Space Shuttle News Updates -- March 11, 2009

Gas Leak Postpones Space Shuttle Discovery Launch -- AP

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA postponed the launch of space shuttle Discovery just hours before it was to head to the international space station Wednesday because of a hydrogen gas leak that could have been catastrophic at liftoff. The leak was in a different part of the system that already has caused a vexing one-month delay.

Shuttle managers put off the launch until Monday but left open the possibility that the repair work might allow for an attempt Sunday.

The latest delay means Discovery's two-week flight must be shortened and some spacewalks cut out of the mission. That's because Discovery needs to be gone from the space station before a Russian Soyuz rocket blasts off March 26 with a fresh station crew.

If Discovery isn't flying by Monday — possibly Tuesday, stretching it — then it will have to wait until April.

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More News On The Space Shuttle

Shuttle Discovery Launch Postponed Over Gas Leak -- Daily Tech
Nasa space shuttle launch delayed -- BBC
Shuttle Mission Delayed by Leak; Thursday Night Launch Possible -- CBS
NASA: No shuttle launch before Sunday -- Al.com
Space Shuttle Launch Delayed to March 15 -- Space.com

Saltwater Power Could Supply Energy for Most Dutch Homes

From Ecoworldly:

A new proposal to improve a 75-year-old dike, the Afsluitdijk, in The Netherlands could make it the world’s leading site for generating saltwater power— a clean, renewable energy source which is 30-40% more efficient than burning coal.

The breakthrough process, which is called reverse electrodialysis, captures the energy created when freshwater becomes saltier by mixing with seawater. Although scientists in the 1950s discovered that electricity could be generated this way, no one knew just how efficient the process could be until a recent study proved that a remarkable 80% of the energy could be recovered.

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High Speed Trains In California

Illustration by Paul Holland

From On Earth:

The rest of the developed world has high-speed rail. We don't. That's finally about to change.

With its soaring, arched ceilings, 20-story bell tower, and gilded frescoes, the Gare de Lyon rail station in Paris feels like a kind of church. This cathedral of transport was built for the World Exposition of 1900, a Belle Époque celebration of the achievements in science and technology that had given birth to the Industrial Revolution a century earlier. Coal soot and dark halos of steam billowed in the rafters, symbols of the original builders' faith in eternal progress.

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Why People Often Get Sicker When They Are Stressed

Escherichia coli

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 10, 2009) — A newly discovered receptor in a strain of Escherichia coli might help explain why people often get sicker when they're stressed.

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center are the first to identify the receptor, known as QseE, which resides in a diarrhea-causing strain of E coli. The receptor senses stress cues from the bacterium's host and helps the pathogen make the host ill. A receptor is a molecule on the surface of a cell that docks with other molecules, often signaling the cell to carry out a specific function.

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Recycling Mystery: Styrofoam

From Live Science:

It's the eternal question: Can I recycle Styrofoam®?

It's everywhere: It holds your food, secures items in packages, provides insulation in homes and it's even in your bike helmet. Also known as expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam, it's a version of plastic #6 (polystyrene), which you've seen used in plastic cups and CD and DVD cases.

Fun fact: In 2006, the Alliance of Foam Packaging Recyclers reported that 56 million pounds of EPS were recycled that year alone. That's an astonishing amount considering that EPS is 98 percent air.

Here's the thing: Even if your community recycles plastic #6, it may not accept EPS. It's a similar case to the plastic bag conundrum, where different versions of plastics require separate recycling streams.

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Computers Have A Lot To Learn From The Human Brain, Engineers Say

From Scientific American:

The year that the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) first formed (as the American Institute of Electrical Engineers or AIEE), Chester Arthur was in the White House, the Oxford English Dictionary published its first edition, and construction began on the Statue of Liberty on what was then known as Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor.

During a meeting today commemorating the organization's 125th anniversary, scientists (all IEEE members, of course) looked to the future, describing advances in artificial intelligence, brain-machine interfaces and energy transfer.

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Pictured: The Moment An Awe-Inspiring Desert Storm Engulfed The Saudi Capital

A huge sand storm engulfs the Saudi capital of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday.
The storm, which was still raging hours after it started

From The Daily Mail:

With terrifying majesty, a giant dust storm swept in from the desert and enveloped large parts of the Saudi capital Riyadh today.

The vast, whirling clouds cast an apocalyptic yellowish hue over the city's sprawling surburbs, choking residents with a blanket of grit and sand.

The awe-inspiring storm engulfed buildings and caused huge traffic jams as it enveloped the city of 4million people in a layer of impenetrable gloom.

