After watching hundreds of mosquitoes buzzing around one of their colleagues and collecting 20 million data points, Georgia Tech and Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have created a mathematical model that predicts how and where female mosquitoes will fly to feast on humans. The new study is the first to visualize mosquito flight patterns and provides hard data for improving capture and control strategies. In addition to being a nuisance, mosquitoes transmit diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, and Zika, which cause more than 700,000 deaths every year.

A new 3D model reveals how mosquitoes adjust their flight patterns in response to visual and chemical cues. The research could help in the design of more effective traps and mosquito control strategies.

Seoul National University College of Engineering has announced that a research team led by Prof. Jeonghun Kwak of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, with co-first authors Dr. Juhyung Park and Dr. Sun Hong Kim, has developed a flexible and thin “pseudo-transverse thermoelectric generator” capable of producing electricity from body heat.

 

The research findings were published on March 18 (ET) in Science Advances, a leading international journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

For centuries, the process by which the cinchona tree produces its valuable alkaloids, including the life-saving quinine used to treat malaria, was shrouded in mystery. Now, a research team from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, together with colleagues from the University of Georgia, has uncovered the secret. In a new study, the scientists demonstrate how the plant sequentially builds up the complex molecular framework characteristic of quinine. The researchers identified the enzymes responsible for catalyzing the chemical reactions that take place inside the plant. The study opens up new avenues for the sustainable and efficient laboratory production of natural substances such as quinine and related active ingredients.

Two microscopic grains collide and produce a tiny spark. This phenomenon may have provided the energy to kick off life on Earth. But if these solid particles have the same composition, what factor causes the charge to flow in a given direction? In a new study published in Nature, physicists from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) identify the key factor as environmental carbon-based molecules that adhere to the materials’ surface.