Kepler – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com Open Source Entertainment, on Demand. Sat, 10 Aug 2019 03:36:33 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.5.3 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/cropped-favicon-32x32.png Kepler – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com 32 32 Linux Action News 118 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/133507/linux-action-news-118/ Fri, 09 Aug 2019 19:36:33 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=133507 Show Notes: linuxactionnews.com/118

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Show Notes: linuxactionnews.com/118

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]]> Martian Life & Tetris | SciByte 122 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/52787/martian-life-tetris-scibyte-122/ Tue, 04 Mar 2014 21:38:11 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=52787 We take a look at possible evidence of Martian life, 3D printing a heart, Tetris, spacecraft updates, Curiosity news, and more!

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We take a look at possible evidence of Martian life, 3D printing a heart, Tetris, spacecraft updates, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Show Notes:

Evidence of Martian Life?

  • A team of scientists has found evidence of past water movement throughout a Martian meteorite, reviving debate in the scientific community over life on Mars.
  • The team reports that newly discovered different structures and compositional features within the larger Yamato meteorite suggest biological processes might have been at work on Mars hundreds of millions of years ago.
  • Mars On Earth?
  • Martian meteoritic material is distinguished from other meteorites and materials from Earth and the moon by the composition of the oxygen atoms within the silicate minerals and trapped Martian atmospheric gases
    • Robotic missions to Mars continue to shed light on the planet\’s history, the only samples from Mars available for study on Earth are Martian meteorites
  • On Earth, we can utilize multiple analytical techniques to take a more in-depth look into meteorites
  • In 1996, a group of scientists published an article in Science announcing the discovery of biogenic evidence in the Allan Hills 84001(ALH84001) meteorite.
  • The History of as Yamato 000593 (Y000593).
  • Scientists are now focused on structures deep within a 30-pound (13.7-kilogram) Martian meteorite known as Yamato 000593 (Y000593).
  • Analyses found that the rock was formed about 1.3 billion years ago from a lava flow on Mars
  • Around 12 million years ago, an impact occurred on Mars which ejected the meteorite from the surface of Mars.
  • The meteorite traveled through space until it fell in Antarctica about 50,000 years ago.
  • The rock was found on the Yamato Glacier in Antarctica by the Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition in 2000
  • Scientists are now focused on two distinctive sets of features associated with Martian-derived clay
  • Tunnel and Micro-Tunnel Structures
  • Tunnel and micro-tunnel structures that thread their way throughout Yamato 000593
  • The observed micro-tunnels display curved, undulating shapes consistent with bio-alteration textures observed in terrestrial basaltic glasses
  • These type of structures have previously been reported by researchers who study interactions of bacteria with basaltic materials on Earth
  • Nanometer- to-Micrometer-Sized Spherules
  • The second set of features consists of nanometer- to-micrometer-sized spherules
  • Similar spherical features have been previously seen in the Martian meteorite Nakhla that fell in 1911 in Egypt.
  • Composition measurements of the Y000593 spherules show that they are significantly enriched in carbon compared to the nearby surrounding iddingsite layers.
  • What This Might Mean
  • These two sets of features in Y000593, recovered from Antarctica after about 50,000 years residence time, are similar to features found in Nakhla, an observed fall collected shortly after landing.
  • Scientists cannot exclude the possibility that the carbon-rich regions in both sets of features may be the product of abiotic mechanisms
  • Textural and compositional similarities to features in terrestrial samples, which have been interpreted as biogenic, imply the intriguing possibility that the Martian features were formed by biotic activity.
    +The features are evidence of aqueous alterations as seen in the clay minerals, and the presence of carbonaceous matter associated with the clay phases which show that Mars has been a very active body in its past
  • It also reveals the presence of an active water reservoir that may also have a significant carbon component.
  • The nature and distribution of Martian carbon is one of the major goals of the Mars Exploration Program
  • What Now?
  • The small sizes of the carbonaceous features within the Yamato 000593 meteorite present major challenges to any analyses attempted by remote techniques on Mars
  • While these new features are no \”smoking gun,\” they are nonetheless interesting and show that further studies of these meteorites should continue
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Evidence of water in meteorite revives debate over life on Mars | Phys.org

—  NEWS BYTE —

3D Printed Model Heart Helps Save a Life

  • While heart surgery on a 14 month old is not unheard of, recently a surgeon was able to map out his surgical approach using a nearly exact model of the patients heart printed on a 3D printer.
  • Laying Out A Surgery Plan
  • The 14 month old infant was born with four congenital heart defects, doctors had known since before he was born that his heart had problems
  • Fixing them all would prove to be a challenge., when it came time to plan the surgery surgeons found each of them had different ideas on the best way to fix the heart
  • The ideal approach would involve the least amount of cutting and suturing—but that can be hard to plan using only conventional scanning techniques
  • 3D Printed Model
  • Researchers worked with radiologists to provide heart to data that could be used with a 3D printer.
  • They used CT scanning data, which seemed to a perfect match as CT scanning uses the same basic idea as 3D printing
  • CT scanning takes pictures of slices and puts them together on a computer screen to form a whole, and 3D printing is achieved by laying down one layer or \”slice\” of material at a time.
  • They decided to print the heart (in three pieces) at twice its normal size
  • It was also used a flexible type of plastic known as \”Ninja Flex\” instead of the often used ABS (used in LEGO bricks)
  • This allowed the surgeon to bend the finished heart in ways that resembled a real human heart.
  • The Surgery
  • Printing the heart took approximately 20 hours at a cost of roughly $600, it allowed for a single surgery and greatly reduced cutting and suturing, which ultimately led to a much quicker recovery
  • The surgery happened on Feb 10, and by all accounts is now doing just fine
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Doctors prepare for heart surgery with 3D printing | News On Here
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Doctor uses printed 3D heart to assist in infant heart surgery | MedicalXPress.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Controlling Cravings With Tetris

  • A recent study suggests that Tetris could actually help dieters reduce cravings
  • The Study
  • Researchers created two study groups: One that played Tetris for three minutes while the other group was told that the game was loading but they never received the chance to play
  • Participants were then asked to rate their cravings for cigarettes, food and alcohol based on the vividness, intrusiveness and strength of those cravings.
  • The Tetris group showed a 24 percent reduction in cravings following their activity with the game
  • The other group who did not get to play Tetris did not experience any craving reductions.
  • The Power of Tetris
  • \”Feeling in control is an important part of staying motivated, and playing Tetris can potentially help the individual to stay in control when cravings strike\” | Professors Jackie Andrade | University\’s Cognition Institute
  • Tetris is something a person can quickly access, and can replace the feeling of stress caused by the craving, and could be used while at work or home
  • Scientists are constantly looking for things to help fight against such cravings through healthy activities, like exercise
  • They label Tetris as a neutral activity that has a positive impact so it is a good alternative for now
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Could the Video-Game Tetris Curb Cravings for Food, Cigarettes and Alcohol? | ScienceWorldReport.com

—  VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Withdrawing 120 Nonsense Science Papers

  • Martin (lowfatty)
  • The publishers Springer and IEEE are removing more than 120 papers from their subscription services after a French researcher discovered that the works were computer-generated nonsense.
  • Publishers withdraw more than 120 gibberish papers : Nature News & Comment | Nature.com
  • Computer-Generated Papers
  • Over the past two years computer-generated papers have made it into more than 30 published conference proceedings between 2008 and 2013
  • Sixteen appeared in publications by Springer and more than 100 were published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE),
  • Among the works a paper published as a proceeding from the 2013 International Conference on Quality, Reliability, Risk, Maintenance, and Safety Engineering, held in Chengdu, China.
  • Most of the conferences took place in China, and most of the fake papers have authors with Chinese affiliations.
  • The authors of the paper, entitled ‘TIC: a methodology for the construction of e-commerce’, in the abstract that they “concentrate our efforts on disproving that spreadsheets can be made knowledge-based, empathic, and compact”.
  • One of the named authors replied that he does not know why he was a listed co-author on the paper and first learned of the article when conference organizers notified his university in December 2013
  • SCIgen
  • One way to automatically detect manuscripts composed by a piece of software called SCIgen, which randomly combines strings of words to produce fake computer-science papers
  • SCIgen was invented in 2005 by researchers to prove that conferences would accept meaningless papers — and, as they put it, “to maximize amusement”
  • A related program generates random physics manuscript titles on the satirical website arXiv vs. snarXiv.
  • SCIgen is free to download and use, and it is unclear how many people have done so, or for what purposes
  • SCIgen’s output has occasionally popped up at conferences, when researchers have submitted nonsense papers and then revealed the trick.
  • The papers are quite easy to spot,” says Labbé, who has built a website where users can test whether papers have been created using SCIgen.
  • Automatically identifying these papers involves searching for characteristic vocabulary generated by SCIgen
  • **History of Fake Papers
  • In April 2010, someone used SCIgen to generate 102 fake papers by a fictional author called Ike Antkare to show how easy it was to add these fake papers to the Google Scholar database
  • There is a long history of journalists and researchers getting spoof papers accepted in conferences or by journals to reveal weaknesses in academic quality controls

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

China\’s Yutu Lunar Rover

  • Last Time on SciByte …
  • sciByte 111 | Yutu Launch | Memories & International Spacecraft | December 3, 2013
  • SciByte 113 | Yutu Landing | Aquifers & Brain Plasticity | December 17, 2013
  • SciByte 115 | Yutu Wakes Up on Second Lunar Day | Sleep Apnea & Heart Defect Treatments | January 14, 2014
  • SciByte 120 | Canadian Fossils & Yutu Rover | February 18, 2014
  • Control Circuit Malfunction
  • “Yutu suffered a control circuit malfunction in its driving unit,” according to a newly published report on March 1 by the state owned Xinhua news agency.
  • A functioning control circuit is required to lower the rovers mast so the malfunction prevented Yutu from entering the second dormancy as planned
  • The panel driving unit also helps maneuver the panels into position to efficiently point to the sun to maximize the electrical output
  • They must be folded down into a warmed electronics box to shield them from the damaging effects of the Moon’s nightfall when temperatures plunge dramatically to below minus 180 Celsius, or minus 292 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • Lunar Day 3
  • The 140 kilogram rover was unable to move during Lunar Day 3 due to the mechanical glitches so only carried out fixed point observations during its third lunar day
  • It was able to complete some limited scientific observations. And fortunately the ground penetrating radar, panoramic and infrared imaging equipment all functioned normally.
  • Chinese space engineers engaged in troubleshooting to try and identify and rectify the technical problems in a race against time to find a solution before the start of Lunar Night 3.
  • Lunar Night 3 and the Future
  • The issue with the control circuit malfunction in its driving unit remains unresolved and a still threatens the outlook for Yutu’s future exploration.
  • Yutu and the companion Chang’e-3 lander have again gone into sleep mode during Lunar Night 3 on Feb. 22 and Feb 23 respectively, local Beijing time.
  • Yutu is now nearing its planned 3 month long life expectancy
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • China\’s Yutu Moon Rover Unable to Properly Maneuver Solar Panels | UniverseToday.com

Kepler Data Continues to Show New Exo-Planets

  • More Planets
  • The Kepler Space Telescope has been inactive since May of 2013, but the probe\’s data has led astronomers to discover 715 new planets
  • The 715 new planets are said to be distributed among 305 different star systems bringing the number of known planets beyond our solar system has increased to almost 1,700
  • The number of Earth-sized planets has increased by 400% and four of the newly discovered planets are about 2.5 times wider than Earth
  • Another four [Kepler 174d, Kepler 296f, Kepler 298d, and Kepler 309c] are also said to be located in a habitable zone where water may exist in liquid form
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • NASA Nearly Doubles Discovery of Known Planets Without Active Kepler Space Telescope | ScienceWorldReport.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

  • NASA\’s Curiosity Mars rover has reached an area where orbital images had piqued researchers\’ interest in patches of ground with striations all oriented in a similar direction
  • The six wheeled rover paused during the planned Feb. 19 drive of 328 feet (100 meters) to capture the imagery, on Feb. 20 (Sol 549), she also completed her second 100 meter drive in reverse.
  • The foreground rocks are in an outcrop called \”Junda,\” which the rover passed during a drive of 328 feet (100 meters) on Feb. 19.
  • Engineers will now occasionally commanding Curiosity to drive backwards in a newly tested bid to minimize serious damage to the six 20 inch diameter wheels
  • Curiosity is well on the way to her next near term goal, which is a science waypoint, named Kimberly (formerly called KMS-9), which lies about half a mile ahead.
  • \”Kimberley,\” features ground with striations and is where researchers plan to suspend driving for a period of science investigations
  • Multimedia
  • Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
  • Social Media
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Curiosity Rover pauses mid-drive and captures Spectacular Martian Mountain Snapshot | UniverseToday.com
  • Mars Science Laboratory: NASA\’s Curiosity Mars Rover Views Striated Ground | mars.jpl.naga.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • March 06, 1950 : 64 years ago : Silly Putty : Silly Putty was introduced as a toy by Peter Hodgson, a marketing consultant, who packaged one-ounce portions of the rubber-like material in plastic eggs. It could be stretched, rolled into a bouncing ball, or used to transfer colored ink from newsprint. The original discovery was made in 1943 by James Wright who combined silicone oil and boric acid at the laboratories of General Electric. He was researching methods of making synthetic rubber, but at the time no significant application existed for the material. However, it was passed around as a curiosity. Hodgson saw a sample and realized its potential simply for entertainment and coined its name for marketing it as a toy. Its popularity made him a millionaire

Looking up this week

  • Keep an eye out for …
  • Thurs, March 6 | ~hour after sunset | Aldebaran, an orange giant star, is to the upper left of the Moon and the Pleiades star cluster is to the Moon\’s upper right
  • Fri, Mar 7 | Tonight Aldebaran is below the Moon
  • Sat, Mar 8 | Dusk | The first-quarter Moon stands above Orion high in the south, with Jupiter to the upper left of the Moon
  • Planets
  • Venus | \”Morning Star\” | Before and during dawn Venus is in the SE
  • Mars | 10pm | Rises in the SE, with Spica 6* to its right. The two are their highest point around 3-4am with Spica now to the lower right
  • Jupiter | Is the only planet visible right now in the evenings and is high in the SE, it crosses nearly overhead (for skywatchers at mid-northern latitudes) around 8 or 9 p.m. and sets in the West before dawn
  • Saturn | 11pm-Midnight | Rises around 11 or and is highest in the south at the beginning of dawn. By then it\’s far to the left of Mars and Spica

DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME – Sunday, March 9

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]]> Happy Science of 2013 | SciByte 114 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/49107/happy-science-of-2013-scibyte-114/ Tue, 07 Jan 2014 21:16:58 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=49107 We take a look at my top science stories and events of 2013, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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We take a look at my top science stories and events of 2013, 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

RSS Feeds:

MP3 Feed | OGG Feed | Video Feed | Torrent Feed | iTunes

— Book Pic: —

Curiosity | Evidence of Ancient Habitable Water Locations

— NEWS BYTE —

Voyager 1 | “Interstellar Space” Announcement

Exoplanets

International and Private Space Travel

  • India’s Mars Orbiter Mission
  • India’s first ever Mars probe ‘MOM’ successfully fired its main engine on Dec. 1 to begin its nearly yearlong momentous voyage to Mars
  • ISRO’s engineers devised a procedure to get the spacecraft to Mars on the least amount of fuel via six “Midnight Maneuver” engine burns over several weeks – and at an extremely low cost
  • This maneuver increases the ship’s velocity and gradually widens the ellipse eventually raising the apogee of the six resulting elliptical orbits around Earth that eventually injects MOM onto the Trans-Mars trajectory
  • SciByte 111| Memories & International Spacecraft (December 3, 2013)
  • SciByte 109 | ‘Earth-Like’ Planets & Sharks (November 12, 2013)
  • SciByte 107 | Dinosaurs & Satellites (October 29, 2013)
  • Chinese Lunar Lander
  • China had a successful touchdown of the Chang’e-3 probe with the ‘Yutu’ rover on the surface of the Moon on Dec. 14
  • They landed on the lava filled plains of the Bay of Rainbows occurred at about 8:11 am EST or 9:11 p.m. Beijing local time
  • Barely seven hours after the Chang’e-3 mothership touched down on Sunday, Dec. 15, the six wheeled ‘Yutu’, or Jade Rabbit, rover drove straight off a pair of ramps at 4:35 a.m. Beijing local time
  • SciByte 113 | Freshwater Aquifers & Brain Plasticity (December 17, 2013)
  • Bigelow Aerospace’s | Genesis, Inflatable Space Station Modules
  • On Jan 11 NASA announced they have awarded a $17.8 million contract to Bigelow to provide a new inflatable module for the ISS, making it the first privately built module to be added to the space station
  • The outer shell of their module is soft, as opposed to the rigid outer shell of current modules at the ISS, Bigelow’s inflatable modules are more resistant to micrometeoroid or orbital debris strikes it uses multiple layers of Vectran, a material which is twice as strong as Kevlar
  • The company wants to launch and link up several of its larger expandable modules to create private space stations, which could be used by a variety of clients.
  • SciByte 77 | Breath Analysis & Large Structures (January 15, 2013)
  • SpaceX | Geostationary Orbit
  • The Dec 3 liftoff at 5:41 p.m. EST (2241 GMT) marked SpaceX\’s first entry into the large commercial satellite market and its first launch into a geostationary transfer orbit needed for such a mission.
  • Being able to launch into this new orbit will let SpaceX compete against Europe and Russia to haul large telecommunications satellites into orbit.
  • This launch also marks the second of three certification flights needed to certify the Falcon 9 to fly missions for the U.S. Air Force under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program
  • When Falcon 9 is certified, SpaceX will be eligible to compete for all National Security Space (NSS) missions

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Science Events of 2013

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • Jan 11, 1954 : 59 years ago : First UK TV Weather Broadcast : The first in-vision weather forecaster broadcast on BBC television. George Cowling of the Meteorological Office presented from the BBC\’s Lime Grove studios with two hand-drawn weather charts pinned to an easel.

Looking up this week

The post Happy Science of 2013 | SciByte 114 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Glacial Lava & Artificial Intelligence | SciByte 110 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/47007/glacial-lava-artificial-intelligence-scibyte-110/ Tue, 26 Nov 2013 21:34:18 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=47007 We take a look at lava under Antarctica, teaching artificial intelligence, neutrino data, and greenhouses in the desert.

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We take a look at lava under Antarctica, teaching artificial intelligence, neutrino data, greenhouses in the desert, studying the Moon\’s atmosphere, hope for Kepler, 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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[asa]B00ENFS0F0[/asa]

Eyeing Magma Under the Antarctic Ice

  • Marie Byrd Land is a desolate region of Antarctica buried deep beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet now researchers have shown that molten rock still stirs deep underground
  • Lava?
  • Historic eruptions have punctured the ice sheet, creating a chain of volcanoes amid the ice
  • Only the largest eruptions could melt all the ice above them and poke through to the surface, but even smaller eruptions could potentially cause global sea level to rise, although no one knows how big the rise might be
  • The crust is thinned by the West Antarctic Rift System, a series of giant rift valleys beneath the ice sheet
  • \”Data in the Data\”
  • Erupted lava from underground magma chambers has burst through the ice repeatedly over geological history as the plates moved over the top
  • No one knew whether magma was still stirring until seismic monitoring stations were installed on the ice between 2007 and 2010.
  • Researchers built the stations to essentially to weight the ice sheet to help study the shifting crustal blocks of the West Antarctic Rift System
  • One way to do that is to measure how the Earths crust responds to the weight of the ice, and would depend on weather it was hot and fluid or cool and vicious, but seismologist found another use
  • They noticed a series of small earthquakes, mainly occurring during two “seismic swarms” in January and February 2010 and March 2011
  • These earthquakes were unusual: The ground was shaking much more slowly during the quakes (2-4/sec) than one would expect from the plates grinding against each other (10-20/sec)
  • The Earthquakes
  • Researchers looked at two different types of waves that come in-the P wave, which is the primary wave, and the S wave, which is the secondary wave
  • Calculations revealed that the waves had come from 25 to 40 kilometers below Earth\’s surface and were centered approximately at a point that followed a linear trend of volcanoes to the south
  • The exact cause of these deep quakes is not understood, but they are thought to result from the movement of magma deep below active or soon-to-be active volcanoes
  • Other Data
  • The area showed a slightly higher magnetic field than the surrounding area and that there was a bump in the crust-common signals of magmatic activity
  • Radar mapping also indicated a layer of volcanic ash embedded in the ice, probably from an eruption of Mount Waesche about 8000 years ago-very recent geological history
  • There is no evidence of an actual eruption since then, but, because magma is still moving deep under the Earth, an eruption could occur at any time
  • What About Now?
  • The current center of volcanic activity is covered by at least 1 kilometer of ice, and it would take an exceptionally large eruption to melt all this
  • An eruption could make its presence felt in subtler ways. As fresh snow adds to their own mass, ice sheets flow downward into the sea
  • Melting the base of the ice sheet, an eruption could speed up this flow, potentially raising the level of the ocean. No one knows how significant such a rise might be
  • Any effect on the ice sheet above, and thus any effect on the oceans, would probably be quite small; however, a proper study is needed to find out how significant volcanic activity could be to future sea levels
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | S and P waves | Atkinson Physics
  • YouTube | Mount Erebus: clip from BBC\’s Volcano Live | Clive Oppenheimer
  • YouTube | Volcano: Mount Etna erupts for the 16th time this year sending lava 600 metres into the air | ITN
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Wikipedia | Seismic wave | Usefulness of P and S waves in locating an event
  • Magma Boils Beneath Antarctic Ice | Science/AAAS
  • Active Volcano Discovered Under Ice Sheet in West Antarctica Sci-News.com

— NEWS BYTE —

A.I. Common Sense

  • “Researchers are trying to teach common sense to an artificial intelligence by watching the internet”
  • What they are doing is to let the artificial intelligence browse millions of pictures and decide for itself what they all mean
  • Never Ending Image Learning, NEIL
  • The system at Carnegie Mellon University is called NEIL, short for
  • In mid-July, it began searching the Internet for images 24/7 and, in tiny steps, is deciding for itself how those images relate to each other
  • The goal is to recreate what we call common sense-the ability to learn things without being specifically taught
  • In just over four months, the network of 200 processors identified 1,500 objects and 1,200 scenes and has connected the dots to make 2,500 associations
  • NEIL leverages recent advances in computer vision that enable computer programs to identify and label objects in images, to characterize scenes and to recognize attributes, such as colors, lighting and materials, all with a minimum of human supervision
  • Humans vs Computers
  • Having a computer make its own associations is an entirely different type of challenge than programming a supercomputer to do one thing very well, or fast
  • Humans constantly make decisions using \”this huge body of unspoken assumptions,\” while computers don
  • Humans can also quickly respond to some questions that would take a computer longer to figure out
  • \”Could a giraffe fit in your car?\” | Humans can have an answer without having made the precise calculations that a computer would do
  • Some of NEIL\’s Computer-Generated Associations
  • \”Rhino can be a kind of antelope,\”
  • \”Actor can be found in jail cell\”
  • \”News anchor can look similar to Barack Obama.\”
  • Searches and Categorizing
  • The computers have figured out that zebras tend to be found in savannahs and that tigers look somewhat like zebras
  • A search for \”apple\” might return images of fruit as well as laptop computers
  • The team had no idea that a search for F-18 would identify not only images of a fighter jet, but also of F18-class catamarans
  • As its search proceeds, NEIL develops subcategories of objects
  • Tricycles can be for kids, for adults and can be motorized, or cars come in a variety of brands and models
  • It begins to notice associations – that zebras tend to be found in savannahs, for instance, and that stock trading floors are typically crowded
  • The Future
  • In the future, NEIL will analyze vast numbers of YouTube videos to look for connections between objects
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • NEIL: Never Ending Image Learner
  • Carnegie Mellon computer searches web 24/7 to analyze images and teach itself common sense | Phys.org
  • New research aims to teach computers common sense | Phys.org

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Neutrinos Spotted

Desert Farming

  • A pilot plant built by the Sahara Forest Project (SFP) produced 75 kilograms of vegetables per square meter in three crops annually, comparable to commercial farms in Europe, while consuming only sunlight and seawater
  • This is not particularly a recent publication but was recently found by me and I thought it was interesting
  • The Plant
  • The heart of the SFP concept is a specially designed greenhouse. At one end, salt water is trickled over a grid like curtain so that the prevailing wind blows the resulting cool, moist air over the plants inside
  • This cooling effect allowed the facility to grow three crops per year, even in the scorching summer
  • At the other end of the greenhouse is a network of pipes with cold seawater running through them
  • Some of the moisture in the air condenses on the pipes and is collected, providing a source of fresh water
  • The third key element of the SFP facility is a concentrated solar power plant
  • This uses mirrors in the shape of a parabolic trough to heat a fluid flowing through a pipe at its focus. The heated fluid then boils water, and the steam drives a turbine to generate power
  • The plant has electricity to run its control systems and pumps and can use any excess to desalinate water for irrigating the plants
  • Bonus Effects
  • One of the surprising side effects of such a seawater greenhouse, seen during early experiments, is that cool moist air leaking out of it encourages other plants to grow spontaneously outside
  • Qatar plant took advantage of that effect to grow crops around the greenhouse, including barley and salad rocket (arugula), as well as useful desert plants
  • The pilot plant accentuated this exterior cooling with more “evaporative hedges” that reduced air temperatures by up to 10°C.
  • The Future
  • The fact that this small greenhouse produced such good yields, suggests that a commercial plant-with possibly four crops a year-could do even better
  • Much larger greenhouses are being looked at to test whether or not this could be a long term solution and how much it would take to grow nearly or as much as the imported foods that could be grown there
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Feeding 9 Billion: Turning the Desert Green – Qatar |Journeyman Pictures
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Desert Farming Experiment Yields First Results | Science/AAAS

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

LADEE Starts to Study the Lunar Atmosphere

  • NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) has descended to its planned low altitude orbit and begun capturing science data on the Moon’s ultra tenuous atmosphere and dust
  • The purpose of LADEE is to collect data that will inform scientists in unprecedented detail about the ultra thin lunar atmosphere, environmental influences on lunar dust and conditions near the surface
  • The Mission
  • The approximately 100 day long mission length is dictated by the residual fuel available for thruster firings.
  • By circling in a very low altitude equatorial orbit, the washing machine sized probe will make frequent passes crossing from lunar day to lunar night
  • This will enable it to precisely measure changes and processes occurring within the moon’s tenuous atmosphere while simultaneously sniffing for uplifted lunar dust in the lunar sky
  • These data will lead to a better understanding of other planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond
  • Maybe Solving a Mystery
  • By studying the raised dust, scientists also hope to solve a 40 year old mystery
  • Why did the Apollo astronauts and early unmanned landers see a glow of rays and streamers at the moon’s horizon stretching high into the lunar sky
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | NASA Ames LADEE Mission Animation: Science Collection / Orbital Variation / Lunar Atmosphere |NASA Ames Research Center
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • NASA\’s LADEE Probe Starts Science Study of Thin Lunar Atmosphere and Dusty Mystery | UniverseToday.com

The Return of Kepler?

