Inside Astronaut Boot Camp

Bugging Out: Astronauts test a prototype of a six-legged lunar buggy
at Moses Lake in Washington. NASA

From Popular Science:

What does it take to prep humans for a trip to an asteroid or a martian moon? Starvation? Isolation? Recycling feces for food? NASA's newest astronauts begin a grueling training regimen this fall to find out.

Three test pilots. Two flight surgeons. One molecular biologist. A flight controller, a Pentagon staffer and a CIA intelligence officer. These are the nine people chosen by NASA to be America’s next astronauts. Late this summer they reported to Houston along with two Japanese pilots, a Japanese doctor, a Canadian pilot and a Canadian physicist who will train alongside NASA’s class of 2009. Call them the lucky 14.

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Twin Study Reveals Secrets To Looking Younger

What keeps a woman looking young?
A study of identical twins reveals some surprising answers.

From MSNBC:

Sun, smoking, alcohol and stress can all add years to your face.

For years, the similarities between Jeanne and Susan were uncanny. Growing up, the identical twin sisters not only were mirror images of each other, but also shared a bunch of preferences and personality quirks. Even now, living 1,000 miles apart — Jeanne in Ohio, Susan in Florida — “we’ll send identical Christmas cards to our parents and choose the exact same gift wrap,” Jeanne says. But they do have some differences, she adds: “We don’t have the same taste in men or in weather.”

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Advance In 'Nano-Agriculture:' Tiny Stuff Has Huge Effect On Plant Growth

Tomato seeds exposed to carbon nanotubes (right) sprouted and grew faster than unexposed seeds (left).

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 22, 2009) — With potential adverse health and environmental effects often in the news about nanotechnology, scientists in Arkansas are reporting that carbon nanotubes (CNTs) could have beneficial effects in agriculture. Their study, scheduled for the October issue of ACS Nano, found that tomato seeds exposed to CNTs germinated faster and grew into larger, heavier seedlings than other seeds. That growth-enhancing effect could be a boon for biomass production for plant-based biofuels and other agricultural products, they suggest.

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South Pole Offers Prime Astronomy Real Estate

Image credit: Patrick Cullis, National Science Foundation

From Live Science:

The middle of the world's most remote and inhospitable continent may not seem like an ideal place to conduct complicated scientific research, but this photo shows how the South Pole offers advantages that astronomers and other researchers just can't find anywhere else.

The photo, captured above the new elevated station at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in July 2009, is a 20-minute exposure revealing the southern celestial axis — the white cloudy streak is the Milky Way.

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'Imagineer' Touts Geothermal Energy Invention

Photo: Karl says his portable geothermal generator can power up to 250 average U.S. homes.

From The CNN:

(CNN) -- Hidden under a quaint resort 60 miles northeast of Fairbanks, Alaska, lies a treasure trove of potential energy that's free and available 24/7.

Alaskan entrepreneur Bernie Karl has pioneered modern technology to tap into one of Earth's oldest energy resources: hot water.

Karl, 56, likes to call himself an "imagineer."

Using imagination to fuel his engineering ambitions, this tenacious thinker and self-starter has figured out a way to generate electricity using water that's the temperature of a cup of coffee -- about 165 degrees Fahrenheit.

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Darwin Lives! Modern Humans Are Still Evolving

A. Green / Corbis

From Time Magazine:

Modern Homo sapiens is still evolving. Despite the long-held view that natural selection has ceased to affect humans because almost everybody now lives long enough to have children, a new study of a contemporary Massachusetts population offers evidence of evolution still in action.

A team of scientists led by Yale University evolutionary biologist Stephen Stearns suggests that if the natural selection of fitter traits is no longer driven by survival, perhaps it owes to differences in women's fertility. "Variations in reproductive success still exist among humans, and therefore some traits related to fertility continue to be shaped by natural selection," Stearns says. That is, women who have more children are more likely to pass on certain traits to their progeny.

