PLAY ME A TUNE
Monday, July 23, 2001,- The Michigan
Solar car team in first place, waits
for this week's last 100-mile stretch
By Louie Melzlish
Daily Nws Editor
With only more day of racing ahead,
the University's solar car team holds a
steady lead in the 2,300 mile American
Solar Challenge.
The team's car, M-Pulse, was the first
to finish the next-to-last stage of the race
by pulling into Barstow, Calif., late Sat-
urday afternoon. The final stage of the
race is a 100 mile trek from Barstow to
Claremont on Wednesday.
With the car averaging speeds of 50 to
55 miles per hour, Associate Engineering
Prof. Brian Gilchrist, one of the team's
faculty advisers, expects the team to fin-
ish the last stage of the race in about two ISA seni
hours. undersid
& "It's our race to win," Gilchrist said. chase ca
,.u ,,He added that the team is about one In add
=- hour ahead of its nearest competitor, the ahead of
University of Missouri-Rolla. The third- tions and
place spot is currently being held by the "How
team from the Canadian University of on the s
Waterloo. conditioi
The race began in Chicago and travels Until
mostly along old Route 66. The first stop team pla
was in Rolla, Missouri. but mos
Occasionally, Gilchrist said, M-Pulse upkeep o
travels on modern expressways, but most Gilchr
ALEX HOWsERT/iay of time it follows secondary roads. Route 6t
Art and Design junior Kate Armstrong Blanchard suns herself While traveling, the team has a lead to replac
as friend Takei Yamasaki strums his guitar at her house. vehicle in front of the solar car and a "It cer
'U' doctors develop promising
new laser scalpel for maximized
acurc, aet n eyresugre
,v
a t fix,
b-im
or Joseph Lambert, crew chief of the University's solar car team, cleans the
e of the 2001 model "M-Pulse."
r following close behind. done an outstanding job - for two years
ition, it has scout vehicles way to design and build a precision vehicle,"
the car to describe route condi- he added.
d weather. After going through a series of pot-
fast you drive depends not only holes during pre-race practice, the car
un conditions now, but also sun drove into a ditch and was severely
ns later in the day," Gilchrist. damaged. Team captain Nader Shwayhat
Wednesday, Gilchrist said the said the team is still working out the
ns on "a little bit of relaxation" bugs.
tly repairing and performing "Several of the solar panels had to be
in the car. shipped back to Germany, where the
ist said due to the conditions on manufacturer worked on them like a sur-
6, it is not unusual for the team geon," Shwayhat said in a staement. "It
e the car's tires once a day. was the first time he had done such
rtainly looks good and they've emergency work."
ByS raS t
t)xxil; '- iffkctxrer
I Doctors working at the University have developed a
laser scalpel that can be used in every type of
opthamology surgery and is 10 times more accirate
than traditional methods.
The laset which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration this year and has been used in over 600 sur-
geries to date, has an accuracy of five micrometers, said
Tibor Juhasz, one of the researchers.
In traditional surgery, doctors use a mechanical blade
to cut a flap of the cornea, then a laser is used to
reshape or remove a portion of the cornea, and the flap
is repositioned. Now surgeons can use the new laser to
make the initial incision.
"Recovery time of the patients is practically the same
as with traditional methods, but safety and accuracy are
the areas where we really add a lot. Out of 600 surger-
ies we didn't have any major complications," Juhasz
said.
The market for the laser scalpel is huge; not only can it be
used in surgery, but the laser engineered and sold by IntraLase
TM Corporation - a company co-founded by Juhasz and fel-
low University researcher Ron Kurtz - works in a non-labora-
tory environment, as well as in the lab.
This fact may be one reason the Department of Defense
gave a grant for the laser's development.
"The Department of Defense gave us a grant because they
had a particular interest in the laser we were developing, but,
as they are the Department of Defense, they didn't say why
p ractic-ally the same as with traditional-
the areas where we rea ly adda lot."
--TiboSJuhas
Senior Associate Research Scietist
they were interested in this laser," explained Juhasz.
According to Kurtz, the first surgery performed with the 1
laser was in Hungary in early 1993.
"We did not have the (FDA) approval, so we had to go to a *
site outside the US," explained Juhasz.
Researchers are now exploring the possibility of extending
this technique to other eye procedures, such as cornea trans- New At Bell's:
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Paul Lichter, director of the Kellogg Eye Center, said in a Chocolate,
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Despite costing more than the traditional method, Juhasz Pineapple,C e e 1I
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