Show Notes: fridaystream.com/7

The post Take it for Granite | The Friday Stream 7 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Hello everyone and welcome back to SciByte!

We take a look at adding and subtracting exoplanets, diabetes research, spacecraft updates, viewer feedback, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Show Notes:

Exoplanets? … Not So Fast

• The controversial existence of two possible planets located in the habitable zone of a star now have a ‘final’ ending to their story
• Last Time on SciByte, … well J@N
• Planet Zarmina | J@N | 10.6.10
• Gliese 581 System
• Planets were first announced around the system in 2007
• September 30, 2010 | Gliese 581d and 581g
• There was the possible discovery of the closest Earth-sized planet found found at that time that also existed in the habitable zone
• Quotes from one of the scientists involved in the discovery
• “Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent” “I have almost no doubt about it.”
• It was phrased unfortunately, and the media have jumped on it, of course
• This led to many headline grabbing stories, concepts of alien worlds and a J@N episode
• The 581d and 581g Controversy
• Both 581d and 581g were considered to be in the “habitable” region around the dwarf star they orbited
• About two weeks after the discovery, another team said it could not find indications
• Two years later another research team saying that analysis of an “extended dataset” from HARPS did show Gliese 581g
• A press release at the time from the Planetary Habitability Laboratory the discovery would continue to be controversial
• An Ending to the Story of 581d and 581g?
• As of this week both 581d and 581g are crossed off
• A new study shows that the two potentially habitable planets in the Gliese 581 system are just false signals arising out of the star’s activity and rotation
• The uncertainty arises from the delicacy of looking for signals of small planets around much larger stars
• Astronomers typically find planets through watching them pass across the face of a star, or measuring the tug that they exert on their parent star during their orbit
• Researchers now say that only three planets exist around this star.
• Further Reading / In the News
• A Brief History Of Gliese 581d and 581g, The Planets That May Not Be | UniverseToday.com
• Could Chance for Life on Gliese 581g Actually Be “100%”? | UniverseToday.com
• Controversial clues of two ‘Goldilocks planets’ that might support life are proven false | ScienceDaily

— NEWS BYTE —

Research on Reversing Type 1 Diabetes

• Investigators at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have found a therapy that reverses new onset Type 1 diabetes in mouse models and may advance efforts in combating the disease among humans.
• Type 1 Diabetes
• In Type 1 diabetes, the body does not produce sufficient insulin, which is central to glucose metabolism: without insulin, blood glucose rises
• Type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed in children and young adults and affects about 5 percent of all people with diabetes
• There is no cure for Type 1 diabetes though it can be controlled with insulin therapy
• Immune System
• In Type 1 diabetes, autoimmunity causes the body’s T-cells to attack its insulin-producing beta cells.
• There are two parts to the immune system: the innate immune system, which we are born with and attempts to fight infection straight away
• And the adaptive immune system, which takes time to mount a response that is more specific to the particular pathogen
• The innate immune system includes a group of cells known as dendritic cells that send messages to the adaptive immune system
• Previous studies have already established that non-obese diabetic mice have faulty innate immune cells, and that this could be partly due to a defect in TLR4, which many suspect helps to prevent type 1 diabetes when it functions normally
• Treatment
• By using an antibody to stimulate a specific molecule in the innate immune system the researchers can reverse, with a high rate of success, new onset diabetes in mice that have already developed the symptoms of diabetes
• The cause of this reversal is a preservation of the endocrine pancreatic beta cells that produce insulin
• These cells are preserved from the autoimmune attack which is the hallmark of Type 1 diabetes
• This approach differs from most in combating Type 1 diabetes because his team’s therapies in mice do not directly interact with T-cells
• Treatment of autoimmunity has often been directed at suppressing an over-zealous adaptive immune response by eliminating autoreactive T-cells
• There are two arms of the immune system, this treatment is targeting a different part of the immune system
• The innate system tends to have a stereotypical response. this new research is targeting a receptor that is found mostly on the innate immune cells, such as dendritic cells.
• The Future
• The key to reversing Type 1 diabetes in mice, is catching the disease at its onset, which is typically within a very short time window
• The time frame would be longer in humans, but it is still a relatively short time from new onset to end-stage Type 1 diabetes
• While the TLR4 pathway in humans is similar to that of mice, there are some differences, so further study is required to see if the treatment will work in humans.
• There is also a chance, if the therapy works in humans, that it will do so with an agonistic anti-TLR4 agent that is already approved, or under development
• Further Reading / In the News
• Reversal of type 1 diabetes in mice may eventually help humans | MedicalXPress.com
• Type 1 diabetes ‘reversed’ in mice | MedicalNewsToday.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

