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UPI NewsTrack Health and Science News

Students fly human-powered helicopter

BALTIMORE, May 13 (UPI) -- Students at the University of Maryland are claiming a world record after their human-powered Gamera helicopter rose above a gymnasium floor.

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After two days of tests and failed attempts, on Thursday afternoon the craft's rotors were able to pull it a foot into the air as pilot Judy Wexler pedaled furiously, The Baltimore Sun reported.

"Not even a question. We don't have to review the videotape. Absolutely amazing," team leader Brandon Bush, 29, said.

Kristan R. Maynard, a judge assigned by the National Aeronautic Association to certify the record attempt, said, "As is always the case in these types of efforts, any attempt is a pending result."

The NAA and the Federation Aeronautique Internationale in Switzerland will review the video and other data, she said.

"It sure looked good to me," Maynard said, "but at this point it's unofficial."

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Gamera, named for a giant flying turtle in Japanese monster movies, has a central cockpit surrounded by four 43-foot rotors. While Wexler, 24, pedals at 120 rpm, the giant blades spin at 18 rpm.


Coral mining cause of island disappearances

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, May 13 (UPI) -- Coral reef mining has caused two small islands in South Asia's first marine biosphere reserve to sink into the sea, scientists say.

The islets of Poomarichan and Villanguchalli were located in a group in the Gulf of Mannar between India and Sri Lanka, in an area considered to contain some of the world's richest marine biological resources, the BBC reported Friday.

The 21 islands and islets, covering an area of 216 square miles, are protected as part of the Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park.

Indiscriminate and illegal mining of invaluable coral reefs by local fishermen went on for many decades, S. Balaji, chief conservator of forests and wildlife for Sri Lanka's Tamil Nadu state, said.

Corals, rich in calcium carbonate, were mined for use as a binding material in the construction industry.

"The absence of any regulations prior to 2002 led to illegal mining of the coral reefs, which came to an end when environmental protection laws were enacted," he said.

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Though these islets were only 10-15 feet above sea level, their submergence is a warning about the danger many more islands face in the long run, Balaji said.


Moon map shows older, newer features

PASADENA, Calif., May 13 (UPI) -- Researchers at the California Institute of Technology say they've put together the first set of maps revealing the slopes and roughness of the moon's surface.

Showing the damage the moon has endured in 4.5 billion years of volcanic eruptions and impacts, the maps are based on detailed data collected by a laser altimeter aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a NASA release said Friday.

The roughness of craters and other features on the moon's surface can reveal their age, researchers said.

"Old and young craters have different roughness properties -- they are rougher on some scales and smoother on others," CalTech's Meg Rosenburg said. "That's because the older craters have been pummeled for eons by meteorites that pit and mar the site of the original impact, changing the original shape of the crater."

"Because this softening of the terrain hasn't happened at the new impact sites, the youngest craters immediately stand out," said NASA researcher Gregory Neumann.

The same approach can be used to study surface processes on other astronomical bodies as well, Rosenburg said.

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"The processes at work are different on Mars than they are on an asteroid, but they each leave a signature in the topography for us to interpret," she said.

"By studying roughness at different scales, we can begin to understand how our nearest neighbors came to look the way they do."


Canadian teen honored for disease research

TORONTO, May 13 (UPI) -- A Canadian teenager using a supercomputer to find a new drug combination that shows potential in cystic fibrosis treatment has been honored, officials say.

Marshall Zhang, 16, an 11th-grade student at Toronto's Bayview Secondary School, won first place in the 2011 Sanofi-Aventis BioTalent Challenge, a contest for students conducting their own research projects with the help of mentors, LiveScience.com reported Thursday.

Cystic fibrosis is a potentially fatal condition caused by a genetic mutation that causes thick mucus to build up in the lungs and elsewhere, often killing its victims in their teens.

Zhang used a Canadian supercomputing network to model how two promising new compounds acted against the defective protein that causes the condition.

When Zhang's results were tested with living cells, the results were better than he expected, he said.

"They actually worked together in creating an effect that was greater than the sum of its parts," Zhang told LiveScience.

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Zhang will move on to compete against U.S. and Australian contestants at the International BioGENEius Challenge in Washington June 27.

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