Mars – Jupiter Broadcasting

The Pirate Bay goes offline, but is it truly dead yet? Comcast gets sued for turning on your modem’s wifi, major security flaws impacting X.Org, our Kickstarter of the week & more!

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Swedish Police Raid The Pirate Bay, Site Offline | TorrentFreak

Police in Sweden carried out a raid in Stockholm today, seizing servers, computers, and other equipment. At the same time The Pirate Bay and several other torrent-related sites disappeared offline. Although no official statement has been made, TF sources confirm action against TPB.

However, over in Sweden authorities have just confirmed that local police carried out a raid in Stockholm this morning as part of an operation to protect intellectual property.

“There has been a crackdown on a server room in Greater Stockholm. This is in connection with violations of copyright law,” read a statement from Paul Pintér, police national coordinator for IP enforcement.

Fonzie Jumps the Shark on Happy Days (Episode 5.3) 1977 – YouTube

Comcast Sued For Turning Home Wi-Fi Routers Into Public Hotspots

Benny Evangelista reports at the San Francisco Chronicle that a class-action suit has been filed in District Court in San Francisco on behalf of Toyer Grear and daughter Joycelyn Harris, claiming that Comcast is “exploiting them for profit” by using their home router as part of a nationwide network of public hotspots. Comcast is trying to compete with major cell phone carriers by creating a public Xfinity WiFi Hotspot network in 19 of the country’s largest cities by activating a second high-speed Internet channel broadcast from newer-model wireless gateway modems that residential customers lease from the company.

Although Comcast has said its subscribers have the right to disable the secondary signal, the suit claims the company turns the service on without permission. It also places “the costs of its national Wi-Fi network onto its customers” and quotes a test conducted by Philadelphia networking technology company Speedify that concluded the secondary Internet channel will eventually push “tens of millions of dollars per month of the electricity bills needed to run their nationwide public Wi-Fi network onto consumers.” The suit also says “the data and information on a Comcast customer’s network is at greater risk” because the hotspot network “allows strangers to connect to the Internet through the same wireless router used by Comcast customers.”

Just-Announced X.Org Security Flaws Affect Code Dating Back To 1987 t

Some of the worst X.Org security issues were just publicized in an X.Org security advisory. The vulnerabilities deal with protocol handling issues and led to 12 CVEs published and code dating back to 1987 is affected within X11. Fixes for the X Server are temporarily available via this Git repository.

KICKSTARTER OF THE WEEK: Mars by crazybaby: A Levitating Bluetooth Speaker | Indiegogo

Mars’s levitating 360° sound projection reduces sound wave absorption into surfaces by levitating above the subwoofer charging station.

The post Comcast Jumps the Shark | Tech Talk Today 103 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Voyager 1 & SpaceX | SciByte 136

chris — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 20:45:40 +0000

Hello everyone and welcome back to SciByte!

We take a look at Voyager 1 reading a tsunami wave from the sun, SpaceX launching satellites into space and testing new reusable systems, story and spacecraft updates, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Book Pick:

The Martian Audiobook | Andy Weir | Audible.com

Voyager 1 Sees Another Interstellar Tsunami

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has experienced a new “tsunami wave” from the sun as it sails through interstellar space
Such waves are what led scientists to the conclusion, in the fall of 2013, that Voyager had indeed left our sun’s bubble, entering a new frontier
Interstellar Tsunami
“Normally, interstellar space is like a quiet lake,But when our sun has a burst, it sends a shock wave outward that reaches Voyager about a year later. The wave causes the plasma surrounding the spacecraft to sing.” | Ed Stone of the California Institute of Technology
Data from this newest tsunami wave generated by our sun confirm that Voyager is in interstellar space
Coronal Mass Ejection
Our sun goes through periods of increased activity, where it explosively ejects material from its surface, flinging it outward
These events, called coronal mass ejections, generate shock, or pressure, waves.
Three such waves have reached Voyager 1 since it entered interstellar space in 2012
The first was too small to be noticed when it occurred and was only discovered later, but the second was clearly registered by the spacecraft’s cosmic ray instrument in March of 2013
In 2013, thanks to the second tsunami wave, the team acquired evidence that Voyager had been flying for more than a year through plasma that was 40 times denser than measured before – a telltale indicator of interstellar space
Now, the team has new readings from a third wave from the sun, first registered in March of this year
Frequency
The plasma wave instrument can detect oscillations of the plasma electrons
“The tsunami wave rings the plasma like a bell … While the plasma wave instrument lets us measure the frequency of this ringing, the cosmic ray instrument reveals what struck the bell – the shock wave from the sun.” | Ed Stone of the California Institute of Technology
This ringing of the plasma bell is what led to the key evidence showing Voyager had entered interstellar space, denser plasma oscillates faster, the team was able to figure out the density of the plasma
Of Note
These data show that the density of the plasma is similar to what was measured previously, confirming the spacecraft is in interstellar space
The mission has not left the solar system, it has yet to reach a final halo of comets surrounding our sun, but it broke through the wind-blown bubble, or heliosphere, encasing our sun
Further Reading / In the News
Sun sends more ‘tsunami waves’ to Voyager 1 | Phys.org

— NEWS BYTE —

SpaceX Launches Telecom Satellites

SpaceX successfully launched six ORBCOMM advanced telecommunications satellites into orbit on Monday, July 14, to significantly upgrade the speed and capacity of their existing data relay network.
Testing the Rocket Booster Reentry
They also used this launch opportunity to try and test the reusability of the Falcon 9′s first stage and its landing system while splashing down in the ocean
However, the booster did not survive the splashdown. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reported that the rocket booster reentry, landing burn and leg deployment worked well, the hull of the first stage “lost integrity right after splashdown
Musk tweeted. “Detailed review of rocket telemetry needed to tell if due to initial splashdown or subsequent tip over and body slam.”
SpaceX wanted to test the “flyback” ability to the rocket, slowing down the descent of the rocket with thrusters and deploying the landing legs for future launches so the first stage can be reused
The previous test of the landing system was successful, but the choppy seas destroyed the stage and prevented recovery
The Future
The six satellites launched are the first part of what the company hopes will be a 17-satellite constellation. They hope to have all 17 satellites in orbit by the end of the 2014
Multimedia
YouTube | Orbcomm OG2 | Falcon 9 Satellite Launch | Launch
YouTube | Orbcomm OG2 | Falcon 9 Satellite Launch | Seperation
YouTube | Orbcomm OG2 | Falcon 9 Satellite Launch | In Space
Further Reading / In the News
SpaceX Launches Six Commercial Satellites on Falcon 9; Landing Test Ends in “Kaboom” | UniverseToday.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

How Many Scientists Publish Papers?

A new study finds that very few scientists – fewer than 1% manage to publish a paper every year.
But these scientists dominate the research journals, having their names on 41% of all papers.
They looked at papers published between 1996 and 2011 by 15 million scientists worldwide in many disciplines
This research, published on 9 July in PLOS ONE, was led by epidemiologist John Ioannidis of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, with analysis of Elsevier’s Scopus database by colleagues Kevin Boyack and Richard Klavans at SciTech Strategies
By The Numbers
The ranks of scientists who repeatedly published more than one paper per year thin out dramatically
Two or more: 68,221
Three or more: 37,953
Four or more: 23,342
Five or more: 15,464
10 or more: 3269
How Does That Make Sense?
Many of these prolific scientists are likely the heads of laboratories or research groups; they bring in funding, supervise research, and add their names to the numerous papers that result
Others may be scientists with enough job security and time to do copious research themselves from highly productive labs
There is also a lot of grunt work behind these papers, for example doctoral students may be enrolled in high numbers, offering a cheap workforce
Those doctoral students might only get their name published on only one or a few papers and may spend years on research that yields
Further Reading / In the News
The 1% of scientific publishing | Science/AAAS | News

— Updates —

HIV Detected in ‘Cured’ ‘Mississippi Baby

Last Time on SciByte …
SciByte 84 | HIV & SpaceX Troubles | March 5, 2013
SciByte 123 | HIV Treatment & European Dinosaur | March 11, 2014](https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/53247/hiv-treatment-european-dinosaur-scibyte-123/
The child known as the ‘Mississippi baby’ — an infant seemingly cured of HIV that was reported as a case study of a prolonged remission of HIV infection now has detectable levels of HIV after more than two years of not taking antiretroviral therapy without evidence of virus
History
The child was born prematurely in a Mississippi clinic in 2010 to an HIV-infected mother who did not receive antiretroviral medication during pregnancy and was not diagnosed with HIV infection until the time of delivery
Because of the high risk of HIV exposure, the infant was started at 30 hours of age on liquid, triple-drug antiretroviral treatment.
Testing confirmed within several days that the baby had been infected with HIV. At two weeks of age, the baby was discharged from the hospital and continued on liquid antiretroviral therapy
The baby continued on antiretroviral treatment until 18 months of age, when the child was lost to follow up and no longer received treatment
When the child was again seen by medical staff five months later, blood samples revealed undetectable HIV levels (less than 20 copies of HIV per milliliter of blood (copies/mL)) and no HIV-specific antibodies
The child continued to do well in the absence of antiretroviral medicines and was free of detectable HIV for more than two years
Unfortunate New Findings
During a routine clinical care visit earlier this month, the child, now nearly 4 years of age, was found to have detectable HIV levels in the blood
Repeat viral load blood testing performed 72 hours later confirmed this finding
Additionally, the child had decreased levels of a key component of a normal immune system, and the presence of HIV antibodies — signals of an actively replicating pool of virus in the body.
Based on these results, the child was again started on antiretroviral therapy.
To date, the child is tolerating the medication with no side effects and treatment is decreasing virus levels
Genetic sequencing of the virus indicated that the child’s HIV infection was the same strain acquired from the mother
What This Means
In light of the new findings, researchers must now work to better understand what enabled the child to remain off treatment for more than two years without detectable virus or measurable immunologic response
Researchers are hoping to find out what might be done to extend the period of sustained HIV remission in the absence of antiretroviral therapy. Since typically, when treatment is stopped, HIV levels rebound within weeks, not years
“The prolonged lack of viral rebound, in the absence of HIV-specific immune responses, suggests that the very early therapy not only kept this child clinically well, but also restricted the number of cells harboring HIV infection,” said Katherine Luzuriaga, M.D., professor of molecular medicine, pediatrics and medicine at the University of Massachusetts
The results to indicate that early antiretroviral treatment in this HIV-infected infant did not completely eliminate the reservoir of HIV-infected cells that was established upon infection
The Clinical Trial
At the same time the results were announced in March, a clinical study was announced that would follow a similar treatment
The researchers planning the clinical trial will now need to take this new development into account, the case may have considerably limited its development and averted the need for antiretroviral medication over a considerable period
“Scientifically, this development reminds us that we still have much more to learn about the intricacies of HIV infection and where the virus hides in the body. The NIH remains committed to moving forward with research on a cure for HIV infection.” | NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.
Further Reading / In the News
‘Mississippi Baby’ now has detectable HIV, researchers find | ScienceDaily
Researchers Describe First ‘Functional HIV Cure’ in an Infant | ScienceDaily.com