<img src=”https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/226xvariable_height/public/kepler-2nd-light_12x12_300_22nov_2.jpg?itok=VdzrPlp-\” width=250 align=right>

  • The Kepler Space telescope may soon start searching the sky again.
  • A new mission concept, dubbed K2, would continue Kepler\’s search for other worlds, and introduce new opportunities to observe star clusters, young and old stars, active galaxies and supernovae
  • Last Time on SciByte
  • SciByte 94 | Kepler & Ancient Water | Kepler’s Last Dance? – May 21, 2013
  • The Original Mission
  • For four years, the space telescope simultaneously and continuously monitored the brightness of more than 150,000 stars, recording a measurement every 30 minutes.
  • In May, the Kepler spacecraft lost the second of four gyroscope-like reaction wheels, which are used to precisely point the spacecraft,
  • Gyroscope Problems
  • The loss of the additional gyroscope ended new data collection for the original mission, which required three functioning wheels to maintain the precision pointing necessary to detect the signal of small Earth-sized exoplanets
  • With the failure of a second reaction wheel, the spacecraft can no longer precisely point at the mission\’s original field of view. The culprit is none other than our own sun which pushes the spacecraft around
  • Pressure is exerted when the photons of sunlight strike the spacecraft
  • Without a third wheel to help counteract the solar pressure, the spacecraft\’s ultra-precise pointing capability cannot be controlled in all directions.
  • A Possible Solution
  • Kepler mission and Ball Aerospace engineers have developed an innovative way of recovering pointing stability by maneuvering the spacecraft so that the solar pressure is evenly distributed across the surfaces of the spacecraft
  • To achieve this level of stability, the orientation of the spacecraft must be nearly parallel to its orbital path around the sun
  • This technique of using the sun as the \’third wheel\’ to control pointing is currently being tested on the spacecraft and early results are already coming in
  • Initial Test
  • During a pointing performance test in late October, a full frame image of the space telescope\’s full field of view was captured showing part of the constellation Sagittarius
  • Photons of light from a distant star field were collected over a 30-minute period and produced an image quality within five percent of the primary mission image quality
  • Additional testing is underway to demonstrate the ability to maintain this level of pointing control for days and weeks.
  • The Future
  • A decision to proceed to the 2014 Senior Review – a biannual assessment of operating missions – and propose for budget to fly K2 is expected by the end of 2013
  • The K2 mission concept has been presented to NASA Headquarters
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • A Sunny Outlook for NASA Kepler\’s Second Light | NASA

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

  • Operations Temporarily Suspended
  • Science observations by NASA\’s Mars rover Curiosity were suspended for a few days while engineers ran tests to check possible causes of a voltage change detected on Nov. 17
  • \”The vehicle is safe and stable, fully capable of operating in its present condition, but we are taking the precaution of investigating what may be a soft short,\” said Mars Science Laboratory Project Manager
  • The electrical issue did not cause the rover to enter a safe-mode status, in which most activities automatically cease pending further instructions, and there is no indication the issue is related to a computer reboot that triggered a \”safe-mode\” earlier this month
  • \”Soft Short\”
  • The team detected a change in the voltage difference between the chassis and the 32-volt power bus that distributes electricity to systems throughout the rover, from about 11 volts to about 4
  • The rover\’s electrical system is designed with the flexibility to work properly throughout that range and more, \”floating bus.\”
  • A soft short can cause such a voltage change
  • A \”soft\” short is a leak through something that\’s partially conductive of electricity, rather than a hard short such as one electrical wire contacting another
  • Soft shorts reduce the level of robustness for tolerating other shorts in the future, and they can indicate a possible problem in whichever component is the site of the short
  • Curiosity had already experienced one soft short on landing day in August 2012, that one was related to explosive-release devices used for deployments shortly before and after the landing
  • It lowered the bus-to-chassis voltage from about 16 volts to about 11 volts but has not affected subsequent rover operations
  • Diagnosis and the Cause
  • Analysis determined that the change appeared intermittently three times during the hours before it became persistent
  • The work to determine the cause of the voltage change gained an advantage from an automated response by the rover\’s onboard software when it detected the voltage change
  • The rover stepped up the rate at which it recorded electrical variables, to eight times per second from the usual once per minute, and transmitted that engineering data in its next communication with Earth
  • The likely cause is an internal short in Curiosity\’s power source, the Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator
  • The short does not affect operation of the power source or the rover
  • Similar generators on other spacecraft, including NASA\’s Cassini at Saturn, have experienced shorts with no loss of capability
  • Testing of another Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator over many years found no loss of capability in the presence of these types of internal shorts
  • In subsequent days, the rover performed diagnostic activities commanded by the team, such as powering on some backup hardware to rule out the possibility of short circuits in certain sensors
  • Early Nov. 23 the rover had returned to its pre-Nov. 17 voltage level, this reversal is consistent with their diagnosis of an internal short in the generator on Nov. 17, and the voltage could change again
  • Return to Science
  • Science operations were suspended for six days while this analysis took priority when the team made a list of potential causes, and then eliminated the possible causes one by one
  • The decision to resume science activities resulted from the success of work to diagnose the likely root cause of the Nov. 17 change in voltage
  • Activities after analysis resumed included the use of Curiosity\’s robotic arm to deliver portions of powdered rock to a laboratory inside the rover
  • The powder has been stored in the arm since the rover collected it by drilling into the target rock \”Cumberland\” six months ago
  • Several portions of the powder have already been analyzed. The laboratory has flexibility for examining duplicate samples in different ways
  • Multimedia
  • Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
  • Social Media
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Mars Science Laboratory: Curiosity Resumes Science After Analysis of Voltage Issue | mars.jpl.nasa.gov
  • Mars Science Laboratory: Rover Team Working to Diagnose Electrical Issue | mars.jpl.nasa.gov
  • Mars Rover Curiosity Sidelined by Electrical Glitch | Space.com

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • Dec 03, 1732 : 281 years ago : Artificial respiration : James Blair was rescued from a fire in a coal mine. William Tossach, a Scottish surgeon, found that “there was not the least pulse in either heart or arteries, and not the least breathing could be observed: So that he was in all appearance dead. I applied my mouth close to his, and blowed my breath as strong as I could… I blew again my breath as strong as I could, raising his chest fully with it; and immediately I felt six or seven very quick beats of the heart.”This appears to be the first recorded use of the ventilation technique since it was commented upon by 16th century Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius, who investigated the effect on an animal upon which he had performed a tracheotomy and related ventilation to heart function
  • The technique is believed to have been in use from ancient times, so Tossach was probably not the first to utilize expired air ventilation. However, he left what appear to be the first clinical description of the procedure in the medical literature, which he wrote twelve years later.

Looking up this week

The post Glacial Lava & Artificial Intelligence | SciByte 110 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> ‘Earth-Like’ Planets & Sharks | SciByte 109 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/46277/earth-like-planets-sharks-scibyte-109/ Tue, 12 Nov 2013 21:16:10 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=46277 We take a look at counting Earth-like planets, what musical training does for your brain, the Olympic torch, viewer feedback about sharks.

The post ‘Earth-Like’ Planets & Sharks | SciByte 109 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at counting Earth-like planets, what musical training does for your brain, the Olympic torch, viewer feedback about sharks, a spacecraft update on India’s Mars Orbiter Mission, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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How Common Are \’Earth-Like\’ Planets?

  • Astronomers have analyzed all four years of Kepler data in search of Earth-size planets in the habitable zones of sun-like stars
  • Based on the analysis, they estimate that 22 percent of stars like the sun have potentially habitable Earth-size planets, though not all may be rocky or have liquid water
  • Kepler Space Telescope
  • Launched in 2009 its mission was to look for planets around other stars by looking for a \’dip\’ in the brightness of a star, about one hundredth of one percent, indicating that something was passing in front of it
  • After 3 consecutive dips in light from the star it is labeled a exoplanet candidate
  • About 150,000 stars were photographed every 30 minutes for four years leading to the current reported number of more than 3,000 planet candidates
  • Kepler had to be pointed with such precision in order to find these planets that it would be like steadily looking at a grain of salt from a 0.4 km [1/4 mi] away
  • The Keck Telescopes in Hawaii helps astronomers to determine each star\’s true brightness and calculate the diameter of each transiting planet, with an emphasis on Earth-diameter planets.
  • \”Habitability\”
  • The team\’s defined habitable as a planet that receives between four times and one-quarter the amount of light that Earth receives from the sun
  • Earth-size planets in Earth-size orbits are not necessarily hospitable to life, even if they orbit in the habitable zone of a star where the temperature is not too hot and not too cold
  • Some of those planets may have thick atmospheres, making it so hot at the surface that DNA-like molecules would not survive
  • A habitable planet would have a rocky surfaces that could harbor liquid water suitable for living organisms
  • Narrowing Down The Data
  • The team focused on the 42,000 stars that are \’sun-like\’ and found 603 candidate planets orbiting them
  • Of those only 10 were Earth-size, that is, one to two times the diameter of Earth and orbiting their star at a distance where they are heated to lukewarm temperatures suitable for life
  • Extrapolating
  • All of the potentially habitable planets found in their survey are around K stars, which are cooler and slightly smaller than the sun although analysis shows that the result for K stars can be extrapolated to G stars like the sun
  • In order to get a better idea of the number of stars with planets around them you have to account for missed planets, as well as the fact that only a small fraction of planets are oriented so that they cross in front of their host star as seen from Earth
  • Adding in those numbers led them to believe that roughly 22 percent of all sun-like stars in the galaxy have Earth-size planets in their habitable zones.
  • The astronomers in this study defined sun-like stars to be of two class types, Class G (like our sun) and Class K
  • Class G and K stars make up roughly 19.5% of all stars, 22% of those stars gives 4.3% of ALL stars have potentially habitable Earth-size planets. (1 out of 25)
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | One in Five Sun-Like Stars Have \’Goldilocks\’ Planets | VideoFromSpace
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Prevalence of Earth-size planets orbiting Sun-like stars | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
  • Astronomers answer key question: How common are habitable planets? | Phys.org

— NEWS BYTE —

Musical Training and the Brain

  • Older adults who took music lessons as children but haven\’t actively played an instrument in decades have a faster brain response to a speech sound than individuals who never played an instrument
  • The Brains Response Time
  • As people grow older, they often experience changes in the brain that compromise hearing and show a slower response to fast-changing sounds, which is important for interpreting speech
  • Previous studies have show such age-related declines are not inevitable, in fact recent studies of musicians suggest lifelong musical training may offset these and other cognitive declines
  • The Study
  • This recent study, explored whether limited musical training early in life is associated with changes in the way the brain responds to sound decades later
  • For the study, 44 healthy adults, ages 55-76, listened to a synthesized speech syllable (\”da\”) while researchers measured electrical activity in the auditory brainstem
  • The brainstem is the region of the brain processes sound and is a hub for cognitive, sensory, and reward information
  • Results
  • The results showed that the more years study participants spent playing instruments as youth, the faster their brains responded to a speech sound.
  • In fact none of the study participants had played an instrument in nearly 40 years, so it wasn\’t simply a recent or \’maintenance\’ result
  • Participants who completed 4-14 years of music training early in life had the fastest response to the speech sound (on the order of a millisecond faster than those without music training).
  • A millisecond faster may not seem like much, but the brain is very sensitive to timing and a millisecond compounded over millions of neurons can make a real difference
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Just a few years of early musical training benefits the brain later in life | MedicalXPress.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Olympic Torch in Space

  • The Olympic Torch was taken on a space walk for the first time on Nov 9, 2013
  • Russian officials made it clear that the torch would remain unlit at all times for safety reasons.
  • The Olympic torch was carried into space ahead of the 1996 and 2000 Olympics in Atlanta and Sydney but has never before been taken on a spacewalk
  • In an usual situation, when the new crew arrived there were nine crew members and three Soyuz vehicles at the ISS, there have not been nine crew members on the ISS since 2009.
  • The new crew brought the unlit torch along, then the space station’s current crew, took the torch out on a spacewalk, the three returning crew members brought the torch back to Earth
  • The real reason for the spacewalk is to do some routine Russian maintenance outside the station
  • The torch was given back to Olympic officials and it will be used in the opening ceremonies of the February games
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Raw: Spacewalkers Hand Off Olympic Torch | AssociatedPress
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Russia launches Sochi Olympic torch into space | Phys.org
  • Crew Launches to Space Station with Olympic Torch | UniverseToday.com

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

New Shark Species

  • Michael Thalleen ‏@ThalleenM
  • Two new shark species have been discovered
  • Carolina Hammerhead
  • Rare New Species of Carolina Hammerhead Shark Discovered | ScienceWorldReport.com
  • Scientists have now announced that they\’ve discovered a new species of rare shark, the Carolina hammerhead
  • The Carolina hammerhead has long eluded discovery due to the fact that it is outwardly indistinguishable from the common scalloped hammerhead
  • The new species, named Sphyrna gilberti, was actually discovered as scientists were looking for more common hammerheads.
  • South Carolina is a well-known pupping ground for several species of sharks, which means that researchers were collecting samples there for study
  • The scalloped hammerheads that they were collecting had two different genetic signatures in both the mitochondrial and nuclear genomes
  • The scientists found that the anomalous scalloped hammerhead had been described in 1967 and had 10 fewer vertebrae than the normal scalloped hammerhead. Intrigued
  • In the end, the scientists found that there was genetic evidence to show that this hammerhead was, in fact, a new species.
  • At this point scientists aren\’t sure exactly how many individuals still exist in the wild
  • \’Walking\’ Shark
  • New \’Walking\’ Shark Species Caught on Video | LiveScience
  • YouTube | New species of \”walking\” shark found in Indonesia – Conservation International (CI) – 2013 | ConservationDotOrg
  • A new species of \”walking\” shark has been discovered in a reef off a remote Indonesian island
  • Hemiscyllium halmahera, named after the eastern Indonesian island of Halmahera where it was found
  • These sharks don\’t always rely on \”walking\” to move about — often, they only appear to touch the seafloor as they swim using their pectoral and pelvic fins in a walk like gait
  • The shark grows up to 70 cm [27 in] long and is harmless to humans
  • The animals lay eggs under coral ledges, after which the young sharks lead relatively sedentary lives until adulthood
  • These sharks do not cross areas of deep water and are found in isolated reefs

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

India’s Mars Orbiter Mission

  • Last time on SciByte
  • SciByte 107 | Dinosaurs & Satellites (October 29, 2013)
  • The Trip to Mars
  • India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) safely injected into its initial elliptical Earth parking orbit on Nov. 5
  • India’s PSLV rocket is not powerful enough to send MOM on a direct flight to Mars
  • ISRO’s engineers devised a procedure to get the spacecraft to Mars on the least amount of fuel via six “Midnight Maneuver” engine burns over several weeks – and at an extremely low cost
  • The goal is to gradually maneuver MOM – India’s 1st mission to the Red Planet – into a hyperbolic trajectory so that the spacecraft will
  • The spacecraft was initial in an elliptical orbit around Earth, it then proceeds to fire its engines when it is at its closest point in orbit above Earth.
  • This maneuver increases the ship\’s velocity and gradually widens the ellipse eventually raising the apogee of the six resulting elliptical orbits around Earth that eventually injects MOM onto the Trans-Mars trajectory
  • They expected to achieve escape velocity on Dec. 1 and depart Earth’s sphere of influence tangentially to Earth’s orbit to begin the 300 day (10 month) voyage to Mars
  • Estimates are that it will arrive in the vicinity of Mars on September 24, 2014
  • Small Glitch
  • During a fourth repositioning, on Mon Nov 11, that was to take it 100,000 kilometres (62,000 miles) from Earth, the thruster engines briefly failed, leading the autopilot to take over.
  • The supplemental burn on Nov 12 successfully raised it to the proper orbit
  • The Other Mars Mission
  • NASA\’s MAVEN orbiter remains on target to launch on Nov. 18 – from Cape Canaveral, Florida
  • It\’s goal is to \”Study the Martian atmosphere , unlock the mysteries of its current atmosphere and determine how, why and when the atmosphere and liquid water was lost\”
  • Both Mission Goals
  • The main aim of MOM is to detect methane in the Martian atmosphere, which could provide evidence of some sort of life form
  • Both MAVEN and MOM’s goal are to study the Martian atmosphere
  • MOM science teams have said they will “work together” with NASA\’s MAVEN team to unlock the secrets of Mars atmosphere and climate history
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Mars Mission Isro successfully completes first midnight manoeuver | rajnews41
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Indian Mars mission on track, makes first engine burns | Phys.org
  • India\’s Mars Orbiter Mission Rising to Red Planet – Glorious Launch Gallery | UniverseToday.com
  • Indian Mars mission suffers glitch but \’no setback\’ | Phys.org

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

  • Warm Reset
  • NASA\’s Mars rover Curiosity experienced an unexpected software reboot (also known as a warm reset) on the 7th
  • During a communications pass as it was sending engineering and science data to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, for later downlinking to Earth
  • occurred about four-and-half hours after new flight software had been temporarily loaded into the rover\’s memory
  • At the time the event occurred, Curiosity was in the middle of a scheduled, week-long flight software update and checkout activity
  • A warm reset is executed by flight software when it identifies a problem with one of its operations
  • The reset restarts the flight software into its initial state. Since the reset, the rover has been performing operations and communications as expected
  • This is the first time that Curiosity has executed a fault-related warm reset during its 16-plus months of Mars surface operations
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube Curiosity Rover Report JPLnews
  • Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
  • Social Media
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Mars Science Laboratory: Curiosity Performs Warm Reset | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • Nov 16, 1972 : 41 years ago : Skylab III : Skylab III, carrying a crew of three astronauts, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on an 84-day mission that remained the longest American space flight for over two decades (until Norm Thagard broke it aboard Mir in 1995 and Shannon Lucid, Feb 2002-Sep 2003). The Skylab III crew, Gerald P. Carr, William R. Pogue and Edward C. Gibson, maintained their physical condition by walking treadmills and riding an on-board stationary bicycle. Among the thousands of experiments conducted during this flight, the astronauts took four space walks, including one on Christmas Day to observe the comet Kohoutek. After 1214 orbits, the crew returned to Earth, splashing down on 8 Feb 1974. Skylab 3 | Wikipedia

Looking up this week

The post ‘Earth-Like’ Planets & Sharks | SciByte 109 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Exoplanet Clouds & Updates | SciByte 105 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/44732/exoplanet-clouds-updates-scibyte-105/ Tue, 15 Oct 2013 20:30:50 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=44732 We take a look at exoplanetary clouds, updating atomic weights, plastic on Saturns moon, viewer feedback, story and spacecraft updates, and more!

The post Exoplanet Clouds & Updates | SciByte 105 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at exoplanetary clouds, updating atomic weights, plastic on Saturn\’s moon, viewer feedback, story and 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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— Show Notes —

Exoplanet Clouds

  • Astronomers using data from NASA\’s Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes have created the first cloud map of a planet known as Kepler-7b
  • Kepler-7b
  • One of the first five planets to be confirmed by NASA\’s Kepler spacecraft, and was confirmed in the first 33.5 days of Kepler\’s science operations
  • Kepler-7b is a hot Jupiter that is about half the mass of Jupiter, but is nearly 1.5 times its size, and orbits its star every five days
  • Previous observations of Kepler-7b revealed that it could float on water
  • Temperature and Light Data
  • Kepler\’s visible-light observations of Kepler-7b\’s moon-like phases led to a rough map of the planet that showed a bright spot on its western hemisphere
  • That data was not enough on its own to decipher whether the bright spot was coming from clouds or heat
  • Spitzer can fix its gaze at a star system as a planet orbits around the star, gathering clues about the planet\’s atmosphere
  • Spitzer\’s ability to detect infrared light means it was able to measure Kepler-7b\’s temperature, estimating it to be between 1,500 and 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (1,100 and 1,300 Kelvin).
  • What the Temperature and Lights Measurements Mean
  • Those measurements are relatively cool for a planet that orbits so close to its star, within 0.06 astronomical units (one astronomical unit is the distance from Earth and the sun)
  • The measurements are also too cool to be the source of light Kepler observed.
  • Astronomers don\’t expect to see oceans or continents on this type of world, but they do detected a clear, reflective signature that they interpreted as clouds
  • What it All Means
  • By observing Kepler-7b with Spitzer and Kepler for more than three years, scientists were able to produce a very low-resolution \’map\’ of this giant, gaseous planet
  • Astronomers determined that light from the planet\’s star is bouncing off cloud tops located on the west side of the planet.
  • The patterns on this planet do not seem to change much over time, indicating it has a remarkably stable climate
  • The Future
  • Combining Spitzer and Kepler data together offers scientists with a multi-wavelength tool for getting a good look at exoplanets
  • This is bringing advancements to exoplanet science, moving beyond just detecting exoplanets, and into the exciting science of understanding them
  • 3D Visualization Tool
  • A fully rendered tool, available for download at eyes.nasa.gov/exoplanets
  • The program is updated daily with the latest findings from NASA\’s Kepler mission and ground-based observatories around the world as they search for planets
  • Also Pointed Out By
  • Paul Hill ‏@P_H_9_3 on Twitter
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • NASA Space Telescopes Find Patchy Clouds on Exotic World – NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory | jpl.nasa.gov
  • Clouds On Alien Planet Mapped for 1st Time | Space.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Updating Atomic Weights

  • The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, IUPAC, has changed the official atomic weights of 19 elements
  • Atomic Weights
  • Every atom of an element, silver for example, has the same number of protons
  • Silver has 47, but not every atom of an element necessarily has the same number of neutrons
  • Different versions of an element\’s atoms are called isotopes, Silver occurs as silver-109 and silver-107
  • Chemists calculate the atomic weight of an element that you see on the periodic table from the masses of its isotopes, giving more common isotopes more weight than less common isotopes
  • This doesn\’t necessarily mean every sample of silver on Earth has an atomic weight of exactly
  • Samples of elements vary from place to place, and the differences play an important role in many sciences
  • The differences help chemists trace the origin of different materials and help date archaeological findings
  • Not a Big a Deal, But Why Do It?
  • The latest atomic weights measurements differ too little from their predecessors to really change science
  • The changes in weights mostly come from continuing improvements in atomic mass measurements thanks to advances in the technology behind mass spectrometers
  • They can also change how they view the number of isotopes an element has
  • For example, the IUPAC had previously thought that thorium-230 was too rare to include in atomic weight calculations, they now recognize it
  • The last time international chemistry really altered the periodic table was in 2009, when IUPAC decided to list the atomic weights of some elements as ranges, instead of single numbers
  • The Changes
  • Atomic weights are relative, so they don\’t have units
  • Molybdenum, Losing 0.0122
  • Thorium, Losing 0.000322
  • Yttrium and Niobium, Tied, Losing 0.00001
  • Selenium, Gaining 0.0088
  • Cadmium, Gaining 0.0026
  • Holmium, Thulium and Praseodymium, all Gaining 0.00001
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Chemistry\’s Biggest Loser: Official Atomic Weights Change For 19 Elements | Popular Science
  • Periodic Table of the Elements | chemistry.about.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2013

Plastic in Titan’s Clouds?

