We take a look at breast-cancer therapy research, a new sleep apnea treatment, biomedical glue, spacecraft updates, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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— Book Pic: —

• The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

Breast-Cancer Therapy Research

• A new breast-cancer therapy partially reverses the cancerous state in cultured breast tumor cells and prevents cancer development in mice, the therapy emerged from a sophisticated effort to reverse-engineer gene networks to identify genes that drive cancer
• Current Treatment Options
• To date the only way to stop cancer cells has been to kill them.
• The treatments that accomplish that, including surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy, often damage healthy tissue, causing harsh side effects
• Many women currently undergo surgery, chemotherapy and radiation as a precaution, who might never develop the disease
• In addition some women with a high hereditary risk of breast cancer have chosen to undergo preemptive mastectomies.
• A therapy that heals rather than kills cancerous tissue could potentially help all these patients, as well as men who develop the disease
• Identifying Problem Genes
• First they had to identify the culprit genes among the thousands that are active in a cell at any moment
• When molecular biologists typically are looking for cancer-causing genes, they search for individual genes that become active as cancer develops, but because genes in cells work in complex networks
• With this process however, cells that are not cancer-causing often get labeled as such as well
• To improve the odds of finding the real culprits, a systems biology expert who has developed a sophisticated mathematical and computational method to reverse-engineer bacterial gene networks.
• Computational Method
• They were able to hone the computational network to work for the first time on the more complex gene networks of mice and humans
• The refined method helped the scientists spot more than 100 genes that acted suspiciously just before milk-duct cells in the breast begin to overgrow
• The team narrowed their list down to six genes that turn other genes on or off, and then narrowed it further to a single gene called HoxA1 that had the strongest statistical link to cancer
• The HocA1 Gene
• Researchers wanted to know if blocking the HoxA1 gene could reverse cancer in lab-grown cells, so they grew healthy mouse or human cells in a nutrient-rich, tissue-friendly gel
• Healthy cells in the gel formed hollow spheres of cells akin to a normal milk duct, cancerous cells, in contrast, packed together into solid, tumor-like spheres.
• When they treated cancerous cells with a short piece of RNA called a small interfering RNA (siRNA) that blocks only the HoxA1 gene the cells reversed their march to malignancy
• It stopped the runaway growth and forming hollow balls as healthy cells do, in addition they specialized as if they were growing in healthy tissue
• The siRNA treatment also stopped breast cancer in a line of mice genetically engineered to have a gene that causes all of them to develop cancer
• Researchers packed the siRNA into nanoparticles called lipidoids that allow for genes to be silenced for weeks inside the body
• When they injected these nanoparticles, the treated mice remained healthy, while untreated mice developed breast cancer
• The Future
• The idea would be to start the treatment early on and sustain it throughout life to prevent cancer development or progression
• The same strategy could lead to many new therapies that disable cancer-causing genes no current drugs can stop, and it also can be used to find therapies for other diseases
• The findings open up the possibility of someday treating patients who have a genetic propensity as more women than ever are undergoing early tests that reveal precancerous breast tissue
• Early diagnosis could potentially save lives; however, few of those lesions go on to become tumors and doctors have no good way of predicting which ones will turn malignant
• Further Reading / In the News
• Novel noninvasive therapy prevents breast cancer formation in mice | MedicalXpress.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Sleep Apnea Medical Device