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

ISEE3 Reboot Project

The Low Down
The previous ‘problems’ with the propulsion tanks were turned loose upon the internet looking for experts in various fields to help come up with ideas and solutions
One idea that came up was that that there would have been some ‘vapor lock’ where come fuel gasified in the lines
The team then used those experts to come up with a plan to heat and pulse the propulsion systems to hopefully clear the lines.
The current window of opportunity to test this is Wed, July 16
[Recently in ISEE-3 Reboot Project Category | SpaceCollege.org(https://spacecollege.org/isee3/)
Twitter | ISEE3 Reboot Project ‏@ISEE3Reboot
10 Jul 2014 | We have spent the day consulting with world class propulsion experts and have some solid plans for tackling our #ISEE3 propulsion issues.
11 Jul 2014 | Now focusing on more heating of hydrazine tanks & long sequences of thruster firing attempts to (possibly) clear #ISEE3 prop system
11 Jul 2014 | We did not have a successful #DSN ranging session today. DSN was unable to get a consistent lock on #ISEE3 – updates later today.
11 Jul 2014 | #ISEE3 is in Science Mode and is broadcasting telemetry which you can view in near real-time at https://www.amsat-dl.org
11 Jul 11 2014 | Our propulsion experts say it is unlikely that we’ve lost Nitrogen &/or Hydrazine reserves. Most likely some gas in the lines #ISEE3 1/2
11 Jul 2014 | Some additional heating and a few hundred thruster pulse firings might clear the lines. Working up a plan now for next week #ISEE3 2/2
12 Jun 2014 | the Voyager team reprogrammed both spacecraft billions of miles away. Nearby space plumbing on #ISEE3 is easy by comparison
12 Jun 2014 | we want to heat the fuel tanks and then fire the engines several hundred times to clear gas out of the lines. #ISEE3
13 Jul 2014| We’re focusing on heating hydrazine tanks & then making long series of thruster firing attempts to clear the lines. More info soon. #ISEE3
14 Jul 2014 | We’re putting final touches on #ISEE3 propulsion repair process to be implemented this week. We think there is still plenty of fuel for TCM
14 Jul 2014 | All we are waiting for now is a confirmed window from our friends at Arecibo & we’re ready to do some deep space plumbing repairs on #ISEE3
15 Jul 2014 | If you’ve ever had to clean out your car’s carburetor & fuel line then you have an idea of what our plan is to try & fix #ISEE3 tomorrow

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

Mission Info
Curiosity still has about another 2.4 miles (3.9 kilometers) to go to reach the entry way at a gap in the dunes at the foothills of Mount Sharp sometime later this year
To date, Curiosity’s odometer totals over 5.1 miles (8.4 kilometers) since landing inside Gale Crater on Mars in August 2012. She has taken over 162,000 images
Multimedia
YouTube Curiosity Rover Report JPLnews
Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
Social Media
Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
Further Reading / In the News

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

July 17, 709 BC : 2723 years ago : Earliest Record Solar Eclipse. : In 709 BC, the earliest record of a confirmed total solar eclipse was written in China. From: Ch’un-ch’iu, book I: “Duke Huan, 3rd year, 7th month, day jen-ch’en, the first day (of the month). The Sun was eclipsed and it was total.” This is the earliest direct allusion to a complete obscuration of the Sun in any civilisation. The recorded date, when reduced to the Julian calendar, agrees exactly with that of a computed solar eclipse. Reference to the same eclipse appears in the Han-shu (‘History of the Former Han Dynasty’) (Chinese, 1st century AD): “…the eclipse threaded centrally through the Sun; above and below it was yellow.” Earlier Chinese writings that refer to an eclipse do so without noting totality.

Looking up this week

Keep an eye out for …
Fri, Jul, 18 | Last-Quarter Moon
Sat, Jul 19 | Mars is still less than 3* (two fingers widths at arms length) from Spica, but sinking lower in the SW at dusk
Planets
Mercury | Dawn | Low in the glow of sunrise, Mercury is just 7* to the lower left of Venus all week. (A little over the width of all your fingers held at arms length)
Venus | Dawn | Low in the E-NE
Mars | Dusk | High in the SW with Spica very near it. Although they will start to slowly drift apart now, on Sat Jul 19 they are still less than 3* apart.
Jupiter | Hidden in sunset
Saturn | Twilight | Highest during twilight in the S-SW to the left/upper left of Mars/Spica
Further Reading and Resources
Sky&Telescope
SpaceWeather.com
StarDate.org
For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au
Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org
Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz
AstronomyNow
HeavensAbove

— SciByte Summer Hiatus —

For Science and Show Updates
Heather / Mars_Base Twitter | @JB_Mars_Base
Chris Fisher @ChrisLAS

The post Voyager 1 & SpaceX | SciByte 136 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Exoplanets & Diabetes | SciByte 135

chris — Tue, 08 Jul 2014 20:58:08 +0000

Hello everyone and welcome back to SciByte!

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

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Exoplanets? … Not So Fast

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

— NEWS BYTE —

Research on Reversing Type 1 Diabetes

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

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

A New Earth-Like Exoplanet

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

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

Opportunity Rover

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

India’s Mars Orbiter Mission

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

ISEE3 Reboot Project

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Titans Salty Ocean

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

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

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

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

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

Looking up this week

Keep an eye out for …
Fri, July 11 | At dusk you can see Mars and Spica in the SW sky just under 2* apart [1* is the width of your pinky held at arms length]
Sat, July 12 | Full Moon
Sun, July 13 | At dusk Mars and Spica are now just 1.3* apart
Planets
Mercury | Sunrise | low in the glow of sunrise to the lower left of Venus
Venus | Dawn | Low in the E
Mars | Dusk | High in the SW at dusk with Spica, a little fainter, closing in on it each day reaching their closest point on Sunday
Jupiter is lost in the sunset
Saturn | Late Twilight | Highest in the S
Further Reading and Resources
Sky&Telescope
SpaceWeather.com
StarDate.org
For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au
Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org
Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz
AstronomyNow
HeavensAbove

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

Orion Heat Shield & Dragon V2 | SciByte 133

chris — Tue, 03 Jun 2014 21:17:47 +0000

Hello everyone and welcome back to SciByte!

We take a look at NASA testing the world’s largest heat shield, ancient evidence of lyme disease, sign language on glasses, story and 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:

Testing NASA\’s Orion Spacecraft Heat Shield

Technicians at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida have attached the world’s largest heat shield to a pathfinding version of NASA’s Orion crew capsule
**Delta IV Heavy Rockets***
The Delta IV Heavy is the only rocket with sufficient thrust to launch the Orion EFT-1 capsule and its attached upper stage to its intended orbit of 3600 miles altitude above Earth
That is 15 times higher than the International Space Station (ISS) and farther than any human spacecraft has journeyed in 40 year
Orion Spacecraft
Orion is NASA’s next generation human rated vehicle now under development to replace the now retired space shuttle
“The Orion heat shield is the largest of its kind ever built. Its wider than the Apollo and Mars Science Lab heat shields,” | Todd Sullivan, heat shield senior manager
Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1)
The initial test flight later this Fall on a crucial mission dubbed Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1)
One of the primary goals of NASA’s eagerly anticipated Orion EFT-1 uncrewed test flight is to test the efficacy of the heat shield in protecting the vehicle – and future human astronauts
At the conclusion of the two-orbit, four- hour EFT-1 flight, the detached Orion capsule plunges back and re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere at 20,000 MPH (32,000 kilometers per hour).
“That’s about 80% of the reentry speed experienced by the Apollo capsule after returning from the Apollo moon landing missions,” Scott Wilson, NASA’s Orion Manager of Production Operations
The big reason to get to those high speeds during EFT-1 is to be able to test out the thermal protection system
A trio of parachutes will then unfurl to slow it down for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean
The Heat Shield
The heat shield is constructed from a single seamless piece of Avcoat ablator and measures 16.5 ft (5 m) in diameter
The ablative material will wear away as it heats up during the capsules atmospheric re-entry thereby preventing the 4000* F (2204*C) heat from being transferred to the rest of the capsule
Numerous sensors and instrumentation have been specially installed on the EFT-1 heat shield and the back shell tiles to collect measurements of things like temperatures, pressures and stresses during the extreme conditions of atmospheric reentry
The Future
Data gathered during the flight will aid in confirming. or refuting, design decisions and computer models as the program moves forward to the first flight in late 2017 on the EM-1 mission and more human crewed missions thereafter
Multimedia
YouTube | Early in the Process | Textron Team Readies Orion Heat Shield for Shipment to Kennedy Space Center | ReelNASA
Further Reading / In the News
World Largest Heat Shield Attached to NASA\’s Orion Crew Capsule for Crucial Fall 2014 Test Flight | UniverseToday.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Ancient Lyme Disease

New discoveries of ticks fossilized in amber show that the bacteria which cause Lyme disease may have been lurking around for 15 million years
Lyme Disease
In the United States, Europe and Asia, ticks are a more important insect vector of disease than mosquitos
It is a stealthy, often misdiagnosed disease that was only recognized about 40 years ago and can cause problems with joints, the heart and central nervous system
**Amber***
Plant and animal life forms found preserved in amber are very efficient at maintaining populations of microbes in their tissues, and can infect mammals, birds, reptiles and other animals
Bacteria
The findings were made when scientists studied 15-20 million-year-old amber
They offer the oldest fossil evidence ever found of Borrelia, a type of spirochete-like bacteria that to this day causes Lyme disease
This is the oldest fossil evidence of ticks associated with such bacteria
In a separate report, scientists announced the first fossil record Rickettsia bacteria, the cause of Rocky Mountain spotted fever and related illnesses
**What This Might Mean*
In 30 years of studying diseases revealed in the fossil record, the scientist has documented the ancient presence of such diseases as malaria, leishmania, and others.
It\’s now worth considering that these tick-borne diseases may be far more common than has been historically appreciated
Evidence suggests that dinosaurs could have been infected with Rickettsial pathogens
Rickettsia species are carried by many chiggers, ticks, fleas, and lice, and cause diseases in humans such as typhus, spotted fever group, and others
Further Reading / In the News
Amber discovery indicates Lyme disease is older than human race | Phys.org
Lyme Disease Bacteria Found in 15-Million-Year-Old Amber | Paleontology | Sci-News.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

\”Signglasses\”

Students at Brigham Young University recently launched the \”Signglasses\” project in an attempt to develop a better system of sign language for narration through several types of glasses, including Google Glass.
By coincidence, the only two deaf students to ever take Professor Jones’ computer science class signed up just as the National Science Foundation funded Jones’ signglasses research
“Having a group of students who are fluent in sign language here at the university has been huge\” | Professor Mike Jones
The team tested their system during a field trip visit to the Jean Messieu School for the deaf, where it was revealed that the signer should be displayed in the center of the lens
Deaf participants could then look straight through the signer as they focused on a planetarium show.
This was particularly surprising for researchers as they believed that deaf students would prefer to have a video displayed at the top, as Google Glass normally presents itself
The Future
Jones will publish the full results of their research in June at Interaction Design and Children
Researchers hope that with further studies, this tool can also be used for literary guidance
One idea is when you\’re reading a book and come across a word that you don\’t understand, you point at it, push a button to take a picture
Multimedia
YouTube | BYU Signglasses Project | Austin Balaich
Further Reading / In the News
Google Glass adaptation opens the universe to deaf students | news.byu.edu/
\’Signglasses\’ System Helps Deaf Literacy | ScienceWorldReport.com