  • An essential chemical used in the creation of plastic on Earth has been found in Saturn\’s largest moon, Titan
  • Scientists used Cassini\’s composite infrared spectrometer (CIRS) instrument, which measures infrared light given off by Saturn and its moon, made the discovery
  • Cassini Measures Propylene
  • NASA\’s Cassini spacecraft currently orbiting Saturn, found that the atmosphere of Titan contains propylene
  • Propylene is a key ingredient of plastic containers, car bumpers and other everyday items on Earth
  • Strung together in long chains it can form a plastic called polypropylene
  • Helps Explain Voyager 1 Data
  • This helps answer a decades old question
  • When Voyager 1 conducted the first close flyby of the moon in 1980, it recognized gasses in the moon\’s brown atmosphere as hydrocarbons.
  • Those measurement were very difficult to make because propylene weak signature is crowded by related chemicals with much stronger signals
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube Clip | Plastic Moon: Propylene Detected On Titan | VideoFromSpace
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • [NASA Finds Ingredient for Plastic on Saturn\’s Moon Titan | Space.com](NASA Finds Ingredient for Plastic on Saturn\’s Moon Titan | Space.com)

Now There Are Robots Who Run …

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Ice Cap Growing/Shrinking?

  • Nogal
  • In the chat room I brought up the fact that the ice caps have been growing, yet everyone called me a nut
  • Sorry, Staying Away From Hot Button Issues
  • First SciByte will neither agree or disagree with a highly hot button issue
  • Some studies can be made to agree in either direction you feel
  • There are studies that say the area of the Antarctic polar cap is expanding while the Arctic is decreasing
  • There are also studies arguing about the thickness of both polar sheets
  • Adding to the confusion and arguments is an article from National Snow and Ice Data Center showing significant shrinking of the area of the polar cap actually had an error
  • In addition there are arguments about global heating/cooling/climate change over what time span and comparing to historical data
  • For issues such as this it is important to find data from as impartial sources as you can, and to also look at the data that argues against how you feel

Food Science

  • Matt
  • Have you ever considered doing an episode on some of Chris\’ beliefs about nutrition and food?
  • Sorry, Staying Away From Some Food Health Science
  • While I might talk about what science is saying about how food interacts with the human body I’m not a dietician or a medical doctor so I’m going to stay away from dietary issue
  • Studies that talk about how one specific thing affects how interacts with your well being and health I view as somewhat bordering on fuzzy science
  • There are so many things that can affect your health it is hard to say anything specific about the general population
  • There are also many people with restrictive diets because of allergies or sensitivities that restrict diets that only affect specific portions of the population

— Updates —

Comet ISON

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

Private Space Travel – Orbital Science & SpaceX

  • Orbital Science – Cygnus Spacecraft
  • The Cygnus spacecraft initial docking was delayed a week due to an easily fixed communications glitch
  • After docking, the hatches to Cygnus opened on Monday, Sept. 30 after completing leak checks
  • Cygnus delivers about 1,300 pounds (589 kilograms) of cargo, including food, clothing, water, science experiments, spare parts and gear to the Expedition 37 crew
  • SpaceX
  • Also on Sept 29 the Next Generation commercial SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket had its demonstration test flight
  • SpaceX Falcon 9 blasted off from Space Launch Complex 4 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California
  • They deployed Canada’s 1,060 pound (481 kg) Cascade, Smallsat, and Ionospheric Polar Explorer (CASSIOPE) weather satellite and several additional small satellites.
  • Private Space Travel
  • Both Cygnus and Falcon 9 were developed with seed money from NASA in a pair of public-private partnerships between NASA and Orbital Sciences and SpaceX
  • With Orbital science\’s successful delivery there are now two commercial partner\’s with the ability to deliver supplies to the ISS
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube Clip Cygnus Spacecraft Captured By Space Station | videoFromSpace
  • YouTube | [SpaceX] Launch of Inaugural Falcon 9 v1.1 Rocket with Cassiope! | SpaceVidsNet
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Doubly Historic Day for Private Space: Cygnus docks at Station & Next Gen Falcon 9 Soars | UniverseToday.com

Opportunity

  • Planning the Path to Prepare for Winter
  • The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) recently succeeded in collecting “really interesting” new high resolution survey scans of Solander Point
  • The new CRISM spectrometer survey from Mars orbit will vastly improve the spectral resolution – from 18 meters per pixel down to 5 meters per pixel
  • It will take some time, a few weeks, to review and interpret the new spectral data from the MRO and decide on a course of action
  • The new MRO data are crucial for targeting the rover’s driving in coming months.
  • Solander Point
  • Opportunity rover has begun the ascent of Solander Point, the first mountain she will ever climb
  • Solander Point is an eroded ridge located along the western rim of huge Endeavour Crater where Opportunity is currently located
  • Another important point about ‘Solander Point’ is that it also offers northerly tilted slopes that will maximize the power generation during Opportunity’s six month winter
  • Recent Science
  • The rover recently investigated an outcrop target called ‘Poverty Bush’.
  • The 3 foot long (1 meter) robotic arm was deployed and the rover collected photos with the Microscopic Imager (MI)
  • They collected several days of spectral measurements with the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS).
  • What is interesting about this location is that there are several geologic units that are overlapping and Opportunity is sitting on the contact
  • The east side of the contact are rocks maybe a billion years older than those on the west side of the contact
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Opportunity Scaling Solander Mountain Searching for Science and Sun | UniverseToday.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

  • More Autonomy
  • Curiosity has now used a new technique, in placement of the tool-bearing turret on its robotic arm
  • The technique, called proximity placement, uses the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) as if it were a radar for assessing how close the instrument is to a soil or rock surface
  • The rover can then interpret the data and autonomously move the turret closer if it is not yet close enough
  • This will enable placement of the instrument much closer to soil targets than would have been feasible without risk of touching the sensor head to loose soil
  • It will also save extra days of having team members check the data and command arm movement in response
  • Multimedia
  • Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
  • Social Media
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Mars Science Laboratory: Images | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • October, 18 1989 : 24 years ago : Jupiter orbiter Galileo launched
     : The Galileo space orbiter was released from the STS 34 flight of the Atlantis orbiter. Then the orbiter\’s inertial upper stage rocket pushed it into a course through the inner solar system. The craft gained speed from gravity assists in encounters with Venus and Earth before heading outward to Jupiter. During its six year journey to Jupiter, Galileo\’s instruments made interplanetary studies, using its dust detector, magnetometer, and various plasma and particles detectors. It also made close-up studies of two asteroids, Gaspra and Ida in the asteroid belt. The Galileo orbiter\’s primary mission was to study Jupiter, its satellites, and its magnetosphere for two years. It released an atmospheric probe into Jupiter\’s atmosphere on 7 Dec 1995.
  • Galileo Spacecraft Website | NASA

Looking up this week

<img src=\”https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/ISON_Comet_captured_by_HST%2C_April_10-11%2C_2013.jpg/250px-ISON_Comet_captured_by_HST%2C_April_10-11%2C_2013.jpg” width=250 align=right>

The post Exoplanet Clouds & Updates | SciByte 105 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Bilingualism & A Smart Dog | SciByte 95 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/37926/bilingualism-a-smart-dog-scibyte-95/ Tue, 28 May 2013 20:27:50 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=37926 We take a look at Bilingualism, cancer cell mortality, one smart dog, bringing Mars to Earth, spacecraft updates, and more!

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We take a look at Bilingualism, cancer cell mortality, one smart dog, bringing Mars to Earth, spacecraft updates, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Path of Destruction: Star Wars: Darth Bane, Book 1

  • 2,000 years after KOTOR
  • 1,000 years before New Hope
  • Before, but general area of Yoda being born (+/- 50 or so)
  • Connected to prophesy from Dark Forces Books/Game, dealing directly with Kyle Katarn

Brains and Bilingual Language

  • According to new research, individuals who learn two languages at an early age seem to switch back and forth between separate \”sound systems\” for each language
  • Previous Ideas on the Brain and Languages
  • One idea was that people who speak more than one language have different processing modes for their two languages
  • One mode for processing speech in one language and then a mode for processing speech in the other language
  • Another view was that bilinguals just adjust to speech variation by calibrating to the unique acoustic properties of each language
  • New Research Supports…
  • Kalim Gonzales, a psychology doctoral student at the University of Arizona, research supports the first view
  • When most people think about the difference in languages they think of the different words and grammar, but at the root of the languages are different sounds
  • The Study – Setup
  • The study looked at 32 Spanish-English early bilinguals, who had learned their second language before age 8
  • Participants were presented with a series of pseudo-words beginning with a \’pa\’ or a \’ba\’ sound and asked to identify which of the two sounds they heard
  • \’pa\’ and \’ba\’ sounds exist in both English and Spanish, how those sounds are produced and perceived in the two languages varies subtly
  • For example, for English speakers \’ba\’ typically begin to vibrate their vocal chords the moment they open their lips
  • Spanish speakers begin vocal cord vibration slightly before they open their lips and produce \’pa\’ in a manner similar to English \’ba.\’
  • English-only speakers might, in some cases, confuse the \’ba\’ and \’pa\’ sounds they hear in Spanish
  • The Study – Bilingual Participants
  • The bilingual participants were divided into two groups. One group was told they would be hearing rare words in Spanish, while the other was told they would be hearing rare words in English
  • Both groups heard audio recordings of variations of the same two non real words bafri and pafri
  • Both groups heard the same series of words, but for the group told they were hearing Spanish, the ends of the words were pronounced slightly differently, with the \’r\’ getting a Spanish pronunciation
  • Participants perceived \’ba\’ and \’pa\’ sounds differently depending on whether they were told they were hearing Spanish words, with the Spanish pronunciation of \’r,\’ or whether they were told they were hearing English words, with the English pronunciation of \’r.\’
  • When they put people in \”English mode,\” they actually would act like English speakers, and then if you put them in Spanish mode, they would switch to acting like Spanish speakers
  • Hearing the exact same \’ba\’s and \’pa\’s would label them differently depending on the context
  • The Study – Bilingual Participants
  • When the study was repeated with 32 English monolinguals, participants did not show the same shift in perception
  • They labeled \’ba\’ and \’pa\’ sounds the same way regardless of which language they were told they were hearing
  • What Does That Mean?
  • Difference between the two groups provided the strongest evidence for two sound systems in bilinguals
  • This is primarily true for those who learn two languages very young
  • If you learn a second language later in life, you usually have a dominant language and then you try to use that sounds system for the other language, which is why you end up having an accent
  • Bilinguals who learn two languages early in life learn two separate processing modes, or \”sound systems\”
  • One of the reasons it sounds different when you hear someone speaking a different language is because the actual sounds they use are different
  • Someone might sound like they have an accent if they learn Spanish first is because their \’pa\’ is like an English \’ba,\’ so when they say a word with \’pa,\’ it will sound like a \’ba\’ to an English monolingual
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Study shows how bilinguals switch between languages | MedicalXPress.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Diet Help Makes Cancer Cells Mortal

  • New research suggests that a compound abundant in the Mediterranean diet takes away cancer cells\’ \”superpower\” to escape death
  • By altering a very specific step in gene regulation, this compound essentially re-educates cancer cells into normal cells that die as scheduled.
  • Apigenin
  • One way that cancer cells thrive is by inhibiting a process that would cause them to die on a regular cycle that is subject to strict programming
  • Researchers, found that a compound in certain plant-based foods, called apigenin, could stop breast cancer cells from inhibiting their own death.
  • Parsley, celery and chamomile tea are the most common sources of apigenin, but it is found in many fruits and vegetables
  • Through additional experimentation, the team established that apigenin had relationships with proteins that have three specific functions
  • Among the most important was a protein called hnRNPA2, which influences the activity of messenger RNA, or mRNA, which contains the instructions needed to produce a specific protein
  • Splicing
  • The production of mRNA results from the splicing, or modification, of RNA that occurs as part of gene activation, abnormal splicing is the culprit in an estimated 80 percent of all cancers
  • In cancer cells, two types of splicing occur when only one would take place in a normal cell – a trick on the cancer cells\’ part to keep them alive and reproducing.
  • Researchers observed that apigenin\’s connection to the hnRNPA2 protein restored this single-splice characteristic to breast cancer cells, eliminating the splicing form that inhibited cell death
  • This suggests that when splicing is normal, cells die in a programmed way, or become more sensitive to chemotherapeutic drugs.
  • Multimedia
  • XKCD | Cancer Cells
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • The compound in the Mediterranean diet that makes cancer cells \’mortal\’ | MedicalXPress.com

Dog Understanding Grammer

  • In experiments directed by her owner a 9-year-old border collie has demonstrated a grasp of the basic elements of grammar by responding correctly to commands such as “to ball take Frisbee” and its reverse, “to Frisbee take ball.”
  • Word Training
  • The dog had previous, extensive training to recognize classes of words including nouns, verbs and prepositions
  • Throughout the first three years of the dogs life she was trained to recognize and fetch more than 1,000 objects by name
  • Researchers also taught the meaning of different types of words, such as verbs and prepositions and sentence training at age 7
  • The dog learned that phrases such as “to Frisbee” meant that she should take whatever was in her mouth to the named object.
  • An experimenter would say, for instance, “to ball take Frisbee.” In initial trials, the experimenter pointed at each item while saying its name.
  • After several weeks of training, two experiments were conducted
  • The Experiments – \’Eyeing the Prize\’
  • In one experiment the dog had to choose an object from one pair to carry to an object from the other pair
  • Researchers read commands that included words for those objects. Only some of those words had been used during sentence training
  • To see whether Chaser grasped that grammar could be used flexibly student also read sentences in the reversed form of “take sugar to decoy.”
  • In 28 of 40 attempts, the dog grabbed the correct item in her mouth and dropped it next to the correct target.
  • The Experiments – Hidden in Plain Sight
  • Another experiment tested the dogs ability to understand commands when she couldn’t see the objects at first
  • Researchers placed two objects behind her at the other end of the bed, after hearing a command, the dog turned around and nabbed one of the objects.
  • Then ran to the living room and delivered the item to one of another pair of objects. She succeeded on all 12 trials
  • What is Exactly Happening
  • Exactly how the dog gained her command of grammar is unclear although researchers suspects that she first mentally linked each of two nouns she heard in a sentence to objects in her memory
  • Multimedia
  • Chaser – The intelligent Border Collie | PetfansDotnet
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Dog sniffs out grammar | Psychology | Science News

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

A Year on Mars, on Earth

  • The Mars Society has just announced a year long simulation of astronauts on Mars in the arctic
  • The proposed Mars Arctic 365 (MA365) mission on Canada’s Devon Island would take place at Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station
  • According to the Mars Society the arctic is a lot like Mars in that it is cold, isolated, and dangerous
  • The society is asking for $50,000 from supporters in the next 24 days before starting the first phase (basically retrofitting the station and adding equipment) in July
  • More information on MA365 – perhaps with information on crew selection – should come in August, when members of the Phase 1 crew issue a report at the 16th Annual International Mars Society Convention
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Mars Society Proposes A Year-Long Arctic Mission To Better Prepare for the Red Planet | UniverseToday.com

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

Kepler Strategies

  • What\’s the Latest?
  • Kepler engineers are now strategizing about how to remotely repair one of two broken reaction wheels that precisely point the telescope
  • It will take at least several weeks before they beam commands up to the $600-million telescope, and they admit that a fix is a long shot.
  • Kepler Exoplanet History
  • When Kepler was launched into space astronomers knew that the galaxy contained at least 350 exoplanets, nearly all of them the size of Jupiter or larger
  • Kepler’s then spent four years adding nearly 3,000 planets
  • Now astronomers are convinced that the Milky Way contains hundreds of billions of planets, roughly one for every star, with at least 17 billion of them Earth-sized
  • Kepler’s main goal was to determine the frequency of Earthlike planets in the galaxy while they now have enough data to make an intelligent extrapolation about what that number is, determining a more exact number will remain in limbo unless the telescope comes back online
  • What\’s the Next Mission
  • NASA’s next exoplanet-hunting mission, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, TESS, is scheduled for a 2017 launch
  • Whereas Kepler has fixed its gaze on distant stars, TESS will focus on bright, nearby stars so that powerful telescopes like the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope will be able to probe the atmospheres of planets that TESS discovers
  • While less sensitive than Kepler, will nonetheless uncover plenty of planets in our neighborhood, including a handful of Earth-sized worlds
  • Astronomers hope to pair size measurements of planets observed by telescopes such as TESS with mass readings from ground-based scopes that look for subtle wobbles in stars’ motion caused by the gravitational pull of orbiting planets.
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Gone perhaps, but Kepler won\’t soon be forgotten | Atom & Cosmos | Science News

Opportunity, Still Hard at Work

  • Opportunity, has just discovered the strongest evidence to date for an environment favorable to ancient Martian biology
  • Opportunity’s analysis of a new rock target named “Esperance” confirmed that it is composed of a “clay that had been intensely altered by relatively neutral pH water
  • Esperance is unlike any rock previously investigated by Opportunity; containing far more aluminum and silica which is indicative of clay minerals and lower levels of calcium and iron.
  • Most, but not all of the rocks inspected to date by Opportunity were formed in an environment of highly acidic water
  • This represents the most favorable conditions for biology that Opportunity has yet seen in the rock histories it has encountered
  • Water that moved through fractures during this rock’s history would have provided more favorable conditions for biology than any other wet environment recorded in rocks Opportunity has seen
  • Opportunity accomplished the ground breaking new discovery by exposing the interior of Esperance with her still functioning Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) and examining a pristine patch using the microscopic camera and X-Ray spectrometer on the end of her 3 foot long robotic arm.
  • This discovery comes at the conclusion of a 20 month long science expedition circling around a low ridge called “Cape York,” the team even committed several weeks to getting this one measurement of it
  • Esperance stems from a time when the Red Planet was far warmer and wetter billions of years ago.
  • What’s so special about Esperance is that there was enough water not only for reactions that produced clay minerals, but also enough to flush out ions set loose by those reactions
  • Opportunity can clearly see the alterations caused by that process
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Opportunity Discovers Clays Favorable to Martian Biology and Sets Sail for Motherlode of New Clues | UniverseToday.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

  • Self-Portrait
  • This self-portrait of NASA\’s Mars rover Curiosity combines dozens of exposures taken by the rover\’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the 177th Martian day, or sol, on Mars (Feb. 3, 2013)
  • In addition three exposures were taken during Sol 270 (May 10, 2013) to update the appearance of part of the ground beside the rover
  • The updated area, which is in the lower left quadrant of the image, shows gray-powder and two holes where Curiosity used its drill on the rock target \”John Klein.\”
  • The rover\’s robotic arm is not visible in the mosaic. MAHLI, which took the component images for this mosaic, is mounted on a turret at the end of the arm.
  • Wrist motions and turret rotations on the arm allowed MAHLI to acquire the mosaic\’s component images. The arm was positioned out of the shot in the images, or portions of images, used in the mosaic
  • Radiation Reading Findings
  • Announcement coming on Thurs, May 30
    Multimedia
  • May\’s Planet Dance | SkyandTelescope
  • Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
  • Social Media
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Updated Curiosity Self-Portrait at \’John Klein\’ | mars.jpl.NASA.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • May 25, 2011 : 2 years ago : SciByte 1 : After appearing on a few shows on the Jupiter Broadcasting Network, most specifically after doing \”Space Wednesday\’s\” on Jupiter@Night, Heather (chatroom handle : Mars_Base) started doing a science based show with Jeremy. The show had a short hiatus between SciByte 16 and 17, leading to a change in style and co-host, Chris. Throughout it\’s life the show has been about spreading science information, and in general making Science Happy.

Looking up this week

The post Bilingualism & A Smart Dog | SciByte 95 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Kepler & Ancient Water | SciByte 94 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/37576/kepler-ancient-water-scibyte-94/ Tue, 21 May 2013 20:30:15 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=37576 We take a look at sad news for the Kepler space telescope, wireless brain imaging, remote ancient water, cancer genes, sound imaging, and more!

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

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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.

Direct Download:

MP3 Audio | OGG Audio | Video | Torrent | YouTube

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[asa]B00CTT9646[/asa]

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

— 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

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

]]> Habitable Exoplanets & Diabetes | SciByte 92 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/36836/habitable-exoplanets-diabetes-scibyte-92/ Tue, 07 May 2013 21:35:10 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=36836 We take a look at habitable zone exoplanets, diabetes treatment advances, water in Jupiter, living on Mars, and spacecraft updates.

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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.

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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

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 —

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

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

]]> Tiny Exo-planet & Medical Glue | SciByte 83 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/32512/tiny-exo-planet-medical-glue-scibyte-83/ Tue, 26 Feb 2013 22:14:14 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=32512 We take a look at a tiny exoplanet, new medical glue, dogs, private Mars mission, updates on bionic eyes and the Russian meteorite.

