SUPERLICE, COMING TO A SCALP NEAR YOU

As if lice weren’t bad enough, a growing number are now resis- tant to over-the-counter (OTC) treatment. Scary, yes, but not surprising since doctors have re- lied on a single compound to kill the bugs for decades, says John Clark, a University of Massa- chusetts Amherst toxicologist.

WHAT USED TO WORK
OTC treatments kill lice with neurotoxins called pyrethrins (or the synthetic permethrin). When repeatedly exposed to the drug, bugs evolve a genetic mutation that desensitizes their nervous systems to its effects.
WHY THAT’S A PROBLEM
Populations of lice develop additional defenses until they become completely immune, as is now the case in Argentina and Israel. In March, Clark reported that 99.6 percent of head lice in the U.S. already have the genetic mutation and are en route to achieving superlice status.
WHAT TO DO NOW

A few single-treatment prescrip- tion medications exist. Removing lice with heat treatment or those annoyingly tiny combs also works. You just need the patience of a saint (or a school nurse). “I’d recommend a pro- fessional,” Clark says. 

A Pipe-Bot to Seek Leaks

In March, what started as
a negligible leak in a gas
pipe caused an explosion
that leveled two apartment buildings and killed eight people in New York City. Leaky pipes can pose a real danger, but there isn’t an oil, natural gas, or water network in the world that doesn’t have them.
“No matter what type of pipe system you have, leaks go undetected for a long time,” says Kamal Youcef-Toumi, a mechanical engineer at MIT. Existing acoustic sensors aim to detect leaks from above- ground, but to catch smaller leaks sooner, Youcef-Toumi’s team is designing an auto- nomous robot to patrol pipes from within. The two-liter- bottle-size prototype cruises through pipes at up to 3 miles per hour in search of subtle pressure differences that indi- cate a loss of fluids. Then the pipe-bot sends an alert with GPS coordinates to a techni- cian who can locate and repair the leak. ALEXANDRA OSSOLA

THE PARTS
A
A polyurethane membrane detects pressure changes and protects the drum.
B
A 3-D–printed plastic drum moves in re- sponse to flow differ- ences from a leak.
C
Force sensors record how much the drum moves to gauge the size of a leak.
D
An onboard computer drives the bot and communicates wire- lessly with operators.
E
Rubber-coated wheels provide traction within most pipes. 

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A BEACH-STORMING BEHEMOTH THAT LEAVES NO TRACE

When U.S. Marines landed at
I nchon during the Korean War, they had to abandon their amphibious vehicles and cross tidal mud flats on foot. Today, the Navy uses the more versatile Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) to move troops and supplies from ship to shore. But these hovercraft canêt carry much cargo or crawl over obsta- cles. So the logistics of water-to- land transfers continue to bedevil planners and put lives at risk.
Since 2008, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) has been working with ship-design company Navatek to develop an entirely new kind
of beach stormer called the Ultra Heavy-Lift Amphibious Connector (UHAC). The vehicle is unique for 

two reasons. First, itês massive. UHAC should be able to haul three U.S. Abrams main battle tanks at a time, compared to just one on an LCAC. Second, itês light. Air-filled foam treads give the fully loaded vehicle a ground pressure of just a few pounds per square inchÑ lighter than an adult humanês foot- step. çI n places where a person would sink into the mud, UHAC would walk right over,ésays Frank Leban, deputy UHAC program manager at ONR.
The beast of a vehicle should
be able to power up steep slopes, climb over 12-foot seawalls, and traverse just about any terrain: mud, sand, and even ice. The ONR most recently tested a half-size prototype in July, but it has yet to announce a release date for the full-size vehicle. Once it arrives, the amphibious craft could support military or disaster relief opera- tions on almost any coastline in the world.JEREMY HSU 

SEEKING THE POINT OF NO RETURN

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) probes the sky for radio waves from the Milky Way (shown here) and beyond. But even ALMA can’t see the supermassive black hole shrouded in ionized gas at our galaxy’s center, Sagittarius A*. “Any images we make are fuzzy, as though you’re looking at a small light through frosted glass,” says Shep Doeleman of the Harvard-Smithsonian

Center for Astrophysics. So astronomers are linking 11 telescopes around the world into one Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), named for the spacetime boundary where the black hole’s gravity prevents the escape of light and matter. When an upgraded ALMA joins in 2015, it should make EHT 10 times more sensitive and may help bring Sagittarius A*’s shadowy edge into focus. ALEXANDRA OSSOLA 