• Implantation of a sleep apnea device called Inspire Upper Airway Stimulation (UAS) therapy can lead to significant improvements for patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA)
• Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA)
• Affects more than 8 million men and 4 million women in the U.S. and is twice as common in men
• Is characterized by repeated episodes of upper airway collapse during sleep, due to narrowing or blockage
• Patients with OSA stop breathing, known as apnea, frequently during sleep, often for a minute or longer
• Repeated episodes of apnea can lead to daytime fatigue, and increase a person\’s risk for heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure and even death.
• Current Treatments for OSA
• Include weight loss, upper airway surgeries, oral appliances, and continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), which is considered the primary treatment for OSA
• CPAP is a successful treatment when used on a regular basis
• As many as half of the patients who have been prescribed CPAP are unable to use it regularly, largely due to discomfort with the mask and/or the lack of desire to be tethered to a machine
• Inspire Upper Airway Stimulation (UAS) Therapy
• Differs from other traditional sleep apnea devices and surgical procedures as it targets the muscle tone of the throat rather than just the anatomy
• The device is designed to sense breathing patterns and deliver mild stimulation to a patient\’s airway muscles to keep the airway open during sleep.
• Surgical implantation of the upper-airway stimulation system was performed by otolaryngologists at 22 academic and private centers
• Stimulation electrode was placed on the hypoglossal nerve, which provides innervation to the muscles of the tongue
• The device was implanted in three areas, a sensing lead was placed between rib muscles to detect breathing effort, a neurostimulator was implanted in the upper right chest, just below the clavicle bone
• Two thirds of patients using the Inspire UAS therapy device had successful control of their OSA, even more reported improvement in snoring, daytime sleepiness and quality of life measures
• The Study
• This was the first trial to evaluate the use of upper airway stimulation for sleep apnea
• Conducted at 22 medical centers in the United States and Europe
• From 724 candidates initially screened, the STAR trial implanted and prospectively evaluated 126 moderate-to-severe OSA patients who had difficulty using or adhering to CPAP therapy:
• All patients underwent surgery to implant the device, 83 percent of the participants were men, the mean age was 54.5 years, and the mean body-mass index was 28.4.
• Patients used a \”controller\” to turn on the device at night, so it is only used when the patient sleeps
• Long Term
• Eighty-six percent of patients were still using the device every night at the one year mark, which compares very favorably to CPAP
• Using various sleep-disorder measuring systems, patients were found to experience 68 to 70 percent fewer sleep-apnea episodes per hour
• After one year, patients using the device had an approximately 70 percent reduction in sleep apnea severity, as well as significant reductions in daytime sleepiness
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Dr. Soose explains sleep apnea clinical trial | UPMC
• Further Reading / In the News
• New device can reduce sleep apnea episodes by 70 percent, study shows | MedicalXpress.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Glue for the Heart

• In a preclinical study, researchers developed a bio-inspired adhesive that could rapidly attach biodegradable patches inside a beating heart in the exact place where congenital holes in the heart occur, such as with ventricular heart defects.
• Heart Defect Treatments
• When a child is born with a heart defect such as a hole in the heart, the highly invasive therapies are challenging due to an inability to quickly and safely secure devices inside the heart
• Sutures take too much time to stitch and can cause stress on fragile heart tissue
• Currently available clinical adhesives are either too toxic or tend to lose their sticking power in the presence of blood or under dynamic conditions, such as in a beating heart
• A New Adhesive
• Many creatures in nature have secretions that are viscous and repel water enabling them to attach under wet and dynamic conditions
• Researchers developed a material with these properties that also is biodegradable, elastic and biocompatible
• The degradable patches secured with the glue remained attached even at increased heart rates and blood pressure and it works in the presence of blood and moving structures
• The adhesive was strong enough to hold tissue and patches onto the heart equivalent to suturing, is biodegradable and biocompatible, so nothing foreign or toxic stays in the bodies of these patients
• Its adhesive abilities are activated with ultraviolet (UV) light, providing an on-demand, anti-bleeding seal within five seconds of UV light application
• What This Means
• Researchers note that their waterproof, light-activated adhesive will be useful in reducing the invasiveness of surgical procedures, as well as operating times, in addition to improving heart surgery outcomes
• \”It should provide the physician with a completely new, much simpler technology and a new paradigm for tissue reconstruction to improve the quality of life of patients following surgical procedures.\” | Pedro del Nido, MD, Chief of Cardiac Surgery, Boston Children\’s Hospital, co-senior study author
• Further Reading / In the News
• Bio-inspired glue keeps hearts securely sealed | ScienceDaily.com

Supernova In the Works

• SN 1987A is the closest supernova to that we’ve been able to study since the invention of the telescope and it has provided scientists with good opportunities to study the physical processes of an exploding star
• A nebula with a giant star at its center has striking similarities to SN 1987A.
• Both stars have identical rings of the same size and age, which were travelling at similar speeds; both were located in similar HII regions; and they had the same brightness
• No one can predict when a star will go supernova, but astronomers are certainly hoping they’ll have the chance to watch it happen.
• Further Reading / In the News
• What a Star About to Go Supernova Looks Like | UniverseToday.com

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (SS2)