The post Tiny Exo-planet & Medical Glue | SciByte 83 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at a tiny exoplanet, new medical glue, dogs, private Mars mission, updates on bionic eyes and the Russian meteorite, 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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Show Notes:

Tiny Exo-planet

  • Scientists have discovered a new planet orbiting a Sun-like star, and the exoplanet is the smallest yet found in data from the Kepler mission
  • This discovery came from a collaboration between Kepler scientists and a consortium of international researchers who employ asteroseismology
  • Asteroseismology\”
  • Sound waves travel into the star and bring information back up to the surface, these waves cause oscillations that Kepler observes as a rapid flickering of the star’s brightness
  • Asteroseismology is when scientists measure those oscillations in the star’s brightness caused by continuous star-quakes, and turn those tiny variations in the star’s light into sounds
  • It is similar to how geologists use seismic waves generated by earthquakes to probe the interior structure of Earth
  • Barely discernible, high-frequency oscillations in the brightness of small stars are the most difficult to measure, the bigger the star, the lower the frequency, or ‘pitch’ of its song
  • Kepler-37b
  • The measurements made by the astroseismologists allowed the Kepler research team to more accurately measure the tiny Kepler-37b
  • Kepler-37b, is smaller than Mercury, but slightly larger than Earth’s Moon
  • Orbits every 13 days at less than one-third Mercury’s distance from the Sun
  • Very likely a rocky planet with no atmosphere or water, similar to Mercury
  • Estimated surface temperature of this smoldering planet, at more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit (700 degrees Kelvin, hot enough to melt the zinc in a penny
  • The rest of the Kepler-37 system
  • Kepler-37 has a radius just three-quarters of the Sun, and is about 210 light-years from Earth.
  • The size is known to 3 percent accuracy, which translates to exceptional accuracy in the planet’s size.
  • Measurements also revealed two other planets in the same planetary system: one slightly smaller than Earth and one twice as large
  • All three planets orbit the star at less than the distance Mercury is to the Sun Kepler-37c and Kepler-37d, orbit every 21 days and 40 days, respectively
  • What this means
  • This discovery took a long time to verify, as the signature of this very small exoplanet was hard to confirm
  • Uncovering a planet smaller than any in our solar system orbiting one of the few stars that is both bright and quiet, where signal detection was possible
  • “The detection of such a small planet shows for the first time that stellar systems host planets much smaller as well as much larger than anything we see in our own Solar System.” [Published paper in Nature]
  • Multimedia
  • Image | NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered a new planetary system that is home to the smallest planet yet found | Credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech
  • Image | Where in the sky Kepler is looking | Credit: Carter Roberts / Eastbay Astronomical Society
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Tiny exoplanet smaller than Mercury: Smallest planet yet found outside solar system (Update) | phys.org
  • Smallest Exoplanet Yet Discovered by \’Listening\’ to a Sun-like Star
  • Moon-Size Alien Planet Is the Smallest Exoplanet | Space.com
  • How Does Tiny Kepler-37b Measure Up? | news.discovery.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Medical \”Super Glue\” for Wet Surfaces

  • The Problem\”
  • Not even Super Glue will stick in a wet environment because a layer of water forms that keeps the two surfaces from bonding
  • Mussels somehow elbow the water aside and bind themselves to rocks anyway by secreting liquid proteins that harden into a solid, water-resistant glue
  • A Possible New Solution
  • One researcher now says he has used the mollusk’s tricks to develop medical applications
  • This biocompatible glue that could one day seal fetal membranes, allowing prenatal surgeons to repair birth defects without triggering dangerous premature labor
  • The research team has now created a synthetic, thread-like polymer called polyethylene glycol that mimics the mussel protein
  • Basis of a Mussels Sticking Ability
  • Parts of the proteins that face out toward the hard surface
  • This enables liquid holdfast proteins to solidify rapidly and stick flawlessly to wet and salty surfaces
  • Initial Testing
  • To see if the compound worked in live animals, a veterinary surgeon made a 2.5-centimeter incision in the carotid artery of a dog and placed four stitches along the length of that incision to hold it in place
  • With stitches alone were used, the incision bled when the surgeon pressed it.
  • After just 20 seconds after the mussel-based glue was applied, the artery was sealed and didn’t bleed.
  • Recently the team began testing its glue on fetal membranes
  • Possible Prenatal Use
  • For the past few decades, surgeons have begun surgically repairing birth defects like spina bifida while a fetus is still in utero
  • The process is risky because the surgery risks rupturing the fetal membrane prematurely, sending the mother into premature labor.
  • There are no good adhesives on the market for surgeons to repair such fetal-membrane tears
  • In recent, unpublished experiments in rabbits, the team has found that after a veterinary surgeon poked a 3.5-mm hole in the animal’s fetal membrane, the new, mussel-inspired glue readily sealed up the puncture
  • Without the glue, only 40% of the fetal rabbits survived the surgery, but with the glue, 60% did.
  • Fetal surgeons are now working with the research team to test whether the glue can help reseal the tissue surrounding the spinal cord to repair a serious birth defect known spina bifida in rabbits
  • Recent Alterations
  • In another recent result researchers chemically altered the polyethylene glycol polymer so that the glue would shrink when it hardened
  • This could counter tissue swelling during surgery
  • Multimedia
  • Mytilus mussel withb yssus showing, on a rock atOcean Beach, San Francisco,California,USA | Brocken Inaglory
  • Adding a glue modeled on the biochemistry of mussel attachment quickly sealed a punctured fetal membrane in rabbits, protecting the fetal bunnies inside | news.ScienceMag.org | Credit: Martin Ehrbar from University Hospital Zurich
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Mussel Glue Could Help Repair Birth Defects – ScienceNOW | News.ScienceMag.org
  • Translation of Mussel Adhesion to Beneficial New Concepts and Materials | AAAS.Confex.com

Food Ninja Dogs

  • A new study suggests dogs might understand people even better than we thought
  • The research shows that domestic dogs, when told not to snatch a piece of food, are more likely to disobey the command in a dark room than in a lit room
  • Dogs have specialized skills in reading human communication, specific in dogs
  • The Test
  • A research team recruited 84 dogs, all of which were more than a year old, motivated by food, and comfortable with both strangers and dark rooms
  • The team then set up experiments in which a person commanded a dog not to take a piece of food on the floor
  • They then repeated the commands in a room with different lighting scenarios ranging from fully lit to fully dark
  • What the team found was that the dogs were four times as likely to steal the food-and steal it more quickly—when the room was dark
  • It was thought that whether the dogs saw the human would would affect the results, but weather the dogs saw the human or not didn\’t affect the behavior
  • The dog\’s behavior depended on whether the food was in the light or not, suggesting that the dog made its decision based on whether the human could see them approaching the food
  • Results and Future
  • The study of dog cognition suddenly began about 15 years ago
  • Many of the new dog studies are variations on research done with chimpanzees, bonobos, and even young children
  • Dogs are better at reading human cues than even our closest mammalian relatives
  • Researchers are now interested in whether the dog has a theory of mind, \”an understanding that others have different perspective, knowledge, feelings than we do\”
  • While research reveals more and more insight into the minds we still don\’t know just how smart they are
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Siberian Husky – Kiba The Pizza Thief | SeberHusky
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Confirmed: Dogs Sneak Food When People Aren\’t Looking | news.NationalGeographic.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Dennis Tito, Space Tourist, Now Mars Mission Planner

  • ”The Plan\”
  • Dennis Tito, the first-ever space tourist, is planning send a human mission to Mars in January 2018 on a round-trip journey lasting 501 days
  • Reportedly, Tito has created a new nonprofit company called the Inspiration Mars Foundation to facilitate the mission
  • Presentation
  • Tito, along with several other notable people from the space community will provide more information in a press conference set for Wednesday, February 27th
  • The paper Tito plans to present at the IEEE Aerospace Conference in March, will discuss a crewed free-return Mars mission that would fly by Mars, not going into orbit or landing
  • Initial Mission Breakdown
  • The 501-day mission would launch in January 2018, “using a modified SpaceX Dragon spacecraft launched on a Falcon Heavy rocket,”
  • Existing environmental control and life support system (ECLSS) technologies would allow such a spacecraft to support two people for the mission,
  • The paper outlines how NASA would also have a role in this mission in terms of supporting key life support and thermal protection systems, even though this is a private-sector effort
  • Crew comfort would be limited to survival needs only, sponge baths are acceptable, with no need for showers
  • Of Note
  • No estimates of what such a mission would cost are included in the paper, but it does say it would be financed privately
  • The paper adds that if they miss this favorable 2018 opportunity, the next chance to take advantage of this lower energy trajectory would be in 2031.
  • Multimedia
  • Image Dennis Tito, the first private citizen to visit the International Space Station | NASA via Wikipedia
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Dennis Tito Wants to Send Human Mission to Mars in 2018 | UniverseToday.com

— Updates —

Another Step for Bionic Eyes

  • Clinical Trials
  • As part of the first module of second human clinical trials in Germany research found that, during the course of a three to nine month observation period, functional vision was restored in the majority of nine patients implanted with a subretinal microchip
  • Patients were implanted with Retina Implant AG\’s subretinal wireless 3×3 mm2, 1500 pixel Alpha IMS microchip and are able to adjust the level of stimulation received to view objects at varied distances
  • Test Data
  • Visual acuity for two of the nine patients surpassed the visual resolution of patients from the Company\’s first human clinical trial
  • Of the nine patients observed in the study, three patients were able to read letters spontaneously during observation in and outside the laboratory patients
  • They also reported the ability to recognize faces, distinguish objects such as telephones and read signs on doors
  • Results
  • Results from the first trial concluded that the implantation of Retina Implant\’s microchip was successful in restoring useful vision in patients previously blind due to retinitis pigmentosa
  • second clinical trial with a wireless device that allows patients to use the implant outdoors and at home and has since expanded into the multicentre phase
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Scientists help blind man see again | Channel4News
  • YouTube | Blind man given bionic eye describes seeing again | Frank Swain
  • YouTube | Animation of Retina Implant | jonmillsswns
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Retina Implant AG
  • Retinal implants with wireless microchip restore functional vision in retinitis pigmentosa patients, research finds | MedicalXpress.com

Russian Meteorite Orbital Calculations

  • Initial Calculations
  • Just a week after a huge fireball streaked across the skies of the Chelyabinsk region of Russia, astronomers published a paper that reconstructs the orbit and determines the origins of the space rock
  • Scientists at the University of Antioquia in Colombia used a resource not always available in meteorite falls: the numerous dashboard and security cameras that captured the huge fireball
  • Using the trajectories shown in videos posted on YouTube, the researchers were able to calculate the trajectory of the meteorite as it fell to Earth and use it to reconstruct the orbit in space of the meteoroid before its violent encounter with our planet.
  • Although the results are preliminary and they are already working on getting more precise results, through their calculations, the team determined the rock originated from the Apollo class of asteroids
  • In addition to the video data they Google Earth to reconstruct the path of the rock as it entered the atmosphere and showed that it matched an image of the trajectory taken by the geostationary Meteosat-9 weather satellite.
  • Even with the plethora of video\’s due to variations in time and date stamps on several of the videos, some which differed by several minutes, they decided to choose two videos from different locations that seemed to be the most reliable
  • From triangulation, they were able to determine height, speed and position of the meteorite as it fell to Earth
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Preliminary Orbit of the Chelyabinsk Meteoroid.mp4 | Jorge Zuluaga
  • YouTube | The video from Revolutionary Square in Chelyabinsk
  • YouTube | Video recorded in Korkino
  • YouTube Meteor Over Russia seen by Meteosat-9 [HD] | TheMarsUnderground
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Astronomers Calculate Orbit and Origins of Russian Fireball | universetoday.com

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE / VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Dragon resupply

  • On March 1 at 10:10 AM EST, the Dragon CRS-2 is slated to blast off on a Dragon cargo vehicle on what will be only the 2nd commercial resupply mission ever to the ISS
  • The mission will carrying about 1,200 pounds of vital supplies and science experiments for the six man international crew living aboard the million pound orbiting outpost
  • The Dragon will remain docked to the ISS for about three weeks while the crew unloads all manner of supplies including food, water, clothing, spare parts and gear and new science experiments
  • The astronauts will replace all that cargo load with numerous critical experiment samples they have stored during ongoing research activities, as well as no longer needed equipment and trash totaling about 2300 pounds, for the return trip to Earth and a Pacific Ocean splashdown set for March 25
  • ‏@Tubsta pointed this story out on Twitter as well
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Commercial Resupply Launch | NASA.gov

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Remembering David McKay [September 25, 1936 – February 20, 2013]

  • As a graduate student, McKay was in the audience when President John F. Kennedy gave his legendary \”We choose to go to the moon\” speech
  • McKay joined NASA in June of 1965 and participated extensively in astronaut training leading up to 1969\’s historic Apollo 11 mission
  • He also served as chief scientist for astrobiology at NASA\’s Johnson Space Center in Houston
  • McKay was lead author of a 1996 paper in the journal Science that suggested ALH84001 may contain evidence of past life on Mars.
  • While the claim still spurs controversy, it also sparked a shift in perspectives that is alive and well within NASA today and prompted the establishment of the NASA Astrobiology Institute
  • McKay developed innovative new technology for both life detection and the use of lunar regolith as feedstock, radiation protection, fuel, nutrient source for microbial bioreactors and long-term lunar habitation.
  • Publications
  • David published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers on lunar samples, space resource utilization, cosmic dust, meteorites, astrobiology and Mars topics, as well as about twice that many published abstracts, and this body of work includes many contributions to our understanding of the development and evolution of the lunar regolith and space weathering processes
  • Professional Positions
  • Chief Scientist for Astrobiology and Planetary Science and Exploration, 1996 – 2013
  • Assistant for Exploration and Technology – NASA Johnson Space Center, 1994 – 96
  • Chief, Planetary Programs Office – NASA Johnson Space Center, 1991 – 94
  • Chief, Mission Science and Technology Office – NASA Johnson Space Center, 1990 – 91
  • Chief, Space Resources Utilization Office – NASA Johnson Space Center, 1987 – 90
  • Staff Scientist – NASA Johnson Space Center, 1965 – 87
  • Exploration Geophysicist, Exxon and Marine Geophysical, 1960 – 61
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • David S. McKay, Chief Scientist for Astrobiology | ares.jsc.nasa.gov
  • Pioneering Moon, Mars Scientist David McKay Dies at 76 | Space.com

Looking back

  • March 05, 1223 BC : 3236 years ago : Oldest Eclipse Record : The oldest recorded eclipse occurred, according to one plausible interpretation of a date inscribed on a clay tablet retrieved from the ancient city of Ugarit, Syria (as it is now). This date is favoured by recent authors on the subject, although alternatively 3 May 1375 BC has also been proposed as plausible. Certainly by the 8th century BC, the Babylonians were keeping a systematic record of solar eclipses, and possibly by this time they may have been able to apply numerological rules to make fairly accurate predictions of the occurrence of solar eclipses. The first total solar eclipse reliably recorded by the Chinese occurred on 4 Jun 180 BC.

Looking up this week

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]]> Arthritis & Hawking’s Voice | SciByte 80 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/31326/arthritis-hawkings-voice-scibyte-80/ Tue, 05 Feb 2013 22:11:50 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=31326 We take a look at measuring arthritis, Stephen Hawking’s voice, building moons with a game, an update on subglacial lakes, viewer feedback, and much more.

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We take a look at measuring arthritis, Stephen Hawking’s voice, building moons with a game, an update on subglacial lakes, 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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Show Notes:

Arthritis

  • What if your doctor could actually listen to your body, monitoring the way your knees sound as they bend and flex
  • A new, noninvasive, and low-cost method for the early detection and monitoring of osteoarthritis (arthritis caused by wear and tear) may be on its way
  • It suggests that detecting this friction, may points to new research directions for getting to the root cause of arthritis
  • Osteoarthritis
  • The degeneration of cartilage is the most common cause of osteoarthritis: The pads wear away, leaving bone grinding against bone
  • Researchers have found that it isn\’t just any kind of friction that leads to the irreversible wear and tear on the material
  • It is currently believed that a high-friction force, or \’coefficient of friction,\’ is the primary factor in surface wear and damage, new research has found is that this is not the case
  • The critical feature is not a high-friction force, but what is known as \”stick-slip\” friction, or, sometimes, \”stiction.\”
  • Both are characterized by surfaces that initially stick together, and then accelerate away quickly once the static friction force is overcome
  • Stick-Slip Friction
  • Stick-slip is a common phenomenon, that is responsible for everything from computer hard drive crashes and automobile failures, to squeaking doors and music
  • The same thing happens with a violin string, even if you\’re pulling the bow steadily, it\’s moving in hundreds or thousands of little jerks per second, which determine the sound you hear
  • Each little jerk, no matter how submicroscopic, is an impact, and over time the accumulation of these impacts can deform surfaces, causing irreparable damage-first microscopically, then growing to macroscopic
  • It\’s not easy to tell the difference between types of friction at the microscopic level
    Smooth-sliding joints might feel the same as those undergoing stiction, or the even more harmful stick-slip, especially in the early stages of arthritis
  • Measuring the Types of Friction
  • An instrument called a Surface Forces Apparatus (SFA), measures the adhesion and friction forces between surfaces-in this case cartilage, the pad of tissue that covers the ends of bones at a joint.
  • By studying patterns of friction between cartilage pads, researchers have discovered a different type of friction that is more likely to cause wear and damage
  • When measured with an ultra-sensitive and high-resolution instrument like the Surface Forces Apparatus (SFA), each type of friction revealed its own characteristic profile
  • Smooth-sliding joints yielded an almost smooth constant line, friction force or friction trace
  • Stiction shows up as a peak, as the \”sticking\” was being overcome, followed by a relatively smooth line
  • Stick-slip shows the jagged sawtooth profile of two surfaces repeatedly pulling apart, sticking, and pulling apart again
  • These measurements could be recorded by placing an acoustic or electric sensing device around joints, giving a signal similar to an EKG
  • These reading could be a good way to measure and diagnose damage to the cartilage, to measure the progression, or even the early detection of symptoms related to arthritis which has been a priority for many years
  • The Future
  • Scientists will continue their work by studying synovial fluid, the lubricating fluid between two cartilage surfaces in joints
  • Synovial fluid plays a major role in whether or not the surfaces wear and tear, and the synergistic roles of the different molecules (proteins, lipids, and polymers) all involved in lubricating and preventing damage to our joints.
  • There are a number of directions to take, both fundamental and practical and currently it looks as if there is need to focus research on finding ways to prevent stick-slip motion, rather than lowering the friction force
  • Multimedia
  • Image Steady-state sliding profiles illustrate the different types of friction | UCSB
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Study of friction reveals clues about arthritis | phys.org

— NEWS BYTE —

Stephen Hawking\’s Voice

  • Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has long relied on technology to help him connect with the outside world despite the degenerative motor neuron disease he has battled for the past 50 years
  • A computer scientist indicated at this year\’s International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that he and his team may be close to a breakthrough that could boost the rate at which the physicist communicates, which has fallen to a mere one word per minute in recent years.
  • Current SetUp
  • Hawking\’s current setup includes a tablet PC with a forward-facing Webcam that he can use to place Skype calls
  • A black box beneath his wheelchair contains an audio amplifier, voltage regulators and a USB hardware key that receives the input from an infrared sensor on Hawking’s eyeglasses, which detects changes in light as he twitches his cheek
  • A hardware voice synthesizer sits in another black box on the back of the chair and receives commands from the computer via a USB-based serial port
  • Intel\’s Interface Technology
  • Intel has since the late 1990s supplied Hawking with technology to help the scientist express himself
  • For the past decade Hawking has used a voluntary twitch of his cheek muscle to compose words and sentences one letter at a time that are expressed through a speech-generating device connected to his computer.
  • Each tweak stops a cursor that continuously scans text on a screen facing the scientist.
  • In late 2011 Hawking reached out to inform the Intel cofounder that the physicist’s ability to compose text was slowing and inquiring whether Intel could help.
  • Possibly Improving Hawkings Interface Technology
  • They met with Hawking early last year around the time of the latter’s 70th birthday celebration in Cambridge, where the Intel CTO was one of the speakers
  • Intel chief technology officer noted that Hawking can actually make a number of other facial expressions as well that might also be used to restore the scientist’s ability to communicate at five words per minute, or even increase that rate to 10
  • Intel is now working on a system that can use Hawking’s cheek twitch as well as mouth and eyebrow movements to provide signals to his computer they have built a new, a character-driven interface in modern terms that includes a better word predictor
  • The company is also exploring the use of facial-recognition software to create a new user interface for Hawking that would be quicker than selecting individual letters or words
  • Even providing Hawking with two inputs would give him the ability to communicate using Morse code
  • Other Plans for This Technology
  • Intel’s work with Hawking is part of the company’s broader research into smart gadgets as well as assistive technologies for the elderly
  • The key to advancing smart devices-which have been at a plateau over the past five or six years-is context awareness
  • Devices will really get to know us the way a friend would, understanding how our facial expressions reflect our mood
  • Intel’s plan for identifying personal context requires a combination of hardware sensors-camera, accelerometer, microphone, thermometer and others with software that can check one’s personal calendar, social networks and Internet browsing habits, to name a few.
  • One approach to “pervasive assistance” is the Magic Carpet, a rug that Intel and GE developed with embedded sensors and accelerometers that can record a person’s normal routine and even their gait, sounding an alert when deviations are detected.
  • Such assistance will anticipate our needs, letting us know when we are supposed to be at an appointment and even reminding us to carry enough cash when running certain errands
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Chipmaker Races to Save Stephen Hawking’s Speech as His Condition Deteriorates | scientificamerican.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Moon Games

  • \”Selene: A Lunar Construction GaME\”
  • Is an online game that allows players to build their own moon and sculpt its features has won big praise in science art competition and received an honorable mention in the 2012 International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge
  • The game measures how and when players learn as they discover more about how the Earth\’s moon formed and by extension, the solar system.
  • Playing the Game
  • In the first round, players aim asteroids of varying sizes, densities, and radiations so that they collide with one another
  • Too much force, and the rocks ricochet off one another and even if you overshoot your target, the gravity of the growing moon may tug just enough to pull the new piece into the pack
  • After all of the small asteroids have melted together to form a smooth new moon, it\’s time to scratch up the surface
  • Players can then aim asteroids of varying sizes at the body, and select areas where lava breaks through the crust
  • The players moon is constantly compared to the real-life one, and players strive to make as close a match as possible
  • When they look at the moon, players are seeing what actually created those features and makes moon observations more meaningful
  • Because the accretion and surface-sculpting processes for the moon echo that of the rest of the planets, players also develop an understanding of how the early solar system formed
  • Primary Goal
  • One of the primary goals of Selene is to allow the team to analyze the learning process, which means the game requires a login, and for minors, parental permission must be given.
  • Analyzation of the data takes time, but it is able to provide a quick overview of a persons game play so you can tell from looking at your data what your experiences were
  • That under-the-hood ability to study learning is why the project was so attractive in terms of funding to NASA and the National Science Foundation
  • History and Future
  • A prototype of the game was developed by CyGaMEs in May of 2007, and the first version was released in 2010. bit the game is constantly being improved as the understanding of the learning process grows
  • The team is also looking at expanding it to mobile platforms in the near future.
  • The team says that the recognition is of course a great honor and encouragement – but more importantly it may drive more players to the website so that we can collect more data about how participants learn
  • At the same time, more people can learn about how the moon formed, growing their understanding of the nearest celestial body.
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube Mountain State Science – Lunar Games | WVPublicBroadcasting
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Selene.cet.edu
  • Online Game on How Earth\’s Moon Formed Nabs Honors | Space.com

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE —

Kepler back on track

  • Last time on SciByte
  • SciByte 78 | Dyscalculia & the Flu- SPACECRAFT UPDATE – Kepler | January 22, 2013
  • What happened
  • Kepler went into a protective \”safe mode\” on Jan. 17 after engineers detected elevated friction levels in one of its reaction wheels
  • Engineers spun the wheels down to zero speed, hoping the break would redistribute lubricant and bring the friction back down to normal
  • The update
  • NASA\’s Kepler space telescope mission officials announced on Jan. 29 that it has resumed its search for alien planets after resting for 10 days to work out kinks in its attitude control system,
  • Though it will take time to determine if the problem is solved daily health and status checks with the spacecraft were normal during the safe mode
  • Over the next month, the engineering team will review the performance of reaction wheel #4 before, during and after the safe mode to determine the efficacy of the rest operation
  • The wheel has acted up before without causing serious problems with a variety of friction signatures, none of which look like reaction wheel #2, failed in July 2012, and all of which disappeared on their own after a time
  • Social Media
  • NASA Kepler @NASAKepler
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • NASA\’s Planet-Hunting Kepler Spacecraft Recovering from Glitch | Space.com

