Malaria, a disease transmitted by mosquitoes, is estimated to cause around 1 million deaths each year. By creating a device which can detect the bugs by the flap of their wings, scientists hope they can deploy it to protect people in places where the disease is rampant and protection is sparse.

Funding for the project is being provided by Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder well known for his philanthropic contributions.

A rough prototype version of the device works by shining flashlights into a fish tank containing mosquitoes, and using a zoom-lens from a 35mm camera to scan a reflective sheet behind it which shows silhouettes of the mosquitoes. The imaging data is fed to a computer, which pinpoints the precise location of the mosquitoes, and positions and fires the laser for a kill.

Scientists envision the device being deployed via unmanned flying drones, or as a ‘fence’ around areas with high concentrations of mosquitoes, with multiple devices being set up to create a perimeter around a designated area. Each of those deployment methods will have the capacity to kill or blind billions of mosquitoes each night.

Read on WSJ >

I don’t know the source of this infographic, but if someone does please tell.

Via Digg >

Russell Thurnbull had ammonia sprayed in his eye after trying to break up a fight nearly 15 years ago. The attack damaged tissue in his right cornea, leaving him completely blind in that eye. Thanks to researchers at the North East England Stem Cell Institute, he can now see just as good in his right eye as he can in his left.

In the experiment, scientists extracted stem cells from tissue in his healthy eye, and cultivated them in a solution made from his blood, glucose, insulin, and hydro-cortisone. They then implanted that growth into the cornea in his damaged eye, repairing lost and damaged tissue. His vision was completely restored, and the painful condition he had acquired, Limbal Stem Cell Deficiency, was cured.

This treatment is obviously not a cure for all blindness, but it is a breakthrough demonstration of the effectiveness of stem-cell therapy, and good news to all those who suffer from LSCD, a somewhat common condition among chemical factory workers.

Read story on Channel4 >
Via Gizmodo >

The wireless component of this type of system mitigates the risk of infection.

So far, the system has been able to verbalize a small set of vowels, but the researchers are confident they can increase that to a broad array of consonants. The volunteer’s speech was interpreted successfully about 70% of the time, with that rate increasing significantly after training sessions. The last reported session had a record 89% accuracy.

Read story on PhysOrg >
Via Neatorama >

The Shit Box is a very green product, and consumes much less resources than traditional toilets. It uses no water, and is made from recycled cardboard. Do the planet a favor — shit in a cardboard box.

The Shit Box is available for £15.67 from The Brown Corporation.

Those aren’t dogs. They’re foxes, believe it or not.

In the 1950s, Soviet scientist Dmitri Belyaev set out to breed a tamer fox that would be easier for their handlers in the Russian fur industry to work with. The foxes included in his breeding experiment were determined by their temperament. To select candidates to breed, Belyaev would stick out his hand in front of foxes, and rank them based on how they reacted. The foxes that snapped or bit at his hand would be disqualified from the experiment, and the foxes that cowered or exhibited curiosity without attacking his hand would be mated together. The best behaved of the selected foxes offspring would be mated again, etc.

The scientists expected a long and tedious experiment with little immediate effects. Much to the their shock, however, noticeable changes in the foxes behavior emerged after just about 10 generations. Not only were the new foxes better behaved, they were also playful, smaller in size, and even had white patches of fur on on large swaths of their bodies. Many wagged their tails like dogs, and some even had blue eyes.

Shocked with the results, Belyaev and his team began to investigate. Testing a hypothesis, they discovered that the new ‘Silver’ foxes, had a significantly lower level of adrenaline than their original counterparts. Adrenaline directly affected the behavior of the foxes, the size the foxes grew, and somehow, the color of the foxes. Through some more testing, the scientists discovered that the level of melanin (a chemical responsible for pigmentation) in the foxes was lower as well, explaining how the foxes emerged with colors never before heard of from their breed.

Scientists theorize that the domestication of wolves to dogs probably began the same way. Generally thought to have developed their affectionate temperament over hundreds or thousands of generations, wolves could have become the dogs we know today quicker than anyone could have imagined.