NASA Delays Shuttle Mission to Hubble Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope in a file image.
(NASA/Handout/Reuters)

From Space.com:

NASA has delayed the last shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope until early 2009 in order to repair a broken device that is blocking the orbital observatory from sending its iconic images of the cosmos back to Earth, agency officials said late Monday.

Seven astronauts were training to launch toward Hubble aboard the shuttle Atlantis on Oct. 14 on mission to extend the space telescope's life through at least 2013, but the unexpected failure of a vital data relay system on Saturday will add months of delay to their spaceflight.

"I think it's very obvious that Oct. 14 is off the table," NASA's space shuttle program manager John Shannon told reporters.

NASA announced Monday that a device known as the Side A Science Data Formatter failed, apparently for good, late Saturday, leaving the otherwise healthy Hubble with no means of relaying data and observations to scientists back on Earth. The electronics box failed after 18 years in service since Hubble launched in April 1990.

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Gifted Children: How to Bring Out Their Potential

From Scientific American:

Contrary to what many people believe, highly intelligent children are not necessarily destined for academic success. In fact, so-called gifted students may fail to do well because they are unusually smart. Ensuring that a gifted child reaches his or her potential requires an understanding of what can go wrong and how to satisfy the unusual learning requirements of extremely bright young people.

One common problem gifted kids face is that they, and those around them, place too much importance on being smart. Such an emphasis can breed a belief that bright people do not have to work hard to do well. Although smart kids may not need to work hard in the lower grades, when the work is easy, they may struggle and perform poorly when the work gets harder because they do not make the effort to learn. In some cases, they may not know how to study, having never done it before. In others, they simply cannot accept the fact that some tasks require effort [see “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids,” by Carol S. Dweck; Scientific American Mind, December 2007/January 2008].

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The 2008 Smart List: 15 People the Next President Should Listen To

From Wired News:

Dear President _________,
Congratulations! Now brace yourself for an avalanche of advice — from the 21 people in your Cabinet, from dozens of advisory councils, hundreds of members of Congress, thousands of lobbyists and pundits, and millions of voters. Everyone's got an opinion on what needs to be done. But the policies that emerge from such groupthink tend to be weird mashups of conflicting interests or warmed-over slabs of conventional wisdom. Enough of that. The country needs fresh directions and crisp action plans on intractable issues like climate change, energy, security, and defense. To help shape your thinking, we've come up with a Smart List of 15 Wired people with big ideas about how to fix the things that need fixing. Hail to the new chief — and please listen up.

Read the list of 15 ....

The Snore Wars

From Time Magazine:

I have always been happy that I'm not a snorer — or at least I was until recently, when my wife told me otherwise. After a few days of adamant denials, I decided to place a tape recorder on the bedside table. When I hit play the next morning, I was surprised to hear a rhythmic, rumbling noise that was enough to disturb my wife's sleep. In my case, the problem was transient, caused by a recent bout of allergies and sinus trouble. When my breathing cleared up, so did the snoring. Yet for millions of other couples out there, snoring is a cause not just of health worries but also of marital woes.

According to a recent study, nearly 1 out of 4 people married to a snorer will eventually be driven out of the bedroom rather than spend another night battling for sleep. Sometimes even that's not enough. "I see a lot of patients whose spouses can't just go to another room. They have to escape to a whole other area of the house," says Dr. Marc Kayem, medical director of the Snoring and Apnea Center of California, in Los Angeles.

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Detect Epidemics Before They Start

Colorized transmission electron micrograph depicting the A/New Jersey/76 (Hsw1N1) virus, while in the virus’ first developmental passage through a chicken egg. This is an H1N1 strain of influenza A. (Credit: Dr. E. Palmer; R.E. Bates)

From Wired News:

Back in May 1993, as a medical resident at the University of Arizona, Mark Smolinski volunteered for a shift with the state's Department of Health. Right after he started, Arizona and neighboring states were struck by a deadly outbreak of an unidentified respiratory illness. The young doctor found himself face-to-face with an emerging epidemic, part of a team that spent sleepless months struggling to contain the outbreak. "I was going from hospital to hospital trying to determine the patients' exposures," he recalls of his harrowing first assignment. "Almost all the cases were under the age of 30, and it had a very high mortality rate."