— Updates —

Antarctic Subglacial lake

  • Last time on SciByte
  • SciByte 33 | Sub Glacial Lakes & Updates | February 14, 2012
  • The search continues for life in subglacial Lake Whillans, 2,600 feet below the surface of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet-but a thrilling preliminary result has detected signs of life
  • **Sampling the Water
  • At 6:20am on January 28, four people in sterile white Tyvek suits tended to a winch winding cable onto the drill platform
  • One person knocked frost off the cable as it emerged from the ice borehole a few feet below
  • A gray plastic vessel, as long as a baseball bat, filled with water from Lake Whillans, half a mile below.
  • The bottle was hurried into a 40-foot cargo container outfitted as a laboratory on skis
  • Some of the lake water was squirted into bottles of media in order to grow whatever microbes might inhabit the lake
  • What Has Been Seen
  • When lake water was viewed under a microscope, cells were seen: their tiny bodies glowed green in response to DNA-sensitive dye.
  • Although this was the first evidence of life in an Antarctic subglacial lake, cultures could require weeks to produce results
  • Minerals in the Water
  • The half mile of glacial ice sitting atop Lake Whillans is quite pure-derived from snow that fell onto Antarctica thousands of years ago.
  • It contains only one-hundredth the level of dissolved minerals that are seen in a clear mountain creek, or in tap water from a typical city
  • However a sensor lowered down the borehole showed that dissolved minerals were far more abundant in the lake itself
  • The fact that we see high concentrations is suggestive that there’s some interesting water-rock-microbe interaction that’s going on
  • Microbes, in other words, might well be munching on minerals under the ice sheet
  • Munching on Minerals?
  • Lake bacteria could live on commonly occurring pyrite minerals that contain iron and sulfur
  • They would obtain energy by using oxygen to essentially “burn” that iron and sulfur, similar to the way that animals use oxygen to slowly burn sugars and fats
  • The team will perform experiments to see whether microbes taken from the lake metabolize iron, sulfur, or other components of minerals
  • Where Does the Oxygen Come From?
  • Oxygen comes from water melting off the base of the ice sheet-maybe a few penny thicknesses of ice per year
  • When you melt ice, you’re liberating the air bubbles trapped in that ice that’s 20 percent oxygen
  • The Future
  • In order to conclusively demonstrate that Lake Whillans harbors life, the researchers will need to complete more time-consuming experiments showing that the cells actually grow
  • Dead cells can sometimes show up under a microscope with DNA-sensitive but weeks or months will pass before it is known whether these cells represent known types of microbes, or something never seen before
  • The team will also analyze the DNA of those microbes to see whether they’re related to rock-chewing bacteria that are already known to science.
  • Taking What We Learn
  • Antarctica isn’t the only place in the solar system where water sits concealed in the dark beneath thick ice.
  • Europa and Enceladus (moons of Jupiter and Saturn, respectively) are also thought to harbor oceans of liquid water.
  • What is learned at Lake Whillans could shed light on how best to look for life in these other places
  • Multimedia
  • Image Gallery U.S. Team Penetrates Subglacial Lake Whillans | DiscoverMagazine.com
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • First Evidence of Life in Antarctic Subglacial Lake : The Crux | blogs.discovermagazine.com

World’s largest prime number

  • The number, 2 multiplied by itself 57,885,161 times, written mathematically as 257,885,161-1
  • It is the first prime discovered in four years and has 17,425,170 digits

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Finding an observatory

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

  • **Drilling Prep – “Pre-Load” test*
  • Curiosity drove about 3.5 meters to reach the John Klein outcrop that the team chose as the 1st drilling site, a shallow depression known as ‘Yellowknife Bay’
  • There is widespread evidence for repeated episodes of the ancient flow of liquid water near her landing site inside Gale Crater on Mars.
  • The Curiosity team placed its drill onto a series of four locations on a Martian rock and pressed down on it with the rover\’s arm, in preparation for using the drill, a \”Pre-load\” test
  • The next step was an overnight pre-load test, to gain assurance that the large temperature change from day to night at the rover\’s location does not add excessively to stress on the arm while it is pressing on the drill
  • Air temperature plunges from about 32 degrees Fahrenheit (zero degrees Celsius) in the afternoon to minus 85 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 65 degrees Celsius) overnight
  • The temperature swing, this large rover\’s arm, chassis and mobility system grow and shrink by about a tenth of an inch (about 2.4 millimeters), a little more than the thickness of a U.S. quarter-dollar coin
  • Drilling Prep – “Drill-on-Rock”
  • A \”drill-on-rock checkout\” will use the hammering action of Curiosity\’s drill briefly, without rotation of the drill bit, for assurance that the back-and-forth percussion mechanism and associated control system are properly tuned for hitting a rock
  • The bit in the rotary-percussion drill of NASA\’s Mars rover Curiosity left its mark in a target patch of rock on Feb. 2, 2013, the test only used the hammering or percussive action of the drill, not rotary action.
  • The length of the gray divot cut by the drill bit is about two-thirds of an inch (1.7 centimeters)
  • Drilling Prep – upcoming “Mini Drill” test
  • Another preparatory test, called \”mini drill,\” will precede the full drilling
  • The mini drill test will use both the rotary and percussive actions of the drill to generate a ring of rock powder around a hole
  • This will allow for evaluation of the material to see if it behaves as a dry powder suitable for processing by the rover\’s sample handling mechanisms
  • The \”mini-drill\” is designed to produce a small ring of tailings, powder resulting from drilling the surface of the rock while penetrating less than eight-tenths of an inch (2 centimeters)
  • Other notes
  • The Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) was also placed in contact with the ground to determine the chemical composition of the rock drill test site and possible calcium sulfate vein and investigate its hydration state.
  • This will be the first time any robot has drilled into a rock to collect a sample on Mars and Curiosity can drill to a depth of about 2 inches (5 cm) into rocks
  • Ultimately a powdered and sieved sample about half an aspirin tablet in size will be delivered to the SAM and CheMin analytical labs on the rover deck.
  • Multimedia
  • Preparatory Test for First Rock Drilling by Mars Rover Curiosity | Mars Science Laboratory: Images
  • Drill Bit Tip on Mars Rover Curiosity, Head-on View | Mars Science Laboratory: Images
  • Drill Bit Tip on Mars Rover Curiosity, Side View | Mars Science Laboratory: Images
  • Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
  • Social Media
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Curiosity Hammers into Mars Rock in Historic Feat | universetoday.com
  • Mars Science Laboratory: Weekend Test on Mars Was Preparation to Drill a Rock | mars.jpl.nasa.gov
  • Historic First Use of Drill on Mars Set for Jan. 31 – Curiosity’s Sol 174 | UniverseToday.com
  • Mars Science Laboratory: Curiosity Maneuver Prepares for Drilling | mars.jpl.nasa.gov
  • NASA\’s Curiosity Rover Poised to Drill Into Mars | Space.com | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • Feb 06, 1971 : 42 years ago : Golf on the Moon : Apollo 14 astronaut Alan Shepard takes a few shots at some golf balls while on the moon. Near the end of the second moonwalk, and just before entering the lunar module for the last time, Shepard (an avid golfer) attached a 6-iron golf club to the end of a sample collecting tool. Despite thick gloves and a stiff suit that forced him to swing the club with one hand only, he hit two golf balls. The first landed in a nearby crater. The second was hit squarely, and in the one-sixth gravity of the moon, Shepard said it traveled \”miles and miles and miles.\” Then the U.S. Apollo IV astronauts prepared to head back to Earth after a 33-hour stay on the moon. The golf club is on display at the U.S. Golf Association headquarters in Far Hills, N.J.
  • YouTube APOLLO 14 Golf Shot On The Moon | MoonInGoogleEarth

Looking up this week

The post Arthritis & Hawking’s Voice | SciByte 80 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Dyscalculia & the Flu | SciByte 78 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/30581/dyscalculia-the-flu-scibyte-78/ Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:40:03 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=30581 We take a look at dyscalculia, the flu, laser communication, viewer feedback, spacecraft updates, Curiosity news and more!

The post Dyscalculia & the Flu | SciByte 78 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at dyscalculia, the flu, laser communication, 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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Show Notes:

Dyscalculia

  • Researchers estimate that as much as 7% of the population has dyscalculia, sometimes called number blindness, which is marked by severe difficulties in dealing with numbers despite otherwise normal, or well above normal, intelligence
  • A cognitive scientist who studies numerical cognition and a learning disability likened to dyslexia for mathematics works on identifying its cause as well as ways to help those who suffer from it
  • Approximate number sense
  • Approximate number sense, distinguishes larger quantities from smaller ones, be they dots flashing on a screen or fruits in a tree.
  • A second ancient number system allows humans and many other animals to instantly and precisely recognize small quantities, up to four.
  • People who are poor at distinguishing approximate quantities do badly in maths, suggesting that the approximate-number system is crucial.
  • Some work shows that dyscalculics are poor at recognizing small numbers, suggesting that this ability is also fundamental to numeracy
  • If, dyscalculia is at heart a deficiency of basic number sense and not of memory, attention or language, as others have proposed, then nurturing the roots of number sense should help dyscalculics
  • Testing
  • The team tested 31 eight- and nine-year-old children who were near the bottom of their class in mathematics but did well enough in other subjects.
  • Compared with normal children and those with dyslexia, the dyscalculic children struggled on almost every numerical task, yet were average on tests of reading comprehension, memory and IQ.
  • The study confirmed for some that developmental forms of dyscalculia are the result of basic problems in comprehending numbers and not in other cognitive faculties
  • Determining exactly what those problems are would prove challenging
  • Approximation and a sense of small numbers, while critical, are not enough for humans to precisely grasp large numbers,
    argues that another cognitive capacity is even more fundamental to number sense
  • ‘Numerosity coding’
  • ‘Numerosity coding’ is the understanding that things have a precise quantity associated with them, and that adding or taking things away alters that quantity.
  • Young children who could not yet count past two nonetheless understood that adding pennies to a bowl containing six somehow altered its number, even if the children couldn’t say exactly how.
  • If numerosity coding is fundamental, it predicts that dyscalculics struggle to enumerate and manipulate all numbers, large and small.
  • Number Sense Games
  • The Number Sense games are intended to nurture the abilities that might be the root of numerical cognition and the core deficit of dyscalculia — manipulating precise quantities.
  • One game involves a number line, then the child is asked “What is the number that is right in the middle between 200 and 800? Do you know it?
  • A classic sign of dyscalculia is difficulty in grasping the place-value system,
  • A soft computer voice tells “Christopher” to “find the number and click it
  • The game involves zooming in and zooming out to rescale the number line, with the computer talking him through each move, a strategy that is encouraged, however it takes him more than a minute to locate 210
  • A Tetris-like game called Numberbonds, in which bars of different lengths fall down the screen and the person has to select a block of the correct size to fill out a row
  • This game emphasizes spatial relationships, which some dyscalculics also struggle with.
  • In a game called Dots to Track, for example, children must ascribe an Arabic numeral to a pattern of dots, similar to those on dice.
  • When they enter the wrong value the game asks the children to add or remove dots to achieve the correct answer.
  • Three months into the study one student seemed to be faring better at the number-line game, going so quickly that he is asked to slow down and explain his reasoning for each move
  • Dyscalculic children tend to learn much more quickly when they talk through what they do
  • It is also believed that his maths anxiety, a near-universal trait of child and adult dyscalculics, is fading
  • Other Studies
  • In 2011 a Swiss team reported that a game that involves placing a spaceship on a number line helped eight- to ten-year-old dyscalculics with arithmetic
  • They studied the children in an fMRI scanner during a task that involved arranging numbers.
  • One month after training, the children showed increased activation in the intraparietal sulcus and reduced neural activation elsewhere in the parietal lobes – a hint that their improvements in arithmetic were related to changes involving brain areas that respond to number.
  • There are now hopes to monitor the brains of students such as they practice Number Sense, to see if their parietal lobes are indeed changing
  • Scans of people with dyscalculia suggest that their intraparietal sulci are less active when processing numbers and less connected with the rest of the brain compared with numerate children and adults.
  • However these may be seen as a result of these consequences, not causes, of the poor numerical abilities that characterize dyscalculia.
  • Complications
  • While some students improve Other students are improving more slowly, but it is not easy to say why
  • Dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder are common among dyscalculics, and it can be difficult to untangle these problems,
  • In 2009 Number Race, a game developed, modestly improved the ability of 15 dyscalculic kindergarten children to discern the larger of two numbers, but that it had no effect on their arithmetic or counting
  • With the right practice and attention from teachers and parents, dyscalculic children can thrive, computer games are a supplement, not a replacement, for one-on-one tutoring.
  • In addition the games are designed with the interest of the children to have a fun game full of ideas and variety, is not very compatible with an analytic approach
  • Funding
  • Currently it is hard to get funding as dyscalculia doesn’t attract much attention or money
  • In the United States, the National Institutes of Health spent $2 million studying dyscalculia between 2000 and 2011, compared with more than $107 million on dyslexia.
  • Cubans, curiously, are putting money into this, even though they’ve got very little
  • The Future
  • The team now has tentative plans to evaluate its software with researchers at the Cuban Neurosciences Center and the University of Pedagogical Sciences in Havana next year
  • There are also plans to place the games in other countries, including China and Singapore.
  • There are hopes that Number Sense, if it can improve dyscalculia, will help the academic debate over the cognitive basis of numeracy there are some difficulties however
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube clip How many Dots?
  • YouTube clip | Counting dots in groups
  • YouTube Understanding Dyscalculia at Western | WesternUniversity
  • YouTube Discovering Dyscalculia | tvoparents
  • YouTube What Is Dyscalculia? | NCLD1401
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Dyscalculia Forum
  • Numbers Games Devised to Aid People with “Dyscalculia” | Scientific American

— NEWS BYTE —

The War Against Flu

  • The flu knows how long it has to invade our cells and spread to other humans. So new treatments could fight the virus by resetting its clock.
  • Viruses
  • Viruses multiply by invading a host cell, hijacking its machinery and using it to make new copies of itself.
  • Cells have warning systems that can detect this invasion and call in reinforcements, but that can take a while.
  • The virus has to orchestrate its actions carefully–if it moves too fast, it won’t have time to make new copies of itself, and if it moves too slowly, it might be stopped by immune defenses.
  • The Flu Virus
  • Researchers have knows that the flu virus needs about eight hours to make copies of itself before a cell will notice it
  • In order to make enough copies of itself to infect another human, it needs about two days of continuous activity inside our cells
  • Researchers have figured out that the virus slowly gathers a protein it needs to make its exit, they tricked the virus into changing the amount of time it took to gather the protein.
  • In one case they made it acquire the protein too quickly, which caused the flu to leave the cell before it had made enough copies of itself.
  • In another they altered it to leave too late, giving immune cells enough time to respond and kill the virus before it escaped.
  • Of Note
  • Although currently a flu vaccine is still the best way to protect yourself against the flu, not everyone is eligible to get one
  • However, current vaccines must rely on an educated guess about which flu will spread throughout the population in a season, and there are only so many vaccines.
  • A treatment that targets the virus’ clock wouldn’t need a dead or weakened version of the flu–it would just need to fool the virus’s internal protein clock into losing track of time
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube Flu Attack! How A Virus Invades Your Body | npr
  • YouTube Clip Flu virus invading and being attacked | npr
  • YouTube Clip Flu virus copying and spreading | npr
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • The Flu Virus Can Tell Time. Here’s Why You Should Care | Popular Science

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Mona Lisa to the Moon and Back

  • The low down
  • Typically, satellites that go beyond Earth orbit use radio waves for tracking and communication
  • As part of the first demonstration of laser communication with a satellite at the moon, scientists with NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) beamed an image of the Mona Lisa to the spacecraft from Earth.
  • The iconic image traveled nearly 240,000 miles in digital form from the Next Generation Satellite Laser Ranging (NGSLR) station at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., to the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) instrument on the spacecraft.
  • By transmitting the image piggyback on laser pulses that are routinely sent to track LOLA’s position, the team achieved simultaneous laser communication and tracking.
  • Significance
  • This was accomplished without interfering with LOLA’s primary task of mapping the moon’s elevation and terrain and NGSLR’s primary task of tracking LRO.
  • The success of the laser transmission was verified by returning the image to Earth using the spacecraft’s radio telemetry system.
  • Precise timing was the key to transmitting the image, every pixel was converted into a shade of gray, represented by a number between zero and 4,095.
  • They divided the Mona Lisa image into an array of 152 pixels by 200 pixels with each pixel transmitted by a laser pulse, with the pulse being fired in one of 4,096 possible time slots during a brief time window allotted for laser tracking
  • The complete image was transmitted at a data rate of about 300 bits per second.
  • The laser pulses were received by LRO’s LOLA instrument, which reconstructed the image based on the arrival times of the laser pulses from Earth
  • Turbulence in Earth’s atmosphere introduced transmission errors even when the sky was clear, the team employed Reed-Solomon coding, which is the same type of error-correction code commonly used in CDs and DVDs.
  • Of Note
  • LRO is the only satellite in orbit around a body other than Earth to be tracked by laser as well.
  • The next step after LLCD is the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD), NASA’s first long-duration optical communications mission.
  • In the near future, this type of simple laser communication might serve as a backup for the radio communication that satellites use, in the more distant future, it may allow communication at higher data rates than present radio links can provide
  • Social Media
  • LRO_NASA @LRO_NASA
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • YouTube NASA beams Mona Lisa to Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter at the moon (w/ video)

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Picture of the Moon

– SPACECRAFT UPDATE –

Kepler

  • Safe Mode
  • The Kepler telescope went into safe mode on Jan. 17 for a planned 10 days, during which time the telescope’s reaction wheels — spinning devices used by the observatory to maintain its position in space —will be rested after researchers detected an unexpected increase in the amount of torque needed to rotate
  • Kepler officials say they are “Resting the wheels provides an opportunity to redistribute internal lubricant, potentially returning the friction to normal levels”
  • Once the 10-day rest period ends, the team will recover the spacecraft from this resting safe mode and return to science operations
  • When the Kepler spacecraft launched in March 2009, it had four functional reaction wheels — three for immediate use, plus one spare; however, one of the wheels failed last July
  • Opening the Data Sets
  • Researchers are now posting all exoplanet sightings by the Kepler observatory into a single, comprehensive website called the “NASA Exoplanet Archive.”
  • Instead of going through the long planet confirmation process before making data publicly available
  • So the day NASA knows about the list, the archive knows about the list. And then everybody,
  • In addition the list is dynamic so if anyone, including a community person, makes an observation and says, ‘Hey, I looked at this planet candidate but it’s really an eclipsing binary,’ then that entry in the archive will be changed."
  • The archive has information about the size, orbital period and other metrics of any possible planet discovered and investigated by Kepler
  • Planet Hunters, a collective of amateur astronomers, recently found 42 new alien planets using Kepler data that was publicly available prior to the launch of the new archive system.
  • Multimedia
  • Image Galleries | kepler.nasa.gov
  • Social Media
  • NASA Kepler @NASAKepler
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Kepler Space Telescope | kepler.nasa.gov
  • Kepler Participating Scientist Program Announcement | kepler.nasa.gov
  • Alien Planet Archive Now Open to World | NASA Kepler Spacecraft | Space.com
  • Planet-Hunting Kepler Spacecraft Shut Down Temporarily After Glitch | Space.com

– CURIOSITY UPDATE –

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • Jan 24, 1948 : 64 years ago : Early computer : IBM dedicated its “SSEC” in New York City. The Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator handled both data and instructions using electronic circuits made with 13,500 vacuum tubes and 21,000 relays. It occupied three sides of a 30-ft x 60-ft room. On the back wall, three punches and thirty readers provided paper-tape storage. Banks of vacuum tube circuits for card reading and sequence control and 36 paper tape readers comprising the table-lookup section occupied the left wall. Most of the right wall was filled by the electronic arithmetic unit and storage. In the center of the room were card readers, card punches, printers, and the operator’s console. It was visible to pedestrians on the sidewalk outside.

Looking up this week

The post Dyscalculia & the Flu | SciByte 78 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> HIV & SpaceView | SciByte 72 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/28011/hiv-spaceview-scibyte-72/ Tue, 27 Nov 2012 21:21:10 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=28011 We take a look at HIV treatment, public help watching the skies, Space Station, Curiosity updates!

The post HIV & SpaceView | SciByte 72 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at HIV treatment, public help watching the skies, Space Station, Curiosity updates, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Storm Front: The Dresden Files, Book 1 and Star Wars: The Thrawn Trilogy, Book 1

Annihilation: Star Wars: The Old Republic Audio Book

Show Notes:

New combination of HIV–1 antiretroviral drugs

  • The low down
  • Michel Nussenzweig’s Laboratory of Molecular Immunology found that a combination of five different antibodies that effectively suppressed HIV–1 replication and kept the virus at bay for a 60 day period after termination of therapy
  • In addition this new combination has a longer half-life than current antiretroviral drugs that require daily intake.
  • Significance
  • These especially potent antibodies were only recently discovered
  • They were identified and cloned from HIV-infected patients whose immune systems showed an unusually high ability to neutralize HIV
  • The antibodies had been written off as a treatment for HIV/AIDS because previous studies showed only a limited effect on controlling the virus before these more potent antibodies were discovered
  • HIV–1 is notorious for evading the immune system’s attacks by constantly mutating
  • Antibodies target HIV–1’s surface protein gp160, a large molecule that forms a spike that seeks out host cells and attaches to them
    One antibody alone wasn’t enough to quell the virus; neither was a mix of three, five of them in unison proved too complicated for gp160 to mutate its way out of.
  • Of Note
  • Although HIV–1 infection in humanized mice differs in many important aspects from infection in humans, the results are encouraging to investigate these antibodies in clinical trials
  • It also may be that a combination of antibodies and the already established antiretroviral therapy is more efficacious than either alone
  • These antibodies could be used as a treatment one day, it is conceivable that patients would only need to take traditional drugs until the virus is controlled then receive antibodies every two to three months to maintain that control
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Potent antibodies neutralize HIV and could offer new therapy, study finds | MedicalXPress.com

— NEWS BYTE —

DARAPA’s SpaceView Program

  • The U.S. military is launching a far-out neighborhood watch. But instead of warding off burglars, these amateur watchdogs are tracking orbital debris and possible satellite collisions in Earth orbit.
  • Significance
  • The sky-monitoring project, called SpaceView, is a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program that enrolls the talents of amateur astronomers
  • SpaceView should provide more diverse data from different geographic locations
  • It is envisioned as a long-term partnership. that could potentially include time-sharing on telescopes, upgraded hardware at the astronomer’s site or financial compensation
  • Of Note
  • SpaceView hopes to engage amateur astronomers by purchasing remote access to an already in-use telescope or by providing a telescope to selected astronomers
  • Telescopes used for astrophotography, asteroid hunting or simply high-quality astronomy are well suited for SpaceView’s needs
  • This new program provides the means to upgrade a skywatcher’s site to a state-of-the-art fully automated observer in late 2013, the process will start to select the first dozen members of the project
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • DARPA’s SpaceView project
  • DARPA Wants Amateur Help Tracking Space Junk | Space.com
  • DARPA unveils SpaceView program to engage amateur astronomers in helping to protect satellites | phys.org

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

  • Planetary Alignment
  • Mercury, Venus and Saturn will be aligned over the Giza Pyramids on Dec 3
  • While this is true they will not be perfectly aligned over the pyramids, they will be more vertically aligned in fact
  • These three planets formed a similar alignment in 2007

— Updates —

Higgs-Boson

  • Of Note
  • This information is from a blog on the Scientific American website
  • The Low Down
  • New data from the LHC continues to show promising results for Higgs-Boson particle
  • Further data is also following the Standard Model of particle physics limiting potential extensions
  • Including the concept of supersymmetry, the proposal that every elementary particle has a heavier, as-yet-unseen cousin
  • The LHC has yet to find any evidence for supersymmetric particles of any kind, although is has not been ruled out by our measurement, but it is strongly constrained
  • Only certain flavors of supersymmetry jibe with the new data, failure to find one variant of a theory is not evidence against other variants,”
  • The reigning theory of subatomic particles and forces, the Standard Model of particle physics, predicts just how often the effect should occur
  • The LHCb data match up well with the Standard Model predictions
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • LHC Experiment Yields No Insight into Post-Higgs Physics | blog.ScientificAmerican.com

– SPACECRAFT UPDATE –

Kepler gets mission extension

  • NASA is marking two milestones in the search for planets like Earth; the successful completion of the Kepler Space Telescope’s three-and-a-half-year prime mission and the beginning of an extended mission that could last as long as four years.
  • Highlights from the prime mission
  • Kepler was help identify more than 2,300 planet candidates and confirm more than 100 planets
  • Hundreds of Earth-size planet candidates have been found
  • confirmed the discovery of the first planetary system with more than one planet transiting the same star
  • the discovery of the first unquestionably rocky planet outside the solar system, 1.4 times the size of Earth in September 2011
  • Confirmed the existence of a world with a double sunset
  • Discoveries of six additional worlds orbiting double stars further demonstrated planets can form and persist in the environs of a double-star system
  • In December 2011 first planet in a habitable zone
  • In February 2012 transiting planet candidates totaled of 2,321
  • Recently the joint effort of amateur astronomers and scientists led to the first reported case of a planet orbiting a double star
  • Social Media
  • NASA Kepler | @NASAKepler
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Kepler wraps prime mission, begins extension | phys.org