A New Earth-Like Exoplanet

• A potentially habitable Earth-like planet that is only 16 light years away has been discovered
• Discovery
• The planet was discovered from its gravitational pull on its parent star, which causes the star to wobble slightly
• This team had previously found, in 2009, that the star has a cold Jupiter-like planet with a near-circular orbit of about nine years, called Gliese GJ b.
• “Earth-Like” Planet
• The “super-Earth” planet, GJ 832 c, takes 16 days to orbit its red-dwarf star and has a mass at least five times that of Earth.
• It receives about the same average stellar energy as Earth does, because red dwarfs shine more dimly than our Sun, and may have similar temperatures to our planet
• These characteristics put it among the top three most Earth-like planets, according to the Earth Similarity Index developed by scientists at the University of Puerto Rica in Arecibo
• Possible Atmosphere
• The research group says that if the planet has a similar atmosphere to Earth it may be possible for life to survive, although seasonal shifts would be extreme
• “However, given the large mass of the planet, it seems likely that it would possess a massive atmosphere, which may well render the planet inhospitable” | Head of UNSW’s Exoplanetary Science research group, Professor Chris Tinney
• “A denser atmosphere would trap heat and could make it more like a super-Venus and too hot for life,” | Head of UNSW’s Exoplanetary Science research group, Professor Chris Tinney
• Further Reading / In the News
• Potentially habitable Earth-like planet discovered; May have similar temperatures to our planet | ScienceDaily

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

Opportunity Rover

• Opportunity rover has reached a long sought after region of aluminum-rich clay mineral outcrops at a new Endeavour where ancient water once flowed billions of year ago.
• The crater ridge is now “named ‘Pillinger Point’ after Colin Pillinger the Principal Investigator for the [British] Beagle 2 Mars lander
• The Beagle 2 lander was built to search for signs of life on Mars
• Opportunity’s Road Trip
• The new photo mosaic above captured by Opportunity peering out from ‘Pillinger Point’ ridge on June 5, 2014 (Sol 3684) and showing a panoramic view around the eroded mountain ridge and into vast Endeavour crater
• The crater spans 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter
• For the past several months, the six wheeled robot has been trekking southwards from Solander towards the exposures of aluminum-rich clays
• The rover mission scientists ultimate goal is travel even further south to ‘Cape Tribulation’ which holds a motherlode of the ‘phyllosilicate’ clay minerals
• “The idea is to characterize the outcrops as we go and then once we reach the valley travel quickly to Cape Tribulation and the smectite valley, which is still ~2 km to the south of the present rover location,” | Prof. Ray Arvidson, Deputy Principal Investigator for the rover
• Of Note
• June 16 marked the 3696th Sol or Martian Day. Over 193,400 images have been taken during the 24.51 miles (39.44 kilometers) since touchdown on Jan. 24, 2004
• Further Reading / In the News
• Opportunity Peers Out from ‘Pillinger Point’ – Honoring British Beagle 2 Mars Scientist Where Ancient Water Flowed | UniverseToday.com

India’s Mars Orbiter Mission

• Last Time on SciByte …
• SciByte 111 | Memories & International Spacecraft (December 3,
  2013)
• SciByte 109 | ‘Earth-Like’ Planets & Sharks (November 12, 2013)
• SciByte 107 | Dinosaurs & Satellites (October 29, 2013)
• The Low Down
• Mars Orbiter Mission or MOM, has now celebrated 100 days and 100 million kilometers out from Mars on June 16, until the crucial Mars Orbital Insertion (MOI) engine firing
• Mars Orbiter Mission or MOM
• India’s MOM probe will study the atmosphere and sniff for signals of methane.
• MOM was designed and developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) at a cost of $69 Million and marks India’s maiden foray into interplanetary flight
• The probe has flown about 70% of the way to Mars, traveling about 466 million kilometers out of a total of 680 million kilometers (400 million miles) overall, with about 95 days to go.
• One way radio signals to Earth take approximately 340 seconds
• ISRO reports the spacecraft and its five science instruments are healthy. It is being continuously monitored by the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) and NASA JPL’s Deep Space Network (DSN).
• Trajectory Correction Maneuvers (TMSs)
• Before reaching Mars, mission navigators must keep the craft on course from Earth to Mars through a series of in flight Trajectory Correction Maneuvers (TMSs).
• The second TCM was just successfully performed on June 11 by firing the spacecraft’s 22 Newton thrusters for a duration of 16 seconds
• TCM-1 was conducted on December 11, 2013 by firing the 22 Newton Thrusters for 40.5 seconds
• Two additional TCM firings are planned in August and September 2014.
• Indian Space Research Organization and NASA
• Although they were developed independently and have different suites of scientific instruments, the MAVEN and MOM science teams will “work together” to unlock the secrets of Mars atmosphere and climate history, MAVEN’s top scientist
• Working together, MOM and MAVEN will revolutionize our understanding of Mars atmosphere, dramatic climatic history and potential for habitability
• “We have had some discussions with their science team, and there are some overlapping objectives,” “At the point where we [MAVEN and MOM] are both in orbit collecting data we do plan to collaborate and work together with the data jointly,” | MAVEN’s principal Investigator
• Further Reading / In the News
• India’s 1st Mars Mission Celebrates 100 Days and 100 Million Kilometers from Mars Orbit Insertion Firing – Cruising Right behind NASA’s MAVEN | UniverseToday.com

