Olympic Swimmers Learn From Sharks, Dolphins

When winning an Olympic gold medal in swimming is the goal, it helps to take inspiration from some of the best swimmers in the world -- sharks and dolphins -- and that is exactly what U.S. Olympic team swimmers have been doing as they train.

From suits to strokes, coaches, researchers and other advisers are making sure that their athletes benefit from fish and marine mammals' natural swimming abilities.

"Some of our athletes are now wearing what are called 'shark skin suits,'" Russell Mark, biomechanics coordinator for U.S.A. Swimming, told Discovery News.

"These aren't made of actual shark skin, of course, but they are slippery in feel, like sharks, and they make the wearer move faster than normal in the water by reducing friction and drag," he explained.

Mark also indicated that excelling at the dolphin kick can make or break a swimmer's race.
"This is when swimmers push off walls and swim underwater without moving their arms, very similar to how a dolphin swims," he said.

The move emulates how dolphins zoom through water by moving their flipper in an up and down motion. Sharks, in contrast, move side to side. Humans are mammals like dolphins and the up and down undulating motion propels people as it does dolphins. The dolphin kick is one of the most powerful moves among professional swimmers.

The move begins when an individual raises the hips, and then follows with a knee bend with flexed ankles. Put together, the sequence creates an undulating, whipping motion that runs all along the legs to the toes, minimizing water resistance and smoothly zooming the person forward.

"Our top swimmers -- Michael Phelps, Natalie Coughlin, Ryan Lochte and others -- all excel at dolphin kicking," Mark said. "Phelps is among the best in the world and probably gets as close to anyone as also having a more shark-like finesse in the water."

Sharks are some of the world's fastest swimmers. One impressive species is the shortfin mako, which has been reliably clocked at 31 miles per hour underwater. Everything about this fish is designed for swimming in short bursts of perfection. It has a streamlined body, a crescent-shaped tail supported by keels and a water-cutting, pointed snout.
Sharks, as fans of B-horror movies know, can also be quite hefty and large, yet still move quickly in the water.

"I think it has to do with surface area to volume ratio and drag," Neil Hammerschlag, University of Miami marine biologist, told Discovery News. "That is perhaps why larger, longer boats and longer airplanes move quicker."

Hammerschlag explained that big volumes have a smaller surface area to volume ratio and can move in a speedier fashion as a result, since surface drag can cause a boundary layer of water to sort of stick to the individual, potentially holding them back.

Over the years, Olympic swimmers have been beefing up by incorporating weight training into their schedules. This not only helps to combat drag, but also to simply improve power. Australian Libby Trickett, for example, has a powerful upper body, which may be behind her success in the butterfly stroke.

Rajat Mittal, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at George Washington University, has worked with Mark by providing information about swimming mechanics inspired by dolphins. Mittal recently even created a computer model of a dolphin to better understand its movements.

Mittal said basic anatomical differences, such as lack of a totally flexible spine, joint structure, the nature of human musculature and the need to frequently breathe, keep humans way out of the range of shark and dolphin swimming records.

"To win, our Olympians must go all out and swim in what is essentially an inefficient manner," Mittal said. "Dolphins and sharks, by contrast never compromise their speed with efficiency. They are truly among nature's best swimmers."

New variant of rare flower found in Camerons

CAMERON HIGHLANDS: It is a plant with an awful stench but its beauty is enough to stop nature-lovers in their tracks.

The Amorphophallus bufo, a rare species found in tropical and sub-tropical areas, sparked interest when news of its discovery here broke last year.

But there is fresh excitement now with the sighting of a new variant with reddish and pinkish flowers.

Local environmentalist and orchid enthusiast Embi Abdullah, 60, said he and his friend N. Madi were trekking when they spotted the reddish bloom in the jungles of Gunung Jasar, Tanah Rata, here.

Most Amorphophallus bufo flowers were brown with white spots, he said.

Within just a week, Embi and several others came across a colony of more than 10 of the plants, five of them in bloom.

“You only get to see these flowers once every five or six years,” Embi said in Brinchang here.

He added that the highlands Amorphophallus bufo, measuring about 1.5m in height, was unusually tall and dwarfed other Amorphophallus species.

“The Amorphophallus is also a plant found in warmer lowlands, so the Cameron Highlands species is even more unique,” he added.

Embi said a group of them planned to approach the district officer or the state forestry department with a proposal to set up an Amorphophallus conservatory.

“The Amorphophallus might have some medicinal value and the conservatory could be used for research and maybe tourism purposes.

“In India, the tuber of one Amorphophallus species has even been used as food,” he added.

The group also hoped to consult fellow environmentalist Datuk Seri Lim Chong Keat, who recently led a group of scientists in finding another variety of the plant during a Forest Research Institute of Malaysia expedition.

