Bored in retirement, legendary aerospace engineer Burt Rutan is working on a new project, a high-speed winged boat that can double as a seaplane, so he can fly between lakes and rivers near his new home in Coeur d'Alene, a lakeside resort in northern Idaho.
Famed for designing a series of innovative aircraft and spacecraft, Rutan began building planes of his own design in the late 1960s while working as a project engineer for the US Air Force. He founded Scaled Composites in Mojave, California in 1982, where he became famous for designing Voyager, the first plane to fly around the world without refuelling in 1986. More recently, Rutan designed a flying car, which got off the ground for the first time in July.
However, his crowning achievement was SpaceShipOne, which in 2004 became the first privately funded craft to fly a human into space. A follow-on design, SpaceShipTwo, is intended to carry six space tourists to altitudes of about 120 kilometres, but so far has only glided in the air.
Having sold Scaled Composites to Northrop Grumman, Rutan retired in April, although his flying car design remains in development. But he isn't done yet - he has his sights set on designing a short-takeoff and landing (STOL) plane. "Getting out and exploring little lakes and rivers in a STOL seaplane is a fantasy, I think, for a pilot," he told the Experimental Aircraft Association.
But when Burt Rutan says "seaplane", you know he's not thinking of the propeller-powered pontoon planes that have been flown for decades. Instead, his plans draw inspiration from large wing Russian ships or "ekranoplans" built during the Cold War (see below). Essentially boats with wings and aircraft engines, they could rise up to 20 or 30 metres above the water. Rutan is thinking of a much smaller wing-boat that could reach high speeds in boat-mode on the water then take off and fly.
Test all kids for cholesterol, says US government
Here's a school-age test that requires no studying to pass. The US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute wants all children aged 9 to 11 to be screened for high cholesterol levels.
"The reason to start this young is that atherosclerosis, the disease process leading to heart attacks and strokes, starts this young," says Stephen Daniels of the Children's Hospital Colorado in Aurora, chair of the NHLBI panel.
Since 1992, children from families with a history of high cholesterol have been screened, but a report last year suggested the strategy misses one-third of high-risk cases. Testing all children should catch those cases.
But not everyone thinks the approach makes sense. "We have not seen evidence to suggest that screening the entire population of 9 to 11-year-olds would throw out the types of benefits sought," says a spokesman for the British Heart Foundation.
"The reason to start this young is that atherosclerosis, the disease process leading to heart attacks and strokes, starts this young," says Stephen Daniels of the Children's Hospital Colorado in Aurora, chair of the NHLBI panel.
Since 1992, children from families with a history of high cholesterol have been screened, but a report last year suggested the strategy misses one-third of high-risk cases. Testing all children should catch those cases.
But not everyone thinks the approach makes sense. "We have not seen evidence to suggest that screening the entire population of 9 to 11-year-olds would throw out the types of benefits sought," says a spokesman for the British Heart Foundation.
Fin massage relieves stress in surgeonfish
Life on the reef can be stressful. Fortunately for some of its fishy inhabitants, they can call on a masseur to soothe their nerves – the first non-primate known to do so.
Surgeonfish (Ctenochaetus striatus) make regular use of cleaner wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus) to remove their parasites and dead skin. Marta Soares of the ISPA University Institute in Lisbon, Portugal, noticed that the cleaners seem to offer another service too: they can placate an agitated surgeonfish by rubbing back and forth on its pelvic and pectoral fins.
Soares and her team set out to see if it was the social interaction or the feeling of the massage that kept the surgeonfish at ease. "We know that fish experience pain," says Soares. "Maybe fish have pleasure, too."
To test this, they studied two groups of eight surgeonfish. The team confined each fish in a small bucket for a short period to simulate the stresses they would encounter in the wild – predation, conflicts with cleaner fish or competition for food, for instance. They then placed the surgeonfish into tanks with a model cleaner fish. One group was given a stationary model, the other a model that moved back and forth, and so could provide physical stimulation.
All the surgeonfish readily approached the model, but those in the tank with the moving model were able to position themselves beneath it and use its fake fins to gain a back rub. These fish were more relaxed, as measured in terms of the steroid hormone cortisol, which is released in response to stress.
The touch of your fin
Todd Anderson, a biologist at San Diego State University, California, who studies the ecology of reef fishes, says he's surprised that physical contact lowers stress in fish.
"Normally I would think that physical contact would elevate stress in fish, as it should, for example, in prey experiencing attempted capture by a predator," Anderson says. "However, the contact [in this study] is initiated by the client fish for an often beneficial relationship [that includes] removing parasites."
Soares says that the tactile stimulation by cleaner fish may now be seen as more than purely exploitative, because it offers the client surgeonfish a benefit. She also says this research may mean that pathways for sensory information processing in fish are more similar to humans that previously thought.
"Humans go to have massages when we feel sick or just to feel better, so maybe the reasons are basically the same," she says.
Surgeonfish (Ctenochaetus striatus) make regular use of cleaner wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus) to remove their parasites and dead skin. Marta Soares of the ISPA University Institute in Lisbon, Portugal, noticed that the cleaners seem to offer another service too: they can placate an agitated surgeonfish by rubbing back and forth on its pelvic and pectoral fins.
Soares and her team set out to see if it was the social interaction or the feeling of the massage that kept the surgeonfish at ease. "We know that fish experience pain," says Soares. "Maybe fish have pleasure, too."
To test this, they studied two groups of eight surgeonfish. The team confined each fish in a small bucket for a short period to simulate the stresses they would encounter in the wild – predation, conflicts with cleaner fish or competition for food, for instance. They then placed the surgeonfish into tanks with a model cleaner fish. One group was given a stationary model, the other a model that moved back and forth, and so could provide physical stimulation.
All the surgeonfish readily approached the model, but those in the tank with the moving model were able to position themselves beneath it and use its fake fins to gain a back rub. These fish were more relaxed, as measured in terms of the steroid hormone cortisol, which is released in response to stress.
The touch of your fin
Todd Anderson, a biologist at San Diego State University, California, who studies the ecology of reef fishes, says he's surprised that physical contact lowers stress in fish.
"Normally I would think that physical contact would elevate stress in fish, as it should, for example, in prey experiencing attempted capture by a predator," Anderson says. "However, the contact [in this study] is initiated by the client fish for an often beneficial relationship [that includes] removing parasites."
Soares says that the tactile stimulation by cleaner fish may now be seen as more than purely exploitative, because it offers the client surgeonfish a benefit. She also says this research may mean that pathways for sensory information processing in fish are more similar to humans that previously thought.
"Humans go to have massages when we feel sick or just to feel better, so maybe the reasons are basically the same," she says.
Marcus Evans
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