ISEE3 Reboot Project

• The Ups and Downs
• This is the first #ISEE3 Delta V maneuver since 1986
• First burn completed ! #ISEE3
• Command received. #ISEE3 TCM Segment 2a burn initiated.
• TCM Segment 2a burn completed. Accelerometers not showing anything – yet. #ISEE3
• Current #ISEE3 signal. Definitely seeing Doppler delta as a result of firings. About 6 Hz so far.
• Go for initiate. Command sent. #ISEE3. Command accepted. We see acceleration but not as expected.
• Either we are low on fuel in System A or latch valve A is not working. FSS and accelerometers not indicating thrust #ISEE3
• Team is reviewing data from today’s TCM efforts. #ISEE3
• The velocity change is apparent in signal. Doppler corrected but using pre-burn velocity from NASA. #ISEE3
• Formulating a plan for another TCM burn attempt tomorrow. Our window at Arecibo opens at 12:39 pm EDT and extends to 3:26 pm EDT

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Titans Salty Ocean

• Twitter | Kenny MacLeod ‏@siabost9deas
• @JB_Mars_Base “Ocean on Saturn moon could be as salty as the Dead Sea” https://phys.org/news/2014-07-ocean-saturn-moon-salty-dead.html … #Cassini #Space #Titan #SaltySea
• The Low Down
• Scientists analyzing data from NASA’s Cassini mission have firm evidence the ocean inside Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, might be as salty as the Earth’s Dead Sea.
• The new results come from a study of gravity and topography data collected during Cassini’s repeated flybys of Titan during the past 10 years
• Salty Ocean or Brine
• Researchers found that a relatively high density was required for Titan’s ocean in order to explain the gravity data
• This indicates the ocean is probably an extremely salty brine of water mixed with dissolved salts likely composed of sulfur, sodium and potassium
• The density indicated for this brine would give the ocean a salt content roughly equal to the saltiest bodies of water on Earth
• “Knowing this may change the way we view this ocean as a possible abode for present-day life, but conditions might have been very different there in the past.” | Giuseppe Mitri of the University of Nantes in France
• Icy Shell / Crust
• Using the Cassini data, researchers presented a model structure for Titan, resulting in an improved understanding of the structure of the moon’s outer ice shell
• The additional findings support previous indications the moon’s icy shell is rigid and in the process of freezing solid
• Cassini data also indicate the thickness of Titan’s ice crust varies slightly from place to place.
• The researchers said this can best be explained if the moon’s outer shell is stiff, as would be the case if the ocean were slowly crystallizing, and turning to ice.
• Methane
• A further consequence of a rigid ice shell, according to the study, is any outgassing of methane into Titan’s atmosphere must happen at scattered “hot spots”- like the hot spot on Earth that gave rise to the Hawaiian Island chain
• Titan’s methane does not appear to result from convection or plate tectonics recycling its ice shell.
• How methane gets into the moon’s atmosphere has long been of great interest to researchers, as molecules of this gas are broken apart by sunlight on short geological timescales
• Titan’s present atmosphere contains about five percent methane. This means some process, thought to be geological in nature, must be replenishing the gas
• “Our work suggests looking for signs of methane outgassing will be difficult with Cassini, and may require a future mission that can find localized methane sources,” said Jonathan Lunine, a scientist on the Cassini mission at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
• Further Reading / In the News
• Ocean on Saturn moon could be as salty as the Dead Sea | Phys.org