• 2014 should be the year that Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (SS2) brings passengers on suborbital space flights
• The company started off the year by successfully completing its third rocket-powered supersonic flight after dozens of successful subsonic test flights
• Getting to Altitude
• The WhiteKnightTwo (WK2) carrier aircraft brought SS2 to an altitude around 46,000 ft, then SS2 was released, and its rocket motor was ignited, powering the spaceship to a planned altitude of 71,000 ft.
• SS2’s highest altitude to date, and it also reached a speed of Mach 1.4.
• Testing
• They tested the spaceship’s Reaction Control System, the newly installed thermal protection coating on the vehicle’s tail booms, and the “feather” re-entry system.
• The RCS will allow its pilots to maneuver the vehicle in space so that passengers will have great views of Earth, as well as aiding the positioning process for spacecraft re-entry
• The new reflective protection coating on SS2’s inner tail boom surfaces is being evaluated to help maintain vehicle skin temperatures while the rocket motor is firing.
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Stunning video: Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo goes supersonic in test flight | euronews (in English)
• Further Reading / In the News
• SpaceShipTwo Goes Supersonic in Third Rocket-Powered Test Flight | UniverseToday.com

China’s Lunar Lander and Rover Back “Awake”

• According to a BACC statement the Chinese Lunar lander, Chang’e-3, and the Yutu rover have \’woken up\’ from their Lunar night hibernation
• Engineers put them to sleep to conserve energy since there is no sunlight to generate power with the solar arrays during the lunar night.
• Lunar night time environment when temperatures plunged to below minus 180 degrees Celsius, or minus 292 degrees Fahrenheit
• During the nocturnal hiatus they were kept alive by a radioisotopic heat source that maintained at a temperature of about minus 40 degrees Celsius to prevent debilitating damage to the computer and electronics subsystems inside a box below the deck
• Just prior to hibernating, the lander snapped the first image of the Earth taken from the Moon’s surface in some four decades
• The Yutu rover has already resumed roving, and they expect the Chang’e-3 lander should survive at least a year.
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Stunning video: Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo goes supersonic in test flight | euronews (in English)
• Further Reading / In the News
• China\’s Historic Moon Robot Duo Awaken from 1st Long Frigid Night and Resume Science Operations | UniverseToday.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

• Watching From Orbit
• NASA\’s Curiosity Mars rover and its recent tracks from driving in Gale Crater appear in an image taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA\’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Dec. 11, 2013.
• The tracks show where the rover has zigzagged around obstacles on its route toward the lower slopes of Mount Sharp, its next major destination.
• HiRISE first imaged the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft while it was descending on a parachute
• Mars Orbiter Images Rover and Tracks in Gale Crater | mars.nasa.gov
• Multimedia
• YouTube Curiosity Rover Report JPLnews
• Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
• Social Media
• Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
• Further Reading / In the News

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

• January 17, 1929 : 85 years ago : Expanding universe : Edwin Hubble communicated the now classic paper that first showed the universe was expanding (and later provided observational evidence for the Big Bang theory). But Hubble explicitly made no such an interpretation. He left that to the reader. His paper was simply titled “A Relation Between Distance and Radial Velocity Among Extra-Galactic Nebulae.” He listed the data that he plotted on a graph. It showed a roughly linear relationship between radial velocity for various galaxies and their distance. It dramatically showed that the the further away the galaxy, the faster it is moving away from the observer. However, stating that future new data might change the interpretation, he discretely wrote that he thought it “premature to discuss in detail the obvious consequences of the present results.

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …
• Wed, Jan 15 | Full Moon, Jupiter is above the Moon in the early evening, moving to the upper right
• Fri, Jan 17 | Just after twilight | Look to the high N skies and you might be able to see what looks like squashed letter M, that\’s the constellation Cassiopeia. It will swing sideways to the NW later in the night
• Planets
• Mercury, Venus | Too near the Sun
• Mars | ~ midnight | Highest in the S just before dawn, with Spica (a blue giant, variable star) to it\’s lower left
• Saturn | Dawn | In the high SE skies to the lower left of Mars and Spica

• Jupiter | Twilight | Rises in the East moving higher all evening, highest in the middle of the night, and moving to the Western skies at Dawn

• Further Reading and Resources

• Sky&Telescope
• SpaceWeather.com
• StarDate.org
• For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au
• Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org
• Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz
• AstronomyNow
• HeavensAbove

The post Sleep Apnea & Heart Defect Treatments | SciByte 115 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We take a look at sad news for the Kepler space telescope, wireless brain imaging, remote ancient water, cancer genes, sound imaging, viewer feedback, spacecraft updates, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Kepler\’s Last Dance?

