Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Space Shuttle Launch Scrubbed
From The CBC:
NASA delayed a planned night launch of the space shuttle Discovery early Tuesday because of rain and lightning near the launch site.
Discovery was scheduled to launch at 1:36 a.m. ET from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on a 13-day flight to the International Space Station.
The space agency rescheduled the launch for 1:10 a.m. ET Wednesday.
Last month's Endeavour mission, carrying Canadian astronaut Julie Payette, was postponed several times because of bad weather at the launch site.
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Update: Storms delay Discovery liftoff -- AFP
Second Robot Deployed To Help Free Stuck Mars Rover
Engineers are deploying a lightweight version of a test rover (foreground) that will better simulate Mars's gravity, which is 38% that of Earth's (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)From New Scientist:
In the struggle to free the Mars rover Spirit from a sand trap, NASA engineers are bringing out the reserve troops. A second, lighter duplicate rover slid into a sandbox for testing this week, delaying any attempt to free Spirit by as much as three weeks, to mid-September.
Spirit has been stuck in a sandpit for nearly four months. Since late June, engineers have been trying to determine the best moves to extricate it by driving a test rover around a sandbox at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California.
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The Enduring Mystery of Saturn's Rings
From Space.com:
Saturn's rings have fascinated scientists ever since Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei first spotted them through one of his telescopes in the 17th century. But just how the icy rings came into being remains a mystery that has only deepened with each new scientific finding.
Astronomers now know that the planet hosts multiple rings that consist of roughly 35 trillion-trillion tons of ice, dust and rock. The Cassini spacecraft and its Voyager predecessors have also spotted changing ring patterns, partially formed ring arcs and even a moon spewing out icy particles to form a new ring. All of this suggests that the rings have constantly evolved over time.
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Powerful, Simple Rocket Fuel Made From Water And Aluminum
From Popular Science:
A new rocket propellant consisting of aluminum powder and water ice could point toward the future of space exploration.
Spacecraft might one day refuel on the moon or Mars using plain old ice. A small rocket flew earlier this month on an environmentally-friendly propellant consisting of aluminum powder and water ice.
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Monday, August 24, 2009
Cell Reproduction Research May Point To 'Off Switch' For Cancer
Researcher Art Alberts, left, with doctoral candidate Aaron DeWard at the Van Andel Research Institute in Grand Rapids. (Credit: VAI photo by Dykehouse Photography)From Science Daily:
ScienceDaily (Aug. 24, 2009) — New insight into how human cells reproduce, published by cancer researchers at Michigan State University and the Van Andel Research Institute in Grand Rapids, could help scientists move closer to finding an “off switch” for cancer.
Cancer cells divide uncontrollably and can move from one part of the body to another. They undergo dramatic shifts in shape when they do so, said Aaron DeWard, an MSU cell and molecular biology doctoral candidate who published his research recently in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. He’s trying to figure out how certain proteins trigger cell movement and division and how cancer hijacks the system to create genomic instability.
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Freak Hurricane Wave Strikes Maine
This rare photo of a rogue wave was taken by first mate Philippe Lijour aboard the supertanker Esso Languedoc, during a storm off Durban in South Africa in 1980. The wave approached the ship from behind before breaking over the deck, but in this case caused only minor damage. The wave was between 16 and 33 feet (5-10 meters) tall. Credit: Philippe Lijour via ESAFrom Live Science:
No matter how much warning officials give, some people flock to the shore to see waves from hurricanes. The ocean, however, is not always as predictable as people might like.
Though Hurricane Bill did not make a direct hit on the U.S. East Coast, its wave-making power was made clear Sunday when a surprisingly large wave, termed a "rogue wave" by the Portland Press Herald, struck Acadia National Park. A 7-year-old girl was killed, and three other people had to be pulled from the water.
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Study Into Sunscreen's Link To Alzheimer's
From The Independent:Scientists are to investigate whether human-engineered nanoparticles which are found in sunscreen have any links with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.