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

• Driving Test Course
• Curiosity rover has what is often referred to as a stunt double here on Earth, called ‘Scarecrow,’ that engineers use to test drive on different types of terrain
• Scarecrow has a full-size version of Curiosity’s wheels and other driving equipment, but doesn’t have the “brains.”
• Engineers have been scouring the Dumont Dunes area and look for the best spot to practice driving over dunes like those Curiosity may drive over on Mars
• Recently engineers created a course of sand ripples for the Scarecrow rover to drive over to test the rover’s driving skills on soft sand ripples
• On Mars, the Curiosity rover may cross similar sand ripples on its way to Mount Sharp
• Another Travelling Milestone
• After traversing 82 meters on June 27, 2014, Sol 672, the rover stopped because it determined that it was slipping too much
• The rover automatically stopped when it encountered soft sand and sensed that it wasn’t making enough progress
• “Coincidentally, the rover stopped right on the landing ellipse, a major mission milestone” | Mission scientist Ken Herkenhoff
• Mission Info
• Curiosity still has about another 2.4 miles (3.9 kilometers) to go to reach the entry way at a gap in the dunes at the foothills of Mount Sharp sometime later this year
• To date, Curiosity’s odometer totals over 5.1 miles (8.4 kilometers) since landing inside Gale Crater on Mars in August 2012. She has taken over 162,000 images
• Multimedia
• YouTube Curiosity Rover Report JPLnews
• Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
• Social Media
• Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
• Further Reading / In the News
• Trekking Mars – Curiosity Roves Outside Landing Ellipse! | UniverseToday.com
• ‘Scarecrow’ Rover Goes Off-Roading in Dumont Dunes – Mars Science Laboratory | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

• July 14, 1965 : 49 years ago : First Close-Up Photo of Mars : The Mariner 4 satellite sent a transmission of the first close-up photograph of Mars. It consisting of 8.3 dots per second of varying degrees of darkness. The transmission lasted for 8.5 hours and depicted the regions on Mars known as Cebrenia, Arcadia, and Amazonis. The satellite was 134 million miles away from earth and 10,500 miles from Mars. The 574-pound spacecraft had been launched at 9:22am on 28 Nov 1964, from Cape Canaveral, FL, by a two-stage Atlas-Agena D rocket. In addition to its camera with digital tape recorder (about 20 pictures), it carried instruments for studying cosmic dust, solar plasma, trapped radiation, cosmic rays, magnetic fields, radio occultation and celestial mechanics

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …
• Fri, July 11 | At dusk you can see Mars and Spica in the SW sky just under 2* apart [1* is the width of your pinky held at arms length]
• Sat, July 12 | Full Moon
• Sun, July 13 | At dusk Mars and Spica are now just 1.3* apart
• Planets
• Mercury | Sunrise | low in the glow of sunrise to the lower left of Venus
• Venus | Dawn | Low in the E
• Mars | Dusk | High in the SW at dusk with Spica, a little fainter, closing in on it each day reaching their closest point on Sunday
• Jupiter is lost in the sunset

• Saturn | Late Twilight | Highest in the S

• 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 Exoplanets & Diabetes | SciByte 135 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We take a look at habitable zone exoplanets, diabetes treatment advances, water in Jupiter, living on Mars, spacecraft updates, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

Direct Download:

MP3 Audio | OGG Audio | Video | Torrent | YouTube

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Support the Show:

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Show Notes:

