Science and Technology - Briefs

biology
Small lever wins gold

A professional sportspersons call for help to develop a sprint training regime got Stephen Piazza thinking. The professor of human kinetics assumed a good sprinter has a long distance between the ankle and the back of the heel to allow more leverage to the foot by contracting quickly. When he studied elite sprinters, he found the oppositethe distance was 25 per cent shorter among them than in average people. After cross-checking sprinting in animals, he realised the disadvantage of a small heel lever is overcome by the slowly contracting muscle that imparts power in gaining lead in a sprint (Journal of Experimental Biology, October 30).

technology
Future of warfare

Researchers have for long eyed insect mechanics to design better military gear. From the flapping of wings to the way they scout for food, insects have been mimicked. Now the US military wants to create a cyborg that is part machine, part organic insect army. A team inserted artificial muscle and nerve stimulators and a microbattery in a beetles body and successfully controlled its take-off, flight and landing. But military use would also require a gps tracker and a camera on them to pinpoint their exact location, altogether too heavy for the insect to carry. But the cyborgs could act as micro-couriers to inaccessible locations, suggested the scientists (Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, October 5).

chemistry
Death metal

Ruthenium and osmium are two unusual metals that will join drugs that fight cancer. They are similar to precious metals like platinum which is part of a major drug developed in the 1970s. This drug was 95 per cent efficient against testicular cancer. With time cancerous cells found a way to resist it, spurring researchers the world over to look for a replacement. Here the current research shows promise. The atoms of these metals bind to the cancer cells dna, achieving cell death (Journal of Medical Chemistry, September 30).

physiology
Time-keeper

There is an inbuilt clock in humans. It tells them when it is time to eat breakfast or say goodnight. The batteries controlling the circadian clock are thousands of genes. Together, the master clock in the brain and small clocks in other organs divide a mammals life into slots of 24 hours. Research revealed how it works

• The master clock is controlled by light and other organs are set by fooda fact unknown so far.
• Need for food triggers a molecule called ampk that measures the cells energy. When a cell has plenty, ampk is inactive but when the cell runs on empty, ampk is turned on.
• ampk then induces the destruction of a clock component cryptochrome-1. As a result the clock is reset which indicates it is time to forage for food.