Professor Vyvyan Howard, a pathologist and toxicologist, and Dr Christian Holster, an expert in Alzheimer's, have been awarded £350,000 from the European Union to carry out a three-year research project.
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Encyclopedia Of Life To Gather Every Species Into A Digital Noah's Ark
By 2017, the Encyclopedia of Life aims to have brought together information on all 1.8 million known species. Photograph: Philadelphia Museum/CorbisFrom The Guardian:
The extraordinary collaborative effort has already chronicled 150,000 species. Today the Encyclopedia of Life receives a $12.5 million boost to achieve its ultimate goal.
When the American sociobiologist E. O. Wilson was awarded the TED Prize in 2007, he was given the opportunity to make a wish. His wish was that someone would fund and create a freely accessible online database of every known species, to give scientists "the tools that we need to inspire preservation of Earth's biodiversity".
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One In Five Honeybees Is Wiped Out In A Year
Dying out: Honeybees are decreasing rapidly in number, with almost a fifth of the UK's population perishing last yearFrom The Daily Mail:
Nearly a fifth of Britain's honeybees perished last year, increasing fears the species is in serious decline, experts warned yesterday.
Although the death toll is lower than the previous year - when nearly a third of hives did not make it through the winter - beekeepers say it is double the 'acceptable' level.
The annual survey by the British Beekeepers' Association revealed 19.2 per cent of colonies died in the winter.
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Shuttle To Deliver 'Hot And Cold'
This is the Discovery orbiter's 37th mission.From The BBC:
The US shuttle Discovery is all set for its latest mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
The 13-day flight will deliver science equipment to the platform, including a new freezer to store biological samples and a furnace for baking materials.
The lab equipment was made in Europe, which is represented in Discovery's crew by Swede Christer Fuglesang.
The mission will be the 30th shuttle flight dedicated to station assembly and maintenance.
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FUTURE FARMS: High-Rise, Beach Pod, And Pyramid Pictures
Image courtesy Eric Ellingsen and Dickson Despommier, Vertical Farm Project From National Geographic:
The Pyramid Farm, designed by vertical farming guru Dickson Despommier at New York's Columbia University and Eric Ellingsen of the Illinois Institute of Technology, is one way to address the needs of a swelling population on a planet with finite farmland.
Design teams around the world have been rolling out concepts for futuristic skyscrapers that house farms instead of--or in addition to--people as a means of feeding city dwellers with locally-grown crops.
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The Origin Of Computing
Holly Lindem (photoillustration); Gene Burkhardt (styling)From Scientific American:
The information age began with the realization that machines could emulate the power of minds
In the standard story, the computer’s evolution has been brisk and short. It starts with the giant machines warehoused in World War II–era laboratories. Microchips shrink them onto desktops, Moore’s Law predicts how powerful they will become, and Microsoft capitalizes on the software. Eventually small, inexpensive devices appear that can trade stocks and beam video around the world. That is one way to approach the history of computing—the history of solid-state electronics in the past 60 years.
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Bilinguals Are Unable To 'Turn Off' A Language Completely, Study Shows
From Science Daily:
ScienceDaily (Aug. 19, 2009) — With a vast majority of the world speaking more than one language, it is no wonder that psychologists are interested in its effect on cognitive functioning. For instance, how does the human brain switch between languages? Are we able to seamlessly activate one language and disregard knowledge of other languages completely?
According to a recent study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, it appears humans are not actually capable of "turning off" another language entirely. Psychologists Eva Van Assche, Wouter Duyck, Robert Hartsuiker and Kevin Diependaele from Ghent University found that knowledge of a second language actually has a continuous impact on native-language reading.
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Breakthrough Makes LED Lights More Versatile
From Live Science:LEDs have started to blink on all over the place in recent years, from car taillights to roadside billboards. But design and manufacturing drawbacks have limited the ways in which the energy-efficient lights can be used.
A new study, detailed in the Aug. 21 issue of the journal Science, tackles these limitations by combining the best of two worlds of LEDs to make ultrathin, ultrasmall and flexible light-emitting diodes that may one day be used to create everything from laptop screens to biomedical imaging devices.