More Habitable Zone Exoplanets

• Astronomers have announced that they have found three new, potentially rocky, planets in the habitable zone of their stars by analyzing nearly three years’ worth of data
• Kepler Space Telescope
• As of April 2013, Kepler data has uncovered more than 2,700 potential planets, with about 120 of them having been confirmed to date
• Mission scientists expect that more than 90 percent of the planets detected are real and not illusions in the data
• Until now planets in the habitable zone were discovered by what is known as the radial velocity method, which gives a lower limit for the planet’s mass, but no information about its radius
• While a small radius (less than 2 Earth radii) is a strong indicator that a planet around is indeed rocky it is difficult to assess whether or not a planet is rocky, like the Earth.
• Finding planets in the habitable zones of larger stars is harder because those planets have relatively long orbits and barely cast a shadow as they pass across the faces of their suns
• Kepler-62
• Kepler62 is a red dwarf star, about two-thirds the size of the sun and several hundred degrees Celsius cooler
• It is only 20 percent as bright as the sun and is about 1,200 light years away and contains five planets currently identified
• Two of the worlds, Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f are the smallest exoplanets yet found in a habitable zone, and they might both be covered in water or ice, depending on what kind of atmosphere they might have
• Life on these worlds would be under water with no easy access to metals, to electricity, or fire for metallurgy
• The biggest uncertainty right now is about both planets composition, early evidence suggests that at least 62f is rocky
• Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f would exhibit distinctly different colors and make our search for signatures of life easier on such planets in the near future
• Kepler-62e
• Orbit is 122 days
• 1.6 times the diameter of Earth
• Kepler-62e would have a bit more clouds than Earth according to computer models to sustain an ocean
• An astronomer at the University of Washington not involved in the research says that Kepler-62e may be too close to its star – and therefore too hot – to sustain life
• If 62e is a rocky planet, it’s almost certainly tidally locked with its star, half of its surface always facing the star, and the other always facing away
• Kepler62-f
• Orbit is 267 days
• 1.4 times the diameter of Earth
• Kepler-62f would need the greenhouse effect from plenty of carbon dioxide to warm it enough to host an ocean
• Kepler-69 System
• Kepler-36 is a sun-like star located 2,700 light-years away,
• The Kepler-69 system contains one known planet in that star\’s habitable zone
• Kepler-69c
• 1.7 times bigger than Earth, sits on the inner edge of the habitable zone and is almost certainly a super-Venus rather than a super-Earth
• Habitable Zone Types
• The \”empirical habitable zone\” is where liquid water can exist on the surface of a planet if that planet has sufficient cloud cover
• The \”narrow habitable zone\” is where liquid water can exist on the surface even without the presence of a cloud cover
• Of Note
• According to the Planetary Habitability Laboratory, there are now nine potential habitable worlds outside of our solar system, with 18 more potentially habitable planetary candidates found by Kepler waiting to be confirmed
• Astronomers predict there are 25 potentially habitable exomoons
• Kepler cannot search for signs of life on worlds like Kepler-62e, Kepler-62f and Kepler-69c, but the telescope is paving the way for future missions that should do just that
• Next-generation missions like the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, which NASA approved earlier this month for launch in 2017, will take on the task of finding nearer planets that astronomers can study in depth
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Animation of the Kepler 62 Planetary System | UniverseTodayVideos
• YouTube | NASA\’s Kepler Discovers Its Smallest \’Habitable Zone\’ Planets to Date | NASASolarSystem
• Infographic | 3 Potentially Habitable Super-Earth Planets Explained | Space.com
• IMAGE | Diagram compares the planets of the inner solar system to Kepler-69 | Image credit: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech
• IMAGE | Diagram compares the planets of the inner solar system to Kepler-62 | Image credit: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech
• IMAGE | Current known potentially habitable exoplanets | Credit: Planetary Habitability Laboratory/University of Puerto Rico, Arecibo.
• IMAGE | The habitable zone for different types of stars | Image: L. Kaltenegger (MPIA)
• YouTube | Full Anouncement | Kepler Makes Discoveries Inside the Habitable Zone | NASAtelevision
• Further Reading / In the News
• Discovered! Most Earth-Like Alien Planet & 2 Other Possibly Habitable Worlds | Space.com
• Most Earthlike planets yet seen bring Kepler closer to its holy grail | Atom & Cosmos | Science News
• Habitable Worlds? New Kepler Planetary Systems in Images | UniverseToday.com
• Kepler Team Finds System with Two Potentially Habitable Planets | UniverseToday.com

— NEWS BYTE —

New Possible Diabetes Treatment Option

• Researchers have discovered a hormone that holds promise for a dramatically more effective treatment of type 2 diabetes and believe that the hormone might also have a role in treating type 1, or juvenile, diabetes
• Type 1 Diabetes
• While betatrophin primarily as a treatment for type 2 diabetes, it is believed it might play a role in the treatment of type 1 diabetes as well
• Perhaps boosting the number of beta cells and slowing the progression of that autoimmune disease when it\’s first diagnosed
• Type 2 Diabetes
• Type 2 diabetes is usually caused by a combination of excess weight and lack of exercise and causes patients to slowly lose beta cells and the ability to produce adequate insulin
• Provide this hormone, the type 2 diabetic will make more of their own insulin-producing cells, and this will slow down, if not stop, the progression of their diabetes
• Betatrophin
• The hormone, called betatrophin, causes mice to produce insulin-secreting pancreatic beta cells at up to 30 times the normal rate
• In addition the new beta cells only produce insulin when called for by the body, offering the potential for the natural regulation of insulin
• The researchers know that the hormone exists in human plasma; betatrophin definitely exists in humans
• The Research
• The team wasn\’t just looking at what happens when an animal doesn\’t have enough insulin, they were able to find this a gene that had largely gone unnoticed before
• Another hint came from studying what happens during pregnancy, when there are more beta cells needed, and it turns out that this hormone goes up
• When a woman gets pregnant, her carbohydrate load, her call for insulin, can increase an enormous amount because of the weight and nutrition needs of the fetus
• The Future
• Betatrophin could be in human clinical trials within three to five years, an extremely short time in the normal course of drug discovery and development
• If it works as they hope it will it could eventually mean that instead of taking insulin injections three times a day, you might take an injection of this hormone once a week or month, or even year
• The researchers who discovered betatrophin caution that much work remains to be done before it could be used as a treatment in humans
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Potential Diabetes Breakthrough | Harvard
• Further Reading / In the News
• Potential diabetes breakthrough: Researchers discover new hormone spurring beta cell production | MedicalXPress.com