— Updates —

ISEE-3 Reboot

Last Time on SciByte …
SciByte 132 | ISEE-3 Back To Life | May 27, 2014
The Low Down
Approval from NASA to attempt contact, and that go-ahead came on May 29th
The ISEE-3 Reboot Project has announced that it has achieved two-way communication with the ISEE-3 at a transmission rate of 512 bits per second.
“We have been able to verify modulated data through ground stations in Germany, Morehead State in Kentucky, and the SETI Allen Array in California.” | project member Keith Cowing
Eventual goal is to actually change its current trajectory into one that will enable more frequent communication with the probe
Transponders
The spacecraft has two transponders, transponder A and Transponder B
Transponder B is normally the engineering telemetry transponder and transponder A is the ranging transponder
The final state of the spacecraft before was to have both of the transponders transmitters active and that is what people around the world have been tracking.
Communication
The team tried several times to command the spacecraft\’s B transponder into the mode where it normally sends engineering telemetry but that did not work
They then tried the same process on transponder A, the initial command was just to turn engineering telemetry, which was successful so they were able to commanded the spacecraft into engineering telemetry mode.
Through the A transponder receiver we commanded through the B transponder command decoder to output engineering telemetry through transponder B\’s transmitter
The team tried to command the spacecraft into 64 bits/second mode, which was a mode that is much more complicated to set up and they did not get working successfully during the limited time that the spacecraft is visible from Arecibo
They need to do this so that the smaller dishes at Morehead State and Bochum will have a positive signal margin so that we can record several hours of data
When they later processed the first day\’s data dump from the spacecraft they received 49 full frames of data at a bitrate of 512 bits/second, and there were no errors on the downlink
Verified so Far the Following Systems on the Spacecraft

Transponder A receiver
Transponder A\’s Command Decoder and Data Handling Unit
Transponder B\’s Command Decoder and Data Handling Unit

+ Milestones Related to Commanding and Receiving Data
1. Successful commanding multiple times of ISEE-3/ICE
2. Received engineering telemetry from both data multiplexing units on the spacecraft
3. Successful demodulation on the ground of the received data, through the output of bits
4. Verification of good data at 512 bits/sec, including frame synchronization, correct number of bits/frame, and with no errors, showing a very strong 30+ db link margin through Arecibo
+ The Future
+ If they can maneuver the spacecraft by June 17th they can get the very small delta V number, however if this starts to climb rapidly as the spacecraft gets closer to the moon they cannot at this time rule out a lunar impact.
+ Multimedia
+ Image | \”ISEE-3 Mission Control\” | Space College: ISEE-3 Reboot Project Archives | spacecollege.org
+ YouTube | ISEE-3 Reboot | Mike Loucks Mike
+ Twitter | ISEE3 Reboot Project (ISEE3Reboot)
+ YouTube | ISEE-3 Reboot | Mike Loucks
+ YouTube | ISEE-3 Reboot Project – Recovering a 30 year old space probe Scott Manley
+ Further Reading / In the News
+ Space College: ISEE-3 Reboot Project Archives | spacecollege.org
+ Citizen Scientists Take Command Of Decades-Old NASA Probe | Forbes.com
+ 35-year-old ISEE 3 Craft Phones Home | Sky & Telescope

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

SpaceX Dragon V2

The previous version of the Dragon capsule was flightworthy enough to deliver supplies, its life support system wasn’t reliable for human passengers
Dragon V2, on the other hand, will be able to carry seven astronauts for seven days.
General Capabilities
The vehicle holds seats for 7 passengers, and includes an Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) that provides a comfortable environment for crewmembers
When the capsule reaches the ISS, it will dock with the station autonomously. Unlike its predecessor, it won’t need the ISS’s robotic arm to reach out and grab it
To land back on Earth, a backup technique for the new capsule is to slow its speed with parachutes before splashing into the ocean
The main technique for landing uses its engines to land propulsively which will will make it quickly reusable
“You’ll be able to land anywhere on Earth with the accuracy of a helicopter,” | SpaceX CEO Elon Musk
The Future
Dragon V2’s robust thermal protection system is capable of lunar missions, in addition to flights to and from Earth orbit
According to Ars Technica, NASA pays Russia about $71 million per astronaut for trips to the ISS. Musk thinks he can drop that number to $20 million or less.
Multimedia
YouTube | SpaceX Dragon V2 | Flight Animation | spacexchannel·
Further Reading / In the News
Dragon V2: SpaceX\’s Next Generation Manned Spacecraft | SpaceX
Inside The New Dragon Spacecraft | Popular Science

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

Driving on and Science
Curiosity is resuming driving toward Mount Sharp, the layered mountain at the middle of Mars\’ Gale Crater.
The rover is carrying with it some of the powdered sample material from Windjana that can be delivered for additional internal laboratory analysis during pauses in the drive.
Multimedia
YouTube Curiosity Rover Report JPLnews
Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
Social Media
Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
Further Reading / In the News
What\’s New – Mars Science Laboratory | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

June 7, 1958 : 56 years ago : Ultrasound Article : A seminal article that launched the widespread use of ultrasound in medical diagnosis was published in The Lancet by Ian Donald, an English physician. After a few years developing the experimental use of ultrasound, Donald had applied it to treat patients in his hospital. In the Lancet article, Investigation of Abdominal Masses by Pulsed Ultrasound, he described how he was able to make the life-saving diagnosis of a huge, easily removable, ovarian cyst in a woman who had been diagnosed by others as having inoperable stomach cancer. Donald knew about sonar from his service in WW II, and industrial use of reflected ultrasound waves for flaw detection in materials, and with help from others, he launched its use in medicine

Looking up this week

Keep an eye out for …
Thurs, June 5 | First-quarter Moon
Thurs, June 5 | After Dark | The easy to spot constellation \”Cassiopeia\” that looks like a W is near the north horizon
Planets
Mercury | Twilight | Low in the west-northwest both fading and sinking lower to the horizon
Venus | \”Morning Star\” | Low in the E during dawn
Mars | Late Twilight | Appears high in the S, setting in the W ~2-3 am DST
Jupiter | Twilight | Shines in the W in twilight setting soon after dark
Saturn | Evening | Is in the SE in the evening, moving to its highest point in the S skies ~11-12
Further Reading and Resources
Sky&Telescope
SpaceWeather.com
StarDate.org
For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au
Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org
Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz
AstronomyNow
HeavensAbove

The post Orion Heat Shield & Dragon V2 | SciByte 133 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Solar Sibling & Comets | SciByte 130

chris — Tue, 13 May 2014 23:25:00 +0000

We take a look at a solar sibling, mapping neurons with crowdsourcing, comets, an exoskeleton to help a paralyzed teen walk, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Show Notes:

The Suns Long-Lost brother

A team of researchers has identified the first \”sibling\” of the Sun — a star that was almost certainly born from the same cloud of gas and dust as our star
The Suns \”Sibling\” | HD 162826
The solar sibling the team identified is a star called HD 162826, a star 15 percent more massive than the Sun, located 110 light-years away in the constellation Hercules
The star is not visible to the unaided eye, but easily can be seen with low-power binoculars, not far from the bright star Vega.
Data in the Data
By coincidence this star has been studied by the McDonald Observatory Planet Search team for more than 15 years
Combining the data from those studies, together with new calculations has ruled out any \”hot Jupiters\” — massive planets orbiting close to the star
The studies indicate that it\’s unlikely that a Jupiter analog orbits the star, either, but they do not rule out the presence of smaller terrestrial planets.
**Identifying***
The team identified HD 162826 as the Sun\’s sibling by following up on 30 possible candidates found by several groups around the world looking for solar siblings.
All of these observations used high-resolution spectroscopy to get a deep understanding of the stars\’ chemical make-up.
Several factors are needed to really pin down a solar sibling, in addition to chemical analysis, his team also included information about the stars\’ orbits, where they had been and where they are going in their paths around the center of the Milky Way galaxy
Combining information on both chemical make-up and dynamics of the candidates narrowed the field down to one: HD 162826.
Narrowing Down the Suspects
Even with information on more stars to work with, it\’s not straightforwards to identify potential stellar siblings
What the researchers are looking at is spectrographic analysis, certain key chemical elements that are going to be very useful
Elements are ones that vary greatly among stars which otherwise have very similar chemical compositions, but the team has identified the elements barium and yttrium as particularly useful for differentiating star of interest
Project Goals
The project has a larger purpose: to create a road map for how to identify solar siblings
\”The idea is that the Sun was born in a cluster with a thousand or a hundred thousand stars. This cluster, which formed more than 4.5 billion years ago, has since broken up,\” | Ivan Ramirez, McDonald Observatory
The member stars have broken off into their own orbits around the galactic center, taking them to different parts of the Milky Way today. A few, like HD 162826, are still nearby. Others are much farther
Learning More About the Sun
The newly developed methods for locating the Sun\’s \’siblings\’ will help other astronomers find other \”solar siblings,\” work that could lead to an understanding of how and where our Sun formed, and how our solar system became hospitable for life
To reach that goal, the dynamics specialists will make models that run the orbits of all known solar siblings backward in time, to find where they intersect: their birthplace.
Further Reading / In the News
Astronomers find sun\’s \’long-lost brother,\’ pave way for family reunion | ScienceDaily

— NEWS BYTE —

Gaming for Science | Eyewire

A team of researchers working at MIT has used data supplied by gamers on EyeWire to help explain how it is that the retina is able to process motion detection
The team describes how they worked with gamers at EyeWire and then used the resulting mapped neural networks to propose a new theory to describe how it is the eye is able to understand what happens when something moves in front of it.
What We Know
Scientists have known for quite some time that light enters the eye and strikes the back of the eyeball where photoreceptors respond
Those photoreceptors send information they receive to another type of neural cell known as bipolar cells
They in turn convert received signals to another signal format which is then sent to what are known as starburst amacrine cells (SACs)
Signals from the SAC are sent via the optic nerve to the brain
Scientists believe they have a pretty good idea about how the whole process works for static images, they have not been able to get a handle on what happens when images sent to the eyeball have information about things that are moving
New Research
The problem with figuring out how nerve cells work in the eye, of either mice or humans, is the inability to watch what happens in action-everything is too tiny and intricate
+To get around that problem, researchers have been building three dimensional models on computers, but even that gets untenable when considering the complexity and numbers of nerves involved
In this new effort, the researchers sought to do just that-via assistance from thousands of gamers on the EyeWire game playing site
That\’s where the EyeWire gamers came in, a game was created that involved gamers creating mouse neural networks-the better they were at it the more points they got
EyeWire
In EyeWire you are given a cube to analyze, they have a basic idea of the shape of the Neuron they are looking for
That shape comes from sequential slices where the computer tries to fill in layer by layer how the neuron moves from slide to slide creating a basic shape
From that shape the user can scroll up and down the cube going slice by slice to visually correct anything that is not filled in or is filled in too much by the program
By using ‘crowdsourcing’ the speed in which it moves forward is increased based on the number of people playing
In addition to helping the scientists directly, they are also using the results to teach the program so that it’s processing ability also increases as the projects goes forward
The result was the creation of a model that the researchers believe is an accurate representation of the cells involved in processing vision, and the networks that are made up of them
Results So Far
They noted that in the model, there were different types of bipolar cells connecting to SACs-some connected to dendrites close to the cells center, and others connected to dendrites that were farther away
Prior research had shown that some bipolar cells take longer to process information than others
The researchers believe that the bipolar cells that connect closer to the center are of the type that take longer to process signals
This, they contend, could set up a scenario where the center of the SAC receives information from both types of bipolar cells at the same time-and that, they suggest, could be how the SAC comes to understand that motion-in one direction-is occurring
The researchers suggest their theory can be real-world tested in the lab, and expect other teams will likely do so
If they are right, the mystery of how our eyes detect motion will finally be solved.
Multimedia
YouTube | How To Play EyeWire | EyeWire
YouTube | Gamers Help Solve Neuroscience Mystery | EyeWire
Further Reading / In the News
About EyeWire, A Game to Map the Brain
EyeWire gamers help researchers understand retina\’s motion detection wiring | MedicalXPress.com