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Naming The Exoplanets

From Technology Review:

The International Astronomical Union is refusing to name the exoplanets. That seems unnecessarily curmudgeonly.

Since 1995, astronomers have found more than 400 planets orbiting other stars. And yet not one of them has a formal name, other than their orginal scientific designation such as MOA-2008-BLG-310-L b, (a sub-Saturnian mass planet recently detected in the Galactic Bulge). How come?

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Augustine Report: Tough Choices Ahead On Human Spaceflight

The Ares I-X rocket sits atop launch pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Tuesday. (NASA handout/Reuters)

From Christian Science Monitor:

If NASA's Constellation program is going to take astronauts to the moon or Mars, Obama will have to increase its budget, the Augustine report says.

President Obama and Congress face a stark choice on the future of NASA’s human spaceflight program: Either scale back ambitious goals first set out in 2005 or pony up more money to match the ambitions.

That’s the implication of options set out in the final report from the Review of US Human Spaceflight Plans committee, unveiled Thursday afternoon.

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Aah... How To Make The Perfect Gravy (And Soy Sauce Is The Secret)

Photo: Roast of the town: Many would prefer to use gravy granules rather than risk ruining a traditional British dinner

From The Daily Mail:

It can make or break a Sunday lunch.

So much so that many will reach for the gravy granules rather than risk ruining a roast.

But scientists have come to the aid of home chefs across the UK with what they believe should be adopted as the 'standard British method' for making gravy.

The Royal Society of Chemistry turned its attention to the subject as part of its Food Year, a series of events to demonstrate the role of chemistry in providing healthy and sustainable food.

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My Comment: I am posting this story because I tried this recipe last night, and it was hmmm hmmmm good.

How the Internet is Changing the Way We Will Watch TV

Splashlight; Courtesy of Broadway Video Enterprises and NBC Studios, Inc. (SNL icon)

From Scientific American:

The Internet stands ready to upend the television viewing experience, but exactly how is a matter of considerable dispute.

It should not be so difficult. In an age when nearly all forms of media are digital, where broadband signals course through the industrial world as surely (and as critically) as electricity and freshwater, it should be possible to sit on one’s couch, push a button or two, and call up to your television any form of video-related entertainment you desire. New-release movies. Last week’s Lost . The first season of Cosmos . Setup should not require an electrical engineering degree, and you should not be forced to sift through 10 incompatible search functions to find the shows you desire.

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Jupiter Shift Pelted Inner Planets With Asteroids

The Asteroid Belt, found between Jupiter and Mars, may have been the source of ammunition for the Late Heavy Bombardment. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltch/T.Pyle

From Cosmos:

PORTLAND, OREGON: A shift in Jupiter's orbit early in the life of the Solar System dislodged thousands of rocks from the Asteroid Belt, causing them to hit the inner planets, including Earth.

Evidence for this cataclysmic bombardment comes from a reanalysis of lunar rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts and a careful study of lunar craters, said David Kring, a planetary geologist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas.

Kring presented his findings this week at the Geological Society of America's annual meeting in Portland, USA.

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We Are Upgrading Our Computer Network. We Will Be Back Online Friday Morning At 7:00 AM EST

Net Neutrality Is 'Fairness Doctrine For The Internet'

From The Hill:

Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) spoke against net neutrality regulations today at an event put on by the Safe Internet Alliance. Representing the songwriters, singers, actors, producers and other entertainers in Memphis and Nashville, she said the creative community does not want the federal government to interfere with how they are able to get content to consumers via the Internet.

"Net neutrality, as I see it, is the fairness doctrine for the Internet," she said. The creators "fully understand what the fairness doctrine would be when it applies to TV or radio. What they do not want is the federal government policing how they deploy their content over the Internet and they want the ISPs to manage their networks and deploy the content however they have agreed on with ISP. They do not want a czar of the Internet to determine when they can deploy their creativity over the Internet. "They do not want a czar to determine what speeds will be available....We are watching the FCC very closely as it relates to that issue."