Soaking up Venom in Blood

• A tiny sponge camouflaged as a red blood cell could soak up toxins ranging from anthrax to snake venom, new research suggests
• Bacteria and Poisons
• One of the mainstay strategies of bacteria and poison is to poke holes in cells, disrupting their internal chemical balance and causing them to burst
• So far, researchers haven\’t had much success creating all-purpose treatments to exploit this vulnerability
• Nanosponges
• Researchers created a tiny spherical core of a lactic acid byproduct, which forms naturally during metabolism in the human body
• To get the outer skin of red blood cells, they used a difference in particle concentration inside and outside the cells to cause them to burst, and then collected their outer membranes
• They then wrapped the cores in the outer surface of the red blood cell
• The nanoparticles, also called nanosponges, act as decoys that lure and inactivate the deadly compounds
• The entire ensemble became a tiny nanosponge, which was about 85 nanometers in diameter, or 100 times smaller than a human hair
• The sponges\’ tiny size means a small amount of blood, for camouflage, can be used to make an effective dose
• In cell cultures, the camouflaged sponges act as decoys, luring the toxins from the bacteria that causes strep throat and bee venom
• The toxins then bind to the structure the \”poisons\” normally use to poke through cells
• When they stick onto the nanosponge, that particular damaging structure gets preoccupied, since the sponges are so small they can circulate freely through blood vessels, and then the body can digest the entire particle
• Experiment
• The team injected 18 mice with a lethal dose of a MRSA, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, toxin. Half the mice then got a dose of the nanosponges
• Whereas all the mice in the control group died, all but one that received the treatment survived
• When injected into mice, the tiny decoys protect mice against lethal doses of a toxin produced by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA.
• The Future
• The researchers want to see whether the method works in human blood, and against other toxic chemicals, such as scorpion venom and anthrax, which use similar attack strategies
• Because so many bacteria use the same pore-forming strategy, the nanosponges could be used as a universal treatment option when doctors don\’t know exactly what is causing an illness
• Further Reading / In the News
• Tiny Sponge Soaks Up Venom in Blood | Scientific American

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Water in Jupiter\’s Clouds

• How Did It Get There?
• In July 1994, the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 plowed into Jupiter leaving behind millions of gallons of water.
• Water from the impact still makes up at least 95 percent of the water in the planet’s upper atmosphere
• Telescopes had previously spotted water in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere, some 100 kilometers above the planet’s ammonia cloud tops, but those surveys could not determine where the water came from
• Now astronomers have created a high-resolution map of water vapor distribution throughout Jupiter’s atmosphere
• They found that the concentration of water peaked in the planet’s southern hemisphere, right in the region where the comet struck
• More water also appeared at higher altitudes around the planet, which supports the comet as its origin.
• Water from other sources such as Jupiter’s icy moons would likely spread out more evenly around the planet and would gradually filter down to lower altitudes
• Multimedia
• Comet Shoemaker Levy 9 – How The Universe Works | DiscoveryTV
• Further Reading / In the News
• News in Brief: Comet\’s water still hanging around on Jupiter | Atom & Cosmos | Science News

MarsOne and Life on Mars and Science

• Mars colony project will do its best to avoid disturbing potential Red Planet life rather than aggressively hunt it down
• Science and Life
• The Netherlands-based nonprofit Mars One opened its astronaut-selection process on April 22
• They plan to land four people on the Red Planet in 2023 to make a permanent human colony on the Red Planet, with new crews arriving every two years thereafter
• Human explorers will doubtless contaminate whatever site is chosen for the settlement, so the organization will try to pick a place unlikely to host indigenous life to localize the pollution
• Mars One is working with experts to minimize the risks its colonization effort may pose to potential Red Planet lifeforms
• While Mars One hasn\’t picked a precise location for its settlement yet, the organization is targeting a swath of the Red Planet between 40 and 45 degrees north latitude
• Mars One astronauts will not necessarily be scientists
• Anyone over the age of 18 is eligible to apply, with the selection committee prizing traits such as intelligence, resourcefulness, determination and psychological stability over academic background
• Science is not the main focus of what we are doing; although, crewmembers will take some scientific gear with them
• Mars One officials won\’t dictate what the experiments should be, but there will be a budget for equipment that they want to take for scientific research
• Multimedia
• Mars 2023 – Inhabitants wanted | MarsOneProject
• YouTube Channel | Mars One – Human Settlement of Mars
• Further Reading / In the News
• Mars One
• Private Mars Colony Won\’t Seek Martian Life | Mars One | Space.com

— VIEWER FEEDBACK—

Peter, AKA \”Korlus\” | Check This Out!

