UPI NewsTrack Health and Science News

Minnesota joins Asian carp lawsuit

CHICAGO, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Ohio, Michigan and Minnesota have joined forces to seal Illinois waterways from the Great Lakes in a fight against an invasive carp, officials said.

Minnesota Monday joined Ohio and Michigan in a U.S. Supreme Court petition that asks for closure of the Chicago and O'Brien locks -- waterways in downtown Chicago and south suburban Burnham that handle hundreds of millions of dollars in shipping and recreational boating each year.

Closing the locks would have major repercussions for the Chicago area and require rerouting an enormous amount of freight overland, including jet fuel, coal and road salt, the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday.

Officials in Michigan, Ohio and Minnesota argue those obstacles are worth protecting the lakes' $7-billion-a-year fishing industry.

Federal and state officials from Illinois deliberately poisoned the locks several weeks ago, creating a massive fish kill after DNA samples showed the carp had evaded electronic barriers in the locks.

Fuel change for MIT reactor delayed

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 29 (UPI) -- The nuclear reactor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology won't be converted to a safer fuel for at least five years, authorities said.

The university's 50-year-old reactor is to be switched from highly enriched uranium to low enriched uranium, which cannot be used to make nuclear weapons.

The safer fuel, however, will require at least five years for design and testing to ensure it provides the same performance as the current fuel, said David Moncton, who oversees the reactor.

The delay in converting the university's reactor could be used as a reason for countries to delay converting reactors of their own, The Boston Globe reported Tuesday.

The United States has been pressuring other Iran and other countries to switch to low enriched uranium to prevent the spread of atomic weapons.

Locusts use vision to find foothold

CAMBRIDGE, England, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- High-speed video has shown some insects use vision rather than touch to find footholds, scientists at England's University of Cambridge said.

The researchers filmed desert locusts stepping along the rungs of a miniature ladder much the same way mammals would, the university said in a release Monday.

The research sheds light on insects' ability to perform complex tasks, such as visually-guided limb control, usually associated with mammals, said university researcher Jeremy Niven.

"This is another example of insects performing a behavior we previously thought was restricted to relatively big-brained animals with sophisticated motor control such as humans, monkeys or octopuses," he said.

The research deepens the scientific understanding of the neural circuits of locusts, which has been a model organism for studying limb control in robotics for the last four decades, Niven said.

Steroid slowed retinopathy

BALTIMORE, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Injecting a corticosteroid directly into the eye may slow the progression of proliferative diabetic retinopathy, researchers in Maryland said.

In experiments, the corticosteroid triamcinolone slowed progression of the disease, which is a complication of diabetes that frequently leads to blindness, researchers at Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute in Baltimore said in a release Monday.

The treatment is not yet ready for general use because of side effects, such as an increased risk for cataracts and glaucoma, said Neil Bressler, a chief opthamologist at the institute.

"Steroid treatment worked, but because of safety issues, cannot be recommended routinely at this time," Bressler said, noting the condition can be treated safely and effectively with lasers.

Future research will explore further development of corticosteroids without the risk of severe side effects, he said in the December issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology.