Malaria in Fossilised Bat Flies encased in Amber - research Paper

Background

Both sexes of bat flies in the families Nycteribiidae and Streblidae (Diptera: Hippoboscoidea) reside in the hair or on the wing membranes of bats and feed on blood.

Members of the Nycteribiidae transmit bat malaria globally however extant streblids have never been implemented as vectors of bat malaria.

The present study shows that during the Tertiary, streblids also were vectors of bat malaria.

Results

A new haemospororidan, Vetufebrus ovatus, n. gen., n. sp., (Haemospororida: Plasmodiidae) is described from two oocysts attached to the midgut wall and sporozoites in salivary glands and ducts of a fossil bat fly (Diptera: Streblidae) in Dominican amber.

The new genus is characterised by ovoid oocysts, short, stubby sporozoites with rounded ends and its occurrence in a fossil streblid.

This is the first haemosporidian reported from a streblid bat fly and shows that representatives of the Hippoboscoidea were vectoring bat malaria in the New World by the mid-Tertiary.

Conclusions

This report is the first evidence of an extant or extinct streblid bat fly transmitting malaria.

Discovering a mid-tertiary malarial parasite in a fossil streblid that closely resembles members of a malarial genus found in nycteribiid bat flies today shows how little we know about the vector associations of streblids.

While no malaria parasites have been found in extant streblids, they probably occur and it is possible that streblids were the earliest lineage of flies that transmitted bat malaria to Chiroptera.

Vetufebrus ovatus n. gen., n. sp. (Haemospororida: Plasmodiidae) vectored by a streblid bat fly (Diptera: Streblidae) in Dominican amber

Southampton engineers fly the world’s first ‘printed’ aircraft

Engineers at the University of Southampton have designed and flown the world’s first ‘printed’ aircraft, which could revolutionise the economics of aircraft design.

The SULSA (Southampton University Laser Sintered Aircraft) plane is an unmanned air vehicle (UAV) whose entire structure has been printed, including wings, integral control surfaces and access hatches.

It was printed on an EOS EOSINT P730 nylon laser sintering machine, which fabricates plastic or metal objects, building up the item layer by layer.

No fasteners were used and all equipment was attached using ‘snap fit’ techniques so that the entire aircraft can be put together without tools in minutes.

The electric-powered aircraft, with a 2-metres wingspan, has a top speed of nearly 100 miles per hour, but when in cruise mode is almost silent. The aircraft is also equipped with a miniature autopilot developed by Dr Matt Bennett, one of the members of the team.

Laser sintering allows the designer to create shapes and structures that would normally involve costly traditional manufacturing techniques. This technology allows a highly-tailored aircraft to be developed from concept to first flight in days.

Using conventional materials and manufacturing techniques, such as composites, this would normally take months. Furthermore, because no tooling is required for manufacture, radical changes to the shape and scale of the aircraft can be made with no extra cost.

This project has been led by Professors Andy Keane and Jim Scanlan from the University’s Computational Engineering and Design Research group.

Professor Scanlon says: “The flexibility of the laser sintering process allows the design team to re-visit historical techniques and ideas that would have been prohibitively expensive using conventional manufacturing. One of these ideas involves the use of a Geodetic structure.

This type of structure was initially developed by Barnes Wallis and famously used on the Vickers Wellington bomber which first flew in 1936. This form of structure is very stiff and lightweight, but very complex.

If it was manufactured conventionally it would require a large number of individually tailored parts that would have to be bonded or fastened at great expense.”

Professor Keane adds: “Another design benefit that laser sintering provides is the use of an elliptical wing planform. Aerodynamicists have, for decades, known that elliptical wings offer drag benefits.

The Spitfire wing was recognised as an extremely efficient design but it was notoriously difficult and expensive to manufacture. Again laser sintering removes the manufacturing constraint associated with shape complexity and in the SULSA aircraft there is no cost penalty in using an elliptical shape.”

SULSA is part of the EPSRC-funded DECODE project, which is employing the use of leading edge manufacturing techniques, such as laser sintering, to demonstrate their use in the design of UAVs.

Paper Thin Solar Cells - Folding a solar cell into an airplane

MIT's been making steady progress on creating solar cell-coated paper since 2010, and are excited to report the current findings of the project.

What looks and feels like an ordinary sheet of paper with a fine layer of coloured rectangles, is no ordinary piece of paper. Once connected to a couple of wires, it instantly generates electricity from solar power.

Additionally, the technology is almost as cheap and easy as printing a family snapshot from an inkjet printer. You can even fold it, slip it in your pocket, then unfold it again for later use.



The printing process uses vapours at relatively low temperatures (less than 120C/ 248F), to transfer five fine layers of photovoltaic cells onto a piece of untreated paper, plastic or even fabric.

The process takes place in a vacuum chamber where the layers are sprayed onto the same sheet of paper in successive passes, "creating a vapor-deposition process that can be carried out inexpensively on a vast commercial scale," according to MIT.

During an experiment to test the durability of the solar cells, a team of MIT students printed the cells onto a sheet of PET plastic (a thinner version than what is commonly used for soda bottles) and folded and unfolded it 1,000 times.

Remarkably, there was no impact of each fold on the performance of the solar cells. In contrast, a commercially produced solar cell on the same PET plastic failed after the first fold.

"We have demonstrated quite thoroughly the robustness of this technology," says MIT Professor of Electrical Engineering Vladimir Bulović.

Due to the low weight of the paper or plastic, "we think we can fabricate scalable solar cells that can reach record-high watts-per-kilogram performance," he added. "For solar cells with such properties, a number of technological applications open up."

Furthermore, by laminating the solar paper, the researchers were able to demonstrate that the system can be protected from rain and wind, and thus easily used outdoors.

This achievement in itself could offer an economical solution to current solar energy systems that use glass or other expensive materials as a base.

"Stateless" Mynamar Boy Comes 3rd in Japan Paper Airplane Contest

Mong Thongdee, a 12 -year-old stateless who was born in Thailand to Myanmar migrants, competes during the team indoor flight duration competition at the All-Japan Origami Airplane Contest in Makuhari, near Tokyo, on Saturday.

A Mynamar boy who the Thai Government claim is "Stateless" and has no 'official nationality' even though he lives in Thailand, has captured third place in a Japanese paper airplane contest on Sunday. Only after he made extensive tearful pleas to be allowed to attend the contest, did the authorities decide to grant him a rare 'temporary' passport for the event.

Mong Thongdee, 12, won a national paper airplane championship in Thailand in August 2008 after he threw a plane that flew for 12 seconds, and was later chosen to attend the Japanese contest in Chiba, near Tokyo.

Mong, who lives in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, is the son of Myanmar migrants and they have officially been declared 'stateless', by the Thai Government and therefore have no legal right to travel abroad.

His first application to leave Thailand was denied, but after national media coverage of him quietly sobbing after the refusal captured the hearts of many Thais, he was granted a temporary passport.