• NASA’s Kepler telescope lost its ability to precisely point toward stars when one of the reaction wheels –devices which enable the spacecraft to aim in different directions without firing thrusters – has failed
• Launched in 2009, the Kepler mission completed its 3.5-year planned run last year.it monitors some 150,000 sunlike stars in search of transiting planets
• Reaction Wheels
• Reaction wheels try to balance the forces from the solar pressure, that’s what forces a wheel to run
• Last year reaction wheel #2 failed, and now #4 has failed
• In July 2012 reaction wheel #2 failed, then earlier this year elevated friction was detected in reaction wheel #4, they saw some movement on the wheel but it went back quickly
• Extending Fuel Supplies
• They are currently using thrusters to stabilize the spacecraft, and in its current mode, the onboard fuel will last for several months
• They could extend the fuel to last a period of several years in a “Point Rest State,” where we can park the vehicle
• Point Rest State is a loosely-pointed, thruster-controlled state that minimizes fuels usage while providing a continuous X-band communication downlink
• The software to execute that state was loaded to the spacecraft last week
• There is the possibility of the wheel running in the opposite direction, but running the wheel backward would mean they would need to use more thruster fuel
• What Lies Ahead
• The spacecraft needs at least three reaction wheels to be able to point precisely enough to hunt for planets orbiting distant stars, but it might be possible to use the telescope for another purpose that does not require such precise pointing abilities
• They will continue to analyze the situation to try and get the telescope back online
• Even if the Kepler spacecraft is unable to make more observations, there are still terabytes of data to pore over with two years of data that has yet to be searched through
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Kepler Update on This Week @NASA | NASATelevision
• Further Reading / In the News
• Kepler mission may be over | Atom & Cosmos | Science News
• Planet-Hunting Kepler Spacecraft Suffers Major Failure, NASA Says | Space.com
• Kepler spacecraft\’s planet-hunting days may be over | Phys.org
• Malfunction Could Mark the End of NASA\’s Kepler Mission – ScienceInsider | ScienceMag.org
• Kepler Planet-Hunting Mission in Jeopardy | UniverseToday.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Wireless Brain Imaging

• A new technology is using wireless signals to provide real-time, non-invasive diagnosis of brain swelling or bleeding.
• The device analyzes data from low energy, electromagnetic waves, similar to the kind used to transmit radio and mobile signals
• It could potentially become a cost-effective tool for medical diagnostics and to triage injuries in areas where access to medical care, especially medical imaging, is limited
• The Prototype
• Engineers fashioned two coils into a helmet-like device, fitted over the heads of the study participants
• One coil acts as a radio emitter and the other serves as the receiver. Electromagnetic signals are broadcast through the brain from the emitter to the receiver
• The waves are extremely weak, and are comparable to standing in a room with the radio or television turned on
• The device\’s diagnoses for the brain trauma patients in the study matched the results obtained from conventional computerized tomography (CT) scans
• Researchers take advantage of the characteristic changes in tissue composition and structure in brain injuries
• For brain edema, swelling results from an increase in fluid in the tissue and for brain hematomas, internal bleeding causes the buildup of blood in certain regions of the brain.
• Because fluid conducts electricity differently than brain tissue, it is possible to measure changes in electromagnetic properties.
• Then computer algorithms interpret the changes to determine the likelihood of injury.
• Prototype Testing
• The researchers tested a prototype in a small-scale pilot study of healthy adults and brain trauma patients admitted to a military hospital for the Mexican Army
• The study involved 46 healthy adults, ages 18 to 48, and eight patients with brain damage, ages 27 to 70.
• The results from the healthy patients were clearly distinguishable from those with brain damage, and data for bleeding was distinct from those for swelling
• Why is it Important?
• Symptoms of serious head injuries and brain damage are not always immediately obvious, and for treatment, time is of the essence.
• Further Reading / In the News
• Wireless signals could transform brain trauma diagnostics | MedicalXPress.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Ancient Water Story

