Mosquitos kill more humans every year than any other animal on the planet and conventional methods to reduce mosquito-borne illnesses haven't worked as well as many hoped. So we've been hard at work since receiving this USAID grant six months ago to reduce Zika incidence and related threats to public health. Our partners at the joint FAO/IAEA Insect Pest Control Lab in Vienna, Austria have been working to perfect the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) in order to sterilize and release male mosquitos in Zika hotspots. Releasing millions of said male mosquitos increases competition for female mosquitos, making it more difficult for non-sterilized males to find a mate. We learned last year at a USAID Co-Ideation Workshop that this technique can reduce the overall mosquito population in a given area by 90%.

For the first time on Broadway human and drone performances fuse to create a new form of artistic expression. The magic happened in Cirque du Soleil's first musical on Broadway: 'Paramour' at the Lyric Theatre. The show is themed on the Golden Age of Hollywood and follows the life of a poet who is forced to choose between love and art. The contributions of the technology firm Verity Studios include the choreography of the drone show segment, the frame and lighting design of the drone costumes, and all underlying drone technologies. The system was operated by the show's automation team, with Verity Studios providing maintenance services twice per year.

If someone has a cardiac arrest, a drone could help before an ambulance arrives. Swedish researchers have been experimenting with drones treating an individual whose heart stops, New Scientist reported. Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest happens to about 55 of 100,000 people in the U.S. annually, with only an 8 percent to 10 percent survival rate. Getting an ambulance in time could save a person's life, but what if first responders take too long? Researchers from the Karolinska Institute looked at an alternative: drones equipped with defibrillators that could aid a person in cardiac arrest if applied quickly.

Drones aren't just good for getting your shopping in an instant – by carrying defibrillators they could prove to be life-saving if your heart stops beating. Only around one in ten people survives a cardiac arrest outside hospital. Having a bystander perform chest compressions improves your chances, but a shock from a defibrillator must be applied quickly to restart the heart. Every minute without CPR and defibrillation reduces someone's chance of survival by 10 per cent. Defibrillators are designed to give spoken instructions so that anyone can use them, and many are available in public places.

A drone was faster at getting to a person's house than an ambulance, according to test runs conducted by Swedish researchers. A drone was faster at getting to a person's house than an ambulance, according to test runs conducted by Swedish researchers. Drones could soon be dropping off packages at customers' doors. But researchers in Sweden have drones in mind for a different, potentially life-saving delivery: automated external defibrillators, or AEDs. Using drones to carry AEDs to people who are in cardiac arrest could reduce the time that elapses between when people go into cardiac arrest and when they receive the first shock from an AED, the researchers say.

The best medicine for a person who goes into sudden cardiac arrest is an electric shock. That jolt temporarily stops the heart, along with its rapid or erratic beat. When the heart starts itself up again, it can revert to its normal rhythm and resume pumping blood to the brain and the rest of the body. The sooner this happens, the better. When a patient is shocked within one minute of collapse, the chance of survival is nearly 90%.

North Korea has been accused of spying on South Korea after a suspected Pyongyang drone was spotted on the site of a U.S. missile interceptor system, Seoul's military officials said Tuesday. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system, which is designed to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles, is being deployed in Seongju in order to protect South Korea from Pyongyang's growing threats. According to Yonhap News, the small unmanned aerial vehicle equipped with a Sony-made camera was found last week on a mountain near the inter-Korean border. The drone had apparently crashed close to the THAAD site. The South's military took the drone in custody and analysed the content of the 64-gigabyte memory chip.

Multicopter drones - drones with more than two rotors - are finally able to fly in any orientation. Normally, multicopter drones can only fly parallel to the ground, but a new hexacopter drone with six propellers can tilt 360 degrees, allowing it to fly in any orientation. The drone, dubbed Voliro, can fly sideways, upside down, diagonally and in other orientations. The Voliro was developed by a team of 11 students at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) and Zurich University of the Arts (ZHDK), who spent 9 months developing a prototype of the drone. Because the drone can stay stable while flying in any configuration, it's able to fly parallel to walls.

Under the leadership of the marine biologist Dr. Iain Kerr, CEO of Ocean Alliance, Parley is dedicated to advancing research and education focused on conserving whales and the oceans that sustain them--which in turn sustains us. This quest begins with scientific research and a commitment to preserve and protect ocean habitat. To further this research, Intel is leveraging its artificial intelligence (AI) and drone technologies to boost the science and expeditions of Parley and its collaborator network. This research is focused on analyzing the health of whales, the ocean environment and, ultimately, the health of humanity. To meet the challenge of gathering data from whales, Kerr and a collaborative team developed SnotBot, modified drones that collect the blow, or snot, exhaled from whales when they surface to breathe.

A new program called Project Icarus is teaching kids how to build drones, while at the same time helping them grow in STEM fields, which focus in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Project Icarus, launched by the Texas-based Flynoceros Racing Drones, is a workshop that not only allows kids to build drones, but also teaches them how to fix and fly them. This is different from drone kits bought at stores that don't show users how repair them. Seven-year-old Ava builds her drone at a Project Icarus workshop. Although parents can buy a drone kit at a retail store, those products are sometimes cheap and can break easily after crashing.