Ant death spiral

This is one of my favorite things about ants — the ant death spiral. Actually, it’s a circular mill, first described in army ants by Schneirla (1944). A circle of army ants, each one following the ant in front, becomes locked into a circular mill. They will continue to circle each other until they all die. – Full Article Source

How Light-Emitting Diodes Affect Plants?

Light-emitting diodes are becoming a popular light source, which people use for artificial illumination of plants. Scientists claim that LEDs induced serious changes in plants’ organisms and affected their growth and productivity.

The experiment consisted of growing Chinese cabbage under various light sources:

arc sodium lamp and a bunch of red and blue LEDs in 7:1 ratio.

Maximum of red LED’s emission spectrum is 650 nanometers, and blue LED has emission maximum at 470 nm. These light sources worked with low and normal intensity. When LED’s light intensity was normal, which means fluence rate of photosynthetically active photons was about 400 micromole (per square meter per second), light’s spectral composition affected leaf area.

Leaves, illuminated with LEDs, were two times smaller than those, illuminated with sodium lamp. However, LEDs didn’t affect the number of chloroplasts, leaf’s thickness and cell size.

Illumination with sodium lamp under low light intensity almost stopped photosynthesis (no starch granules formed), however, LED light even increased amount of starch granules, compared to that under high intensity.

All this means that reduced spectrum of LEDs, consisting only of red and blue bands, can seriously alter plant organisms via affecting adaptation mechanisms and chloroplasts. Further optimization of LED light can result in challenging Mother Nature. – Full Article Source

Technique for Faster Wound Healing Developed

Cooperation of Russian biologists and physicists resulted in a new method for better and faster healing of wounds. Healing wounds is a slow and complicated process.

Traditional drug treatment is often not effective enough, that is why researchers keep improving existing methods and inventing new techniques for helping people.

Russian physicists developed hollow-cathode lamps, with emit low-intensity radiation. Emission spectrum of such lamps consists of thin lines, typical for atomic and ionic spectra of elements, from which a cathode was made.

Researchers found out that radiation from lamps with cathode made of magnesium and copper, stimulated migration of mentioned elements in an organism and cured inflammation.

Tests on laboratory rats showed that irradiation with these lamps helped cuts heal faster. Lamps also promoted faster skin structure recovery, including sebaceous glands and hair follicles.

Scientists think that irradiation with these lamps promoted natural immunity, accelerated recovery of deep skin layers and stimulated wound healing. Mechanisms of this process are still not clear, however, researchers believe that metals form complexes with enzymes metalloproteinases, known to affect healing of wounds. – Full Article Source

From Canada To Mexico On One Tank of Diesel

Craig Henderson drove from Blaine, Washington to the Mexican border — a distance of 1,478 miles — without stopping to refuel. He burned 12.4 gallons for a record-breaking 119.1 mpg in a car he originally designed in 1984.

The Avion is a car Craig Henderson originally built with partner Bill Green way back in 1984 as a prototype for a high-mileage vehicle he hoped to sell. Commercial plans never came to fruition, but Henderson never abandoned the Avion. The car is built with two things in mind: weight and aerodynamics.

To achieve a featherweight 1500-lb target, it uses an aluminum monocoque frame with steel front/rear crash and suspension subframes. To the frame a slippery wind tunnel-shaped body made of carbon fiber, kevlar and fiberglass is riveted and bonded in place, yielding a very stiff structure.

An 800-cc diesel engine is transversely mounted behind the driver and the rear wheels are powered through a five-speed gearbox. With such light weight and low-resistance aerodynamics, the car only requires 3-4 horsepower to keep a 55 mph pace, perfect for the tiny diesel to chug along just sipping fuel. Henderson recently got sponsorship from Goodyear and tossed on a set of their low rolling resistance “Fuel Max” tires and has been seeing 115 mpg averages.

Henderson started off on August 29th and essentially drove the entire length of Interstate 5, stopping only for food, bathroom breaks and to sleep overnight. When he arrived at the Mexican border near Chula Vista, he’d burned an officially measured 12.4 gallons for an amazing 119.1 mpg fuel economy.

The run actually broke the 103 mpg Guinness world record the car had set on the same border to border run in 1986. – Full Article Source

Filing date of provisional application can have patent-defeating effect

The Giacomini application was filed on November 29, 2000, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Economical Cache Population.” The Board rejected certain claims of the Giacomini application as anticipated under 35 U.S.C. § 102 by U.S. Patent No. 7,039,683 (“the Tran patent”).

The Board found, and Giacomini did not dispute, that the Tran patent teaches all of the claimed features in Giacomini’s application. The central issue at the Board was the eligibility of the Tran patent to serve as prior art under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e). The Tran patent’s filing date is December 29, 2000.

However, the Tran patent claims priority to a provisional application (“the Tran provisional”) filed on September 25, 2000. The Board held that the Tran patent had a patent-defeating effect as of the filing date of the Tran provisional. Giacomini appealed the Board’s decision.

In its analysis of § 102(e), the Court noted that an application that a patent was “granted on” is the first U.S. application to disclose the invention claimed in the patent. The Court further noted that under 35 U.S.C. § 111(b)(8), “applications for patent” under § 102 includes both provisional and non-provisional patent applications. Slip op. at 4-5.

Thus, the Court concluded that an applicant is not entitled to a patent if another’s patent discloses the same invention, which was carried forward from an earlier U.S. provisional application or U.S. non-provisional application.

The Court found that the Tran provisional from which Tran claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119(e) discloses Giacomini’s claimed invention. The Court also noted that, although 35 U.S.C. § 119 requires that the provisional application provide written description support for the claimed invention, Giacomini never argued that the Tran provisional failed to do so and, therefore, waived the argument by failing to raise it below.

Thus, the Court stated that Giacomini, who filed his application after Tran filed his provisional application, could not receive a patent covering the same subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e). – Full Article Source

No more asleep at the wheel

“When a person starts to doze off, all the metabolic processes slow down sharply,” Professor Vladimir Sukhodoev, from the Psychology Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told RT. “The neurological characteristics which used to be quite active then slump, too. This is all picked up by the ring, and the ups and downs are measured here.” – Full Article Source