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Why People Don't Heed Tornado Warnings

A house damaged by a tornado that swept through Montgomery Country, Ala. on Feb. 5, 2008, part of the "Super Tuesday" tornado outbreak. Credit: National Weather Service

From Live Science:

When weather alarms go off and tornado sirens begin their baleful wail, some people run for shelter, while others try to ride out the storm. A new report from the National Weather Service sheds light on the reasons why some people don't heed the warnings.

The report focuses on the "Super Tuesday" winter tornado outbreak of Feb. 5-6, 2008, so named because of the presidential primaries held on that Tuesday. During the outbreak, 82 tornadoes tore through nine states across the South, killing 57 people, injuring 350 others and causing $400 million in property damage.

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Life Could Have Survived Earth's Early Pounding

Image: A new study suggests that heat-loving microbes living more than 300 m underground could have survived a massive barrage of impacts 3.9 billion years ago (Image: Don Davis)

From New Scientist:

Microbes living deep underground could have survived the massive barrage of impacts that blasted the Earth 3.9 billion years ago, according to a new analysis. That means that today's life might be descended from microbes that arose as far back as 4.4 billion years ago, when the oceans formed.

Around 3.9 billion years ago, shifts in the orbits of the gas giant planets are thought to have disrupted other objects in the solar system, sending many hurtling into the inner planets. Geologists call that time the Hadean Eon, and thought its fiery hell of impacts would have sterilised the Earth.

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UFO Myths: A Special Investigation Into Stephenville And Other Major Sightings

From Popular Mechanics:

What were the speed-shifting, color-morphing UFOs that mystified hundreds of eyewitnesses around Stephenville, Texas, last January? Optical Illusions? Secret Military Operations? Alien Spaceships? PM spent months investigating UFO conspiracy theories, looking for straightforward explanations. A special report.

"It was the most beautiful sunset I'd ever seen," says Steve Allen, who has seen 50 years of sunsets in central Texas. “That’s what I first thought.”

It was Jan. 8, 2008, and the trucking entrepreneur was sitting around a fire outside the Selden, Texas, home of Mike Odom, his friend since first grade. Then he saw the lights—orbs that glowed at first, then began to flash. “There was no regular pattern to the flashing,” he says. “They lined up horizontally, seven of them, then changed into an arch. They lined up vertically, and I saw two rectangles of bright flame.That’s when I knew it was a life-changing experience.” He watched the lights drift north toward Stephenville, the seat of Erath County. “They came back a few minutes later,” Allen says, “this time followed by two jets—F-16s, I think.” Allen, who owns and flies a Cessna, has seen plenty of military planes over the years. “The jets looked like they were chasing the lights, and the lights seemed to be toying with them. It was like a 100-hp car trying to keep up with a 1000-hp one.”

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Humans No Match for Go Bot Overlords

From Wired News:

For the last two decades, human cognitive superiority had a distinctive sound: the soft click of stones placed on a wooden Go board. But once again, artificial intelligence is asserting its domination over gray matter.

Just a few years ago, the best Go programs were routinely beaten by skilled children, even when given a head start. Artificial intelligence researchers routinely said that computers capable of beating our best were literally unthinkable. And so it was. Until now.

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What Is Aortic Valve Replacement Surgery?

Robin Williams: The comedian is scheduled to have aortic valve replacement surgery.
FLICKR/CHARLES HAYNES

From Scientific American:

Comedian and actor Robin Williams, 57, last week postponed a planned 80-city tour of his one-man show, "Weapons of Self-Destruction" to undergo aortic valve replacement surgery. His announcement came just days after 83-year-old former first lady Barbara Bush left a Houston hospital after undergoing the same procedure.

The aortic valve is what keeps oxygenated blood flowing from our heart into the aorta, the largest artery in our body, and prevents it from washing back into the heart with each pump cycle. But as we age, the tricuspid (three-leafed) valve tends harden and thicken, forcing the heart work harder to keep blood flowing smoothly. Open-heart surgery is typically required to replace the valve if it thickens so much that it causes aortic stenosis, an abnormal narrowing and stiffening of the valve.

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Sea Levels To Surge 'At Least A Metre' By Century End

Sunset is seen over the sea. Months before make-or-break climate negotiations, a conclave of scientists warned Tuesday that the impact of global warming was accelerating beyond a forecast made by UN experts two years ago. (AFP/File/Adek Berry)

From Yahoo News/AFP:

COPENHAGEN (AFP) – Months before make-or-break climate negotiations, a conclave of scientists warned Tuesday that the impact of global warming was accelerating beyond a forecast made by UN experts two years ago.