• On April 4, 2012 he Fermi spacecraft almost ended it\’s mission to map the highest-energy light in the universe because of a collision with a dead Cold-War spy satellite
• What Happened?
• An automatically generated report arrived from NASA\’s Robotic Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis (CARA) team based at NASA\’s Goddard Space Flight Center was sent to the FERMI team just one week away from an unusually close encounter with Cosmos 1805, a defunct spy satellite dating back to the Cold War.
• The two objects, speeding around Earth at thousands of miles an hour in nearly perpendicular orbits, were expected to miss each other by a mere 700 feet
• An update days later indicated the satellites would occupy the same point in space within 30 milliseconds of each other
• Using thrusters for use at the end of Fermi\’s operating life designed to take it out of orbit and allow it burn up in the atmosphere they were able to adjust the orbit just slightly enough to evade a collision
• The U.S. Space Surveillance Network continues to keep tabs on every artificial object larger than 4 inches across in Earth orbit. Of the 17,000 objects currently tracked, only about 7 percent are active satellites
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Near Miss – Dead Russian Spy Satellite Forces NASA Probe Move | VideoFromSpace
• YouTube | Animation of Earth with Near-Earth Orbital Debris [HD] | TheMarsUnderground
• Further Reading / In the News
• Mars One
• Private Mars Colony Won\’t Seek Martian Life | Mars One | Space.com

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

New Atlantis Exhibit Prep

• The Space shuttle Atlantis is set to go on public display June 29 at NASA\’s Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida
• Shuttle Reveal
• It was revealed Friday, April 26 after workers spent two days peeling off its protective shrink-wrap cover of the past five months.
• Workers began carefully cutting back the 16,000 square feet (1,486 square meters) of shrink wrap that protected Atlantis as its $100 million exhibition building was completed around it
• By the end of the first day, the shuttle\’s nose, tail, aft engines and left wing were exposed, the workers completed the process the next day, revealing Atlantis\’ right wing and its 60-foot-long (18 meter) payload bay
• Opening the payload bay is set to begin in May, will take about two weeks, as the doors are very slowly hoisted open, one by one.
• Atlantis has been mounted. Thirty feet (9 meters) in the air, the space shuttle has been tilted 43.21 degrees, such that its left wing extends toward the ground.
• Atlantis will appear to be back in space – an effect that will be enhanced by lighting and a mural-size digital screen that will project the Earth\’s horizon behind the shuttle
• Multimedia
• YouTube Clip | Uncovering the Nose
• YouTube Clip | Uncovering a Wing
• YouTube Clip | Peeling Back the Layers
• YouTube | Shuttle Atlantis Unwrapped & Revealed at Kennedy Visitor Center | SpaceVidsNet
• Further Reading / In the News
• Atlantis Exposed: Space Shuttle Fully Unwrapped for NASA Exhibit | Kennedy Space Center | Space.com

SpaceShipTwo

• Last Time on SciByte
• SciByte 91 | Apollo 13 and Brain Training | Virgin Galactic Test Flight
• Lights Hybrid Rocket Engines
• Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (SS2) commercial spaceliner named “Enterprise” lit up her hybrid rocket engines in flight and reached supersonic speeds for the first time in history on
• The Breakdown
• Once SpaceShipTwo is operational, WhiteKnightTwo will carry the vehicle up to an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,240 meters) before releasing it.
• After separation, SpaceShipTwo will accelerate to 2,500 mph (4,000 km/h) and eventually pass an altitude of 62 miles (100 kilometers), the point at which passengers are considered astronauts
• The spaceship will reach a peak altitude of 68 miles (110 km), giving the six passengers and two pilots about five minutes of weightlessness
• Upon re-entry, SpaceShipTwo will be able to land on a conventional runway
• A seat on board a SpaceShipTwo flight costs $200,000. More than 550 people have put down deposits to reserve a spot
• Multimedia
• YouTube Clip | Release and Rocket Start
• YouTube Clip | In Orbit
• YouTube Clip | Weightless M-M\’s
• YouTube | Virgin Galactic 8 5min video
• Further Reading / In the News
• SpaceShipTwo Fires Rocket Engines for First Ever Supersonic Test Flight- Photos & Video | UniverseToday.com

Opportunity Rover Back Fron Glitch

• Mars rover Opportunity has overcome a glitch that put the robot into standby mode late last month
• What Happened?
• Opportunity apparently put itself into standby auto mode, in which it maintains power balance but waits for instructions from the ground, on April 22, after sensing a problem during a routine camera check, mission officials said.
• The rover\’s handlers didn\’t notice the problem until April 27, when Opportunity got back in touch after a nearly three-week communications moratorium
• They then prepared a new set of commands on April 29 designed to get things back to normal, and the fix has apparently worked
• Further Reading / In the News
• Mars Rover Opportunity Back in Action After Glitch | Mars Solar Conjunction | Space.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