COMFORT NEVER LOOKED SO GOOD

The moment is universally disappoint- ing. You hop into a new car, turn on the infotainment system, and suddenly you’re staring into the past. The anti- quated functionality and ill-conceived interface seem drawn from a primeval cellphone, not a modern machine.
Cue the Cadillac ATS Coupe, the first car that will not suffer this particular malady. One of the reasons infotainment systems fail is that they’re old before they even hit the market; car develop- ment cycles last between three and five years. So the designers behind the ATS

Coupe introduced 4G LTE into the cabin as a workaround. When an electronic system is due for a change, Cadillac will be able to push updates from the cloud to the car. That’s a lot simpler than heading to a dealer—or getting a new car.
Computing hardware is also outdated at launch. In response, Cadillac is decoupling the car’s computer from the greater development cycle. That means the company can drop updated control units into new cars as soon as they’re available. The ATS Coupe is one of three new GM vehicles launching this fall with 4G LTE. And it will serve as a model going forward. GM plans to introduce 4G LTE into 34 cars by the end of the year and into nearly every model across all of its brands by the end of 2015. The day when you don’t have to curse your car’s laggy touchscreen is finally within view. 

CAR NEWS YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT

DESIGN OF THE MONTH
Lamborghini Huracán
Lamborghinis are fast, beau- tiful, and high performance. But they’re not particularly comfortable. In the new V-10 Huracán, designers built in more headroom and easier ingress. The result is the first contemporary Lambo comfort- able enough to drive every day.

Swedish telecom giant Ericsson is developing a phone app that links public and private transpor- tation. As drivers pass through tolls, they accrue credits for public transportation, which they can use on bad traffic or weather days.

Automotive
has the highest insider-crime rate of any industry, according to a study by PwC. Misuse of assets, procurement fraud, and bribery and corruption are the top three infractions.

By late summer, 27 children in the U.S. died of heatstroke after being trapped in hot cars. The number is down from 2012, when 34 children died, and lower still than the 16-year average of 38. But it’s still far too high. Ford and Nokia are creating an app that defines areas in which cars should run in electric mode depending on terrain, traffic, and weather. Adapting to these green zones would optimize performance. 

THE PLEASURE OF FAILURE

Flappy Bird, the notoriously difficult mobile game, burst forth in 2013. Now, creator Dong Nguyen has released an even harder game called Swinging Copters. But long before Flappy Bird, unwinnable games were massively popular. Remember Donkey Kong? Here are three theories as to why, despite the odds, players keep coming back. LINDSEY KRATOCHWILL 

Why Play Hard Games?
THESTAKES
“The fundamental challenge of game design is to make the outcome of
the game matter to the players. By threatening frustration, you raise the stakes from zero, and the players will tend to try to play well, to play creatively and skillfully.”
—Bennett Foddy, assistant arts professor at the New York University Game Center
THEHOOK
“Flappy Bird is unusual in that the difficulty curve is flat. This means that whenever we fail, it is obvious what we should do to improve our performance—just flap the wings sooner or later. And this leads to the famous ‘just one more time’ effect.” —Jesper Juul, author of The Art of Failure: An Essay on the Pain of Playing Video Games
THEREWARDS
“In some games, the reward is new graphics or an advancement in the narrative. In the case of Flappy Bird, you get the juicy reward of bright lights and colors when you fail.” —Michael Schmierbach, associate professor in the Department of Media Studies at Pennsylvania State University

DESIGNED TO MOVE WITH YOU 

Pro Quality in a Small Package

You’ve mastered the art of Instagram, and you’re ready to swap your smartphone camera for something more seri- ous. Five years ago, that meant choosing between the quality of a digital single lens reflex (DSLR) camera or the low cost of a point-and-shoot. But that’s no longer the case.
Mirrorless cameras, which have been around since the digital camera boom of the early 2000s, are catching up to DSLRs in terms of quality. Their smaller bodies formerly meant grainier photos.

That’s because they re- quired the use of smaller image sensors, which receive less light than
the full-frame sensors used in DSLRs. In recent years, camera-makers have found ways to place larger sensors in mirror- less cameras, pairing them with high-powered image processors. To boot, many mirrorless cameras now include interchangeable lenses for shooting in different environments. That means a pro-grade camera in
a point-and-shoot body is finally a reality—

and it’s available for a reasonable price. 

Winning Image!

Winning Image!
by Aaron Meyers
Standing at the edge
of the thousand-foot drop at Horseshoe Bend outside of Page, Arizona is quite exhilarating, especially when lightning starts to strike. I raced
to my car just as the
rain began. When the monsoon passed I was able to return, and to
my delight the storm moved right into the setting sun causing the rain to perfectly catch the yellow and orange hues.