Space Station Expedition 32/33 crew Returns Home

– CURIOSITY UPDATE –

  • Wind and Radiation
  • Radiation levels at the Martian surface appear to be roughly similar to those experienced by astronauts in low-Earth orbit and about half as high as the levels Curiosity experienced during its nine-month cruise through deep space
  • This add more support that astronauts can indeed function on the Red Planet for limited stretches of time.
  • These findings demonstrate that Mars’ atmosphere, though just 1 percent as thick as that of Earth, does provide a significant amount of shielding
  • Mars however lacks a magnetic field, which gives our planet another layer of protection.
  • Although these findings are preliminary, as Curiosity is just three months into a planned two-year prime mission
  • American Geophysical conference
  • Hard numbers on Martian surface radiation levels are planned to be released at the conference Dec 3
  • In a Nov 20 NPR radio interview Curiosity rover’s Principal Investigator, John Grotzinger, said that the team will soon make an announcement “for history books”
  • Organic molecules typically consists of carbon atoms in rings or long chains, where other atoms (e.g. hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen) are attached
  • While organics are a prerequisite to life. Life requires finding much more complex molecules, like amino acids and far more beyond that.
  • Hypotheses on the Announcement
  • They have already published preliminary surface radiation readings and there is evidence that they will be announcing the exact radiation reading on the surface on Mars.
  • The fact that surface levels of radiation do not preclude life will be part of the announcement, although they are still awaiting surface radiation readings from a CME
  • The SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) instrument was the last used before moving on and they retained some of the sample they could repeat the analysis. It looks for looks for and measure the abundances of light elements, such as hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen
  • In addition they have said they are analyzing data from the instrument and are not yet ready to discuss the results
  • There is a chance that they will announce evidence of organic compounds if they do it will most likely be a simple hydrocarbon. Neither of which means life on Mars
  • I believe a much less likely chance would be the announcement of nitrogen in the soil
  • Check back over the next two SciBytes for the actual announcements
  • They have already published preliminary surface radiation readings and there is evidence + Multimedia
  • YouTube Curiosity Rover Report (Nov. 15, 2012): Wind and Radiation on | JPLNews
  • Animation of Curiosity Rover’s First ‘Touch and Go’ | NASAJPL
  • Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
  • Social Media
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Astronauts Could Survive Mars Radiation, Curiosity Rover Finds | Space.com
  • Mars Science Laboratory: Curiosity Rover Preparing for Thanksgiving Activities | mars.jpl.nasa.gov
  • [Mars Science Laboratory: NASA Rover Providing New Weather And Radiation Data About Mars | ](mars.jpl.nasa.gov](https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1393)
  • Curiosity providing new weather and radiation data about Mars | phys.org
  • Digging deep into Martian soil | Atom & Cosmos | Science News
  • Is Historic Discovery imminent concerning Martian Organic Chemistry? | UniverseToday.com

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back


+ Dec 01 1997 : 15 years ago : Planetary Lineup : Eight planets from our Solar System lined up from West to East beginning with Pluto, followed by Mercury, Mars, Venus, Neptune, Uranus, Jupiter, and Saturn, with a crescent moon alongside, in a rare alignment visible from Earth that lasted until Dec 8. Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn are visible to the naked eye, with Venus and Jupiter by far the brightest. A good pair of binoculars is needed to see the small blue dots that are Uranus and Neptune. Pluto is visible only by telescope. The planets also aligned in May 2000, but too close to the sun to be visible from Earth. It will be at least another 100 years before so many planets will be so close and so visible

Looking up this week

  • Sunspots
  • VIDEO of Sunspot AR1620 doubling in size, it is now almost 10 times a wide as Earth
  • Although it has been relatively quiet the magnetic fields are now changing, leading forecasters to believe there is a 35% chance of it producing an M-class flare
  • M-class flares are medium-sized; they can cause brief radio blackouts that affect Earth’s polar regions
  • Keep an eye out for …
  • Wed, Nov 28 | Early evening | Jupiter is close and to the upper left of the Moon and the star Aldebaran, the “eye” of Taurus, the bull, to the right of the Moon.
  • Fri, Nov 30 | ~ hour after end of twilight | The waning Moon rises look right of it, by a bit more than a fist-width at arm’s length, for orange-red Betelgeuse sparkling in Orion’s shoulder.
  • Venus / Saturn | Before Dawn | Are together in the SESaturn to the lower left
  • Mars | Evening Twilight | Low in the SW
  • Further Reading and Resources
  • 1* = pinky finger
  • 5* = three middle fingers
  • 10* = closed fist
  • 15* = pointer and pinky spread \m/
  • 25* = pinky to thumb spread
  • 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 HIV & SpaceView | SciByte 72 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> ‘Tatooine’ Exoplanets & Eye’s | SciByte 61 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/24096/tatooine-exoplanets-eyes-scibyte-61/ Tue, 04 Sep 2012 21:29:04 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=24096 We take a look at more exoplanets around binary stars, a dinosaur's dinner, sweet clouds around a star, Martian reality TV, Mars rover updates and much more!

The post ‘Tatooine’ Exoplanets & Eye’s | SciByte 61 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at more exoplanets around binary stars, a dinosaur’s dinner, sweet clouds around a star, diagnosing with eyes, Martian reality TV, updates on bionic eyes, Mars rover updates and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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[asa]B0050SZ836[/asa]
[asa]B0083SBJXS[/asa]

   

Show Notes

More ‘Tatooine’ Planets



YouTube : | Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, T. Pyle

  • NASA’s Kepler mission has found the first multi-planet solar system orbiting a binary star
  • Last time on SciByte
  • SciByte 17 | Neutrinos & Tatooine – “Tatooine” Planet (October 18, 2011)
  • The low down
  • The two stars orbit one another in roughly 7.5 days the primary star is about the same mass as the Sun, and its companion is an M-dwarf star one-third its size
  • The primary star is about 6,000 times dimmer than can be seen with the naked eye making taking spectra of the system very difficult, the secondary star is too faint to measure
  • These values, along with the Kepler eclipse and transit timings, were plugged into a model that calculated the relative sizes of all the bodies involved
  • Significance
  • The inner planet, Kepler–47b, is three times wider than Earth and orbits the binary star every 49.5 days
  • The outer planet receives about 88 percent the amount of energy the Earth receives from the sun and is 4.6 times the size of Earth with an orbit of 303.2 days.
  • The outer planet is the first planet found to orbit a binary star within the “habitable zone,”however the planet’s size (about the same as Uranus) means that it is an icy giant, and not an abode for life
  • Of Note
  • This discovery proves that whole planetary systems can form in a disk around a binary star
  • An unconfirmed hint of an additional world lurks in the blinking starlight produced when the planetary companions pass between the two stars and Earth indicates that there could be another planet in this system however the additional blink has been seen clearly just once
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube Tatooine-Like System Found – Two Planets, Two Stars | VideoFromSpace
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Exoplanet Pair Orbits Two Stars – Science News | Space.com
  • Kepler finds first multi-planet system around a binary star | Phys.org
  • How 2 ‘Tatooine’ Planets Orbit Twin Stars (Infographic) | Space.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Fuzzy Dino’s Dinner Menu



Credit: Cheung Chungtat. (2012) PLoS ONE

  • The low down
  • Fossils are occasionally found with the remains of animals and plants inside what were once their guts
  • These contents can shed light on what they once ate — for instance, past research showed a mammal predator apparently had a tiny dinosaur as its last meal.
  • Significance
  • Scientists investigated two specimens of a carnivorous dinosaur from Liaoning, China, known as Sinocalliopteryx gigas
  • The predator was roughly the size of a wolf, about 6 feet (2 meters) long, and had feathers or hairlike fuzz covering its body to help keep it warm
  • One of the Sinocalliopteryx specimens, a complete and remarkably well-preserved skeleton, apparently dined on a birdlike, cat-size feathered dinosaur known as Sinornithosaurus, judging by the partial leg found in its gut.
  • The fact that Sinocalliopteryx gobbled at least two birds of the same species at about the same time indicates that chances are very good it was actively selecting its prey; that makes it a predator
  • In addition capturing flying prey is indicative of a stealthy predator
  • Multimedia
  • Image Gallery Dinosaur Guts: Photos of a Paleo-Predator | LiveScience.com
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Last Meal Found in Stomach of Fuzzy Dinosaur | LiveScience.com

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Sweet Star Cloud



Credit: ESO/L. Calçada & NASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE Team | Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

  • Sugar molecules have been found in the gas surrounding a young sun-like star
  • The low down
  • The young star is part of a binary similar mass to the sun and is located about 400 light-years away
  • Sugar molecules, known as glycolaldehyde, have previously been detected in interstellar space
  • This is the first time sugars have been spotted so close to a sun-like star
  • The molecules are about the same distance away from the star as the planet Uranus is from our sun
  • The sugar found is glycolaldehyde, is a simple form of sugar, not much different to the sugar we put in coffee
  • They were found the sugar molecules using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope in Chile
  • Significance
  • When new stars are formed, the clouds of dust and gas from which they are born are extremely cold
  • As the newborn star develops, it heats up the inner parts of the rotating cloud of gas and dust, warming it to about room temperature
  • This heating process evaporates the chemically complex molecules and forms gases that emit radiation that can be picked up by sensitive radio telescopes like the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope in Chile
  • Since is located relatively close to Earth, scientists will be able to study the molecular and chemical makeup of the gas and dust around the young star
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Sugar Molecules Discovered Around Sun-Like Star | Search for Life & Alien Planets | Space.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Diagnosis with eye’s

  • Researchers at the University of Southern California have devised a method for detecting certain neurological disorders through the study of eye movements.
  • The low down
  • Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and Parkinson’s Disease (PD) all affect vision
  • Researchers believe that they can be identified through an evaluation of how patients move their eyes while they watch television
  • Typical methods of detection are costly, labor-intensive and limited by a patient’s ability to understand and comply with instructions
  • Significance
  • In a test participants in the study were simply instructed to “watch and enjoy” television clips for 20 minutes while their eye movements were recorded.
  • With eye movement data from 108 subjects, the team was able to identify older adults with Parkinson’s Disease with 89.6% accuracy, and children with either ADHD or FASD with 77.3% accuracy
  • This method provides considerable promise as an easily-deployed, low-cost, high-throughput screening tool, especially for young children and elderly populations who may be less compliant to traditional tests
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Studying everyday eye movements could aid in diagnosis of neurological disorders | MedicalXpress.com

Martian Reality TV

  • A Dutch company that aims to land humans on Mars in 2023 as the vanguard of a permanent Red Planet colony has received its first funding from sponsors
  • The low down
  • Mars One estimates that it will cost about $6 billion to put the first four humans on the Red Planet
  • Mars One plans to fund most of its ambitious activities via a global reality-TV media event that will follow the mission from the selection of astronauts through their first years on the Red Planet
  • The televised process of selecting its 40-person astronaut corps is slated to begin in 2013
  • They aims to launch a series of robotic missions between 2016 and 2020 that will build a habitable outpost on the Red Planet
  • The first four astronauts would set foot on Mars in 2023, and more to arrive every two years after that
  • Initial sponsors include Byte Internet (a Dutch Internet/Webhosting provider); Dutch lawfirm VBC Notarissen; Dutch consulting company MeetIn; New-Energy.tv (an independent Dutch web station that focuses on energy and climate); and Dejan SEO (an Australia-based search engine optimization firm).
  • Of Note
  • There are no plans to return any of participants to Earth.
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube Mars One introduction film (updated version) | MarsOneProject
  • Social Media
  • Mars One @MarsOneProject
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Private Manned Mars Mission Gets First Sponsors | Space.com

— Updates —

Virtual Sight Takes First Steps



YouTube channel : virtualpoint | Instant Eye : Kevin Hand

– MARS ROVER UPDATES –

Opportunity

  • Driving Distance and life
  • Was designed for .6mi [1km] distance and a 90 sol mission
  • Has now driven 35 times the distance it was designed now at 21.75mi [35km]
  • It’s life has lasted almost 34 times the original lifetime design at 3,057 Martian sols
  • Opportunity’s solar array energy production is good, producing about 568 watt-hours
  • Oppy is now moving to survey an exposed outcrop in search of phyllosilicate clay minerals that have been detected from orbit
  • The Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) on the end of the robotic arm was imaged (top image) to reconfirm the available bit for future grinding and the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) collected a measurement of atmospheric argon.
  • Social Media
  • Spirit and Oppy @MarsRovers
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Opportunity Rover Tops 35 Kilometers of Driving | UniverseToday.com

Curiosity

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • Sep 07, 1888 : 124 years ago : First baby incubator : A baby incubator was first used in the U.S. to care for an infant at State Emigrant Hospital on Ward’s Island, New York. Edith Eleanor McLean weighed 2-lb 7-oz. Originally called a “hatching cradle,” the device was 3-ft square, 4-ft high, It was designed to increase the survival rate for premature infants by the maternity ward doctors, Drs. Allan M. Thomas and William C. Deming.* At the 1904 World’s Fair, Tennessean E.M. Bayliss exhibited 14 metal-framed glass incubators with constant ventilation and temperature of 90ºF, attended by nurses caring for real endangered infants from orphanages and poor families. The care of the infants was paid for by the exhibit admission fee

Looking up this week

The post ‘Tatooine’ Exoplanets & Eye’s | SciByte 61 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Dinosaurs & Neutrinos | SciByte 50 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/20542/dinosaurs-neutrinos-scibyte-50/ Wed, 13 Jun 2012 06:45:54 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=20542 We take a look at estimating dinosaur weight, pollution data, mosquitos, updates on Venus transit, Neutrinos and more!

The post Dinosaurs & Neutrinos | SciByte 50 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at estimating dinosaur weight, pollution data, exoplanets, mosquitos, Johnson Space Center, Io, updates on Venus transit and Neutrinos, spacecraft updates and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Dino’s on diets?

Image Credit | William Sellers

  • The low down
  • One of the most important things palaeobiologists need to know about fossilised animals is how much they weighed
  • In the past scientists have used several means of estimating dinosaur weight
  • One of those means of estimation include measuring the volume of an artist’s sculpture
  • Scientists have now developed a new technique to accurately measure the weight and size of dinosaurs and discovered they are not as heavy as previously thought.
  • Significance
  • Using lasers scientists have measured the minimum amount of skin required to wrap around the skeletons of modern-day mammals, including reindeer, polar bears, giraffes and elephants
  • This technique showed that the animals had almost exactly 21% more body mass than the minimum skeletal ‘skin and bone’ wrap volume
  • Previous estimates of the giant Brachiosaur weight have varied, with estimates as high as 80 tonnes
  • Applying this approach reduced that figure to just 23 tonnes
  • This calculation method has the advantage of requiring minimal user intervention and is therefore more objective and far quicker
  • This new technique will apply to all dinosaur weight measurements
  • Its primary limitation, for now, is that the specimen should consist of a complete skeleton as possible
  • Of Note
  • In general estimated weights for many species of dinosaur have been dropping since about the early 1960’s
  • The information from these calculations can also be applied to sophisticated locomotor reconstructions, such as the running simulations produced in the past
  • One problem with the technique is that none of the animals used in the laser calibration had the long fleshy tails that dinosaurs have, so this model may be to be altered in the future
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Dinosaurs were lighter than previously thought, new study shows | Phys.org
  • Dinosaurs Skinnier Than Previously Thought | news.Discovery.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Chinese Pollution Data

  • The low down
  • China has said foreign embassies are acting illegally in issuing their own air quality readings and that only the government could release data on the nation’s heavy pollution.
  • China says publishing China’s air quality are related to the public interests and as such are powers reserved for the government
  • According to the latest Environmental Performance Index compiled by Yale University, China ranked 128th out of 132 countries for air quality.
  • Until recently, official air quality measurements from China regularly rated their air quality as good while data from the US embassy in Beijing showed off-the-chart pollution
  • Most Chinese cities base their air-quality information on particles of 10 micrometres or larger
  • Beijing announced earlier this year it would change the way it measured air quality to include the smaller particles experts say make up much of the pollution in Chinese cities, after a vocal campaign
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • China tells US to stop reporting Beijing’s bad air | phys.org
  • China tells embassies to stop issuing pollution data | phys.org

Giant exoplanet imposters?

  • The low down
  • The Kepler spacecraft produces potential exoplanet data by watching for the darkening of a star, but not everything that darkens a star is a planet
  • A new study suggests that there is a one in three chance that it’s not really a planet at all when it’s a giant planet closely orbiting a star
  • Significance
  • Out of Kepler’s more than 2,300 possible planets, only 46 were categorized as very large exoplanets with estimated orbit very close to their star
  • 11 of those systems were already known and the team confirmed 9 more
  • Of the remaining 26 candidates were : 13 unknowns, two failed brown dwarf stars, and 11 members of binary star systems
  • From this the team arrived at the 35 percent false-positive rate
  • While this may seem very significant, scientists don’t consider it a serious flaw for Kepler
  • Even with a 35% false positive rate for very large, closely orbiting exoplanets the percentage is still very low compared to all other transit programs
  • Of Note
  • Short period transiting planets are exotic objects, not expected to be everywhere
  • In addition the false positive rate does not affect any smaller or long orbiting planets
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Some newfound planets are something else | ScienceNews.org

Mosquito



Channel : andrew52987 | Channel : coegatech

  • The low down
  • The collision between a raindrop and a mosquito is analogous to a collision between a human and a bus, except for the part where the mosquito survives
  • Significance
  • What makes the difference is the (relatively) huge, fast drop doesn’t transfer much of its momentum to a little wisp of an insect
  • Instead the falling droplet sweeps the insect along on the downward plunge
  • The drawback is that mosquitoes hitchhiking on water experience acceleration 100 to 300 times the force of Earth’s gravity, so survival is dependent on breaking away before hitting the ground
  • Of Note
  • This effect may inspire engineers designing swarms of tiny flying robots, or interest physicists and mathematicians studying complex fluid dynamics at this scale
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube : Mosquito raindrop BW | andrew52987
  • YouTube : Low Mass Saves Mosquitoes from Death by Raindrop | coegatech
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • How a mosquito survives a raindrop hit | ScienceNews.org

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Touring NASA’s Johnson Space Center


Image Credit : science.ksc.nasa.gov

  • Of Note
  • NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida has announced that beginning on Friday, June 15 a limited number of daily tours will take guests into the spaceport’s historic Launch Control Center (LCC)
  • This will be the first time in 30 years that the home of 152 countdowns to launch including both Apollo and shuttle programs has been opened to the public
  • The KSC Up-Close: Launch Control Center (LCC) Tour will run through the end of the year. It costs $25 for adults and $19 for children in addition to the regular admission to the visitor complex.
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Inside Historic Launch Control Center | Space.com

Jupiter’s moon Io


Image Credit : NASA/JPL-Caltech/Bear Fight Institute

  • Of Note
  • A new map of Jupiter’s moon Io has revealed the most comprehensive ever compiled of Io’s hundreds of active volcanoes
  • When studying the layout of the volcanos the distribution of the heat flow is that it is not in keeping with the current preferred model of tidal heating of Io at relatively shallow depths
  • The main thermal emission occurs about 40 degrees eastward of where we would expect with tidal heating
  • In addition that heat comes from Io’s depths along with its shallower reaches
  • The study also found that known active volcanoes account for only about 60 percent of Io’s emitted heat
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Jupiter Moon Io’s Volcanoes Revealed in New Map | Space.com

— Updates —

Additional Venus Transit stories and photo’s

Neutrinos

SPACECRAFT UPDATE

Shuttle Enterprise’s last landing

Dragon back on the ground

NASA’s Aquarius measuring ocean salinity

Mars Curiosity Rover


Image Credit : NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/MSSS

  • Of Note
  • With a scheduled landing of Aug 5 and increased confidence in precision landing technology NASA has narrowed the target for its most advanced Mars rover, Curiosity
  • NASA has narrowed the target for its most advanced Mars rover, Curiosity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • NASA Mars Rover Team Aims for Landing Closer to Prime Science Site | jpl.nasa.gov](https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012–168)

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • June 13, 1611 : 401 years ago : Sunspots : A publication on the newly discovered phenomenon of sunspots was dedicated. Narratio de maculis in sole observatis et apparente earum cum sole conversione. (“Narration on Spots Observed on the Sun and their Apparent Rotation with the Sun”). This first publication on such observations, was the work of Johannes Fabricius, a Dutch astronomer who was perhaps the first ever to observe sunspots. On 9 Mar 1611, at dawn, Johannes had used his telescope to view the rising sun and had seen several dark spots on it. He called his father to investigate this new phenomenon with him. The brightness of the Sun’s center was very painful, and the two quickly switched to a projection method by means of a camera obscura.
  • June 15 1752 : 260 years ago : Lighting and Kites : In 1752, Franklin published a third-person account of his pioneering kite experiment in the The Pennsylvania Gazette, without mentioning that he himself had performed it It was at a later date that he admited to performing the experiment himself. Evidence shows that he was insulated from the kite, while others trying to repeat the experiment were electrocuted in the following months. The entire process, led to the invention of the lightning rod in September of the same year.

Looking up this week

The post Dinosaurs & Neutrinos | SciByte 50 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Baby Mammoths & Feathered Dinosaurs | SciByte 41 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/18692/baby-mammoths-feathered-dinosaurs-scibyte-41/ Tue, 10 Apr 2012 22:03:30 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=18692 We take a look at baby mammoth hair color, feathered dinosaurs, plasma, NASA funding, Apollo 13 and as always take a peek back into history and up into the sky.