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Into The Mushroom Cloud
The mushroom cloud of the first test of a hydrogen bomb, "Ivy Mike", as photographed on Enewetak, an atoll in the Pacific Ocean, in 1952. Photo: ReutersFrom Air & Space Smithsonian:
Most pilots would head away from a thermonuclear explosion.
He wasn’t supposed to do it, but on May 15, 1948, Lieutenant Colonel Paul H. Fackler, commanding officer of the U.S. Air Force 514th Reconnaissance Squadron Weather, flew his airplane into the seething mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb detonation.
As part of Zebra, the final shot of America’s second series of atomic tests at Enewetak atoll in the Pacific, Fackler had the job of tracking the atomic cloud from at least 10 miles away, hoping that special filters attached to the airplane would catch samples of the radioactive debris. But as he pulled away from the enormous roiling cloud in a climbing turn to the left, Fackler suddenly found his weather reconnaissance Boeing WB-29 inside a small finger-like projection of the main cloud.
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Mystery Of The Missing Mini-Galaxies
Something missing? (Image: NASA/ESA/STScI/AURA/A. Aloisi)From New Scientist:
LIKE moths about a flame, thousands of tiny satellite galaxies flutter about our Milky Way. For astronomers this is a dream scenario, fitting perfectly with the established models of how our galaxy's cosmic neighbourhood should be. Unfortunately, it's a dream in more ways than one and the reality could hardly be more different.
As far as we can tell, barely 25 straggly satellites loiter forlornly around the outskirts of the Milky Way. "We see only about 1 per cent of the predicted number of satellite galaxies," says Pavel Kroupa of the University of Bonn in Germany. "It is the cleanest case in which we can see there is something badly wrong with our standard picture of the origin of galaxies."
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Shuttle Set For Dramatic Night Launch
From Information Week:
NASA's Discovery is ready to light up the sky in Southeast Florida early Tuesday.
NASA controllers said the space shuttle Discovery is go-for-launch for tonight's mission to the International Space Station. Discovery is set to light up the sky around Florida's Kennedy Space Center early Tuesday with a 1:36 a.m. launch.
As of late Sunday, NASA said there were no issues that would prevent an on-time liftoff.
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We DO like Mondays... But We Really Don't Like The Mid-Week Misery Of Wednesday
From The Daily Mail:With work beckoning after a relaxing weekend, Monday has traditionally been thought of as the most miserable day of the week.
But with memories of the days off still fresh, Mondays are actually the second happiest day of the week according to researchers.
Peter Dodds and Christopher Danforth, applied mathematicians at the University of Vermont, believe they have found a way to measure collective happiness and found we are at our lowest on Wednesdays.
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Ares Managers Say October Test Flight Should Go On
Photo: The fully stacked Ares 1-X rocket stands inside the Vehicle Assembly Building last week. Credit: NASA/Jack PfallerFrom Space Flight Now:
Managers in charge of an October flight test of NASA's new Ares rocket defended the merits of the $350 million launch Sunday, telling reporters the demo provides valuable experience for engineers, no matter what booster the agency uses to replace the retiring space shuttle.
"We have a very high confidence level that Ares 1-X is germane to NASA, period," said Bob Ess, the flight's mission manager. "No caveats."
The Ares 1-X vehicle, a 327-foot-tall rocket that nearly reaches the rafters of the mammoth Vehicle Assembly Building, is undergoing final checks before its scheduled Oct. 31 launch.
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The Origin of Rubber Boots
ROASTING RUBBER: Amazonian Indians may have originated the rubber boot over a campfire. ISTOCKPHOTO/SKI88From Scientific American:
Galoshes seem to have come from a little fire, Amazonian Indians' boredom and Charles Goodyear's luck.
Perhaps the Indians roasted them like s'mores—rotating them ever so slowly to make sure every side got just dark enough, but not so long that they caught on fire. Or maybe they went all out, expediting the process and blowing out any flames. Of course, for the art of hovering a rubber-coated foot over a fire, one's pain tolerance may have ultimately determined how long the process went on.
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