Sea levels this century may rise several times higher than predictions made in 2007 that form the scientific foundation for policymakers today, the meeting heard.

In March 2007, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that global warming, if unchecked, would lead to a devastating amalgam of floods, drought, disease and extreme weather by the century end.

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Phoenix Mars Lander Found Liquid Water, Some Scientists Think

This color image was acquired by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's Surface Stereo Imager on the 20th day of the mission, or Sol 19 (June 13, 2008), after the May 25, 2008, landing. This image shows one trench informally called "Dodo-Goldilocks" after two digs. White material, possibly ice, is located only at the upper portion of the trench. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University

From Science Daily:

During its more than five-month stint on Mars last year, NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander found evidence that liquid water existed at the spacecraft's landing site, some Phoenix team members say.

Water is key to all forms of life as we know it and the discovery of liquid water would suggest a greater opportunity for biology on the red planet.

The new but controversial conclusion comes from observations of a set of "little globules" attached to struts on the lander's legs that were photographed by Phoenix's robotic arm camera over the course of the mission, as first reported at Spaceflight Now.

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Why Dreams Are So Difficult To Remember: Precise Communication Discovered Across Brain Areas During Sleep

New research points to how memories are formed, transferred, and ultimately stored in the brain--and how that process varies throughout the various stages of sleep. (Credit: iStockphoto/Diane Diederich)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 9, 2009) — By listening in on the chatter between neurons in various parts of the brain, researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have taken steps toward fully understanding just how memories are formed, transferred, and ultimately stored in the brain--and how that process varies throughout the various stages of sleep.

Their findings may someday even help scientists understand why dreams are so difficult to remember.

Scientists have long known that memories are formed in the brain's hippocampus, but are stored elsewhere--most likely in the neocortex, the outer layer of the brain. Transferring memories from one part of the brain to the other requires changing the strength of the connections between neurons and is thought to depend on the precise timing of the firing of brain cells.

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Hot Weather 'Can Trigger A Migraine'

Many migraine sufferers find that their pain can be triggered
by changes in the weather Photo: GETTY

From The Telegraph:

Hot weather can trigger migraines and other debilitating types of head pain, a new study suggests.

Researchers have also found that changes in air pressure can increase the chance of developing a painful headache.

Many migraine sufferers find that their pain can be triggered by changes in the weather, but previously there was little scientific evidence that that was the case.

The study looked at 7,054 patients who went to their hospital's casualty department complaining of severe head pain over a period of seven years.

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Not So Sweet: Over-Consumption Of Sugar Linked To Aging

Three-dimensional model of a glucose molecule.
(Credit: Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 9, 2009) — We know that lifespan can be extended in animals by restricting calories such as sugar intake. Now, according to a study published in the journal PLoS Genetics, Université de Montréal scientists have discovered that it's not sugar itself that is important in this process but the ability of cells to sense its presence.

Aging is a complex phenomenon and the mechanisms underlying aging are yet to be explained. What researchers do know is that there is a clear relationship between aging and calorie intake. For example, mice fed with half the calories they usually eat can live 40 percent longer. How does this work?

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The 300-Year History of Internet Dating

From Live Science:

Almost everyone these days can name a couple they know that met on the Internet, though it wasn't so long ago that skimming the online personals for love was considered strange, even a bit desperate.

Taboo or not, the practice certainly isn't new. Personal ads have a history going back at least 300 years, according to a new book on the subject entitled "Classified: The Secret History of the Personal Column" (Random House Books, 2009).

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Man Who Co-Discovered HIV Virus Accused Of Stealing Rights To Aids Cure

From The Telegraph:

A Nobel prize-winning French researcher who co-discovered the virus that leads to Aids but sparked controversy after his colleague said he had claimed all the glory, has now been accused of stealing the rights to a revolutionary invention that may provide a cure to the disease, it emerged yesterday.

Prof Luc Montagnier is locked in a legal battle with inventor Bruno Robert over the intellectual property rights to a technique whereby the Aids virus and other serious ailments, including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, can be pinpointed by their electromagnetic "signatures".

The hope is that once identified, the diseases can be blocked or neutralised with an opposite electromagnetic signal.

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The Secret Of Long Life? It's All Down To How Fast You React

Live long and prosper - if you have a speedy response time

From The Daily Mail:

People's reaction times are a far better indicator of their chances of living a long life than their blood pressure, exercise levels or weight, researchers have discovered.

Men and women with the most sluggish response times are more than twice as likely to die prematurely.

Edinburgh University and the Medical Research Council in Glasgow tracked 7,414 people nationwide over 20 years in a study which appears to confirm the adage that a healthy mind means a healthy body.

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