  We present recent results on thermodynamics of QCD with almost physical light
quark masses and a physical strange quark mass value. These calculations have
been performed with an improved staggerd action especially designed for finite
temperature lattice QCD. In detail we present a calculation of the transition
temperature, using a combined chiral and continuum extrapolation. Furthermore
we present preliminary results on the interaction measure and energy density at
almost realistic quark masses. Finally we disscuss the response of the pressure
to a finite quark chemical potential. Within the Taylor expansion formalism we
calculate quark number susceptibilities and leading order corrections to finite
chemical potential. This is particularly usefull for mapping out the critical
region in the QCD phase diagram.
