With disease, when you decrease autophagy (a garbage disposal-like process where cells “eat” debris they produce) the disease process is exacerbated and when you increase it you get the opposite effect. Aggregation of polyglutamine expansion protein is a hallmark of Huntington’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. The picture shows that there are more aggregates of green fluorescence protein-labelled polyglutamine expansion protein in autophagy deficient worms (bottom) compared to normal worms (top).

Restricting how much you eat without starving has been shown to robustly extend lifespan in more than 20 species of animals including primates. How this works is still unclear...

The wings of Megatibicen dorsatus, a prairie-dwelling cicada, are helping engineers design water-repellent surfaces. Credit: Photo courtesy Catherine Dana

Researchers are looking to insects – specifically cicadas – for insight into the design of artificial surfaces with de-icing, self-cleaning and anti-fogging abilities.Their wings allow cicadas to fly, of course, but they also are good at repelling water – a condition that humans can appreciate, too. “Our work with cicadas is letting us explore a field called bioinspiration,” said Nenad Miljkovic, a University of Illinois mechanical science and engineering professor who co-led a new study of cicada wings.

“We are learning as much as we can from the natural design of cicada wings to engineer artificial objects that are useful to humans...

These Solar Glasses with lens-fitted semitransparent organic solar cells supply two sensors and electronics in the temples with electric power. Credit: KIT

Semitransparent organic solar cells in eyeglasses to power microprocessor, example of future solar-powered mobile applications. Organic solar cells are flexible, transparent, and light-weight – and can be manufactured in arbitrary shapes or colors. Thus, they are suitable for a variety of applications that cannot be realized with conventional silicon solar cells. In the Energy Technology journal, researchers from KIT now present sunglasses with colored, semitransparent solar cells applied onto lenses that supply a microprocessor and two displays with electric power...