The Achray Bridge is an excellent example of the structural engineer's art.

An Iranian professor of Napier University in Scotland has succeeded in building modern and endurable long bridges by using timber frames.
Professor Abdy Kermani has also won Britain’s prestigious “Structural Award 07“, offered by the Scottish Institute of Civil Engineers.
Jeff Freeman, a PhD candidate at Napier University, assisted Professor Kermani in building the bridge, Mehr News Agency reported.
The Achray Bridge is the name of a bridge that suits its site well, and the designers have sought to capture the “genius loci“ of the landscape as well as enhancing the woodland setting.
It is an excellent example of the structural engineer’s art.
At only about 800 pounds per square meter, this design is a very economical solution, one with a very small carbon footprint to boot.
Kermani has also won the prize for best article for building construction materials.

For those feeling nervous behind the wheel as old age kicks in, savvy cars may be the answer.
According to AP, Prof. Ryuta Kawashima, who helped develop Nintendo’s “Brain Age“ games, is teaming with Toyota to develop cars that help seniors drive safely, the researcher said.
“We envision future cars will be able to monitor brain and emotional activity to back up elderly drivers,“ said Kawashima, a Tohoku University scientist who worked on Nintendo Co.’s best-selling “Brain Age“ games--and whose smiling image is the guide in the series.
Among technologies on the table is one that can determine a driver’s driving patterns and curb any dangerous activity, Kawashima said.
It could, for example, slow the car if it senses the driver is hitting the gas pedal for no reason.
Future developments could involve a navigation system and temperature controls that help drivers stay alert, he said.
“Ultimately, we hope to develop cars that stimulate brain activity, so that driving itself becomes a form of brain training,“ Kawashima said.
Toyota Motor Corp. representatives are attending sessions of Kawashima’s “Mobility and Smart Aging“ study group, which he set up in May to discuss senior-friendly cars, he said.
The automaker and Tohoku University “are done with brainstorming and ready to start making some of the technologies,“ Kawashima said, adding some of the technology could appear in cars in five years.
Toyota spokeswoman Kayo Doi said company engineers are working with Tohoku University but aren’t ready to announce any specific technologies.
“Brain Age“--a brain-training game series for the DS handheld game console--has sold millions of units around the globe.
Doing simple puzzles and exercises can help stimulate the brain and keep it supple, Kawashima said.

In solar cells the goal is always higher efficiencies. Higher efficiencies usually mean lower cost.
As solar cells continue to be more important as renewable energy sources, affordable techniques for producing solar cells will be in demand, Physorg.com said.
Peumans, a scientist at Stanford University, and his colleagues Seung-Bum Rim, Shanbin Zhao, Shawn R. Scully and Michael D. McGehee describe one such technique to increase solar cell efficiency: V-shaped cells. The results of their findings are reported in Applied Physics Letters: “An effective light trapping configuration for thin-film solar cells.“
Peumans explains that he and his peers used organic solar cells to develop their technique. Organic solar have an active layer made out of molecules, such as pigments or polymers.
They are low-cost and flexible. However, as Peumans points out, “organic solar cells typically have low efficiencies.“
A traditionally designed organic solar cell consists of a film layer of the light absorbing material spread on top of some sort of substrate.
The Stanford team found that if they took a traditionally designed solar cell and then bent it to form a V-shape, it was possible to significantly increase the efficiency of the cell. “It’s about light management,“ Peumans says. “This is a pretty simple solution.“
Peumans explains that most organic solar cells are made on planar substrates.
“When the light hits it, there is only one bounce--only once chance for the light to be absorbed.“
The V-shape, he continues, creates an environment in which the light can bounce around. “Every time the light bounces, it has a chance to be absorbed into the cell.“
Organic solar cells are defined mainly by a “thin film of organic material sandwiched between two electrodes,“ Peumans explains.
This is what makes them low cost and flexible. For the most part, due to their low efficiency, they are not realistically considered for energy generation on a large scale.
However, the technique developed at Stanford has the potential to change that. “We were able to increase the efficiency by 52 percent,“ he says. “The same cell generates more electrical power.“

Sea cucumbers live on the ocean floor.