Old ‘Asteroid’ Now Comet

On October 23, 2013, astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey picked up a very faint asteroid with an unusual orbit more like a that of a comet than an asteroid
At the time 2013 UQ4 was little more than a stellar point with no evidence of a hazy coma or tail that would tag it as a comet
The Comet C/2013 UQ4, Formally Known As The Asteroid 2013 UQ4
On May 7 a remote telescope located in Siding Spring, Australia to take photos of 2013 UQ4 shortly before dawn in the constellation Cetus and they noticed that the asteroid had grown a little fuzz, making the move to comethood
Assuming the now renamed C/2013 UQ4 continues to spout dust and water vapor, it should brighten to magnitude +11 by month’s end as it moves northward across Pisces and into a dark morning sky
It currently displays a substantial coma or atmosphere, but no tail is visible yet
Studies of the comet/asteroid’s light indicate that it is a very dark but rather large object some 4-9 miles (7-15 km) across.
It’s estimated that it takes at least 500 years to make one spin around the sun
C/2013 UQ4, belongs to a special category of asteroids called damocloids
Damocloids
Damocloids are thought to be comets that have lost \”all their fizz\”
Their volatile ices spent from previous trips around the sun, they stop growing comas and tails and appear identical to asteroids
They have orbits resembling the Halley-family comets with long periods, fairly steep inclinations and highly eccentric orbits (elongated shapes)
Occasionally, one comes back to life. It’s happened in at least four other cases and appears to be happening with C/2013 UQ4 as well.
Observing
Perihelion occurs on June 5 with the comet reaching magnitude +8-9 by month’s end
Peak brightness of 7th magnitude is expected during its close approach of Earth on July 10 at 29 million miles (46.7 million km).
It’s still bright enough to see in a 12-inch telescope under dark skies
This should be a great summer comet, plainly visible in binoculars from a dark sky
It is moving at a very quick pace, at the rate of some 7 degrees per night!
That’s 1/3 of a degree per hour or fast enough to see movement through a telescope in a matter of minutes when the comet is nearest Earth
Multimedia
YouTube | An Unusual Asteroid | NormalLifeIsNotReal
Further Reading / In the News
Asteroid 2013 UQ4 Suddenly Becomes a Dark Comet with a Bright Future | UniverseToday.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Mind-Controlled Exoskeleton

The World Cup opening ceremony on June 12 a mind-controlled exoskeleton designed to enable a paralyzed person to walk is to make its debut.
Opening Ceremony
A BBC report provided the latest developments in the robotic suit. \”If all goes as planned,\” wrote Alejandra Martins, \”the robotic suit will spring to life in front of almost 70,000 spectators and a global audience of billions of people.\”
The (DiVE) website talks about the day when \”the first ceremonial kick in the World Cup game may be made \”by a paralyzed teenager, who, flanked by the two contending soccer teams, will saunter onto the pitch clad in a robotic body suit.\”
According to the BBC, since November, Nicolelis has been training eight patients at a lab in Sao Paulo, amidst \”media speculation that one of them will stand up from his or her wheelchair and deliver the first kick of this year\’s World Cup.\”
The Exoskeleton
The exoskeleton was developed by an international team of scientists, part of the Walk Again Project, and described by the BBC report as a \”culmination\” of over 10 years of work
The exoskeleton is being controlled by brain activity and it is relaying feedback signals to the patient.
The patient wears a cap which picks up brain signals and relays them to a computer in the backpack, decoding the signals and sending them to the legs.
A battery in the backpack allows for around two hours\’ use. The robotic suit is powered by hydraulics.
Many different companies helped to build the skeleton\’s components
They used a lot of 3-D printing technology for purposes of both speed and achieving strong but light materials, along with using standard aluminum parts
\”When the foot of the exoskeleton touches the ground there is pressure, so the sensor senses the pressure and before the foot touches the ground we are also doing pre-contact sensing. It\’s a new way of doing skin sensing for robots\” | Dr Gordon Cheng, at the Technical University of Munich
Multimedia
YouTube | Paralysed teen in exoskeleton to kick off World Cup | Truthloader
Further Reading / In the News
Demo of mind-controlled exoskeleton planned for World Cup | Phys.org

— Updates —

Comet Siding Spring

This October, a comet will brush by Mars giving scientists a chance to study how it possibly interacts with a planetary atmosphere
An impact of the comet on the surface of the Red Planet has long been ruled out; however, there is now an interesting possibility of possible interactions of the coma of A1 Siding Spring and the tenuous atmosphere of Mars
Last Time on SciByte …
SciByte 117 | Asteroid Belt Water | January 29, 2014
SciByte 90 | Alzheimer’s & Mars Missions | April 16, 2013
- The Discovery
The comet C/2013 A1 was discovered in the beginning of 2013 by comet-hunter Robert McNaught at the Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, Australia
When the discovery was initially made, astronomers looked back over their observations to find “pre recovery” images of the comet dating back to Dec. 8, 2012.
These observations placed the orbital trajectory of comet C/2013 A1 right through Mars orbit on Oct. 19, 2014
Spacecraft Safety
Orbiters are designed with the risk of space-dust collisions in mind
Over a five-year span for a Mars orbiter, NASA figures on a few percent chance of significant damage to a spacecraft from the background level of impacts from such particles, called meteoroids
If managers choose to position orbiters behind Mars during the peak risk, the further in advance any orbit-adjustment maneuvers can be made, the less fuel will be consumed
Mars “Fly-By”
With a nominal passage of 138,000 km [85,750 mi] from Mars, that is about one third the distance from Earth to the Moon, and 17 times closer than the nearest recorded passage of a comet to the Earth, Comet D/1770 L1 Lexell in 1780.
Although the nucleus will safely pass Mars, the brush with its extended atmosphere might just be detectable by the fleet of spacecraft and rovers in service around Mars
Spacecraft Involved
NEOWISE (The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) and Hubble are already monitoring the comet for enhanced activity
Currently on Mars, Curiosity rover is continuing science, the Opportunity rover is also still functioning, and Mars Odyssey and ESA’s Mars Express are still in orbit around the Red Planet and sending back data
India’s Mars Orbiter Mission and NASA’s MAVEN orbiter arrive just before the comet.
MAVEN was designed to study the upper atmosphere of Mars, and carries an ion-neutral mass spectrometer (NGIMS) which could yield information on the interaction of the coma with the Martian upper atmosphere and ionosphere.
Other, Earth Based Observations
Proposals for using Earth-based assets for further observations of the comet prior to the event in October are still pending
Amateur observers will be able to follow the approach telescopically
It’s also interesting to consider the potential for interactions of the coma with the surfaces of the moons of Mars as well, though the net amount of water vapor expected to be deposited will not be large
Multimedia
YouTube | Comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) near Mars | SpaceObs
Further Reading / In the News
Interesting Prospects for Comet A1 Siding Spring Versus the Martian Atmosphere | UniverseToday.com

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Methane Life

+ Twitter | Kenny MacLeod ‏@siabost9deas
\”Probing the Depths of the Methane World\” Implications for life on worlds like Titan?
The Low Down
In 2011, Jennifer Glass joined a scientific cruise to study a methane seep off of Oregon\’s coast
In these cold, dark depths, microbes buried in the sediment feast on methane that seeps through the seafloor
The Eco-System
A product of their metabolism, bicarbonate, reacts with calcium in seawater to form tall rocky deposits
The chemical energy these organisms extract from methane supports a vibrant underworld
The group found evidence of a new microbial enzyme that seems to use the trace metal tungsten instead of molybdenum, the metal more commonly found in cold seep environments
Previously, tungsten had only been found in microbes living at high temperatures, such as the boiling waters of hydrothermal vents
\”It\’s a very unique chemical environment, with a lot of sulfur,\” \”We think that tungsten might just be more bioavailable in these highly sulfidic conditions.\” | Jennifer Glass
These systems don\’t depend on oxygen, so the microbe-methane relationship likely developed early in Earth\’s history before the rise of oxygen
What This Means for Exobiology
They could also serve as analogues for worlds beyond our Earth.
Methane has been detected in the atmosphere of other planets. Methane lakes have also been spotted on Titan, Saturn\’s largest moon, making it an intriguing candidate for life elsewhere.
Further Reading / In the News
Probing the Depths of the Methane World | AstroBio.net

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

Third Drilling Event
The full-depth hole for sample collection is close to a shallower test hole drilled last week in the same rock, which gave researchers a preview of the interior material as tailings around the hole
\”The drill tailings from this rock are darker-toned and less red than we saw at the two previous drill sites,\” said Jim Bell
, deputy principal investigator for Curiosity\’s Mast Camera (Mastcam)
\”This suggests that the detailed chemical and mineral analysis that will be coming from Curiosity\’s other instruments could reveal different materials than we\’ve seen before.
Sample material from Windjana will be sieved, then delivered to onboard laboratories for determining the mineral and chemical composition
One motive for the team\’s selection of Windjana for drilling is to analyze the cementing material that holds together sand-size grains in this sandstone.
Multimedia
YouTube Curiosity Rover Report JPLnews
Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
Social Media
Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
Further Reading / In the News

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

May 17, 1954 : 60 years ago : CERN Groundbreaking : The official ground-breaking took place at the Meyrin site of the new CERN Laboratory in Geneva. A recommendation had been adopted 12 Dec 1949 at the European Cultural Conference for a European Institute of Nuclear Physics. By 1952, the third session of its provisional Council decided to locate in Switzerland. In Jun 1953, the host community, the canton of Geneva, gave strong approval in a referendum passing with 16539 votes to 7332. On 29 Sep 1954, twelve founding Member States ratified CERN (Centre Européenne de Recherche Nucléaire): Federal Republic of Germany, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Norway, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Sweden, Switzerland and Yugoslavia.
The acronym CERN originally stood in French for Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (European Council for Nuclear Research), which was a provisional council for setting up the laboratory, established by 12 European governments in 1952
The acronym was retained for the new laboratory after the provisional council was dissolved, even though the name changed
Soon after the laboratory\’s establishment, its work went beyond the study of the atomic nucleus into higher-energy physics
The NeXT Computer used by British scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee at CERN became the first Web server, and a Cisco Systems router at CERN was probably one of the first IP routers deployed in Europe

Looking up this week

Keep an eye out for …
Wed, May 14 | Full Moon (exact at 3:16 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.) Look for Saturn to its upper right
Fri, May 16 | Twilight | Look for Mercury low in the west-northwest, far to the lower right of Jupiter
Planets
Mercury | Twilight | Is starting to become visible in evening twilight low in the W-NW to the far lower right of Jupiter about 40-60 min after sunset
Venus | \”Morning Star\” | Is low in the E during dawn
Mars | Just after dark | Highest in the S with Spica to the far lower left
Jupiter | Twilight | High in the W at twilight sinking towards the horizon and setting around midnight
Saturn | Opposition was on May 10 | At rises at sunset in the SE, is highest in the S around 12-1 am and setting at morning in the W
Further Reading and Resources
Sky&Telescope
SpaceWeather.com
StarDate.org
For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au
Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org
Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz
AstronomyNow
HeavensAbove

The post Solar Sibling & Comets | SciByte 130 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Pyramid Construction & Picturebooks | SciByte 129

chris — Tue, 06 May 2014 21:00:35 +0000

Hello everyone and welcome back to SciByte!