The researchers finally identified the culprit — which eventually infected 53 people, 60 percent of whom died — as a new strain of hantavirus. They pinned the outbreak on a confluence of ecological and social factors: Wet weather during an El Niño year spawned heavier-than-normal vegetation. That in turn fueled an unusually large population of deer mice, which harbor the virus. The victims were exposed when they rummaged through closets or gardened, inhaling dust laced with mouse droppings, urine, or saliva. The disease soon receded, but Smolinski was hooked on the rush he got from investigating outbreaks. "It seemed like a career that would never be dull," he says. "That has certainly proven true."

These days, Smolinski's business card at Google.org, the philanthropic arm of the Mountain View behemoth, identifies him simply as "threat detective." He's director of the organization's Predict and Prevent Initiative, a global health program. The 46-year-old's job is to channel money — one insider estimates up to $150 million — into projects and technologies that will help catch outbreaks like hantavirus wherever they crop up. What's even more ambitious is Smolinski's desire to push disease surveillance "two steps to the left of the epidemic curve." The strategy: Draw on Google's search acumen to predict hot spots before the first case of some imminent calamity hits the hospital.

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Will We Soon Find Life in the Heavens?

Allen Telescope Array

From U.S. News And World Report:

Alien-hunting scientists have had an eventful year, and they're about to get busier. In just the past few months, life-friendly soil and ice turned up on Mars, astronomers bagged a trio of Earth-like planets in a distant star system, and scientists looking closer to home reported that certain hardy microbes thrive below Earth's ocean floor—a big clue that life may exist on planets that at first glance appear inhospitable.

None of the findings shout, "Here be aliens!" but each report has stoked optimism among astrobiologists that they will discover life beyond Earth. Some leading stargazers, in fact, suspect we're now on the verge of learning that we're not alone—and that genesis wasn't a unique event.

In space, "everywhere we look, we see the same processes that we think led to the origin of life on Earth," says John Rummel, NASA's senior scientist for astrobiology.

In the coming months, two new tools will greatly expand astrobiologists' capacity to hear and see other promising signs of life. Later this summer, the nonprofit SETI Institute, named with the acronym for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, will begin listening for alien broadcasts on the new $50 million Allen Telescope Array. A spread of 42 radio dishes in California's Cascade Mountains, the array is the first such facility built specifically to listen for E.T. "We're looking for life that's clever enough to hold up its side of the conversation," says Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the SETI Institute. The array, half funded by Microsoft mogul Paul Allen, will search for alien signals at a clip "hundreds to thousands times faster" than current SETI projects, says Shostak.

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Learning From Mistakes Only Works After Age 12, Study Suggests

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 27, 2008) — Eight-year-old children have a radically different learning strategy from twelve-year-olds and adults. Eight-year-olds learn primarily from positive feedback ('Well done!'), whereas negative feedback ('Got it wrong this time') scarcely causes any alarm bells to ring. Twelve-year-olds are better able to process negative feedback, and use it to learn from their mistakes. Adults do the same, but more efficiently.

Brain areas for cognitive control

The switch in learning strategy has been demonstrated in behavioural research, which shows that eight-year-olds respond disproportionately inaccurately to negative feedback. But the switch can also be seen in the brain, as developmental psychologist Dr Eveline Crone and her colleagues from the Leiden Brain and Cognition Lab discovered using fMRI research. The difference can be observed particularly in the areas of the brain responsible for cognitive control. These areas are located in the cerebral cortex.

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Video Gamers Surprisingly Fit And Older

Players team up to fight a monster in the online role-playing game EverQuest II.
Credit: Sony Online Entertainment

From Live Science:

Drop those stereotypes about people who play online role-playing games — chances are they're more physically fit than the average American.