• A UK-Canadian team of scientists has discovered ancient pockets of water, which have been isolated deep underground for billions of years and contain abundant chemicals known to support life
• Before this finding, the only water of this age was found trapped in tiny bubbles in rock and is incapable of supporting life
• The Water
• The crystalline rocks surrounding the water are thought to be around 2.7 billion years old. But no-one thought the water could be the same age, until now
• Using ground-breaking techniques researchers show that the fluid is at least 1.5 billion years old, but could be significantly older.
• The interconnected fluid system in the deep Canadian crystalline basement that is billions of years old, and capable of supporting life
• Scientists say the water found in the Canadian mine pours from the rock at a rate of nearly two litres per minute yet don\’t yet know if the underground system in Canada sustains life
• Hydrogen, Methane, and Life
• Researchers have analysed water pouring out of boreholes from a mine 2.4 kilometres beneath Ontario, Canada
• They have found that the water is rich in dissolved gases like hydrogen, methane and different forms – called isotopes – of noble gases such as helium, neon, argon and xenon
• The amount of hydrogen in the water is similar to that around hydrothermal vents in the deep ocean, where microbial life has been found
• The hydrogen and methane come from the interaction between the rock and water, as well as natural radioactive elements in the rock reacting with the water
• These gases could provide energy for microbes that may not have been exposed to the sun for billions of years.
• What This Means On a Larger Scale
• The similarity between the rocks that trapped it and those on Mars raises the hope that comparable life-sustaining water could lie buried beneath the red planet\’s surface
• Further Reading / In the News
• Billion-year-old water could hold clues to life on Earth and Mars | Phys.org

Flipping Genes for Cancer

• Researchers at Johns Hopkins have identified a gene that, when repressed in tumor cells, puts a halt to cell growth and a range of processes needed for tumors to enlarge and spread to distant sites
• The work shows for the first time that switching this gene off in aggressive cancer cells dramatically changes their appearance and behavior
• The team applied the same techniques to several strains of human breast cancer cells in the laboratory, including the so-called triple negative cells
• Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
• Triple-negative breast cancer cells tend to behave aggressively and do not respond to many of our most effective breast cancer therapies
• Cells with suppressed HMGA1 grow very slowly and fail to migrate or invade new territory
• The team then implanted tumor cells into mice, the tumors with HMGA1 grew and spread to other areas, such as the lungs, while those with blocked HMGA1 did not grow well in the breast tissue or spread to distant sites.
• Further Reading / In the News
• Making cancer less cancerous: Blocking a single gene renders tumors less aggressive | MedicalXpress.com

Sound Pictures of Your Car

• Researchers have created a camera that creates a heat map-like view of machinery, or anything else
• 30 digital microphones and a high-res camera pick up on what\’s making noise, and an image shows the different levels of noise, organized by a color gradient with blue meaning a little noise, and red is the most extreme level.
• While this is not the first sound camera, at about 4 pounds it is one of the most portable
• Further Reading / In the News
• This Sound Camera Could Help You Fix Your Car | Popular Science

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Space Station Patch

• Peter Daintree / \”Korlus\” – Check This Out!
• Space Station ammonia Leak and Fix
• Answer
• Expedition 35 Flight Engineers inspected and replaced a pump controller box on the International Space Station’s far port truss (P6) leaking ammonia coolant
• Coolant Pump
• The device contains the mechanical systems that drive the cooling functions for the port truss.
• The ammonia cools the 2B power channel, one of eight power channels that control the all the various power-using systems at the ISS
• While the coolant is vital to the operation of the ISS for the electricity-supplying systems, the crew was not in any danger
• The Fix
• The spacewalk is the 168th in support of the assembly and maintenance of the space
• While astronauts on the station prepared in space, Astronauts at NASA’s Johnson Space Center used the Neutral Buoyancy lab – a 12- meter (40 ft.) deep swimming pool with mockups of the space station that simulates the zero-gravity conditions in space – going through the entire expected EVA
• A little more than 2 1/2 hours into the spacewalk removed the 260-pound pump controller box from the P6 truss and replaced it with a spare that had been stowed nearby
• What Happened in the \”Down Time\”
• All the systems that use power from the 2B channel, the problem area, were transferred throughout the day to another channel
• The 2B channel will eventually shut down when the coolant is depleted, and the power is being diverted in order to keep everything up and running on the station
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Station Ammonia Leak Prompts Spacewalk Preps | ReelNASA
• Further Reading / In the News
• NASA – Astronauts Complete Spacewalk to Repair Ammonia Leak, Station Changes Command | NASA.gov
• Emergency Spacewalk Likely for ‘Serious’ ISS Coolant Leak | UniverseToday.com