We take a look at Egypt\’s pyramids construction, infants with picture books, a USB charger in your shoes, a superspeedy star cluster, story 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:

The Pyramids Stones Over Wet Sand

Scientists have discovered that the ancient Egyptians moistened the sand over which the sledge moved to make it easier to transport heavy pyramid stones by sledge
Building the Pyramids
For the construction of the pyramids, the ancient Egyptians had to transport heavy blocks of stone and large statues across the desert
The Egyptians therefore placed the heavy objects on a sledge that workers pulled over the sand
Research has revealed that the Egyptians probably made the desert sand in front of the sledge wet
Experiments have demonstrated that the correct amount of dampness in the sand halves the pulling force required
Experiment
Physicists placed a laboratory version of the Egyptian sledge in a tray of sand and determined both the required pulling force and the stiffness of the sand as a function of the quantity of water in the sand.
To determine the stiffness they used a rheometer, which shows how much force is needed to deform a certain volume of sand
Experiments revealed that the required pulling force decreased proportional to the stiffness of the sand
Capillary bridges arise when water is added to the sand. These are small water droplets that bind the sand grains together
In the presence of the correct quantity of water, wet desert sand is about twice as stiff as dry sand
A sledge glides far more easily over firm desert sand simply because the sand does not pile up in front of the sledge as it does in the case of dry sand.
A wall painting in the tomb of Djehutihotep clearly shows a person standing on the front of the pulled sledge and pouring water over the sand just in front of it.
By using the right quantity of water they could halve the number of workers needed
Modern Day Applications
The results are also interesting for modern-day applications because we still do not fully understand the behaviour of granular material like sand
The research results could therefore be useful for examining how to optimise the transport and processing of granular material, which at present accounts for about ten percent of the worldwide energy consumption
Further Reading / In the News
Ancient Egyptians transported pyramid stones over wet sand | Phys.org

— NEWS BYTE —

Infants and Pictures

Researchers have found that babies can learn about the connection between pictures and real objects, such as a toy from a photograph of it, by the time they are nine-months-old
\”The study should interest any parent or caregiver who has ever read a picture book with an infant,\” | Dr Jeanne Shinskey, from the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway
Experiment
To test an infants\’ simple object recognition researchers familiarized 30 eight and nine-month-olds with a life-sized photo of a toy for about a minute
The babies were then placed before the toy in the picture and a different toy and researchers watched to see which one the babies reached for first.
In one condition, the researchers tested infants\’ simple object recognition for the target toy by keeping both objects visible, drawing infants\’ attention to the toys and then placing the toys inside clear containers
In another condition, they tested infants\’ ability to create a continued mental idea of the target toy by hiding both toys from view then drawing infants\’ attention to the toys and then placing the toys inside opaque containers
Results
When the toys were visible in clear containers, babies reached for the one that had not been in the picture, suggesting that they recognized the pictured toy and found it less interesting than the new toy because its novelty had worn off
When the toys were hidden in opaque containers, babies showed the opposite preference and reached more often for the one that had been in the photo, suggesting that they had formed a continued mental idea of it.
What This Means
This demonstrates that experience with a picture of something can strengthen babies\’ ideas of an object so they can maintain it after the object disappears
These findings suggest that, well before their first birthdays and their first words, babies are capable of learning about the real world indirectly realistic images like photographs or from picture books
Further Reading / In the News
Psychologists discover babies recognize real-life objects from pictures as early as nine months | ScienceDaily

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Power in Steps

The impact of a hiker’s heel releases enough energy to illuminate a light bulb, an engineer and avid backpacker, Matt Stanton, created a shoe insole that stores it as electricity
Instead of using piezoelectric and other inefficient, bulky methods of generating electricity, the pair shrunk down components similar to those found in hand-cranked flashlights.
The result is a near standard–size removable insole that weighs less than five ounces, including a battery pack, and charges electronics via USB.
The current version, to be released later this year, requires a lengthy 15-mile walk to charge a smartphone.
The company is working toward a design that can charge an iPhone after less than five miles of hiking and withstand about 100 million footsteps of wear and tear.
How It Works
A drivetrain converts the energy of heel strikes into rotational energy, spinning magnetic rotors
The motion of the rotors induces an electrical current within coils of wire
Electricity travels along a wire and into a lithium-ion polymer battery pack on a wearer’s shoelaces
Multimedia
YouTube | Solepower – Power by Walking (HD) | PIXEL PLANET
Further Reading / In the News
SolePower Tech
Invention Awards 2014: Charge Gadgets With Your Footsteps | Popular Science | PopSci.com

Runaway Star Cluster

The Virgo Cluster galaxy, M87, has ejected an entire star cluster, throwing it toward us at more than two million miles per hour.
Astronomers have found \”runaway stars\” before, but for the first time they have now found an entire star cluster
Hypervelocity
About one in a billion stars travel at a speed roughly three times greater than our Sun
, these stars can easily escape the galaxy entirely, traveling rapidly throughout intergalactic space.
At 220 km/s [137 mi/s] with respect to the galactic center this is the first time an entire star cluster has broken free
Hypervelocity stars have puzzled astronomers for years, but by observing their speed and direction, astronomers can trace these stars backward, finding that some began moving quickly in the Galactic Center
What Could Have Caused An Entire Star Cluster to Reach Hypervelocity
An interaction with the supermassive black hole can kick a star away at an alarming speed
Another option is that a supernova explosion propelled a nearby star to a huge speed
Some astronomers think M87 might have two supermassive black holes at its center and that the star cluster wandered too close to the pair, which picked off many of the cluster’s outer stars while the inner core remained intact
Then the black holes then acted like a slingshot, flinging the cluster away at a tremendous speed
Further Reading / In the News
\’Runaway\’ Star Cluster Breaks Free from Distant Galaxy | UniverseToday.com

— Updates —

Sealing GunShot Wounds

Last Time on SciByte …
SciByte 119 | Medical Tech & Martian Crater | February 11, 2014
The Low Down
When a soldier is shot on the battlefield a medic must pack gauze directly into the wound cavity
A startup called RevMedx, a small group of veterans, scientists, and engineers are working on a better way to stop bleeding
It has now won a Popular Science Invention Awards 2014
XStat
XStat is a modified syringe that injects specially coated sponges into wound faster and more efficiently than gauze.
Early efforts were inspired by Fix-a-Flat foam for repairing tires
After seeing early prototypes, the U.S. Army gave the team $5 million to develop a finished product
The final material would need to be sterile, biocompatible, and fast-expanding
The team settled on a sponge made from wood pulp and coated with chitosan, a blood-clotting, antimicrobial substance that comes from shrimp shells
In just 15 seconds, they expand to fill the entire wound cavity, creating enough pressure to stop heavy bleeding
A tricky part was getting the sponges into a wound, they needed a lightweight, compact way to get the sponges deep into an injury
To ensure that no sponges would be left inside the body accidentally, they added X-shaped markers that make each sponge visible on an x-ray image.
Applicator
A 30 mm-diameter, [1.2 in] polycarbonate syringe that stores with the handle inside to save space
To use the applicator, a medic pulls out the handle, inserts the cylinder into the wound, and then pushes the plunger back down to inject the sponges as close to the artery as possible.
Three single-use XStat applicators would replace five bulky rolls of gauze in a medic’s kit
RevMedx also designed a smaller version of the applicator, with a diameter of 12 mm, for narrower injuries
Each XStat will likely cost about $100, Steinbaugh says, but the price may go down as RevMedx boosts manufacturing
FDA Approval
The pocket-sized XStat has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a first-of-its-kind medical dressing
This means that the U.S. Army, which funded development of the sponge-filled syringe, can now purchase XStat to be carried by military medics
The FDA says the sponges are safe to leave in the body for up to four hours, allowing enough time for a patient to get to an operating room
What\’s Next?
RevMedx, along with Oregon Health and Science University, is now developing a version of the device to stop postpartum bleeding
Multimedia
YouTube | USA: Revolutionary new dressing heals bullet wounds in seconds | RuptlyTV
Further Reading / In the News
RevMedx | XSTAT
Simple Invention For Sealing Gunshot Wounds Gets FDA Approval | Popular Science
Invention Awards 2014: Seal Combat Wounds In 15 Seconds | Popular Science

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

Prepping for Drilling
The rover used several tools to examine the candidate site, such as a wire-bristle brush (Dust Removal Tool) to clear away dust from a patch on the rock
In the brushed spot, scientists could see that the rock is fine-grained, its true color is much grayer than the surface dust and that some portions of the rock are harder than others, creating the interesting bumpy textures
Before Curiosity can drill deeply enough for collection of rock-powder sample, scientists perform a \”mini-drill\” operation on the target, as a further check for readiness
The \”mini-drill\” operation produced a hole about 0.8in (2 cm) deep, in a \”mini-drill\” operation, on Tuesday, April 29, on the rock target under consideration for the mission\’s third sample-collection drilling
Curiosity\’s hammering drill collects powdered sample material from the interior of a rock, and then the rover prepares and delivers portions of the sample to laboratory instruments onboard
Multimedia
YouTube Curiosity Rover Report JPLnews
Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
Social Media
Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
Further Reading / In the News
Target on Mars Looks Good for NASA Rover Drilling – Mars Science Laboratory | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

May 11, 868 : 1146 years ago : First Printed Book : In 868, The first known dated printed (not oldest) book was the Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist scripture. It was made as a 16-ft scroll with six sheets of text printed from wood blocks and one sheet with a woodcut showing the Buddha with disciples and a pair of cats.
The sheets measured 12\” by 30\” and were pasted together. The date is known from a colophon at the end stating it was \”printed on 11 May 868, by Wang Chieh, for free general distribution\” and that it was dedicated to his parents. The scroll was one of about 1,130 bundles of manuscripts found a thousand years later, walled up in one of the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas in Turkestan. It is now one of the great treasures in the British Library

Looking up this week

Keep an eye out for …
Venus | \”Morning Star\” | Look to the E before and during dawn
Mars | High in the SE after dark, with Spica below it, both will be at their highest point around local 11pm DST moving towards the NE as dawn approaches. On Fri, May 9, and Sat, May 10, Mars and Spica will be to the left of the Moon.
Jupiter | Twilight | High in the SW sinking towards the W horizon as the night progresses, setting around 1am
Saturn | Early Evening | Rises in the SE, setting in the NW. Saturn will be at opposition on Sat, May 10
Further Reading and Resources
Sky&Telescope
SpaceWeather.com
StarDate.org
For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au
Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org
Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz
AstronomyNow
HeavensAbove

The post Pyramid Construction & Picturebooks | SciByte 129 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Marijuana & “Exo-Earth” | SciByte 127

chris — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 21:15:11 +0000

We take a look at marijuana\’s effect on the brain, an \”Earth-like\” exoplanet, the brains distraction controls, a possible new moon for Saturn, spacecraft updates, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

Direct Download:

RSS Feeds:

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

Show Notes:

