Scientists have developed a new material that expands and contracts, lifting a weight merely by shining a light on it.

Materials that respond to red or near-infrared light, which can penetrate human tissue, could be used in biomedical applications, such as drug-delivery devices or, eventually, as artificial muscles.

Barnes says that his group has only begun to test the limits of these new materials. Currently, the team is studying the self-healing properties of polyviologen-embedded hydrogels, and they are exploring the possibility of 3D printing the polymers into different types of materials.

India’s top biomedical research body urged the government on Friday to take immediate steps to save Asiatic lions after 23 of the endangered species died in the last three weeks, some due to a rare virus whose spread officials are scrambling to control.

Five of the Asiatic lions, the last remaining species of which live in the Gir forests of western India, were found to have died from the contagious Canine Distemper Virus (CDV), the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said in a statement.

The deaths have cast a renewed spotlight on the conditions at Gir for the endangered wild cats, as many as 600 of whom live on the roughly 850 square miles-long expanse of the sanctuary that is surrounded by clusters of human settlements.

India’s top court ordered to move some of the lions to a separate sanctuary in 2013 after wildlife experts and activists said the relocation was essential to protect the lions from potential calamities like disease outbreaks.

But successive local governments in Gujarat, which is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state, have staunchly opposed the shift, and Modi himself has said the state wouldn’t part with any lions because they were “the pride of Gujarat.”

Use at your own risk
I'm testing the validator, work generator, assimilator, and applications. It may or may not work which means you may or may not get credit for your work. There is still a lot of work to do but I'm making progress

Do some distributed computing they said, upgrade your processor they said. And then you get the bollocks Ageless has had to deal with, lol :)

Five rangers and a staff driver for Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were killed in an ambush April 9. A sixth ranger was injured in the ambush, but he is recovering.

The attack, carried out in the park's central region, was the deadliest in Virunga's history, and brings the park's death toll for the year to seven and to 175 in the past 20 years.

The park is known for its population of critically endangered mountain gorillas, among other endangered species.

Würst?

That and some black pudding with a full english? Oh yes :)

@Paul - many thanks indeed for your observations and advice. Yep FAH seems just another collection of stuffed shirts and "higher ups". What all these people can't seem to understand that is just because someone foolishly gives some nonentity a couple of meaningless tags against their avatar, they think they are important. Step outside their own front door, and they are the same as everyone else. "Higher ups"? What's this back at school with prefects again? Don't worry Paul, I have no intention of posting there. The website is god awful and I have no wish to used to it. I'm only there for the science.