Source : TheStar online

US wants all 10 fingerprints on entry

The US will increase the amount of information it holds on foreign visitors when it takes all 10 fingerprints from air travellers rather than the usual two.

Currently foreign travellers must have their index fingers scanned into a database when they enter the US by agents of the Department of Homeland Security. Those prints can then be checked against a database of fingerprints held by police forces or the FBI.

That number will increase to all 10 fingerprints on a trial at 10 US airports. It is planned that the programme will be in place in all airports in around a year, according to a report in The Daily Telegraph.

US authorities claim the current scan of two fingers takes around 15 seconds and that the new process will not take significantly longer than that. Tourism bodies in the US have expressed concern that such measures are harming the tourist trade, however.

"We applaud the US Senate for striving to fix a flawed travel system," Stevan Porter, chairman of the Discover America Partnership, told the Telegraph. The Discover America Partnership is a representative body for tourism bodies.

"The policies implemented over the past five years appear to have strengthened our security. Lost, however, were efficiencies and a semblance of customer service," Porter said.

There are already concerns in Europe about the amount and importance of data held by US authorities on European air passengers. The US has a less stringent privacy regime than Europe.

Airlines are currently forced to hand over 34 pieces of information about every passenger that travels to the US. Called Passenger Name Records, the information is transferred in line with a deal signed by the European Commission and US authorities.

The European Parliament has opposed the deal, though, and a new agreement is due to be signed later this year. An earlier agreement was deemed illegal by the European Court of Justice on a technicality, but a near-identical scheme was set up in its place.

The Department of Homeland Security is said to have arrested 1,800 suspects since biometric identification was introduced, but in order to do that they collected the fingerprints of 80 million passengers.

Visitor numbers from the UK to the US have dropped since 2001's terrorist attacks in the US and the security measures put in place in their aftermath. Around 4.7 million UK citizens visited the US in 2001, a figure that fell to 4.3 million in 2005.

Source : www.theregister.co.uk

Brain 'can beat early blindness'

The brain can learn to see in later life even if it has been deprived of visual input early on, work suggests.

One woman, who had her vision restored at the age of 12 by a cataract operation, performed almost normally on vision tests at the age of 32.

US experts say their studies show the brain is malleable in older children - which was doubted previously - and that the risks of surgery can be worth it.

And they have launched an initiative to treat blind children living in India.

Missed opportunities

About 450,000 children in India are blind, and many of those cases are preventable.

Most of the affected children live in remote areas where eye care is not available, and have conditions that could easily be treated, such as cataracts, vitamin A deficiency or conjunctivitis.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology team hope to reach more of these children through Project Prakash.

Lead researcher Pawan Sinha explained that as a result of their work already, eye doctors were more willing to treat older patients, which they previously thought would be hopeless.

"Before our collaboration with them, they would be very reluctant to treat children older than five or six years of age, but now they are much more willing to identify older children and treat them."

Restoring sight

He explained that his initial interest had been sparked by the case of the 32-year-old woman they studied, who they called SRD.

Before her surgery, SRD could distinguish between light and dark, but could not make out form or pattern.

Twenty years after the operation, which she had when she was 12, SRD's vision was as good as anyone with normal eyesight.

On tests, she had near normal abilities and was able to recognise objects and faces, judge depth order and match 2D and 3D shapes, Psychological Science journal reports.

Things she did struggle with was visualising objects with her eyes closed and judging people's gaze when based on the direction of people's heads rather than where their eyes were looking.
Studies in animals have suggested a "critical period" for learning how to see. Kittens, for example, have very limited recovery of vision after being reared for the first few months in complete darkness.

But Mr Sinha's work suggests this is not the case in humans. They plan more work to track the precise order and mechanism of visual skill development in children who have their sight restored.

Tragically, SRD recently died in a road accident. The researchers are contributing funds to help her 9-year-old daughter, who is now living by herself in a hostel for the blind.

Sonal Rughani, an RNIB spokesperson, said: "Whilst these findings are fascinating, this single case study raises questions about the accepted ideas about the development of visual function.
"In each case where delayed visual development causes visual loss, the patient's ophthalmologist can best advise on the course of action as each case of visual impairment is complex."

Source : BBC News

Google's Gmail Now Open To All Users

Mountain View-based Google's Gmail, which has for almost three years been available by invitation only, can now be signed onto by anyone. However, the company said it is still in beta status, indicating it feels there's still work to do on the service.

Since Gmail users often stay on Google's Web site while they do searches, the company can find out more about individual preferences by widening its e-mail user reach.

Each Gmail account has at least 2.8 gigabytes of storage, or enough space for about 1.4 million pages.

Reports Wednesday said Google will probably begin charging for extra storage, but details have not yet been ironed out.