Marijuana’s and Changes to the Brain

Young adults who used marijuana only recreationally showed significant abnormalities in two key brain regions that are important in emotion and motivation
The Study
This is the first study to show casual use of marijuana is related to major brain changes
Through different methods of neuroimaging, scientists examined the brains of young adults ages 18 to 25, from Boston-area colleges; 20 who smoked marijuana and 20 who didn\’t. Each group had nine males and 11 females
The users underwent a psychiatric interview to confirm they were not dependent on marijuana
The changes in brain structures indicate the marijuana users\’ brains are adapting to low-level exposure to marijuana
Results
The degree of brain abnormalities in these regions is directly related to the number of joints a person smoked per week, the more joints a person smoked, the more abnormal the shape, volume and density of the brain regions
Some of these people only used marijuana to get high once or twice a week thinking a little recreational use shouldn\’t cause a problem; however, data directly says this is not the case
Scientists examined the nucleus accumbens and the amygdala-key regions for emotion and motivation, and associated with addiction-in the brains of casual marijuana users and non-users
Researchers analyzed three measures: volume, shape and density of grey matter to obtain a comprehensive view of how each region was affected.
Both these regions in recreational pot users were abnormally altered for at least two of these structural measures and the degree of those alterations was directly related to how much marijuana the subjects used
What is Means
The study results fit with animal studies that show when rats are given tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) their brains rewire and form many new connections. THC is the mind-altering ingredient found in marijuana
Think when people are in the process of becoming addicted, their brains from these new connections
In animals, these new connections indicate the brain is adapting to the unnatural level of reward and stimulation from marijuana. These connections make other natural rewards less satisfying
The brain changes suggest that structural changes to the brain are an important early result of casual drug use
Researchers did not know the THC content of the marijuana, which can range from 5 to 9 percent or even higher, the THC content is much higher today than the marijuana during the 1960s and 1970s, which was often about 1 to 3 percent
Further Reading / In the News
- Casual marijuana use linked to brain abnormalities in students | MedicalXPress

— NEWS BYTE —

Another Earth-sized Exo-Planet

The first Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of another star has been confirmed by observations with both the W. M. Keck Observatory and the Gemini Observatory
The initial discovery, made by NASA\’s Kepler Space Telescope, is one of a handful of smaller planets found by Kepler and verified using large ground-based telescopes
The System
The host star, Kepler-186, is an M1-type dwarf star relatively close to our solar system, at about 500 light years and is in the constellation of Cygnus
The star is very dim, being over half a million times fainter than the faintest stars we can see with the naked eye and is cooler than the Sun
Five small planets have been found orbiting this star, four of which are in very short-period orbits and are very hot
This Earth-sized planet, one of five orbiting this star, which is cooler than the Sun, resides in a temperate region where water could exist in liquid form
Observations
Neither Kepler (nor any telescope) is currently able to directly spot an exoplanet of this size and proximity to its host star all they can do is eliminate essentially all other possibilities so that the validity of these planets is really the only viable option
With such a small host star, the team employed a technique that eliminated the possibility that either a background star or a stellar companion could be mimicking what Kepler detected
Differential Speckle Survey Instrument (DSSI)
The team obtained extremely high spatial resolution observations from the eight-meter Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii using a technique called speckle imaging, as well as adaptive optics (AO) observations from the ten-meter Keck II telescope
The Gemini \”speckle\” data directly imaged the system to within about 400 million miles (about 4 AU, approximately equal to the orbit of Jupiter in our solar system) of the host star and confirmed that there were no other stellar size objects orbiting within this radius from the star
It works on a principle that utilizes multiple short exposures of an object to capture and remove the noise introduced by atmospheric turbulence producing images with extreme detail
The System
Kenny MacLeod ‏@siabost9deas
Multimedia
YouTube | Kepler-186f : First Earth-size Planet Discovered in the Habitable Zone of Another Star [HD] | The Mars Underground
Further Reading / In the News
First potentially habitable Earth-sized planet confirmed: It may have liquid water | Phys.org

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

The Brains Distraction Control

A new study to reveals that our brains rely on an active suppression mechanism to avoid being distracted by salient irrelevant information when we want to focus on a particular item or task
This discovery opens up the possibility that environmental and/or genetic factors may hinder or suppress a specific brain activity that the researchers have identified as helping us prevent distraction.
These results show clearly that this is only one part of the equation and that active suppression of the irrelevant objects is another important part
Psychologists say their discovery could help scientists and health care professionals better treat individuals with distraction-related attentional deficits
Distraction is a leading cause of injury and death in driving and other high-stakes environments
Disorders associated with attention deficits, such as ADHD and schizophrenia, may turn out to be due to difficulties in suppressing irrelevant objects rather than difficulty selecting relevant ones
Researchers are now turning their attention to understanding how we deal with distraction and why we can\’t suppress potentially distracting objects, whether some of us are better at doing so and why that is the case.
Further Reading / In the News
ADHD: Scientists discover brain\’s anti-distraction system | ScienceDaily

A New Moon for Saturn?

A bright clump spotted orbiting Saturn at the outermost edge of its A ring may be a brand new moon in the process of being born
The effects of this now 1,200-kilometer-long, 10-kilometer-wide arc of icy material were first seen in May 2012 traveling along the edge of the A ring
The arc is thought to be the result of gravitational perturbations caused by an as-yet unseen embedded object about a kilometer wide – possibly a miniature moon in the process of formation
The half-mile-wide object has been unofficially named “Peggy,” eventually it may coalesce into a slightly larger moon and move outward, establishing its own orbital path around Saturn
This is how many of Saturn’s other moons are thought to have formed much further back in the planet’s history
While it is possible that the bright perturbation is the result of an object’s breakup rather than formation, researchers are still looking forward to finding out more about its evolution.
Further Reading / In the News
Is Saturn Making a New Moon? | UniverseToday.com
NASA Cassini Images May Reveal Birth of New Saturn Moon | NASA.gov
NASA Cassini Missiom Page

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

SpaceX Dragon Delivery Mission

Last Time on SciByte …
SciByte 126 | Paraplegic Therapy & Exomoon – International Space Station (ISS) Glitch | April 15, 2014
Latest Delivery
The SpaceX 3 Dragon commercial cargo freighter successfully arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on Easter Sunday morning, April 20
The mission is the company’s third cargo delivery flight to the station and is loaded with nearly 2.5 tons of science experiments, it will remain attached to the station until May 18
There are over 150 science experiments loaded aboard the Dragon capsule for research to be conducted by the crews of ISS Expeditions 39 and 40
CRS-3 mission will deliver some 5000 pounds of science experiments, a high definition Earth observing imaging camera suite (HDEV), a pair of hi tech legs for Robonaut 2, a laser optical communications experiment (OPALS) and essential gear, the VEGGIE lettuce growing experiment, spare parts, crew provisions, food, clothing and supplies to the six person crews
Included in this delivery is equipment needed for the repair of the Multiplexer-Demultiplexer (MDM) that controls a robotics mobile transporter, but also radiators and a joint to move the station’s solar arrays, among other things.
Multimedia
YouTube | U.S. SpaceX Dragon Ship Arrives at the International Space Station with Important cargo | NASA
Further Reading / In the News
Easter Sunday Space Station Rendezvous and Berthing for SpaceX Dragon Freighter Succeessful | UnivrseToday.com

New Horizons and Questions About Pluto

Compositional Model Theories
Two space researchers have published a paper where they describe three possible interior models of the former planet Pluto
The possibilities include: an undifferentiated rock/ice mixture, a differentiated rock/ice mixture, and an ocean covered with ice, the third possibility suggests the likelihood, they claim, of tectonic action on the dwarf planet
Scientists believe that Pluto came to exist as it does today, in part due to a collision billions of years ago that led also to the formation of its moon Charon
When celestial bodies collide, not only do they knock each other around, they produce heat—heat, the researchers suggest that could still be evident today
A theory that suggests that shortly after impact, Pluto and Charon were much closer together where the gravity attraction between them would have caused both to be egg shaped.
As time passed, melted ice from the impact would have created an icy crust on top of an ocean on Pluto
As Charon moved farther away, the attractive pull would have diminished, causing ice plates to form and crack against one another, a form of tectonics.
If that were the case, the two add, then in all likelihood, when New Horizons begins sending back images, they should see evidence of such tectonic action—plate edges thrust into the air
Pluto circles the sun in an elliptical orbit, thus sometimes it\’s much closer to the sun than other times, when near, it has a defined atmosphere, when far away however, its atmosphere actually freezes to its surface
Something that could hide ridges in the ice and thus evidence of both tectonic activity and an ocean beneath the crust of ice
New Horizons will arrive during a time when its atmosphere is frozen to the surface, it might be difficult to determine which of the three proposed models actually describes the relationship between its exterior and interior
Further Reading / In the News
Research pair offer three possible models of Pluto ahead of New Horizons visit | Phys.org
New Horizons | NASA

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

New Science Location
Scientists using NASA\’s Curiosity Mars rover are eyeing a rock layer surrounding the base of a small butte, called \”Mount Remarkable,\” as a target for investigating with tools on the rover\’s robotic arm
The butte stands about 16 feet (5 meters) high. Curiosity\’s science team refers to the rock layer surrounding the base of Mount Remarkable as the \”middle unit\” because its location is intermediate between rocks that form buttes in the area and lower-lying rocks that show a pattern of striations
Depending on what the mission scientists learn from a close-up look at the rock and identification of chemical elements in it, a site on this middle unit may become the third rock that Curiosity samples with its drill
Multimedia
Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
Social Media
Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
Further Reading / In the News
NASA Mars Orbiter Spies Rover Near Martian Butte | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

April 25, 1990 : 24 years ago : Hubble Space Telescope : In 1990, the $2.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope was deployed in space from the Space Shuttle Discovery into an orbit 381 miles above Earth. It was the first major orbiting observatory, named in honour of American astronomer, Edwin Powell Hubble. It was seven years behind schedule and nearly $2 billion over budget. In orbit, the 94.5-in primary mirror was found to be flawed, giving blurred images and reduced ability to see distant stars. However, correcting optics were successfully installed in 25 Dec 1993. The telescope 43-ft x 14-ft telescope now provides images with a clarity otherwise impossible due to the effect of the earth\’s atmosphere. Instrument packages capture across the electromagnetic spectrum.

