Imperial-News 164

Imperial-News 164 - 4 March 2005

Welcome to the latest edition of Imperial-News. Delivered to your inbox every Friday afternoon, Imperial-News keeps you up to date with the latest developments at Imperial College London.

In this edition: how Imperial students are taking their designs to the skies, why smokers could soon be lining up for injections, and why the earth is kicking a spacecraft.

>>>Come fly with me: new simulator opens at Imperial
A new flight simulator at Imperial is enabling students to fly their own designs for the planes of the future. Using the MOTUS simulator, students can programme any aircraft design into a computer and then test how it would perform in all the conditions that a real aircraft might face. Professor Mike Graham, Aeronautics, says: "Everyone is very excited about the arrival of the simulator. There is nothing like real experience to bring home to a student the consequence of, for example, excessive 'dutch roll' in an aircraft, where the plane moves like a falling leaf, yawing and rolling."
www.imperial.ac.uk/P6126.htm

>>>Earth gives spacecraft a good kicking
The European spacecraft Rosetta will fly past the Earth on Friday as it builds up the speed needed to chase down and orbit a comet in 2014. The probe will get within 1,200 miles of Earth as it accelerates under the pull of gravity on a slingshot manoeuvre out to Mars. It is the first of three Earth flybys Rosetta will make before travelling through the asteroid belt to Jupiter. "This last year, Rosetta has really been in a parking orbit and when it comes past Earth, it will get a kick," explains Dr Chris Carr, Physics, one of the mission scientists. "It will get an even bigger kick at Mars, where it flies by at just 200km" he adds.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4312659.stm

>>>Get out of bed for Imperial's first sleep conference
This week, The Guardian urged people to set their alarms for the first Fatigue, Sleep and Biological Clocks International Conference which is to be hosted by Imperial at the end of March. Among the items due to be discussed are how sleep disorders create fatigue and how sleep deprivation affects general health. "Sleep is such an important part of our lives, and the amount we get can make a huge difference, yet there is still so much about it that we don't understand. We hope this conference will help raise awareness of the impact sleep disruption can have on health," says Professor Russell Foster, Medicine.
education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,1427163,00.html

www.imperial.ac.uk/P6104.htm

>>>Engineering students win IBM prize for business brilliance
A team of five Imperial engineering students have won the IBM Universities Business Challenge 2005, beating more than 130 teams from universities across the UK. The students demonstrated their skills running fictional businesses for four months before taking first prize at the final held on Friday 25 February. The team acted as management consultants for a fictional brewery, a wine bar and a games company over the three rounds of the competition, which began in October 2004. Dr Julia King, Principal of the Faculty of Engineering, says: "This is a fantastic achievement and we congratulate the team on doing so well... It's great that these students are showing how engineering and business go hand in hand."
www.imperial.ac.uk/P6129.htm

>>>Now you see me, now you don't
The childhood fantasy of an invisibility cloak may soon be a reality thanks to electronic engineers at the University of Pennsylvania, who are developing a cloaking device that makes objects invisible. The invisibility shield is called a 'plasmonic cover' and it works by preventing objects from reflecting and scattering light. Dr John Pendry, Physics, comments in The Scotsman: "The concept is an interesting one. It could find uses in stealth technology and camouflage."
thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=226392005

>>>Smokers face the needle
The Sun this week reported that a jab to help smokers quit could be tested in Britain within the next few months. The vaccine tricks the immune system into fighting nicotine and stops it getting to the brain. Professor Andrew George, Medicine, says: "Nicotine is a very small molecule, so your body creates no immune response. To make an antibody response they have linked it to a protein, to create anti-nicotine antibodies. This would clear nicotine out of the body more quickly."
www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005100459,00.html