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DECEMBER 18, 2006
Edited by Michael Arndt HIGHWAY SAFETY A Better Crash Barrier Leveraging work done for NASCAR, researchers have created a highway crash barrier they say is better than today's big yellow barrels filled with sand. Made from a patented plastic, the shield springs back to its original shape when struck, so it doesn't need replacing. NASCAR asked researchers at Battelle Science & Technology International to come up with an alternative safety cushion after star driver Dale Earnhardt was killed at the Daytona 500 in 2001. The researchers at the Columbus (Ohio) lab developed a form of polyurethane that collapses to absorb the impact of a speeding car. Because the compound's molecules remember their initial structure, the material rebounds a few minutes after the vehicle has been removed. Scientists have placed the plastic in a 25-foot-long steel case that telescopes in and out. In tests, the barrier has withstood a dozen crashes, says Scott Versluis, a Battelle commercialization manager. Battelle has submitted its NASCAR data to the Federal Highway Administration and hopes to see the barriers approved in mid-2007. THE MILITARY For GIs, A New Eye In The Sky Drones a little smaller than R2-D2 in Star Wars, unlike any drone in the sky today, may soon be helping combat troops. The unmanned aircraft, recently tested with infantry units in Hawaii, are designed to fly ahead of military personnel and relay back live video or heat-tracking images. Built from composite materials and aluminum and powered by gasoline, the 20-pound aircraft can shoot straight up on bottom-mounted fans. The drones use tilting vanes to move sideways. They can stay aloft for about 45 minutes and can fly as far as 1 1/2 miles from their controllers on the ground. To work best, though, they need to be in the operator's line of sight, so buildings or other objects could limit their use. Based on prototypes from Honeywell International, the drones would operate ideally at about 500 feet off the ground. They could be fielded in battle as early as 2008. By Joseph Weber   HEALTH Homing In On The Magic In Red Wine It's been a good year for resveratrol. Scientists have hailed this substance in red wine as the magic element that enables French people to stay heart-healthy despite their rich diet. But investigators may be celebrating the wrong molecule. Credit should go not to resveratrol but to compounds in grapes called procyanidins, say the authors of a paper in the Nov. 30 issue of Nature. Part of a class of botanical compounds known as flavonoids, they're found in high concentrations in the grapes used to make red wines in southwestern France and Sardinia—regions renowned for their inhabitants' longevity. The paper's authors, from Queen Mary's School of Medicine & Dentistry in London and several other institutions, say procyanidins work by suppressing the body's synthesis of a small protein called endothelin-1, which constricts blood vessels. By Neil Gross INNOVATIONS Milk Before A Scan, And Ultrasound Instead Of A Biopsy • Got VoLumen? Milk may be just as good. VoLumen is that dreaded barium sulfate sludge that doctors force on patients undergoing CT scans to produce clear images of their intestinal walls. But researchers at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York told the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) that whole milk produces the same effect. It's also much cheaper: VoLumen costs $18 per patient, vs. $1.39 for milk. • An advanced ultrasound device may reduce the need for biopsies of suspected breast tumors, according to another study presented at the RSNA meeting. The hand-held scanner, developed by Siemens (SI ), can detect tissue elasticity and therefore pick out hard masses such as tumors. It's like finding "a marble in a bowl of Jello," says Dr. Richard Barr of Northeastern Ohio College of Medicine. In a study of 80 women with suspicious breast lesions, Barr used the device to identify 18 as malignant. Biopsies confirmed that 17 were cancerous.
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