Looking up this week

Solar Eclipse
On April 29th, an annular solar eclipse occurs over a small D-shaped 500 kilometre wide region of Antarctica
2014 has the minimum number of eclipses possible in one year, with four: two partial solars and two total lunars
This month’s solar eclipse is also a rarity in that it’s a non-central eclipse with one limit, where the center of the Moon’s shadow – known as the antumbra during an annular eclipse – will juuuust miss the Earth and instead pass scant kilometres above the Antarctic continent
Out of 3,956 annular eclipses occurring from 2000 BCE to 3000 AD, only 68 (1.7%) are of the non-central variety
An annular eclipse occurs when the Moon is too distant to cover the disk of the Sun, resulting in a bright “annulus” or “ring-of-fire” eclipse
Several southern Indian Ocean islands and all of Australia will still witness a fine partial solar eclipse from this event, a scattering of islands in the southern Indian Ocean will see a 55% eclipsed Sun.
In Australia, Perth will see a 55% eclipsed Sun and Sydney will be able to see a 50% partial eclipse low to the horizon in west at sunset
Don\’t Forget to Use Safe Viewing Practices
The safest way | Pinhole camera/projector and telescope — pinhole projector
Optical Filters | Eclipse glasses, welder\’s goggles rated at 14
Multimedia
YouTube | Safely See the Sun — Build a Shoebox Pinhole Camera | VideoFromSpace
YouTube | The April 29th, 2014 Annular Eclipse: Sims from Space | astroguyz
Further Reading / In the News
Our Guide to the Bizzare April 29th Solar Eclipse UniverseToday.com
Keep an eye out for …
Fri, April 25 | Dawn | The thin crescent Moon is low in the E and left of Venus
Planets
Venus | \”Morning Star\” | Look to the E-SE as daylight approached
Mars | Just past opposition you can see it most of the night. In the evening is is in the SW with Spica below it, both will be at their highest point around local 12pm DST moving towards the NE as dawn approaches
Jupiter | Twilight | High in the SW sinking towards the W horizon as the night progresses
Saturn | End of Twilight | Highest in the S around 2am
Further Reading and Resources
Sky&Telescope
SpaceWeather.com
StarDate.org
For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au
Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org
Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz
AstronomyNow
HeavensAbove

The post Marijuana & “Exo-Earth” | SciByte 127 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Paraplegic Therapy & Exomoon | SciByte 126

chris — Tue, 15 Apr 2014 20:09:08 +0000

We take a look at a new treatment for paralysis, spying a possible exomoon, troubles with the Space Station, Viewer Feedback, the Large Hadron Collider, 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

Show Notes:

Breakthrough Paraplegic Therapy

The belief that no recovery is possible and complete paralysis is permanent has been challenged now that four young men who have been paralyzed for years are now able to move their legs, as a result of epidural electrical stimulation of the spinal cord
Epidural Electrical Stimulation
In epidural stimulation, an electrical current is applied at varying frequencies and intensities to specific locations on the lumbosacral spinal cord
The stimulator delivers a continuous electrical current to the participants\’ lower spinal cords, mimicking signals the brain normally transmits to initiate movement in the dense neural bundles that largely control the movement of the hips, knees, ankles and toes
With the participants, once the signal was triggered, the spinal cord reengaged its neural network to control and direct muscle movements.
In an initial study, published in May 2011 scientists evaluated the effects of epidural stimulation in the first participant who recovered a number of motor functions as a result of the intervention
The New Study
The four paralyzed participants ranged in neurological level, two of them had absolutely no sensation or cognition below the site of their injury with no chance of recovery and all were at least two years post-injury at the time of the intervention
What is revolutionary is that the second, third and fourth participants were able to execute voluntary movements immediately following the implantation and activation of the stimulator.
Over the course of the study, the researchers noted that the participants were able to activate movements with less stimulation, demonstrating the ability of the spinal network to learn and improve nerve functions
Results
The study surprised the scientists, who believed at least some of the sensory pathway must be intact for epidural stimulation to be successful.
The participants\’ results and recovery time were unexpected, which led researchers to speculate that some pathways may be intact post-injury and therefore able to facilitate voluntary movements.
All four men were able to bear weight independently, as reported by the team
Beyond regaining voluntary movement, the research participants have displayed a myriad of improvements in their overall health
Increases in muscle mass and regulation of their blood pressure, as well as reduced fatigue and dramatic improvements to their sense of well-being.
This is groundbreaking for the entire field and offers a new outlook that the spinal cord, even after a severe injury, has great potential for functional recovery.
Widespread Use
When they first learned that the first patient in 2011 had regained voluntary control as a result of the therapy, scientists remained cautiously optimistic
Now that spinal stimulation has been successful in four out of four patients, there is evidence to suggest it could work on more individuals who previously had little realistic hope of any meaningful recovery from spinal cord injury
The implications of this study for the entire field are quite profound, and we can now envision a day when epidural stimulation might be part of a cocktail of therapies used to treat paralysis
Since this effect was observed this in four out of four people it suggests that this is actually a common phenomenon in those diagnosed with complete paralysis
The Future
The study offers hope that clinical therapies can be developed to advance treatment for the nearly 6 million Americans living with paralysis, including nearly 1.3 million with spinal cord injuries.
This study changes how we see motor complete spinal cord injury as it indicates that we don\’t have to necessarily rely on regrowth of nerves in order to regain function
The scientists are optimistic that the therapy intervention will continue to result in improved motor functions
Based on observations from the research, there is strong evidence that with continued advancements of the epidural stimulator, individuals with complete spinal cord injuries will be able to bear weight independently, maintain balance and work towards stepping
Multimedia
YouTube | Paraplegics Get Leg Function Back With Electrical Stimulation | News All Time News All Time
YouTube | Kent Stephenson on his recovery | ReeveFoundation
YouTube | Rob Summers on his recovery | ReeveFoundation
YouTube | Dustin Shillcox on his recovery ReeveFoundation
YouTube | Drew Meas on his recovery | ReeveFoundation
Further Reading / In the News
The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation
Breakthrough therapy allows four paraplegic men to voluntarily move their legs | MedicalXPress.com
Reawakening Limbs After Years of Paralysis | ScienceFriday.com
\’Milestone\’ Therapy Produces Leg Movement in Paraplegics | consumer.healthday.com/

— NEWS BYTE —

ExoMoon?

NASA-funded researchers have spotted the first signs of an \”exomoon,\” and though they say it\’s impossible to confirm its presence
Discovery
The discovery was made by watching a chance encounter of objects in our galaxy, which can be witnessed only once so they won\’t have a chance to observe the exomoon candidate again
Scientists expect we can expect more unexpected finds like this.
It was discovered with an international study using a telescope technique, called gravitational microlensing, takes advantage of chance alignments between stars
When a foreground star passes between us and a more distant star, the closer star can act like a magnifying glass to focus and brighten the light of the more distant one
These brightening events usually last about a month
If the foreground star, or what astronomers refer to as the lens, has a planet circling around it, the planet will act as a second lens to brighten or dim the light even more
Free Floating Planets
Microlensing surveys have discovered dozens of exoplanets so far, in orbit around stars and free-floating
A previous NASA-funded study, also led by the MOA team, was the first to find strong evidence for planets the size of Jupiter roaming alone in space, presumably after they were kicked out of forming planetary systems
The new exomoon candidate, if real, would orbit one such free-floating planet.
The Object
By carefully scrutinizing these brightening events, astronomers can figure out the mass of the foreground star relative to its planet.
In the new study, the nature of the foreground, lensing object is not clear. The ratio of the larger body to its smaller companion is 2,000 to 1.
That means the pair could be either a small, faint star circled by a planet about 18 times the mass of Earth—or a planet more massive than Jupiter coupled with a moon weighing less than Earth
One possibility is for the lensing system to be a planet and its moon
A lower-mass pair closer to Earth will produce the same kind of brightening event as a more massive pair located farther away
Once a brightening event is over, it\’s very difficult to take additional measurements of the lensing system and determine the distance
The true identity of the exomoon candidate and its companion, a system dubbed MOA-2011-BLG-262, will remain unknown
In The Future
Astronomers have no way of telling which of these two scenarios is correct, the answer to the mystery lies in learning the distance to the circling duo
In the future, it may be possible to obtain these distance measurements during lensing events
NASA\’s Spitzer and Kepler space telescopes, both of which revolve around the sun in Earth-trailing orbits, are far enough away from Earth to be great tools for the parallax-distance technique.
The basic principle of parallax can be explained by holding your finger out, closing one eye after the other, and watching your finger jump back and forth
A distant star, when viewed from two telescopes spaced really far apart, will also appear to move
When combined with a lensing event, the parallax effect alters how a telescope will view the resulting magnification of starlight
Though the technique works best using one telescope on Earth and one in space, such as Spitzer or Kepler, two ground-based telescopes on different sides of our planet can also be used
Multimedia
YouTube | MOA-2009-BLG-319b – Gravitational microlensing – iPad Exoplanet App | Hanno Rein
YouTube | Dark Jupiter Detection | TelescopeFeed
YouTube | Gravitational Microlensing | Kowch737
Further Reading / In the News
Faraway moon or faint star? Possible exomoon found | Phys.org

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

International Space Station (ISS) Glitch

April 11
It was confirmed Friday night (April 11) that a backup computer on the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS) called a Multiplexer-Demultiplexer (MDM) was not responding to commands
The primary computer continued to work so the crew was safe and there were no “immediate” change to space station operations,
The failure was uncovered Friday “during a routine health check” of a box called EXT-2, which backs up a primary component that sits outside on the S0 truss (near the station’s center)
It was decided that tf the computer did need to be replaced, crew members of Expedition 39 would need to do at least one spacewalk
NASA is allowing contingency spacewalks in American spacesuits to go forward as the agency addresses problems raised in a report about a life-threatening spacesuit leak in July
Multiplexer-Demultiplexer (MDM)
This primary MDM not only controls a robotics mobile transporter, but also radiators and a joint to move the station’s solar arrays, among other things.
NASA needs to reposition the arrays when a vehicle approaches because plumes from the thrusters can put extra “loads” or electrical power on the system.
Luckily, the angle of the sun is such these days that the array can sit in the same spot for a while, at least two to three weeks
NASA configured the station so that even if the primary computer fails, the array will automatically position correctly
NASA also will move a mobile transporter on station today so that the station’s robotic arm is ready to grasp the Dragon when it arrives, meaning that even if the primary computer fails the transporter will be in the right spot
April 12
NASA began preparing a contingency spacewalk to deal with a broken backup computer component
April 13
NASA doesn’t want to go ahead with a space walk until spare spacesuit parts arrive, in the aftermath of a life-threatening suit leak that took place last summer.
Those parts are on board the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft
The Dragon is carrying a new spacesuit, components to fix an existing spacesuit, critical research experiments and food for the six crew members of Expedition 39.
If Dragon is delayed again, the next launch opportunity is April 18 and the spacewalk would be pushed back
Multimedia
YouTube | NASA and the International Space Station Help Show It\’s a Small World After all | NASA
Further Reading / In the News
Backup Computer Glitches On Space Station But Crew Safe, NASA Says | UniverseToday.com
Failed Space Station Computer Spurs Contingency Spacewalk Plans | UniverseToday.com
Contingency Spacewalk Planned Next Week, But Dragon Must Arrive At Space Station First | UniverseToday.com

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Lunar Eclipses Tetrad

For people in the United States, a lunar eclipses tetrad is about to begin, when a series of 4 consecutive total eclipses occurring at approximately six month intervals
Check This Out | Lunar Eclipse Tetrad
Brian McCoskey, Nogal
Types of Lunar Eclipse
On average, lunar eclipses occur about twice a year, but not all of them are total. There are three types
Penumbral eclipse | The Moon passes through the pale outskirts of Earth’s shadow. It’s so subtle, sky watchers often don’t notice an eclipse is underway
Partial eclipse | Is more dramatic that a penumbral as the Moon dips into the core of Earth’s shadow, but not all the way, so only a fraction of Moon is darkened.
Total eclipse | The entire Moon is shadowed, is best of all. The face of the Moon turns sunset-red for up to an hour or more as the eclipse slowly unfolds.
Lunar Eclipse Tetrad
The total eclipse of April 15, 2014, will be followed by another on Oct. 8, 2014, and another on April 4, 2015, and another on Sept. 28 2015.
Usually, lunar eclipses come in no particular order
Occasionally, though, the sequence is more orderly. When four consecutive lunar eclipses are all total, the series is called a tetrad.
During the 21st century, there are 9 sets of tetrads so it is a frequent occurrence in the current pattern of lunar eclipses, although during the three hundred year interval from 1600 to 1900, for instance, there were no tetrads at all
The most unique thing about the 2014-2015 tetrad is that all of them are visible for all or parts of the USA
Why red?
Imagine yourself standing on a dusty lunar plain looking up at the sky. Overhead hangs Earth nightside down, completely hiding the sun behind it when the eclipse is underway
As you scan your eye around Earth\’s circumference, you\’re seeing every sunrise and every sunset in the world, all of them, all at once
This incredible light beams into the heart of Earth\’s shadow, filling it with a coppery glow and transforming the Moon into a great red orb.
Multimedia
YouTube | NASA | Understanding Lunar Eclipses | NASA Goddard
Further Reading / In the News
NASA Eclipse Web Site
A Tetrad of Lunar Eclipses – NASA Science | science.nasa.gov