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'Stealth' Wind Turbine Deployed

From the BBC:

A wind turbine blade that absorbs radar signals has been demonstrated at a wind farm in eastern England.

Wind turbines confuse aviation radar signals, making aircraft in wind farms' vicinities difficult to track.

Defence firm Qinetiq and turbine manufacturing firm Vestas are developing "stealth turbines", with radar-absorbing materials and coatings.

The five-year effort may help many wind farm projects that are on hold because of so-called "radar clutter" concerns.

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Lasers Simulate Black Hole In The Lab

An artist's impression of the swirling accretion disc surrounding a black hole.
Credit: David A. Aguilar/CfA

From Cosmos:

BRISBANE: The extreme conditions found around black holes and other very dense objects can be recreated in the laboratory with powerful lasers, physicists say.

The technique may allow them to validate the computer models they use to interpret black hole data collected by space-based telescopes, such as the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, according to a study published this week in Nature Physics.

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Ladybugs Swarm Midwest

Swarming Ladies. Ladybugs are seen on cars in Chatham, Ill., Oct. 21, 2009. Around much of the country,legions of Asian lady beetles are making their seasonal appearance. AP Photo/Seth Perlman

From Discovery News:

Pest-control specialist Gene Scholes even gets bugged by them -- legions of ladybugs lately swarming his rural Missouri home and other stretches across the country, exploiting gaps in door and window seals for cozier climes inside.

Bug experts say the Asian lady beetles, considered harbingers of good luck in many cultures, are making their seasonal appearance in droves in search of warmth for the approaching winter.

The beetles are harmless to humans. That doesn't make them any less annoying for folks like Scholes.

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What's The Point Of A Fake 500-Day Mars Mission?

Mars

From New Scientist:

The European Space Agency is seeking six volunteers to spend 520 days inside a sealed isolation facility to study the psychological effects of a journey to Mars.

The 2010 Mars-500 "mission" at the Russian Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow will simulate a round trip to the Red Planet – albeit shorter than the real thing – and follows a similar 105-day study that ended in July.

But does spending a year and a half locked inside a tin can on Earth tell us anything about how humans might behave on a high-risk interplanetary odyssey? New Scientist investigates.

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Scientists Find A Precision Clock Logging the Milliseconds Inside Your Brain

Tick Tock Certain neurons in the striatum and prefrontal cortex fire at certain intervals, which MIT researchers have determined to be an internal clock time-stamping sensory experiences for memory just as a digital camera might time-stamp a photo file.

From Popular Science:

Though we do it without thinking, keeping track of time is integral to the brain's function, keeping our senses and our actions ordered in a chronology that we then recall in the form of memory. But important as it is, researchers have never understood the mechanism by which humans index the happenings of everyday life. Now, two macaque monkeys may have helped MIT researchers solve the time tracking puzzle.

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Glacial Melting May Release Pollutants Into The Environment

Glacier-fed Lake Oberaar in the Bernese Alps, Switzerland.
(Credit: iStockphoto/Roland Zihlmann)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 21, 2009) — Those pristine-looking Alpine glaciers now melting as global warming sets in may explain the mysterious increase in persistent organic pollutants in sediment from certain lakes since the 1990s, despite decreased use of those compounds in pesticides, electric equipment, paints and other products.

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Pollution Turns Leaves Magnetic

This photo, taken with a scanning electron microscope, shows one an iron-oxide sphere of pollution produced by combustion, and collected with a double-sided tape collector. Credit: Rachel Housen, Whatcom Middle School/Bellingham High School

From Live Science:

Tiny particles of pollution that are harmful to human health stick to tree leaves and leave a trace magnetism, a new study finds. More pollution is found stuck to leaves of trees near busy roadways than those in less trafficked areas.

The pollution-trapping leaves could serve as an easy, inexpensive way to monitor pollutant levels, researchers say.

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