That's just one of several new survey findings that explode the popular image of video gamers as socially awkward, overweight teenage males. Or at least, researchers have now found this among players of EverQuest II, an online fantasy game centered on group quests and other social activities.

"Games have pretty much been on the defensive for the past 20 years by being attacked as unhealthy and culturally destructive," said Dmitri Williams, a communications researcher at the University of Southern California. "That's been changing in the past few years, but it's still the prevailing wisdom."

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My Comment: I am in my late forties .... and .... I am guilty as charged.

Sunspot-Hurricane Link Proposed

From Nature News:

Controversial research hints that solar cycle affects cyclone intensity.

A new study suggests that more sunspots mean less intense hurricanes on Earth. But many hurricane experts are cool on the idea.

James Elsner, a climatologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee, has analyzed hurricane data going back more than a century. He says he has identified a 10- to 12-year cycle in hurricane records that corresponds to the solar cycle, in which the Sun's magnetic activity rises and falls.

The idea is that increased solar activity - associated with sunspots - means more ultraviolet radiation reaching the Earth's upper atmosphere. That warms the airs aloft and decreases the temperature differential between high and low elevations that otherwise would fuel hurricanes.

"Our results indicate that there is an effect in the intensity of storms due to the higher temperatures aloft," says Elsner, who published the results on 19 September in Geophysical Research Letters1.

He says the statistical analysis suggests a 10% decrease in hurricane intensity for every 100 sunspots. At the peak of its cycle, the Sun might exhibit around 250 sunspots.

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SpaceX Did It -- Falcon 1 Made It To Space

From Discover Magazine:

SpaceX has made history. Its privately developed rocket has made it into space.

After three failed launches, the company founded by Elon Musk worked all of the bugs out of their Falcon 1 launch vehicles.

The entire spectacle was broadcast live from Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific. Cameras mounted on the spacecraft showed our planet shrinking in the distance and the empty first stage engine falling back to Earth.

As the rocket ascended, cheers rang out during every crucial step of the launch sequence, and at the final stage their headquarters in Hawthorne, California erupted in excitement. (Wired.com viewed the launch over the Internet on SpaceX's live webcast.)

The tensest moment came just before stage separation. At that critical juncture, the third launch attempt had failed. This time, it worked out perfectly.

Eight minutes after leaving the ground, Falcon 1 reached a speed of 5200 meters per second and passed above the International Space Station.

"I don't know what to say... because my mind is just blown," said Musk, during a brief address to his staff after the successful launch. "This is just the first step of many."

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Skywalking Heroes: Best Spacewalks of All Time

From Wired Science:

The spacewalk is the ultimate space experience. And among skywalkers, a few have risen above the rest and set the bar high for extravehicular activity. Here are my picks for the five greatest spacewalks of all time.

1st Untethered Spacewalk — Astronaut Bruce McCandless: (above) In March 1984 NASA tested out their Manned Maneuvering Unit. Although the units were only used on three Shuttle flights, this iconic image is one of the most famous from the Space Shuttle era.

1st Spacewalk — Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov: A true hero of mine, Leonov performed the original spacewalk in 1965 with an inflatable airlock. At the end of the extravehicular activity, or EVA, tense minutes went by as he struggled to get back into the spacecraft eventually bleeding air out of his suit to pass through. An avid artist, Leonov fastened colored pencils and a notepad to his suit leg to sketch from inside the capsule. He went on to command the Soviet side of the Apollo-Soyuz mission.

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Tesla's Impact On Everyday Life

Host Bre Pettis and his Tesla coil on the set of his show "History Hacker."

History Reveals: Tesla Totally Awesome! -- MSNBC

Circuit-bending YouTube star Bre Pettis doesn’t want you to know that before making his History Channel pilot, he hadn’t seen “The Prestige.”

It’s not that he purposely failed to catch Chris Nolan’s 2006 adaptation of the steam punk novel about rival magicians starring Batman (Christian Bale) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman).

It seems Pettis never got around to it. And by the time he started putting together “History Hacker,” premiering tonight at 8 p.m. and midnight, it was too late.

