Power industry engineers are developing new, faster switches for the power grid, devices that could help prevent widespread blackouts by letting the system regain equilibrium quicker after a disturbance, an industry research official says.
The switches, which work electronically rather than mechanically, have been installed in six demonstration sites over the past four years, said the vice president for power delivery for the Electric Power Research Institute.
The switches are working but "we've got work to do" in reducing their cost and making sure they are reliable, he said. "We've got to prove their value to society," he said. It should take four to five years to finish developing the devices; it would take up to 15 years to get them installed in the power grid, he said.
The switches would not completely remove the need to build more power lines and upgrade lines, steps many experts recommend for the power grid, he said. And they'd have to be coupled with an improved computer ability to sense the condition of the power grid much faster than now, he said. Currently, that can take a full minute, while ideally that assessment would take less than a second, he said.
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Sea sponges trump fiber optics: A deep-sea sponge with a "skeleton" made out of silica beat inventors to the punch when it comes to fiber-optic technology, researchers at Bell Laboratories/Lucent Technologies reported.
It has spicules -- skeletal structures -- that look very much like modern fiber optic cables, but while fiber-optic cables often crack and break, the sponge's spicules have built-in braces that toughen the structure, the researchers said in the journal Nature.
Fiber-optic cables are long strands of pure glass about the diameter of a human hair that carry digital information over long distances. They are arranged in bundles called optical cables and used to transmit light signals.
The little sponge, known commonly as Venus' flower basket, has an intricately latticed silica cage where pairs of shrimp go to mate. The spicules are about the same size and shape as fiber-optic cables, they wrote. They are made of the same material and bend light in a similar manner. Studying it could help scientists figure out better ways to make fiber-optic cables and networks, the researchers suggested.
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SARS-like virus puzzles Canadians: A World Health Organization researcher met with Canadian health officials who are puzzled by a new virus that looks like it is linked to SARS but does not act like the deadly illness.
The new virus was discovered at a nursing home that was struck by a cold-like illness. Three people died of respiratory problems during the outbreak, but most who fell ill suffered only mild symptoms.
Researchers were still working on a complete map of the new virus' genome sequence. Canadian officials do not believe the illness at Kinsmen Place Lodge was SARS, because none of the cases fit the established definition of the disease that struck Asia and Toronto this year.
The genetic sequences of the virus that have been mapped so far have matched a virus linked to severe acute respiratory syndrome, according to a representative from the Canadian Science Center for Human and Animal Health.
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Smoking pot for science: Hundreds of Britons are being recruited to take cannabis capsules after operations, as part of a major study.
Anecdotal evidence suggests cannabis -- taken by many thousands of people across the world as a recreational drug -- does soothe pain.
"We need to assess the scientific merits of some of the anecdotal evidence and we need to do this in the same way as any other experimental pain treatment," one British scientist said.
Scientists heading the study by the Medical Research Council will recruit 400 volunteers to take either a form of cannabis, a standard pain-relieving drug or a placebo after surgery. The patients will then have their pain levels and general health monitored once every hour over a six-hour period to allow researchers to compare their experiences.
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Great -- more penis-oriented spam: A new oral impotence treatment called Levitra won approval, providing the first challenge to the popular Viagra in the world's most profitable market for medicines. Makers GlaxoSmithKline and Bayer expect Levitra to be available in September.
Levitra's little orange pill will give men an alternative to Pfizer's diamond-shaped blue pill, the drug that transformed impotence treatment after its 1998 debut. Another competitor, a pill called Cialis, also may hit the U.S. market later this year. All three drugs already are competing in Europe.
Viagra gained instant success as the first oral therapy for impotence, but Levitra's makers are planning a major marketing blitz to lure many of the millions of men who have not sought treatment. An estimated 30 million U.S. men experience some level of erectile dysfunction.
"We know, from considerable market research, that the market is ready for new options," said head of strategic management of GlaxoSmithKline's cardiovascular, metabolic and urology drugs.
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Ancient Chinese secret shrub: British Scientists say they may have solved the mystery of how plant extracts taken from an aromatic Chinese shrub help combat malaria, which kills thousands each day.
The Chinese have used the plant extracts, known as artemisinins, for thousands of years. Finally in the early 1970s, Chinese scientists developed a compound made from the extracts that helps treat malaria. Since then, artemisinins have been used widely to fight the disease.
However, no one is quite sure how it work. Until now, the accepted theory was that they interact with certain molecules produced when the malaria parasite feeds on red blood cells. But researchers say the extracts actually interact with an enzyme called PfATP6, which occurs naturally in the body.
Researchers hope the study will lead to the production of synthetic artemisinins, which are even more effective in blocking PfATP6 than natural artemisinins.
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Compiled by Kari L. Dean. Reuters and AP contributed to this report.