Sea cucumbers could provide a potential new weapon to block transmission of the malaria parasite, a study suggests.
The slug-like creature produces a protein, lectin, which impairs development of the parasites, according to BBC.
An international team genetically engineered mosquitoes--which carry the malaria parasite--to produce the same protein in their gut when feeding.
The PLoS Pathogens study found the protein disrupted development of the parasites inside the insects’ stomach.
Malaria causes severe illness in 500 million people worldwide each year, and kills more than one million.
It is estimated that 40 percent of the world’s population are at risk of the disease.
To stimulate the mosquitoes to produce lectin, the researchers fused part of the gene from the sea cucumber which produces the protein with a gene from the insect.
The results showed that the technique was effective against several of the parasites which cause malaria.
Lectin is poisonous to the parasites when they are still in an early stage of development called an ookinete.
Usually, the ookinetes migrate through the mosquito’s stomach wall, and produce thousands of daughter cells which invade the salivary glands, and infect a human when the mosquito takes a blood meal.
But when exposed to lectin the ookinetes are killed before they can start their deadly journey.
Researcher Professor Bob Sinden, from Imperial College London, said, “These results are very promising and show that genetically engineering mosquitoes in this way has a clear impact on the parasites’ ability to multiply inside the mosquito host.“
However, he said much more work still had to be done before the technique could be used to curb the spread of malaria.
“Although the sea cucumber protein significantly reduced the number of parasites in mosquitoes, it did not totally remove them from all insects.
“At the current stage of development, the genetically modified mosquitoes would remain dangerous to humans.
“Ultimately, one aim of our field is to find a way of genetically engineering mosquitoes so that the malaria parasite cannot develop inside them.“
Professor Sanjeev Krishna, an expert in malaria at St George’s Hospital Medical School, London, said new treatments for malaria were vital, as there was some sign that the parasites which cause the disease were developing resistance to the current artemisinin drugs.
He said, “This is a very important first step in developing a potential new way to control this infection.“

The Bird is composed of two massive spiral galaxies and a third irregular galaxy.

Using European Organization for Astronomical Research Very Large Telescope, an international team of astronomers has discovered a stunning rare case of a triple merger of galaxies.
This system, which astronomers have dubbed “The Bird“--albeit it also bears resemblance with a cosmic Tinker Bell--is composed of two massive spiral galaxies and a third irregular galaxy, Physorg.com reported.
The galaxy ESO 593-IG 008, or IRAS 19115-2124, was previously merely known as an interacting pair of galaxies at a distance of 650 million light-years.
But surprises were revealed by observations made with the NACO instrument attached to ESO’s VLT, which peered through the all-pervasive dust clouds, using adaptive optics to resolve the finest details.
Underneath the chaotic appearance of the optical Hubble images--retrieved from the Hubble Space Telescope archive--the NACO images show two unmistakable galaxies, one a barred spiral while the other is more irregular.
The surprise lay in the clear identification of a third, clearly separate component, an irregular, yet fairly massive galaxy that seems to be forming stars at a frantic rate.
“Examples of mergers of three galaxies of roughly similar sizes are rare,“ says Petri Vaisanen, lead author of the paper reporting the results.
“Only the near-infrared VLT observations made it possible to identify the triple merger nature of the system in this case.“
Because of the resemblance of the system to a bird, the object was dubbed as such, with the ’head’ being the third component, and the ’heart’ and ’body’ making the two major galaxy nuclei in-between of tidal tails, the ’wings’.
The latter extend more than 100,000 light-years, or the size of our own Milky Way.
Subsequent optical spectroscopy with the new Southern African Large Telescope, and archive mid-infrared data from the NASA Spitzer space observatory, confirmed the separate nature of the ’head’, but also added further surprises.
The ’head’ and major parts of the ’Bird’ are moving apart at more than 400 km/s (1.4 million km/h).
Observing such high velocities is very rare in merging galaxies. Also, the ’head’ appears to be the major source of infrared luminosity in the system, though it is the smallest of the three galaxies.
“It seems that NACO has caught the action right at the time of the first high-speed fly-by of the ’head’ galaxy through the system consisting of the other two galaxies,“ says Seppo Mattila, member of the discovery team.
The ’head’ is forming stars violently, at a rate of nearly 200 solar masses per year, while the other two galaxies appear to be at a more quiescent epoch of their interaction-induced star formation history.

People aged 65 and older who regularly walk and get other forms of moderate exercise appear to significantly lower their risk of developing vascular dementia, the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study published in the December 22, 2007, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
The four-year study involved 749 men and women in Italy who were over the age of 65 and did not have memory problems at the beginning of the study, ScienceDaily reported.
Researchers measured the amount of energy exerted in the participants’ weekly physical activities, including walking, climbing stairs, and moderate activities, such as house and yard work, gardening, and light carpentry.
By the end of the study, 54 people developed Alzheimer’s disease and 27 developed vascular dementia.
The study found the top one-third of participants who exerted the most energy walking were 27 percent less likely to develop vascular dementia than those people in the bottom one-third of the group.
Participants who scored in the top one-third for the most energy exerted in moderate activities lowered their risk of vascular dementia by 29 percent and people who scored in the top one-third for total physical activity lowered their risk by 24 percent compared to those in the bottom one-third.
“Our findings show moderate physical activity, such as walking, and all physical activities combined lowered the risk of vascular dementia in the elderly independent of several sociodemographic, genetic and medical factors,“ said study author Giovanni Ravaglia, MD, with University Hospital S. Orsola Malpighi, in Bologna, Italy.
“It’s important to note that an easy-to-perform moderate activity like walking provided the same cognitive benefits as other, more demanding activities.“
Ravaglia says it’s possible that physical activity may improve cerebral blood flow and lower the risk of cerebrovascular disease, which is a risk factor for vascular dementia, but further research is needed about the mechanisms operating between physical activity and a person’s memory.
Contrary to some reports, the study found that physical activity was not associated with a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease, but Ravaglia says more research is needed before concluding that Alzheimer’s disease is not preventable through exercise.