Sunday, April 10, 2005

Robot jockeys to ride Gulf camels. [BBC News | World 4/10/2005; 1:53:39 PM] The United Arab Emirates says it will use robots as jockeys for camel races from next season. Camel racing is one of the UAE's traditional sports and an important part of the region's heritage. The move comes after widespread international criticism of the use of young children to ride camels during the long and often hazardous races. Aid workers say there are up to 40,000 child jockeys working across the Gulf. Many are said to be have been kidnapped and trafficked from South Asia.
 

Sunday, April 10, 2005

Fly brains manipulated by remote control. [MSNBC 4/7/2005] "This is a new approach to neuroscience," said Gero Miesenbock from Yale University. "We can not only passively observe but actively control behavior." Using the lasers to stimulate specific brain cells, researchers say they were able to make the flies jump, walk, flap their wings and fly. Even headless flies took flight when researchers stimulated the correct neurons, according to the study, published in the April 7 issue of the journal Cell. Biologists have long known that an electrical stimulus can trigger muscle response, but this approach used focused beams of light to stimulate neurons that would have been impossible to study using electrodes.