow a weightless ballistic trajectory. The maximum altitude hoped for would be a little over 100km - in space.
The return would be a parachute-assisted splash-down, again in the Baltic Sea.
Boozy baboons terrorise South Africans
Residents in the South African city of Cape Town say they are being terrorised by a group of drunken baboons.
The animals are eating grapes from local vineyards and sometimes become drunk from the fermented fruit.
Locals say the inebriated animals have begun raiding kitchens, trashing roofs and gardens, and even throwing grapes at children.
Authorities have implemented a 'three strikes' policy to deal with especially troublesome baboons, putting to sleep repeat offenders.
Photographers draw a line in the sand over picture permits
Photographs of life on Australia's beaches made Max Dupain famous, but spontaneous images in public spaces are becoming increasingly difficult to capture, the photographer's son says.
Rex Dupain, also a renowned Sydney photographer, said he has several times been approached by lifeguards or police at Bondi Beach when taking pictures, and in one instance had his camera temporarily confiscated.
Fears about paedophilia and terrorism are largely to blame, he said. ''If you're an artist and you want to photograph images on beaches, it's impossible.''The freedom is certainly not there; it's very restrictive.''
But photographers are also worried that more councils, state government bodies and trusts are demanding permits and fees for commercial and artistic photography, leading to a situation where anyone with a camera can be approached with suspicion.
The commercial landscape photographer Ken Duncan said whether it was at the beach at Cairns or at the Opera House, photographers were constantly being asked for permits or fees.
''Photography used to be considered a noble profession; we were watching life,'' Duncan said. ''Now we're treated like predators and paedophiles.''
Huge planets found orbiting distant star
Astrophysicists using the Kepler space telescope have detected two planets the size of Saturn and a possible third the size of Earth orbiting a distant star.
The researchers said the two giant planets - dubbed Kepler 9b and Kepler 9c - were transiting the star at respective speeds of 19.2 and 38.9 days.
But the speed of their transits increase or decrease by an average of four and 39 minutes respectively, because of the gravitational pull that the planets exert on each other, they reported in the online edition of the Journal Science on Thursday (local time).
Their gravitational signatures indicate the two planets are the largest bodies orbiting the stars, said Matthew Holman, an astrophysicist at Harvard University and the principal author of the findings.
The findings should enable astronomers to investigate the planets' physical condition.
They also suggest that a third planet, about the size of Earth but more than three times its mass, may also be in an orbit much closer to the star, the report said.
The new solar system discovered by the Kepler telescope is about 2,000 light years from Earth. A light year is the equivalent to nearly 10 trillion kilometres.
Launched in 2009, Kepler, which orbits the Sun, has been used by NASA to look for planets like the Earth orbiting other stars in the Milky Way.
- AFP
Saudi employer hammered nails into maid’s body
A Sri Lankan housemaid has returned home from working in Saudi Arabia with 24 nails embedded in her body, allegedly after being tortured by her employer.
The woman travelled to Saudi Arabia in March to work as a maid, but returned home this month after complaining of abuse by her employer.
Doctors who examined her found the nails inside her body.
Some were about five centimetres long and driven beneath the skin of her hands, feet and legs.
The woman is now in hospital.
Sri Lankan authorities say they will co-ordinate with Saudi officials to have the suspect arrested.
Nearly 2 million Sri Lankans are employed abroad.
Seventy per cent of them are women and most are employed as maids in the Middle East.
But complaints of harassment and physical abuse are widespread.
Anne Barker
Japan man torches home after Mum dumps robot toy ‘partners’
A JAPANESE man has admitted to burning down his family home after his mother threw away some of his favourite robot toys from the "Gundam" animation series.
Yoshifumi Takabe, aged 30 and living with his mother, said he had become suicidal after she dumped some of the robots, of which he had enough to fill 300 boxes stacked to the ceiling, the Sports Nippon said Wednesday.
The blaze on August 9 last year completely destroyed their two-story wooden house in Kasai, Hyogo prefecture, but no one was injured.
"The Gundam figures are like the partners I spend my life with," he reportedly said after pleading guilty at western Kobe's District Court. "I wanted to die with them in a fire if they were to be thrown out."
The Mobile Suit Gundam series, based on an animation TV series which started in the late 1970s, is about space wars fought by gigantic robots.
Bugs in orbit unlock secret to life in space
Microbes taken from a cliff in a small fishing village in Britain have survived the hostile conditions of space and could hold the key to human life beyond Earth.
For humans to live in space for any length of time oxygen is essential, and a previously unknown bacteria might just provide the key.
The bacteria were living inside a rock that was bolted to the outside of the International Space Station during an experiment.
More than a year later many were still alive.
The origin of the microbes is a fishing village and popular holiday town called Beer in the south-west of Britain.
Professor Charles Cockell from Britain's Open University says the rugged coastal cliff face is one of the least hospitable places on Earth.
"For the microbes living on the cliff they're exposed to seawater, solar radiation, periodic desiccation," he said.
"So in fact on those cliffs is a community of microbes that can survive quite extreme conditions.
"So we thought that perhaps this was a good community to send into space and would give us a high chance of finding something completely new that would survive the extreme conditions of outerspace."