The post Baby Mammoths & Feathered Dinosaurs | SciByte 41 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at baby mammoth hair color, feathered dinosaurs, plasma, NASA funding, Apollo 13 and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Show Notes:

Well preserved mammoth discovered in Siberia



Left Image/Video Credit: BBC YouTube Channel || Right Image/Video Credit: news.bbcimg.co.uk

  • Thanks Peregrine Falcon for making sure I saw this
  • The low down
  • Extinct animals are mostly studied from bones, teeth and tusks, because these parts decompose over a relatively long time
  • Soft tissues like muscle, skin, and internal organs are rarely found on older carcasses because they decompose much quicker
  • Because of this information about a species or specimen is constrained to the slowly decomposing parts, vital information is unavailable
  • Most permafrost-preserved mammoth specimens consist solely of bones or bone fragments that currently provide little new insight into the species’ biology in life
  • Now a remarkably well preserved frozen juvenile mammoth carcass, nicknamed “Yuka,” was found entombed in Siberian ice
  • Although carbon dating is still in the works, it is believed to be at least 10,000 years old, it was found as part of a BBC/Discovery Channel-funded expedition
  • The mammoth was in such good shape that much of its flesh is still intact
  • The skin retained its pink color, and the blonde-red hue of the woolly coat also remains.
  • Significance
  • Yuka is the first mammoth carcass with soft tissues preserved it was also the first to show human interaction in the region
  • The soft tissues actually included strawberry-blonde hair, which could help reveal whether or not mammoths had all of the same hair colors that humans do
  • Analysis of the tusks and teeth researchers estimate that the animal was about 2.5 years old when it died.
  • Healed scratches found on the skin indicate a lion attack that Yuka survived earlier in its relatively short life
  • Judging by deep, unhealed scratches in the hide and bite marks on the tail suggest it was most likely pursued by one or more lions right before its death
  • Based on evidence of a freshly broken leg it probably took a bad fall and broke a lower hind leg
  • Scientists have guessed that the extinct subspecies of the African lion (Panthera leo spelea) were present in the area at the same time as the mammoths, and that they hunted mammoths.
  • Yuka provides fairly solid evidence that that was correct
  • Fifteen to thirty scalloped marks on the skin are an indication of possible saw-like motion of a human tool
  • Humans may have moved in either right before or after it died, suggesting that humans at that time ‘stole’ kills from hunting lions
  • The removed parts that could be of use immediately, and probably buried the rest of the body for possible later use
  • No longer with the animal are the main core mass of Yuka’s body, including the skull, spine, pelvis, organs, vertebrae, ribs, associated musculature, and some of the meat from upper parts of the legs
  • The skull and pelvis were found nearby
  • * Of Note*
  • The scientist to publish the genetic code of mammoth hemoglobin a few years ago
  • Both this specimen and the near complete specimen of a baby mammoth discovered in 2007 will help researchers with genotype (DNA sequences) which could lead the application of cloning to bring a mammoth back to life
  • The ability to bring it back the mammoth from extinction using cloning would probably take years to decades
  • Watch for Woolly Mammoth: Secrets from the Ice on BBC Two at 21:00 BST on Wednesday 4 April and will be shown on the Discovery Channel in the US at a future date.
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube VIDEO : The Perfectly Preserved Frozen Yuka Mammoth Mummy – Woolly Mammoth: Secrets from the Ice
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Well-preserved strawberry-blond mammoth discovered in Siberia | Fox News
  • Woolly mammoth carcass may have been cut into by humans | BBC

*— NEWS BYTE — *

More Fine Feathered Dinosaurs



Left Image Credit: Zhang Hailong | Right Image Credit: Zhang Hailong

  • * Last time on SciByte*
  • Solar Storms & Higgs Boson | SciByte 37 [March 13, 2012] – More Dinosaur feathers get color
  • Feedback & Space Lego’s | SciByte 31 [Jan 31, 2012] – Dinosaur feather colors
  • The low down
  • New fossils of one adult and two younger dinosaurs show evidence of an extensively feathers dinosaur, the largest species to date
  • The region the new discoveries have been made is well known for keeping soft tissues of ancient animals well-preserved
  • Significance
  • Yutyrannus hauli, Y.huali, a mix of latin and mandarin translated into “beautiful feathered tyrant”, weighed up to about 3,000 lb (1,400 kg) and stretched 30ft (9m) from nose to tail
  • The species had include a high, bumpy nose plate, known as a midline crest and likely stood 8ft (2.5m) tall, although its posture is unknown
  • Y.huali, although differs in growth strategy, has the type of skeletal features that make it in the same family as the Tyrannosaurus Rex, and would have reached T. rex’s chest.
  • The feathers of the Y.Hauli were at least 6in (15cm) long, although the color of the feathers is not known
  • There is some evidence that shows the coverage was a bit patchy which, might have given the dinosaur a shaggy appearance
  • Although its appears that the feathers might have entirely covered the dinosaurs skin, scientists are unable to confirm because the specimens aren’t complete.
  • * Of Note*
  • Some scientists hypothesize that smaller dinosaurs used a fluffy layer of feathers to stay warm
  • Other dinosaur specimens have shown evidence of being fully feathered, however all of those were far have been much smaller
  • Thanks to small surface-to-volume body ratios, large-bodied animals tend to maintain heat easily.
  • This hypothesis further goes on to suggest that the larger species found lost their feathers the bigger they got or were just not as extensively covered.
  • Other scientists point out that in warmer climates animals like the modern giraffes and wildebeests, have external covering but don’t need it for insulation
  • Another hypothesis is that the feathers were simply used to show off and attract mates.
    • Either hypothesis has some scientists reimagining the appearance of the Tyrannosaurus rex, and other dinosaurs
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube VIDEO : T-Rex Relative had Soft, Downy Feathers | NewsyScience
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • T. rex has another fine, feathered cousin | ScienceNews.org
  • A gigantic feathered dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of China | Nature.com
  • Warm and fuzzy T. rex? New evidence surprises | Phys.org
  • Giant Feathered Tyrannosaur Found in China | Wired.com

Killing bacteria with plasma

  • The low down
  • Plasma is the fourth state of matter (solids, liquids and gases) has previously shown its worth in the medical industry by effectively killing bacteria and viruses on the surface of the skin and in water.
  • Plasmas are produced in electrical discharges, these gases of free electrons and ions
  • Medical science has high hopes for plasmas. and they have already been shown to destroy pathogens, help heal wounds, and selectively kill cancer cells
  • It seems that the highly reactive oxygen species generated oxidized cell membranes and damage DNA.
  • These oxygen species are also found in our immune system
  • Significance
  • Killing harmful bacteria in hospitals is difficult; out in the field, it can be an even bigger problem
  • Now researchers may have found a remote disinfection in a portable “flashlight” that shines a ray of cold plasma to kill bacteria in minutes.
  • In an experiment the ‘flashlight’ was put over a thick biofilm of one of the most antibiotic- and heat-resistant bacteria which often infects the root canals during dental treatments.
  • Biofilms created in this experiment were incubating bacteria for seven days, and were around 0.0001 in (25 micrometres) thick and consisted of 17 different layers of bacteria.
  • After five minutes of treatment the plasma not only inactivated the top layer of cells, but penetrated deep into the very bottom of the layers to kill the bacteria.
  • * Of Note*
  • Adding to the safety of the device was that the UV radiation in the jet created by the plasma flashlight was so low
  • In addition temperature of the plume of plasma in the experiments was between 20–230C, which is very close to room temperature and therefore prevents any damage to the skin
  • The device now costs less that $100 so produce, before making it ready for commercialisation
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Plasma Flashlight Zaps Bacteria | sciencemag.org
  • Handheld plasma flashlight rids skin of notorious pathogens | phys.org

*— Updates — *

James Cameron makes a Titanic correction

SPACECRAFT UPDATE

Extended funding for a few NASA programs



Credit: NASA

  • The low down
  • Because of tight budgets a number of programs including Kepler were slated to run out of funds this November
  • Scientists were particularly worried about Kepler Since it requires several years of observations are required in order for Kepler to confirm a repeated orbit as a planet transits its star
  • Other planets to receive additional funding are Hubble, Fermi and Swift
  • Only the Spitzer infrared telescope, as of right now, will be closed out in 2015, which is sooner than requested.
  • Hubble Space Telescope will continue at the currently funded levels
  • Kepler
  • The Kepler mission, launched in 2006 has discovered more than 2,300 potential alien planets to date, and 61 confirmed alien planets
  • The Kepler Mission is designed to survey our region of the Milky Way galaxy to discover Earth-size planets in the habitable zone.
  • Hubble Space Telescope
  • Is the first major optical telescope to be placed in space,
  • Scientists have used Hubble to observe the most distant stars and galaxies as well as the planets in our solar system.
  • Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, formerly GLAST
  • NASA’s Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope (formerly GLAST) studies the extreme energy universe!
  • Explore the most extreme environments in the Universe, where nature harnesses energies far beyond anything possible on Earth
    • Search for signs of new laws of physics and what composes the mysterious Dark Matter
    • Explain how black holes accelerate immense jets of material to nearly light speed.
    • Help crack the mysteries of the stupendously powerful explosions known as gamma-ray bursts.
    • Answer long-standing questions across a broad range of topics, including solar flares, pulsars and the origin of cosmic rays.
  • Swift
    ultraviolet, and optical wavebands.
  • A multi-wavelength observatory dedicated to the study of gamma-ray burst (GRB) science.
    • Determine the origin of gamma-ray bursts
    • Classify gamma-ray bursts and search for new types
    • Determine how the blastwave evolves and interacts with the surroundings
    • Use gamma-ray bursts to study the early universe
    • Perform the first sensitive hard X-ray survey of the sky
  • Social Media
  • NASA Kepler @NASAKepler
  • NASAFermi NASAFermi
  • NASA Swift mission @NASASwift
  • Hubble @NASA_Hubble
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • FREE Kepler Explorer App By OpenLab
  • NASA Extends Kepler, Spitzer, Planck Missions | NASA.gov
  • Kepler Mission Extended to 2016 | UniverseToday.com
  • NASA Extends Planet-Hunting Kepler Mission Through 2016

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back

  • April 11, 1970 : 42 years ago : Apollo XIII Launch : The mission began with a little-known smaller incident: during the second-stage boost, the center (inboard) engine shut down two minutes early. The four outboard engines burned longer to compensate, and the vehicle continued to a successful orbit. The third manned lunar landing mission, was launched from Cape Canaveral with crew James Lovell, Fred Haise, and John Swigert. Swigert was a late replacement for the original CM pilot Ken Mattingly, who was grounded by the flight surgeon after exposure to German measles.
  • April 13, 1970 : 42 years ago : Apollo XIII Rescue : Disaster struck 200,000 miles from earth. A liquid oxygen tank exploded, disabling the normal supply of oxygen, electricity, light, and water. Swigert reported: “Houston, we’ve had a problem.” The lunar landing was aborted. After circling the moon, the crippled spacecraft began a long, cold journey back to earth with enormous logistical problems in providing enough energy to the damaged fuel cells to allow a safe return.
  • April 17, 1970 : 42 years ago : Apollo XIII Return : Apollo 13 landed safely with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, four days after the spacecraft aborted its mission while it was four-fifths of the way to the moon. Upon his return, astronaut A. J. Lovell, Jr. was the first American astronaut to travel over 700 hours in space.

Looking up this week

The post Baby Mammoths & Feathered Dinosaurs | SciByte 41 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Moons Here & There | SciByte 28 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/15611/moons-here-there-scibyte-28/ Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:27:59 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=15611 We take a look at how not only Exoplanets but exomoons, Lunar minerals, dogs socialization, and what Russia is now saying about Phobos-Grunt!

The post Moons Here & There | SciByte 28 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at how not only Exoplanets but exomoons, Lunar minerals, dogs socialization, neutrinos, hangovers, Opportunity rover, what Russia is now saying about Phobos-Grunt and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Support the Show:

   

Show Notes:

The Exoplanet and Exomoon News keeps coming

  • The exoplanet low down
  • The Hungarian-made Automated Telescope Network (HATNet) Project, one of the goal of the HATNet project is to detect and characterize extrasolar planets using the transit method
  • I believe the HATNet network telescopes are now deployed in : Budapest, Hungary; Arizona; United States, Negev Desert, Israel; New South Wales, Australia; Gamsberg, Namibia; Santiaho, Chile
  • As 2011 ended, there were a total of 716 confirmed exoplanets and 2,326 planetary candidates
  • Four more planets have already been discovered this year, not by Kepler but by a ground based telescope network who has already discovered 29 other extrasolar planets
  • All four are ‘hot Jupiter’ type planers with ‘years’ from 1–5.5 days long. In comparison Mercury takes 88 days.
  • SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) program will take a look at the exoplanets discovered by Kepler in the continuing search for alien radio signals
  • Based on early Kepler data, the new estimates for the number of exoplanets have billions of planets in our galaxy alone
  • They now have can now focus on systems with planets
  • * Of Note for Exoplanets*
  • Runs Linux : The ground based exoplanet searching network, HATNet, is controlled by a single Linux PC without human supervision.
  • Data for the HATNet is stored in a MySQL database
  • SETI has even joined in the exoplantest search, and has seen a few ‘interesting’ signals, but are most likely interference from the Earth
  • The exomoon low down
  • Current technology may be able to detect Large Earth-size moons
  • There are currently three different mechanisms that scientist believe would cause an Earth sized moon
  • form together with it’s planet in the accretion disk
  • massive impact, like the theory of our moons formation. Estimates currently say might be as frequent as 1 in 12 could be formed this way and are expected to only contain roughly 4% of the total mass of the planet
  • an Earth sized object would also be captured by a gas giant. Simulations show that around 50% of captured objects would survive
  • Such moons could be detected using the detected wobble of the star, this has already been measured with planets of similar size. There already simulations for trinare stars which could be altered to analyze a sun-planet-moon scenario.
  • The first exoplanets discovered were found around a pulsar, causing cariations in the regular pulsations.
  • Pulsars often beat thousands of times a minute which makes them extremely sensitive to gravitational affects of planets and possibly moons.
  • In the past few years it has become possible for direct imaging of planets, although planets near Earth sized is likely a few fear off, possible upcoming missions may make that possibility a reality.
  • Direct imaging may be no more than a slightly offset center of a dot, or a barely oblong circle indicating a possible moon.
  • * Of Note for exomoons*
  • There are no moons in our own solar system of the necessary size for detection by typically used technology, the largest moon in our solar system (Ganymede) is only 40% the diameter of the Earth
  • Using technology for use on pulsars a planet a mere 0.04% the mass of the Earth has been discovered.
  • The same technology that could be used to detect exomoons could also be used to detect unique data signals that would indicate Saturn-like rings around stars.
  • Significance
  • Each year the technology for discovering exoplanets increases, we are now entering the ability to detect exomoons.
  • The possibilities of seeing details in other solar systems will increase our understand of how solar systems and planets form.
  • Multimedia
  • IMAGE : Artist impression of an exomoon orbiting an exoplanet @ universetoday.com
  • IMAGE : Habitable zone depends on the mass and type of star @ physorg.com
  • IMAGE : Habital Exoplanets Catalog @ i.space.com
  • Social Media
  • HEK Project @HEK_Project
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • The Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler
  • Forget Exoplanets. Let’s Talk Exomoons
  • Hungarian-made Automated Telescope Network
  • HAT-P–34b – HAT-P–37b: Four Transiting Planets More Massive Than Jupiter Orbiting Moderately Bright Stars
  • Exomoons? Kepler‘s On The Hunt
  • Wanted: Habitable moons
  • The Hunt Is on for Habitable Moons Around Alien Planets
  • Wanted: Habitable Moons
  • Four new exoplanets to start off the new year!
  • First Four Exoplanets of 2012 Discovered
  • Astronomers have discovered the first four exoplanets of 2012
  • Analysis of the First Kepler SETI Observations

Lunar Minerals found

  • The low down
  • When the lunar samples first returned from the Moon there were subjected to rigorous study and considered extremely precious.
  • In the hundreds of pounds of lunar rocks astronauts brought back three minerals were unique to the moon: armalcolite, pyroxferroite and tranquillityite
  • Armalcolite and Pyroxferroite were both found on Earth in the 70’s
  • Tranquillityite had previously been found in certain meteorite, but not naturally on the Earth.
  • Tranquillityite is shaped like tiny needles that have been pounded flat and are unusually small, less than the diameter of the thickest human hair (about 150 micrometers )
  • Tranquillityite develops during the late stages of crystallization of molten rocks in oxygen-poor conditions
  • Significance
  • Tranquillityite has just been found in Australia
  • In fact it has now been found in six widely scattered sites in Western Australia suggests that it might be more common than thought in igneous rocks
  • The identification of all minerals found in the Lunar samples brought back from the Moon during the Apollo program lends credence to the impact theory for the Moons creation
  • * Of Note*
  • It’s not surprising that tranquillityite hasn’t shown up until now as it is unstable over the long term at Earth’s surface
  • In addition tranquillityite can easily be mistaken for another similarly colored mineral
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Third lunar mineral – Tranquillityite found in Western Australia
  • Rare Moon Mineral Found in Australia
  • Rare Moon Mineral Found on Earth
  • Pyroxferroite @ midat.org
  • Armalcolite@ mindat.org

*— NEWS BYTE — *

Dogs know when your not looking

The low down

  • An new study proves what all dog owners already knew
  • The study shows that dogs will follow the gaze of humans, even on television screens, and can recognize when they look to one side or another, not even something primates can do
  • Significance
  • In this study 22 different dog breeds were used, all performed fairly similarly
  • A stranger on a TV screen would say “hi, dog!” in either a high- or low- pitched voice and either looking at the screen or down.
  • In any instance the person would then look at the pot that contains a toy for 5 seconds
  • When the person on the screen avoided eye contact and spoke in a low voice the likely hood that the dogs would look at one pot over the other was a statistical wash
  • When a high pitched-pitched voice was used the dog looked at the person on the screen 69% of the time.
  • Future studies could compare different dog breeds and various ages with each other as the next stage in the experiment
  • The results from this study were also nearly identical to those seen in 6-month-old human infants
  • Some researchers even say that dog social skill can reach the level of a two-year-old human, missing only language
  • In another study done in 1994 a 19-year-old apprentice working at a chimpanzee center was assisting in a study on primate behavior that he claimed his dog did. he was told to prove it
  • He devised a simple experiment in his garage hid treats under cups when a dog wasn’t looking then either pointed or simply looked at the cup containing the treat
  • * Of Note*
  • In studies analyzing the ability to follow a person’s pointing finger or the direction of his gaze, dogs perform better than primates
  • However dogs are less likely to inhibit a learned response than primates
  • There are research teams that suspect that horses and domesticated cats may also be able to read human intent, since they too have lived closely with us for many years.
  • Both children and animals are more likely to respond to a high-pitched voice, which explains why we naturally tend to ‘baby-talk’ animals and young children
  • This experiment also gives you a scientific excuse to do this the next time you get funny looks from people
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • In the Eyes of a Dog
  • Can dogs tell when we’re talking to them?
  • Dogged
  • Dogs read our intent too: study @ PhysOrg.com
  • Can Dogs Read Minds? Not Exactly @ DiscoveryNews.com
  • How Specific Are The Social Skills of Dogs? @ scienceblogs.com
  • Monday Pets: Biological Evidence That Dog is Man’s Best Friend @ ScientificAmerican.com

Neutrinos strike again!

The low down

  • Physicists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing now argue that Neutrino’s could not travel faster than the speed of light, as it would not only mess up Einstein’s theory of special relativity, but also the last of conservation of energy and momentum
  • Significance
  • Both studies claim that the particles, called pions, could not possibly have had enough energy to give rise to the faster-than-light, or superluminal, speeds indicated by OPERA.
  • The new team of physicists calculate that achieving the velocities measured required pions with energies 20 times greater than their offspring
  • The team says that the IceCube detector at the South Pole has measured these neutrinos to energies more than 10,000 times as high as OPERA’s neutrinos
  • They also say with a neutrinos near zero, but not zero, mass there should be a limit to how fast they can travel.
  • Social Media
  • Alcoholics Anonymous @AlcoholicsAnony
  • * Of Note*
  • One Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist has said that results are not impossible but if they turn out to be accurate "I would say to Nature, ‘You win.’ Then I’d give up, and I’d retire.”
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube VIDEO : Science in Action: Fast Neutrinos
  • Social Media
  • CERN @CERN
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Neutrino parents call into question faster-than-light results @ ScienceNews.com
  • Pions don’t want to decay into faster-than-light neutrinos, study finds @ news.wustl.edu

The anti-alcohol drug that lessens hangovers too?

The low down

  • Scientists have been surveying herbal compounds that supposedly have reduced alcohol affects
  • Once such candidate was from the seeds of the Asian tree Hovenia dulcis, first said to be an excellent handover drug in 659 [That’s 1,352 years ago]
  • The team of scientists focused on one ingredient of the Hovenia dulcis tree, called dihydromyricetin, or DHM, on rats, which responds to alcohol in similar ways as humans
  • Significance
  • Rats given the equivalent of 15–20 beers in under two hours tolerated the alcohol better, with a stupor lasting around an hour, with DHM the stupor lasted only 15 minutes
  • A dose of DHM also helped ease hangover symptoms, reducing anxiety and susceptibility to seizures
  • Althought these results are promising, it still won’t allow you to drink like you were breathing air, as alcohol has many affects on the brain and DHM seems to only curb some of these affects
  • * Of Note*
  • The most promising result is that rats given access to alcohol gradually start consuming more, while rats drinking DHM-laced alcohol did not increase consumption
  • This seems to indicate that DHM might be a promising weapon to use against Alcohol addiction
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Drug gives rats booze-guzzling superpowers @ ScienceNews.com
  • Herbal drug reduces the effects of alcohol @ Medicalxpress.com

SPACECRAFT UPDATE

Opportunity Rover gets ready for hibernation

The low down

Phobos-grunt round 342

* Last time on SciByte*

  • SciByte 27 (Jan 5)
  • SciByte 23 (Nov 30)
  • SciByte 21 (Nov 15)
  • SciByte 20 (Nov 8)
  • The low down
  • Phobos-grunt is currently projected to land on Sunday, January the 15th
  • After 19 attempts over 51 years, Russia has yet to have a fully successful mission to Mars.
  • Also one of five high-profile failures for the Russian space program in 2011.
  • The Russian chief of the Russian space program has hinted that the recent unlucky Russian space program may be the fault of ‘foreign power’
  • Significance
  • The last Russian Program Chief was fired after three navigation satellites were lost during launch
  • Russian Space Program Chief says that the vessels setbacks have occurred flying through Russia’s blind spot where they can not see or receive telemetry readings
  • The current Program Chief does admit that the mission was risky and underfunded, with original designs date back to the Soviet Union
  • He also admits that the launch window was limited and if they didn’t launch during the window, they would have to write off $160 million / 125.5 million Euro’s / five billion rubles
  • * Of Note*
  • This won’t be the first time that the Alaskan radar station, last November it was blamed for the failure of the Phobos-Grunt by un-named retired Russian General (previously in charge of Russia’s early warning system)
  • HAARP does perform active and passive radar experiments on the ionosphere
  • However, personnel at HAARP said a full-power blast would have kissed the Phobos-Grunt rocket with the equivalent of pointing a 60-watt light bulb at it from about 69 feet away. [about 1.03 milliwatts of radio energy per square centimeter ]
  • One communications satellite that failed, broke into fragments and a 20inch [5-centimeter] fragment crashed into a house in the Novosibirsk region of Siberai, ironically on Cosmonaut Street.
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • [Russia hints at foul play in its space failures @ PhysOrg.com(https://www.physorg.com/news/2012–01-russia-hints-foul-space-failures.html)
  • Russian Space Failures May Be Result of Foul Play, Official Says @ Space.com
  • Alaska’s HAARP project blamed for Russian space probe’s failure @ AlaskaDispatch.com
  • Off the Beam: Did a U.S. Radar Research Station Disable Russia’s Phobos Probe? @ ScientificAmerican
  • The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) main websites

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back

  • Jan 11, 1922 – 89 years ago – Diabetics live : Before 1922 diabetes typically resulted in death withing months or even days or weeks of a diagnoses. On Jan 11, 1922 a 14 year old, Leonard Thompson, was the first person to receive an injection of insulin. At a mere 65 pounds [29.5kg] and about to slip into a coma he was in desperate need of treatment. Although the first dose had some impurities that led to an allergic reaction further purified injections caused his symptoms to disappear when his blood sugar levels returned to a normal level.
  • Jan 12, 1984 – 27 years ago – Restoring the Pyramids : In the early 1980’s severe signs of decay were seen some of the oldest man-made structures on earth, the Great Pyramids in Egypt. Originally the restoration crews used modern cement to restore the structures and Sphinx was successfully restored. However, the water in modern cement and mortar was causing the adjacent limestone in the pyramids to split. An international panel convened and decided, on Jan 12, that after years of frustration the restoration teams working on the pyramids would start useing the same methods used to create the pyramids to finish restoration. After the switch to ancient techniques restoration continued smoothly
  • Jan 14, 2005 – 6 years ago – Welcome to Titan : The Huygens spacecraft was released from the Cassini spacecraft landed on On January 14, 2005. The pictures is showed on the way down showed pictures which strongly resembled drainage channels, shorelines, and flodded regions. The lander continued to send data for 90 minutes after landing and remains the most distant landing of any man-mane craft.

Looking up this week

You might have seen …

  • Although there was a coronal mass ejection that was once thought to be headed towards the Earth, it was later predicted to only have a glancing blow. Although no increased auroras were seed there were surges in the ground currents in northern Norway

Keep an eye out for …

  • Fri, Jan 12–14 : Mars is near the waning moon before and during dawn

  • Jan 16 : Last Quarter Moon

  • The southern hemisphere should, Keep an eye out for …

  • Jan 14 : Mars is below and to the right of the Mood

  • Jan 16 : Last Quarter Moon

  • Jan 17 : Saturn will be below ant to the left of the Moon, also the star Spica will be to the upper left of the Moon

More on whats in the sky this week

The post Moons Here & There | SciByte 28 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Planets & Feedback | SciByte 26 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/15092/planets-feedback-scibyte-26/ Wed, 21 Dec 2011 23:22:37 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=15092 We answer questions concerning the sun, solar cells, and even Space Camp. We also look at the news about some new extra-solar planets, black holes and more!