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

Opportunity’s Driving Marathon

• Last Time on SciByte
• SciByte 79 | Multitasking & Tractor Beams – Opportunity rover still on the move [29 Jan, 2013]
• Marathon Driving
• Over the course of three days in December 1972 Apollo 17 astronauts drove their mission\’s Lunar Roving Vehicle 22.21 mi [19 nautical mi / 35.74 kilometers] holding the record for the farthest travelled NASA vehicle until recently
• Opportunity rover drove 263 feet (80 meters) on May 15, bringing its total odometry on the Red Planet to 22.22 miles [35.768 km], beating Apollo 17\’s record
• The Mission
• The golf-cart-sized Opportunity and it\’s twin Spirit landed on Mars in January 2004 on three-month missions to search for signs of past water activity on the Red Planet
• Spirit stopped communicating with Earth in 2010 and was declared dead a year later
• In the meantime Opportunity has been working at a section of the rim dubbed \”Cape York\” since the middle of 2011
• Now it has began trekking toward an area called Solander Point, which lies 1.4 miles (2.2 km) away
• The Future
• Opportunity still trails another robot for the international distance record, the Soviet Union\’s remote-controlled Lunokhod 2 rover traveled 23 miles (37 km) on the moon in 1973.
• Although Opportunity\’s handlers have said they\’d like to add this milestone to the rover\’s resume as well, though science remains the mission\’s top priority
• Multimedia
• IMAGE | Comparisons among the distances driven by various wheeled vehicles on the surface of Earth\’s moon and Mars | Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
• Further Reading / In the News
• Nine-Year-Old Mars Rover Passes 40-Year-Old Record – NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory | JPL.NASA.gov
• Mars Rover Breaks U.S. Record for Off-Planet Driving | Scientific American
• Mars Rover Opportunity Breaks US Record for Off-Planet Driving | Space.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

• Second Drilling Location
• The first drilling location was at a target called \”John Klein\” three months ago
• The new target Cumberland resembles John Klein and lies about nine feet (2.75 meters) farther west
• On May 19th Curiosity drilled a hole into Cumberland about an 0.6 inch (1.6 centimeters) in diameter and about 2.6 inches (6.6 centimeters) deep
• Preliminary findings from analysis of the first site, \”John Klein,\” indicate that the location long ago had environmental conditions favorable for microbial life
• The science team expects to use analysis of the new material from Cumberland to check against those results
• ”Blinking Image”
• Before-and-After Blink of \’Cumberland\’ Drilling | NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
• This pair of images from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on NASA\’s Mars rover Curiosity shows the rock target \”Cumberland\” before and after Curiosity drilled into it to collect a sample for analysis
• The \”before\” image was taken during the 275th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity\’s work on Mars (May 15, 2013).
• Curiosity drilled into Cumberland on Sol 279 (May 19, 2013) and took the second image later that same sol.
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Curiosity Rover Report (May 16, 2013): Rover Readies for Second Drilling | JPLNews
• Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
• Social Media
• Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
• Further Reading / In the News
• Mars Science Laboratory: NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Drills Second Rock Target | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

• May 27, 1931 : 82 years ago : Balloon Record : In 1931, Auguste Piccard and Charles Knipfer took man\’s first trip into the stratosphere when they rode their balloon to an altitude of 51,800 feet (nearly 10 miles above the earth). This required the use of a pressurized cabin, which Piccard had designed. On-board experiments included the use of an electroscope to investigate cosmic rays

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …
• Saturn | Twilight | In the SE with the blue giant star Spica to it\’s upper right
• Venus | Twilight | In the W-NW to the lower right of Jupiter
• Jupiter | Twilight | In the W-NW it is appearing lower and lower each day
• The Conjunction | When objects in the sky appear to be close from our perspective | As seen in the video, Jupiter and Venus are getting closer and closer in the W-NW about 40 min after sunset. They will be at their closest point May 28th, when they will only be 1 degree apart, or about the width of your pinky finger held at arms length

• YouTube | Conjunction Video | SkyandTelescope

• Further Reading and Resources

• Sky&Telescope
• SpaceWeather.com
• StarDate.org
• For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au
• Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org
• Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz
• AstronomyNow
• HeavensAbove

The post Kepler & Ancient Water | SciByte 94 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We take a look at strange quasars, fighting breast cancer, peek-a-boo, Mayan Calendar, updates on stories, spacecraft and Curiosity and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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