20,000 volts under the sea
Scientists may soon be able to plunge deeper into the ocean's secrets without putting human divers at risk. UW-Madison electrical engineer and computer scientist Vladimir Lumelsky is developing robots with a sensory "skin" to help them navigate a collision-free course through the deep blue and come back with images of deep-sea caves, sunken ships and other outer-limits locales.Lumelsky uses an emerging technol-ogy called "sensor-based motion planning," which places thousands of light-emitting sensors on a robot's surface that instantly detect obstacles. The technology could lead to machines that can make decisions in all sorts of uncontrolled environments, including offices, households, hospitals and construction sites.

Wings to grow
Working with a common fruit fly, biologists have discovered a single gene responsible for growing wings - and the means to direct it to grow wing tissue from eye sockets, legs, antennae, and virtually any other body appendage. The discovery promises key insight into how genes in animals, including humans, direct limb formation, says Sean B. Carroll of the UW-Madison's Howard Hughes Medical Institute. While the finding has no immediate application, it may lead to the prevention of the genetic miscommunication that causes birth defects. "We've clearly got our hands on one of the crucial genes," says Carroll. "It will enable us to get into the guts of the system" that controls limb formation. That system, he says, probably arose several hundred million years ago in a distant ancestor of both flies and humans. The system is apparently conserved today in both insects and vertebrates.