The post Planets & Feedback | SciByte 26 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at some of your feedback and questions concerning the sun, solar cells, and even Space Camp. We will also look at the news about some new extra-solar planets, black holes and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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[asa default]B0067G55XS[/asa]
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*— FEEDBACK — *

Questions about the sun

  • If the sun can’t fuse gold and such why are they there?
  • Do scientists take these into account with calculating life of the sun?
  • Do they account for them with the weight of the sun?
  • Should we look to Mercury Venus for heavier elements?
  • Formation of the Solar System
  • Throughout the galaxy there are dust clouds containing mostly Hydrogen and heavier elements
  • The heavier elements are from the cores of Type II super nova, when they explode they seed the surrounding areas with those heavier elements
  • The cloud will start contracting, eventually forming a star with a surrounding dust cloud
  • The Sun
  • The sun is 4.5 billion year old main sequence star
  • It has converted about half of the hydrogen in its core into helium, so it still has about 5 billion years before the hydrogen runs out.
  • Each second, more than four million metric tons of matter are converted into energy within the Sun’s core, producing neutrinos and solar radiation
  • The sun manufactures elements from lighter ones in the process of nuclear fusion. Helium is a byproduct of nuclear fusion, and beryllium, lithium, boron, and other atoms are part of the ordinary fusion process.
  • Planets
  • The inner Solar System, the region of the Solar System inside 4 AU, was too warm for volatile molecules like water and methane to condense, so the planetesimals that formed there could only form from compounds with high metals (like iron, nickel, and aluminium) and rocky silicates.
  • These compounds are quite rare in the universe, comprising only 0.6% of the mass of the nebula, so the terrestrial planets could not grow very large
  • The composition of the inner planets are very similar, as are the compositions of the asteroids in the asteroid belt
  • * Of Note*
  • Mining other inner planets for metals might be feasible if we were able to safely travel there and back, and for less money that would require to aquire it on Earth
  • Another reason to mine other inner planets would be to increase the supplies of rare metals on Earth
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube VIDEO :Naked Science: Birth of the Solar System
  • YouTube VIDEO : Moon Formation Annimation
  • VIDEO : The Composition of the Sun @ NASA.gov
  • IMAGE : Hubble image of protoplanetary discs
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Hubble Confirms Abundance of Protoplanetary Disks around Newborn Stars @ https://hubblesite.org
  • Formation of the Solar System @ universetoday.com

From Twitter : First Solar Cell to break the rules?

  • A Twitter follower pointed out this story
  • The low down
  • Researchers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have reported the first solar cell that produces a photocurrent that has an external quantum efficiency greater than 100 percent when photoexcited with photons from the high energy region of the solar spectrum.
  • Quantum efficiency for photocurrent, usually expressed as a percentage, is the number of electrons flowing per second in the external circuit of a solar cell divided by the number of photons per second of a specific energy (or wavelength) that enter the solar cell
  • Significance
  • The company’s tiny solar cells, each a dot the size of a ballpoint pen tip, have been validated to convert 41 percent of solar energy to electricity
  • They can grow a tiny semiconductor on a substrate and then a machine transfers those cells to a wafer.
  • Additional layers are automatically added to the wafer so that a very efficient, triple-junction solar cell is constructed
  • Quantum dots, by confining charge carriers within their tiny volumes, can harvest excess energy that otherwise would be lost as heat – and therefore greatly increase the efficiency of converting photons into usable free energy.
  • The semiconductor printing technique can be used for many applications, including improving LED lighting performance, better hard drives, or sensors for medical device.
  • The company that was chosen to build concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) collector that uses lenses to concentrate light 1,000 times onto its tiny solar cells.
  • The mechanism for producing a quantum efficiency above 100 percent with solar photons is based on a process called Multiple Exciton Generation (MEG)
  • Multiple Exciton Generation (MEG) is where a single absorbed photon of appropriately high energy can produce more than one electron-hole pair per absorbed photon.
  • The first built concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) collector that uses lenses to concentrate light 1,000 times onto its tiny solar cells
  • Photons of different colors have different amounts of energy. In the visible spectrum, reds and oranges have less energy, while blues, violets, and ultraviolet photons carry progressively more.
  • When high-energy photons hit a semiconducting material in a solar cell, they give up this energy to the semiconductor’s electrons, exciting them from a static position so that they are able to conduct.
  • In many cases, high-energy photons—violets and ultraviolets—carry far more energy than is needed to give electrons the nudge to conduct. But this excess energy is lost as heat.
  • These solar cells captures some of the excess energy in sunlight normally lost as heat.
  • * Of Note*
  • The key in making the device, Nozik says, was coming up with a recipe for chemically synthesizing and then processing quantum dots.
  • When synthesized, the dots—which are clusters of lead and selenium about 5 nanometers in diameter—end up decorated with long organic molecules that prevent separate dots from clumping together.
  • The company’s target to build a system that generates electricity at under 10 cents per kilowatt hour
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Peak External Photocurrent Quantum Efficiency Exceeding 100% via MEG in a Quantum Dot Solar Cell Abstract @ sciencemag.org
  • Scientists report first solar cell producing more electrons in photocurrent than solar photons entering cell @ physorg.com
  • Tiny solar cell dots printed for powerful array @ news.cnet.com
  • Solar Cells Capture Lost Energy @ news.sciencemag.orgSolar Cells Capture Lost Energy @ news.sciencemag.org
  • Tiny solar cell could make a big difference @ physorg.com
  • NREL Scientists Report First Solar Cell Producing More Electrons In Photocurrent Than Solar Photons Entering Cell @ nrel.gov

Space Camp, only for the cool kids

*— THE NEWS — *

Earth sized planets discovered!

*— NEWS BYTE — *

Smallest Black hole

  • The low down
  • Black holes reside at the centres of galaxies and swallow everything that falls into their gravitational clutches such that nothing, not even light, can escape.
  • The largest supermassive black holes, capable of swallowing our Solar System whole several times over, were reported just last week
  • Significance
  • Scientists have now found a black hole that could represent the lower boundary for a black hole’s mass at just three solar masses.
  • The distinct pattern of X-ray emission, which resembles the pattern printed on an electrocardiogram in response to a heartbeat
  • * Of Note*
  • That there are only two possibilities to explain the differences: either the new source is farther away or its mass is lower
  • There is a limit to how distant it could be as it would be very unlikely to have it lying outside our Galaxy.
  • In addition the fact that its ‘heart’ beats faster is compatible with a lower mass
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube VIDEO : NASA | RXTE Detects ‘Heartbeat’ Of Smallest Black Hole Candidate
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • NASA’s RXTE Detects ‘Heartbeat’ of Smallest Black Hole Candidate @ nasa.gov
  • Smallest black hole just a heartbeat @ astronomynow.com

Plant-eating dinosaur discovered in Antarctica

  • The low down
  • For the first time, the presence of large bodied herbivorous dinosaurs, Sauropoda, in Antarctica has been recorded.
  • Sauropoda is the second most diverse group of dinosaurs, with more than 150 recognized species.
  • Significance
  • The team’s identification of the remains of the sauropod dinosaur suggests that advanced titanosaurs (plant-eating, sauropod dinosaurs) achieved a global distribution at least by the Late Cretaceous
  • The Cretaceous Period spanned 99.6–65.5 million years ago, and ended with the extinction of the dinosaurs.
  • A detailed description of an incomplete middle-tail vertebra its distinctive ball and socket articulations, lead the authors to identify it as an advanced titanosaur.
  • * Of Note*
  • Until now, remains of sauropoda had been recovered from all continental landmasses, except Antarctica.
  • Other important dinosaur discoveries have been made in Antarctica in the last two decades.
  • Multimedia
  • [IMAGE : Pictures and drawings of what was found @ sciencedaily.com(https://images.sciencedaily.com/2011/12/111219102054-large.jpg)
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Plant-eating dinosaur discovered in Antarctica @ physorg.com
  • Plant-Eating Dinosaur Discovered in Antarctica @ sciencedaily.com

Comet Lovejoy survives it close encounter with the sun

SPACECRAFT UPDATE

  • * Last time on SciByte*
  • SciByte 22-Nov 22
  • SciByte 23-Nov 30
  • The low down
  • Launch Date: Nov. 26, 2011
  • On Earth it weights roughly 1,982 lbs [899 kg]
  • On Mars is will weight roughly 743 lbs [337 kg]
  • Mars it will weigh 3/8 that due to the lower gravity)
  • That first of six planned course adjustments had originally been scheduled for Nov. 26. The correction maneuver will not be performed until later in December or possibly January.
  • Landing scheduled for : Aug 6, 2012
  • * Of Note*
  • Already 32 million miles from Earth on its interplanetary trek to Mars, the Curiosity rover has begun collecting useful scientific data about the radiation conditions that astronauts would encounter on the way to the red planet.
  • The Radiation Assessment Detector, an instrument mounted the rover, has begun obtaining measurements on energetic particles penetrating the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft.
  • The device, about the size of a coffee can and weighing 3.8 pounds, was powered up and started gathering data on Dec. 6, some two weeks ahead of schedule. It will downlink data every 24 hours.
  • Scientists are seeing, even inside the spacecraft, about four times higher doses of radiation than the baseline we measured on the launch pad.
  • RAD was designed for the science mission to characterize radiation levels on the surface of Mars, but an important secondary objective is measuring the radiation on the almost nine-month journey through interplanetary space, to prepare for future human exploration
  • Social Media
  • Facebook page for NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover
  • Twitter for Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • Further Reading
  • Where in the solar system is Curiosity? @ nasa.gov
  • Mars Science Laboratory rover page @ nasa.gov
  • Course Excellent, Adjustment Postponed @ nasa.gov
  • NASA Launches Most Capable and Robust Rover to Mars @ nasa.gov

Of Note

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back

  • Dec 25 1758 – 253 years ago – predicted return of Halley’s comet : Clear records of the comet’s appearances were made by Chinese, Babylonian, and medieval European chroniclers dating back to 240 BC. It was not until 1705 that Edmund Halley hypothesized that a number of the observation were the same comet. He predicted it would return in 75.5 years and in 1758 it was first sighted by German farmer and amateur astronomer, Johann Georg Palitzsch. Halley’s orbital period over the last three centuries has been between 75 and 76 years, though it has varied between 74 and 79 years. It also has a retrograde orbit, orbiting in the opposite direction of the planets. It’s shape if vaguely resembles a peanut and measures 9.3 x 4.9 x 4.9 mi [15x8x8 km]. Halley’s comet last appeared in the inner Solar System in 1986 and will next appear in mid–2061.
  • Dec 22 1938 – 73 years ago – First coelacanth (re)discovered : Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, curator of the museum of East London, South Africa, discovered the fish among the catch of a local fisherman. She spotted an unusual 5-ft fish in his “trash” fish pile, believed to have been extinct since the end of the Cretaceous period (145.5 to 65.5 million years) The coelacanth was pale mauvy-blue with iridescent silver markings, and they can grow up to 5.9 ft [1.8 m.] The heart of the coelacanth is shaped differently than most modern fish and its structure is that of a straight tube. The coelacanth braincase is 98.5% filled with fat; only 1.5% of the braincase actually contains any brain.Since 1938, Latimeria chalumnae have been found in the Comoros, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Madagascar, and in iSimangaliso Wetland Park, Kwazulu-Natal in South Africa. YouTUBE Video
  • Dec 23 1986 – 25 years ago – Voyager – first non-stop, round- the- world flight without refueling : It was piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager and took off from Edwards Air Force Base in California on December 14, 1986. It flew easterly 24,986 mi [40,211 lm] in a little over 9 days, 3 minutes and on Dec 23 in completed the first non-stop, round- the- world flight without refueling. A cockpit was only roughly the size of a phone booth, which complicated the flight and sleep rotation of the pilots. It returned safely to Edwards Air Force Base in California after travelling 24,986 miles in 216 hours, at an average speed of 115.8 mph.This has since been accomplished only one other time, by Steve Fossett in the Global Flyer. YouTube VIDEO

Looking up this week

The post Planets & Feedback | SciByte 26 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Habitable Planets & Chimps | SciByte 24 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/14756/habitable-planets-chimps-scibyte-24/ Tue, 06 Dec 2011 23:23:14 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=14756 We take a look at new extra-solar planet discoveries, chimps, supernova, Alzheimer's, Mars, Cables, updates on New Horizons spacecraft and Voyager 1!

The post Habitable Planets & Chimps | SciByte 24 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at new extra-solar planet discoveries, chimps, supernova, Alzheimer’s, Mars, Cables, updates on New Horizons spacecraft and Voyager 1 and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Support the Show:

Extra-solar Planets

Flinging Chimps

  • The low down
  • Chimps are the only other species besides humans that regularly throw things with a clear target in mind
  • Researchers studying such behavior have come to the conclusion that throwing feces, or any object really, is actually a sign of high ordered behavior
  • Watching chimps in action for several years and comparing their actions with scans of their brains to see if there were any correlations between those chimps that threw a lot and those that didn’t or whether they’re accuracy held any deeper meaning.
  • Chimps that both threw more and were more likely to hit their targets showed heightened development in the motor cortex
  • Better throwing chimps didn’t appear to posses any more physical prowess than other chimps
  • Significance
  • Language processing occurs in the left side, which also controls our right hands; and most people use their right hands to throw, as do chimpanzees.
  • Such findings led the term to suggest that the ability to throw is, a precursor to speech development.
  • Those chimps that could throw better appeared to be better communicators within their group
  • Why did these chimps learn to throw in a captive context? The chimp learns is as a form of communication.
  • Throwing stuff at someone else became a form of self expression
  • * Of Note*
  • While throwing at first might not seem demanding, coordinating it requires intensive, on-the-fly calculations.
  • An equation for throwing a ball, for example, would include the distance to a target, the ball’s heaviness and the thrower’s strength. A moving target makes it even harder
  • Social Media
  • Emory University @EmoryUniversity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Researches find poop-throwing by chimps is a sign of intelligence @ PhysOrg.com
  • Poop-Throwing Chimps Provide Hints of Human Origins @ WiredScience.com
  • Philosophical Transactions
  • Emory University

*— NEWS BYTE — *

Supernova warning signs?

Alzheimer’s Research

  • The low down
  • One of the earliest known impairments caused by Alzheimer’s disease is the loss of sense of smell
  • There is currently no effective treatment or cure for the disease
  • Since the 1970s, loss of sense of smell has been identified as an early sign of this disease
  • Smell loss can be caused by a number of ailments, exposures or injuries
  • Significance
  • Researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have confirmed that the protein, called amyloid beta, causes the loss of sense of smell
  • Amyloid beta plaque accumulated first in parts of the brain associated with smell, well before accumulating in areas associated with cognition and coordination
  • Just a tiny amount of amyloid beta – too little to be seen on today’s brain scans – start this process
  • While losses in the olfactory system occurred, the rest of the mouse model brain, including the hippocampus, which is a center for memory, continued to act normally early in the disease stage
  • Mice were given a synthetic liver x-receptor agonist, a drug that clears amyloid beta from the brain
  • The sense of smell an be restored by removing a plaque-forming protein in a mouse model of the disease
  • After two weeks on the drug, the mice could process smells normally
  • After withdrawal of the drug for one week, impairments returned
  • Team are now following-up on these discoveries to determine how amyloid spreads throughout the brain, to learn methods to slow disease progression
  • * Of Note*
  • We could use the sense of smell to determine if someone may get Alzheimer’s disease
  • Use changes in sense of smell to begin treatments, instead of waiting until someone has issues learning and remembering
  • We can also use smell to see if therapies are working
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Reversing Early Sign of Alzheimer’s – Animal Experiment Successful, For A While @ Medical News Today
  • Early sign of Alzheimer’s reversed in lab @ Medical Xpress
  • Published in The Journal of Neuroscience
  • Research by Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine

Martian Glaciers

Spandex Cables

  • The low down
  • Japanese company Asahi Kasei Fibers, originally designed the elastic cable material, called Roboden, for wiring the soft, flexible skin of humanoid robots.
  • The new cable can stretch by a factor of 1.5
  • The cable material is made of an outer elastic shell with spiraled internal wiring that unspirals when pulled.
  • Multimedia
  • VIDEO @ YouTube – Worlds First Elastic Electric/Data/USB Cables – Roboden #DigInfo
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Spandex manufacturer makes elastic electrical cable (w/ video) @ PhysOrg](https://www.physorg.com/news/2011–12-spandex-elastic-electrical-cable-video.html)
  • Stretchable Cables, Designed for Robots, Handy for Humans @ Wired.com](https://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/12/stretchable-cables-designed-for-robots-handy-for-humans/)

New Horizons (Pluto spacecraft) – Update

Voyager 1 – Update

  • The low down
  • Launched : Sep 05, 1977
  • Speed : 10.5 mi/s [17 km/s]
  • Significance
  • NASA’s Voyager Hits New Region at Solar System Edge
  • It has entered a new region between our solar system and interstellar space
  • Voyager 1 is about 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from the sun, it is not yet in interstellar space.
  • The data do not reveal exactly when Voyager 1 will make it past the edge of the solar atmosphere into interstellar space, but suggest it will be in a few months to a few years.
  • Social Media
  • Voyager 1 @NASAVoyager1
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Curiosity Rover | SciByte 22
  • NASA’s Voyager Hits New Region at Solar System Edge @ JPL.NASA

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back

  • Dec 11, 1911 – 100 years ago – Marie Curie’s second Nobel Prize : Marie Curie became the first person to be awarded a second Nobel prize. She had isolated radium by electrolyzing molten radium chloride. This second prize was for her individual achievements in Chemistry, whereas her first prize (1903) was a collaborative effort with her husband, Pierre, and Henri Becquerel in Physics for her contributions in the discovery of radium and polonium.
  • *Dec 7–11 1972 – 39 years ago – Last moon mission *: On Dec 7th Apollo 17, the sixth and last U.S. moon mission, blasted off from Cape Canaveral. On Dec 11th astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt landed on the moon for a three-day exploration, while Ronald E. Evans remained in orbit. Flight Commander Eugene Cernan was the last man on the moon. Typically the backup crew for an Appolo mission was to serve as the main crew 3 missions later, but with Appolo 17 scheduled as the last Moon mission there was heavy pressure to put a geologist to the crew (Schmitt.)
  • Dec 10, 1984 – 27 years ago – First Extrasolar Planet Discovery Announcement: The National Science Foundation reported the discovery of the first planet outside our solar system, orbiting a star 21 million light years from Earth. The object was found orbiting Van Biesbroeck 8, an extremely faint star about 21 light years from Earth. However, it seemed to abruptly vanish when later attempts to observe its gravitational pull on Van Biesbroeck 8 failed. It is currently unknown whether the object ever existed.

Looking up this week

  • Keep an eye out for …

  • Wednesday, Dec 7 : As darkness falls, Jupiter is to the upper right of the Moon.

  • –Saturday Dec 10 – Total Eclipse of the Moon–

  • The Moon is totally within the umbra of Earth’s shadow for 52 minutes. The partial stages before and after totality each last more than an hour.

  • At the instant of greatest eclipse (14:32 UT) the Moon lies at the zenith in the Pacific Ocean near Guam.

  • The exact hue (anything from bright orange to blood red is possible) depends on the unpredictable state of the atmosphere at the time of the eclipse. As Jack Horkheimer (1938–2010) of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium loved to say, “Only the shadow knows.”

  • Timeline

  • Partial Eclipse Begins – 4:45am PST / 12:45 GMT

  • Total Eclipse Begins – 6:45am PST / 14:06 GMT

  • Total Eclipse Maximum – 6:32am PST / 14:32 GMT

  • Total Eclipse Ends – 6:14am PST / 14:57 GMT

  • Partial Eclipse Ends – 8:17am PST / 16:17 GMT

  • What you can see

  • NASA

  • ShadowAndSubstance

  • United States & Canada : The western United States and Canada will witness a total lunar eclipse. The action begins around 4:45am PST when the red shadow of Earth first falls across the lunar disk. By 6:05am PST, the Moon will be fully engulfed in red light.

  • Europe : Seen as rising over eastern Europe

  • Asia and Australia : Visible from all of Asia and Australia

  • Austrailia and Japan : The eclipsed Moon hangs high in middle of the night

  • South America & Antarctica : Not able to see the eclipse

  • More on whats in the sky this week

  • Sky&Telescope

  • AstronomyNow

  • SpaceWeather.com

  • HeavensAbove

  • StarDate.org

The post Habitable Planets & Chimps | SciByte 24 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Neutrinos & Tatooine | SciByte 17 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/12956/neutrinos-tatooine-scibyte-17/ Tue, 18 Oct 2011 22:02:16 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=12956 We take a look at the so called ‘Tatooine’ planet that hit the news recently, some updates on the supposedly faster than light neutrinos, and much more!

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We take a look at the so called ‘Tatooine’ planet that hit the news recently, some updates on the supposedly faster than light neutrinos, new underwater invisibility cloak technology, maps, Mercury, Tsunami tech, and even take a peek at what’s up in the sky this week.

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Show Notes:

Why did we bring SciByte back?

Chris:

  • Too much out there is just plain distraction, why can’t we have our cake and eat it too? This is an important mission for us at Jupiter Broadcasting. We don’t want to offer only entertainment, but also information, news, and other things that just make you a treasure trove of small talk at your next cocktail party!
  • I almost see it as a public service too, this stuff is important and it impacts our entire universe!

Heather:

  • There are a lot of interesting things going on out there in science, but getting to the interesting bits without all the hype you get from major media outlets is a trick we are hoping to pull off.
  • The whole scientific method is about investigation and acquiring new knowledge to add to or correct old knowledge. We’ll provide you with enough knowledge to show off to friends and family and provide you the means, with the help of our trusty show notes, to further investigate the things that interest you the most.
“Tatooine” Planet

Faster than light Neutrinos

——————————————- News Byte ———————————————————

Functional Invisibility cloak! using mirage effect underwater

Error in Greenland Ice Map

Planet Mercury Full of Strange Surprises

  • The low down
    • The Messenger Spacecraft orbiting Mercury has completed it’s first Mercury day of orbit
    • That’s 176 Earth days, while Mercury’s years is a mere 88 Earth Days, that’s 2 years / day
    • The first 6 months of data was released including information on magnetic field, Mercury’s
      tenuous exoshpere, and surface composition
    • The surface composition of Mercury is different the other inner rocky planets
    • there are huge expanses of volcanic plain in the surrounding the noNorthern polar region
    • Evidence suggests that it formed during a different time than the other inner planets
    • There are also substantially hier amounts of sulfur and potassium than predicted (both vaporize at high temperatures, so extreme high-temperature events in it’s past are ruled out)
    • Scientists have also discovered vents, measuring up to 25 kilometers (km) (15.5 miles) in length, that appear to be the source of some of the tremendous volumes of very hot lava that have rushed out over the surface
  • Mercury has a weak magnetic field
  • Multimedia
  • Social Media
  • Further Reading / In the News
Japans Answer to another Tsunami mini Noah’s Arks?

The complete Astronaut Dad comic revealed at New York Comic-con
  • A graphic novel that tells a moving, fictional story about a group of backup astronauts in the early 1960s, and the complicated relationships they have with their families.

——————————————–Science Calender——————————————————

Looking back this week
Looking up this week
  • Keep an eye out for
    • This month Saturn sets just before Jupiter rises, and Venus is moving from the morning sky before dawn to the evening sky.
    • This month Jupiter is in opposition (opposite the sun to us), but it makes for good observations
    • Jupiter is roughly 45° up in the late evening skies to the East (height depends on where you are and what time your observing)
    • In the Pre-Dawn hours of the 20–22 you can see the Waning Moon in the SE about half way up the sky, along with the planet Mars
    • You might also be able to see a few Orionid metoers later this week in the SE skies as they peak in the Early morning hours of Saturday Oct 22, waiting till just after midnight might get you rates of up to 25 meteors per hour ( ~ 1/ 2.5 min )
    • The ROSAT X-ray observatory, launched in 1990 by NASA and managed for years by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere within the next two weeks. Current best estimates place the re-entry between Oct. 21st and 24th over an unknown part of Earth. (A Day before re-entry the estimate will be +/- 5 hours)
    • ROSAT re-entry page
    • Check the links for more information and updates, when and where you can see satellites going over head and even ongoing data updates on the chances of Aurora where you live
  • More on whats in the sky this week

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