Not too late to ever see “ The Prestige,” mind you. But “History Hacker’s” premise is to focus each episode on the life and innovations of one inventor, and the pilot is about Nikola Tesla.

Pettis didn’t want to infect his flow by watching David Bowie’s critically-acclaimed portrayal of “The Father of Physics,” a pivotal — albeit fictionalized — character in the film.

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Why Old Athletes Come Back

In this July 23, 2005 file photo, overall leader Lance Armstrong, of Austin, Texas, crosses the finish line to win the 20th stage of the Tour de France cycling race, a 55.5-kilometer (34.5-mile) individual time trial looping around north of Saint-Etienne, central France. Now Armstrong is getting back on his bike, determined to win an eighth Tour de France. The Tour "is the intention," Armstrong's spokesman Mark Higgins told The Associated Press, "but we've got some homework to do over there." AP Photo/Alessandro Trovati

From Live Science:

Maybe its the fear of turning 40. Maybe its the feeling of unfinished business. Maybe its the fire in the belly that has not quite extinguished. For retired elite athletes, the itch is always there to make a return after experiencing "life after sport". For some, it becomes too strong to ignore.

This year has seen the return of at least three champions, Dara Torres, Lance Armstrong and Brett Favre. As they explain their individual reasons for coming back, some similarities emerge that have more to do with psychological needs than practical needs. In a recent Miami Herald article, Torres explained her comeback to competitive swimming at age 41, "For me, it's not like I sat around and watched swimming on TV and thought, 'Oh, I wish I was still competing'. It was more gradual. But all of a sudden, something goes off inside you and you start seriously thinking about a comeback. You'd think the competitive fire would die down with maturity, but I've actually gotten worse. I wasn't satisfied with silver medals. I hate to lose now more than I did in my 20s. I'm still trying to figure out why.''

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Even Viruses Catch Viruses

From Live Science:

Among pathogens, viruses are unique in their collective ability to infect all types of organisms. There are plant viruses, insect viruses, fungal viruses, and even viruses that infect only amoeba and bacteria. Now a group of researchers at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France has made the startling discovery that even some viruses can have viruses.

In a paper in Nature last month, the group described how they identified a giant mimivirus in a cooling tower in France. Mimiviruses are the largest viruses known to exist — so big they are visible under a normal optical microscope (usually much higher resolution electron microscopes are needed to view them). The new virus, large even by mimivirus standards, was appropriately named "mamavirus."

In the same cooling tower, the French group also discovered a second, tiny virus that infects the giant mamavirus. This they named "Sputnik."

Sputnik is unusual because it is the first virus ever discovered that is a parasite of another virus. When it reproduces in a cell infected by the larger virus, its action impairs the reproduction of mamavirus particles. The group sequenced Sputnik's genetic code and discovered that a number of its gene sequences are similar to those found in a massive survey of genetic material taken from oceans all over the globe. This suggests that a whole class of viruses might exist that infect other viruses.

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What Goes Into Naming A New Species? A Lot

An American scientist named Charles Paul Alexander is said to have named 10,000 species of crane flies, like the one above.

From NPR:

September 23, 2008 · There wasn't a whole lot to do in the Garden of Eden, as the Bible tells it. Adam, the original resident, just bided his time, snacked when he felt like it, avoided one particular tree, and hung out. Except once — just once — he was given an assignment: to name a vast array of "beasts of the field," plus "fowl of the air," after which, presumably, he rested. And people have been naming creatures ever since.

In the 1700s, the Swedish scholar Carl Linnaeus created a new way to classify creatures that is still in use today, genus plus species. He classified thousands of organisms.

But the all-time record may go to an American insect scientist by the name of Charles Paul Alexander, who specialized in crane flies. I'm not exactly sure what a crane fly is, but apparently they come in many, many flavors; Alexander is said to have named more than 10,000 species.

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A Trip Inside The "Big Bang Machine"

Steve Kroft descends into the Large Hadron Collider some call it the "big bang machine" - that took billions of dollars and 9,000 physicists to build in the hope it will provide valuable insights.