• Smithsonian Award
• The team in charge of successfully landing NASA\’s Mars rover Curiosity has received the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum\’s highest group honor
• The award is for Current Achievement honors outstanding achievements in the fields of aerospace science and technology
• Several NASA planetary mission teams have won the award in previous years, including last year, when NASA\’s Cassini mission to Saturn
• Haiku to Mars
• NASA is inviting members of the public to submit their names and a personal message online for a DVD to be carried aboard a spacecraft that will study the Martian upper atmosphere
• Information in the show was not all correct, corrected information to come next week
• Conjunction
• YouTube | Mars in a Minute: What Happens When the Sun Blocks our Signal? | JPLnews
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Current Achievement Trophy Award 2013: Mars Science Laboratory Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) Team | airandspace
• YouTube Curiosity Rover Report JPLnews
• Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
• Social Media
• Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
• Further Reading / In the News
• National Air and Space Museum’s Trophy Awarded to Joseph Sutter and the Mars Science Laboratory EDL Team | Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Press Release
• Curiosity Wins National Air and Space Museum Trophy | https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov
• NASA Wants To Send Your Haiku To Mars | Popular Science

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

• May 01, 1958 : 55 years ago : Van Allen radiation belts : The discovery of the powerful Van Allen radiation belts that surround Earth was published in the Washington Evening Star. The article covered the report made by their discoverer James. A. Van Allen to the joint symposium of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Physical Society in Washington DC. He used data from the Explorer I and Pioneer III space probes of the earth\’s magnetosphere region to reveal the existence of the radiation belts – concentrations of electrically charged particles. Van Allen (born 7 Sep 1914) was also featured on the cover of the 4 May 1959 Time magazine for this discovery. He was the principal investigator on 23 other space probes

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …
• Thurs | May 9 | New Moon is around 8:28pm EDT in the NW
• Fri | May 10 | ~30 min after sunset you might be able to see a very thin crescent moon near Venus
• Fri | May 10 | An annular eclipse of the Sun crosses parts of Australia and the central Pacific. The eclipse is partial for all of Australia, Indonesia, and Hawaii Map and details
• Sat | May 11 | Evening twilight in the W you can see the crescent moon below Jupiter
• Planets
• Venus | About 15-20 min after sunset in the W-NW it i starting to appear in the evening
• Jupiter | The first \”star\” to come out in the W after sunset, appearing a little lower each day and moving towards the horizon over the course of each night

• Saturn | Was at opposition last week, but still glows bright in the lower E-SE skies in late twilight

• 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 Habitable Exoplanets & Diabetes | SciByte 92 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Angela and Chris cover 190lbs burgers, extreme bacon towers, 1000 cheese mountains, the problem with spam and much much more!

Direct Download:

HD Download | Mobile Download | MP3 Download | YouTube

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Show Notes:

Epic Meal Time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCxFn3sAw68

1000 cheeses: https://kotaku.com/5925728/a-whooper-with-1000-slices-of-cheese-will-horrify-and-disgust-you/gallery/1?utm_campaign=socialflow_kotaku_twitter&utm_source=kotaku_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

Bento Lunches: https://www.laptoplunches.com/bento-menus-season/Spring/

SPAM: https://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/01/31/spam-meat-tied-to-diabetes-risk-in-native-americans-study-finds/

Sugar: https://rheumatic.org/sugar.htm

10 Incredible Food Facts: https://listverse.com/2007/12/17/top-10-incredible-food-facts/

Bugs in Food: https://www.losethebackpain.com/blog/2012/07/21/bugs-in-food/

Utterly disgusting: https://listverse.com/2009/07/22/10-more-utterly-disgusting-foods/

190lb burger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqIWPvCgi9g

1050 Bacon Slices: https://en.rocketnews24.com/2012/04/19/we-order-whopper-with-1050-bacon-strips-struggle-to-level-comically-huge-burger/

Bacon Pancakes: https://cdn.blogs.babble.com/family-kitchen/files/bacon-and-pancakes/2.jpg

Ice Cream Cake: https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-01/17/content_512867.htm

Ice Cream Cake https://www.odditycentral.com/news/canada-makes-worlds-largest-ice-cream-cake.html

Phallic foods: https://www.forkparty.com/29889/43-phallic-foods-pics/647d4fbd98636b840fd9d26b60b88a4c

Mail Sack:

Blake writes:

Hey I have head Chris mention Bitcoin on his shows and i have been looking into it but still am a little fuzzy on the whole system. could you please make it a section of one of Jupiter Broadcasting\’s shows. It would be really interesting to hear.

Mininessie writes:

I have a good Idea. Remember Jupiter at Nite a very popular show. I was wondering if you were to bring it back, and if so here is a way to do it. Choose one night a week to do it. Choosing a cohost wouldn\’t be a problem because live viewers would skype in and be your cohost. So what do you think?

John writes:

Perhaps there should be answering questions only episodes of Techsnap. i <3 Technsap.

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The post Extreme Meal Time | FauxShow 104 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.