Patients with diabetes or high blood pressure could benefit from the development of new "smart" holograms which can detect changes in, among other things, glucose levels and make self-diagnosis much simpler, cheaper and more reliable, write Chris Lowe and Cynthia Larbey in February’s Physics World.

A hologram is a recording of an optical interference pattern created when laser light shone on an object is made to overlap with a separate beam of light that does not pass through the object. When light is shone onto the interference pattern, a 3D image of the original object is recreated.

Scientists at the University of Reading have discovered that languages change and evolve in rapid bursts rather than in a steady pattern.

The research in Science investigates thousands of years of language evolution, and looks at the way in which languages split and evolve. It has long been accepted that the desire for a distinct social identity may cause languages to change quickly, but it has not previously been known whether such rapid bursts of change are a regular feature of the evolution of human language. The findings show that initially, the basic vocabulary of newly formed languages develops and changes quite quickly, and this is then followed by longer periods of slower and gradual change.

Drugs derived from cinchona bark, known as cinchona alkaloids, have been used in healing from ancient times. The most prominent representative of this group is quinine, a bitter substance contained in beverages such as tonic water and used in modern medicine to combat malaria.

As early as 1945, Robert Burns Woodward and William von Eggers Doering (Harvard University) described how to synthesize quinine in the laboratory. The last step of this “formal” total synthesis, a three-step reaction procedure previously described by Paul Rabe and Karl Kindler in 1918, has continued to be the subject of much controversy to this day.

Had they done it or not? That has been the question for decades. Woodward and Doering published the synthesis of d-quinotoxine in 1944. Based on the conversion of d-quinotoxine into quinine described by Rabe and Kindler in 1918, they claimed to have derived the total synthesis of quinine, though they had not actually completed this last step themselves before publishing. Their “formal” total synthesis was strongly challenged and was even dismissed as a “myth” by Gilbert Stork (Columbia University) in 2001.

A new approach to cleaning up digital photos has been developed by researchers in the UK and Jordan - they use a computer algorithm known as PSO (Particle Swarm Optimization) to intelligently boost contrast and detail in images without distorting the underlying features.

Malik Braik and Alaa Sheta Al-Balqa Applied University, in Salt, Jordan, working with Aladdin Ayesh at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, explain that the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm represents an entirely new approach to solving all kinds of optimization problems. PSO has recently been used in computer science and electrical engineering.

A Columbia University Medical Center research team has uncovered how stimulation of a particular brain region can help stave off the deficits in working memory associated with extended sleep deprivation.

Working memory is a specific form of short-term memory that relates to the ability to store task-specific information for a limited timeframe, e.g., where your car is parked in a huge mall lot or remembering a phone number for few seconds before writing it down. It has long been established that cognitive performance, such as working memory, declines with sleep deprivation.

Researchers have uncovered the mechanism that contributes to the buildup of fibrous lung tissue in patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), finding that a SARS viral protein important for replication can enhance pulmonary fibrosis by inhibiting the activity of the enzyme that breaks down connective tissue. The results offer up a new pathway to treat the pulmonary damage of SARS.

Infection with the SARS virus can lead to severe inflammation in the lungs, which can lead to respiratory distress, fibrosis, and eventually lung failure.