From CBS 60 Minutes:

(CBS) As a rule, physics rarely makes news, but it did this past week after equipment malfunctions delayed for several months the start up of one of the biggest science experiments in history. We are talking about the Large Hadron Collider, a massive, multibillion dollar project designed to unlock the secrets of the universe.

For several years now, thousands of the world's most accomplished scientists have been gathering in Europe, not to explore the heavens but the frontiers of inner space. They are hoping to discover subatomic particles so tiny that they have never been detected. They think these particles will help explain why the universe has organized itself into so many different things - planets and stars, tables and chairs, flesh and blood.

To do it, they have constructed one of largest, most sophisticated machines ever built to replicate what the universe was like a few nanoseconds after it was created. And as Steve Kroft reports, it is all going to happen 300 feet underground on the border between Switzerland and France.

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Are Some Solar Projects No Longer ‘Green’?

Workers install solar panels on the roof of an Austin, Texas, homeowner. (Ann Hermes / The Christian Science Monitor / FILES)

From The Christian Science Monitor:

Conservationists worry that a plan for the Mojave desert will upset species’ habitats.

Solar companies proposing large power plants in the Mojave Desert are facing opposition from conservationists. They say a rush to build solar here threatens to tear up large tracts of desert habitat and open space.

The squabble is likely to intensify now that Congress this week moved forward on a long-term extension of the solar tax credit. Two other proposed bills would fast-track solar power projects looking to build on federal lands. State mandates on utilities to provide more renewable energy has created an enormous market for solar, an energy that requires two things the Mojave has in spades – acreage and sunshine. But the desert’s defenders argue that solar panels should be located on city rooftops rather than pristine lands.

“If there were just one [proposed plant], we could deal with that. But we are looking at essentially every valley that is not protected as a national monument or park as being a potential site for solar,” says John Hiatt, a Las Vegas-based environmental activist. “It will be the industrialization of the Mojave Desert.”

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Einstein's long-lost telescope goes on display after being restored

In this undated photo made available by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on Monday, Sept. 22, 2008, an unidentified man adjusts a telescope that once belonged to Albert Einstein, at the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Hebrew University in Jerusalem, HO

From CNews/Science:

JERUSALEM - Albert Einstein's long-lost telescope, forgotten for decades in a Jerusalem storage shed, goes on display this week after three years and $10,000 spent restoring the relic.

The old reflecting telescope is cumbersome by modern standards, but a demonstration for The Associated Press showed it still works well enough to see five of Jupiter's moons and stripes on the surface of the huge planet.

The legendary physicist who famously theorized relations among energy, speed and mass received the telescope in 1954, the year before he died.

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When Wind Power Goes Wrong

Wind Power -- Watts Up With That

I was in a conversation today at lunch with a fellow who told me that “wind power is better than anything we’ve ever done for generating electricity”. That made me wonder, how reliable (beyond the constancy of wind issues) is it?

Whenever I drive through Techachapi or Altamont passes here in California I note that there always seems to be a fair number of these three blade windmills that are out of commission. Perhaps failure is more common than one would expect. I found a couple of examples:

New Era Dawns At Home Of The Internet

A network of supercomputers called the Grid will allow information to be downloaded quicker than ever. Tasks that took hours will now take seconds

From Times Online:

The dawn of a new internet age has begun. A network of supercomputers, known as the Grid, is to revolutionise the speed at which information is downloaded to personal computers.

The power of the Grid is such that downloading films should take only seconds, not hours, and processing music albums just a single second. Video-phone calls should also cost no more than a local call. More importantly, it should help to narrow the search for cures for diseases.

The Grid, a network of 100,000 computers, is to be connected to the world’s largest machine, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It is designed for projects, such as large research and engineering jobs, which need to crunch huge quantities of data, but scientists believe it will eventually be used on home computers.

The Grid allows scientists at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, to get access to the unemployed processing power of thousands of computers in 33 countries to deal with the data created by the LHC.

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