— Updates —

Large Hadron Collider – Beginning of Startup

Scientists working at CERN\’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) facility has reported that the process of restarting the massive experimental mechanism has begun, though it won\’t finish until sometime next year
Last Time on SciByte …
The Shutdown | SciByte 82 | Meteorites & Asteroids | February 19, 2013
The Upgrade
The facility is in the process of an upgrade, which has been in the planning stages for several years and will include upgrades to several pieces and parts of the facility that support the LHC as well as the main accelerator itself
The team recognized that the facility had begun to suffer from diminishing returns and that many parts could be improved due to the development of new technology and improvements on old ways of doing things.
The collider will have to be restarted in pieces to ensure that each is operating properly before the next can be brought online
The team has successfully restarted the part they call the source, the piece of equipment responsible for stripping electrons off of hydrogen atoms for use in producing protons.
What\’s Next?
Team members have made much of the complete upgrade to the control system that integrates all of the systems and which of course will be central to a successful reboot.
The team plans to fire up Linac2, an accelerator whose job it is to give protons their initial push
After that a booster will be started that will be used to push the protons even faster, for the LHC to be used in its proper context, it must receive protons that are already moving exceedingly fast.
In addition to swapping out parts for new and improved technology, technicians will also be replacing worn cables or other minor but necessary components
If all goes well, the LHC should be ready and back in business sometime early 2015.
Multimedia
YouTube | CERN in 3 minutes CERN
Image |
Social Media
CERN @CERN
Further Reading / In the News
CERN Website
Large Hadron Collider team announces beginning of restart | Phys.org

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

Bright Spot In Image
Possible explanations include a glint from a rock or a cosmic-ray hit.
\”In the thousands of images we\’ve received from Curiosity, we see ones with bright spots nearly every week,\” said Justin Maki, leader of the team that built and operates the Navigation Camera.
The bright spots appear in images from the right-eye camera of the stereo Navcam, but not in images taken within one second of those by the left-eye camera.
Arriving at New Science Location
The reached a vantage point last week for its cameras to survey four different types of rock intersecting in an area called \”the Kimberley\”
The science team expects to take several weeks for observations, sample-drilling and onboard laboratory analysis of the area\’s rocks
Multimedia
Image | Bright Spot Toward Sun in Image from NASA\’s Curiosity Mars Rover Right B campera| mars.jpl.nasa.gov
Image | Image was taken by Navcam: Left B (NAV_LEFT_B)
Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
Social Media
Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
Further Reading / In the News
Images From NASA Mars Rover Include Bright Spots | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

April 22, 1575 : 439 years ago : Surgery Book : The printing of Ambroise Paré\’s book Oeuvres Complètes (Complete Works) was finished, but its publication was opposed by establishment physicians. His previous texts on surgery had popularized a new way to treat gunshot wounds without cauterisation, reintroduced the ligature in amputation, and improved midwifery techniques. These many writings were gathered together in this one new volume, which spread his teachings throughout the world. It remained in print for a century and ran to thirteen editions. He wrote in French instead of Latin with practical, common sense so that many barber-surgeons, who (like Paré) were unable to interpret Latin, had access to medical knowledge otherwise unavailable from Latin texts
Ambroise Paré\’s was a French physician, one of the greatest surgeons of the European Renaissance, known as the \”father of modern surgery\” for his many innovations in operative methods. While an army surgeon, he introduced the method of treating wounds by ligature of arteries instead of cauterisation with red-hot irons or boiling oil. Paré also invented prostheses. \”Le Petit Lorrain\” was a hand, operated by springs and catches, for a French Army Captain, which he then used in battle. Paré also invented a kneeling peg leg and foot prosthesis. It had an adjustable harness, knee lock control, and other engineering features used today. He was surgeon to Henry II and his three successors. He wrote books on anatomy, surgery, plague, obstetrics, and deformities

Looking up this week

Keep an eye out for …
Venus | \”Morning Star\” | Early dawn Venus is in the E-SE
Mars | Twilight | Rises in the SE, with Spica 6* to its right. The two are their highest point around 1am
Jupiter | At twilight it 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 around 2am.
Saturn | 9-10pm | Rises around 9-10pm or and is highest in the south around 3am. By then it\’s far to the left of Mars and Spica
Further Reading and Resources
Sky&Telescope
SpaceWeather.com
StarDate.org
For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au
Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org
Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz
HeavensAbove

The post Paraplegic Therapy & Exomoon | SciByte 126 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Inflation & Frozen Moss | SciByte 124

chris — Tue, 25 Mar 2014 19:56:19 +0000

We take a look at evidence of inflation at the start of the Universe, water in the Earths crust, giant stars, frozen moss, spacecraft updates, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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MP3 Audio | OGG Audio | Video | Torrent | YouTube

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

Show Notes:

Gravity, The Big Bang, and Inflation

As the last untested prediction of Einstein\’s Theory of General Relativity, finding gravitational waves is a big deal.
Scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in the US have announced what they believe is the indirect detection of gravitational waves in the afterglow of the Big Bang.
Two People of Note
Alan Guth, the originator of the inflationary universe theory | Wikipedia
Andrei Linde, one of the main authors of the inflationary universe theory | Wikipedia
Looking Back at the Universe
Alternative theories to inflation do not produce gravitational waves so this is strong evidence not only of the gravitational wave background but also inflation itself.
The BICEP discovery provides further indirect evidence for the existence of gravitational waves
Before this announcement we could measure the universe back to about a minute after the Big Bang.
The finding has allowed us to study the universe when it was a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second old
There has still been no direct detection of the gravitational radiation, the first direct detection should follow in a few months
It is envisaged that the experiment will directly detect gravitational radiation coming from astrophysical sources from nearby galaxies
Q: Can you explain the theory of cosmic inflation first put forth in 1980? | Alan Guth
The theory of cosmic inflation describes the propulsion mechanism that drove the universe into the period of tremendous expansion that we call the Big Bang, usually describe inflation as a theory of the \”bang\” of the Big Bang
It is a prequel to the era that cosmologists call the Big Bang, although it of course occurred after the origin of the universe, which is often also called the Big Bang.
— In Further Detail —
The original Big Bang theory was really a theory of the aftermath of the bang described how the universe was cooled by the expansion, and how the expansion was slowed by the attractive force of gravity
Inflation proposes that the expansion of the universe was driven by a repulsive form of gravity.
According to Newton, gravity is a purely attractive force, but this changed with Einstein and the discovery of general relativity
General relativity describes gravity as a distortion of spacetime, and allows for the possibility of repulsive gravity
Modern particle theories strongly suggest that at very high energies, there should exist forms of matter that create repulsive gravity
Inflation proposes that at least a very small patch of the early universe was filled with this repulsive-gravity material
During the period of exponential expansion, any ordinary material would thin out, with the density diminishing to almost nothing
The repulsive-gravity material actually maintains a constant density as it expands, no matter how much it expands
While this appears to be a violation of conservation energy it actually has a peculiar feature of gravity, the energy of a gravitational field is negative
As the patch expands at constant density, more and more energy, in the form of matter, is created, at the same time, more and more negative energy appears in the form of the gravitational field that is filling the region
The total energy remains constant, as it must, and therefore remains very small.
It is possible that the total energy of the entire universe is exactly zero, with the positive energy of matter completely canceled by the negative energy of gravity
At some point the inflation ends because the repulsive-gravity material becomes metastable and decays into ordinary particles, producing a very hot soup of particles that form the starting point of the conventional Big Bang
At that point the repulsive gravity turns off, but the region continues to expand in a coasting pattern for billions of years to come
Q: What is the new result announced, and how does it provide critical support for your theory? | Alan Guth
The early universe, as we can see from the afterglow of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, was incredibly uniform
To have structure form at all, there needed to be small nonuniformities at the end of inflation, the tiny nonuniformities that did exist were then amplified by gravity
Temperature nonuniformities, which can correlate to density differences, in the cosmic microwave background were first measured in 1992 by the COBE satellite
These have not generally been seen as proof of inflation, in part because it is not clear that inflation is the only possible way that these fluctuations could have been produced.
The geometry of space also fluctuates on small scales, due to the physics of quantum theory, and inflation also stretches these fluctuations, producing gravity waves in the early universe.
The new result, is a measurement of these gravity waves, at a very high level of confidence.
They do not see the gravity waves directly, but instead they have constructed a very detailed map of the polarization of the CMB in a patch of the sky.
They have observed a swirling pattern in the polarization (called \”B modes\”) that can be created by gravity waves in the early universe
This is the first time that even a hint of these primordial gravity waves has been detected, it is also the first time that any quantum properties of gravity have been directly observed
Q: How would you describe the significance of these new findings, and your reaction to them? | Alan Guth
These gravity waves can tells us a lot about the details of inflation that we did not already know, it determines the energy density of the universe at the time of inflation, which is something that previously had a wide range of possibilities.
By determining the energy density of the universe at the time of inflation, the new result also tells us a lot about which detailed versions of inflation are still viable, and which are no longer viable
While the current result is not by itself conclusive, it does points in the direction of the very simplest inflationary models that can be constructed.
Of Note
This is not the first evidence os gravitational waves | The 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor for finding a double pulsar that strongly supported \”ripples\” in spacetime
The 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to the discovery of tiny changes in temperature in the Cosmic Background Radiation that were discovered by the COBE satellite
The is not the first discovery of the polarization within the cosmic microwave background, or even the first observations of this type of polarization
This IS evidence of primordial gravitational waves, that would only be caused by inflation during the early moments of the Universe
While these results are very credible they have not been peer reviewed yet
Multimedia
YouTube | Stanford Professor Andrei Linde celebrates physics breakthrough | StanfordUniversity
YouTube | A Polarizing Discovery About the Big Bang! | minutephysics
Further Reading / In the News
Kenny MacLeod ‏@siabost9deas | RT @grahamfarmelo: Primordial gravity waves discovery-Nobel 2 follow 4 inflation pioneer Alan Guth? https://nyti.ms/1ivEk8k
First hints of gravitational waves in the Big Bang\’s afterglow | Phys.org
Alan Guth on new insights into the \’Big Bang\’ | Phys.org
We\’ve Discovered Inflation! Now What? | UniverseToday.com
That Moment When the \”Father of Inflation\” Learns of the Detection of Gravitational Waves | UniverseToday.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Water Deep in Earth’s Crust

The first terrestrial discovery of ringwoodite confirms the presence of massive amounts of water 400 to 700 kilometers beneath Earth\’s surface
Ringwoodite
Ringwoodite is a form of the mineral peridot, believed to exist in large quantities under high pressures in the transition zone
It is notable for being able to contain water within its structure, present not as a liquid but as hydroxide ions (oxygen and hydrogen atoms bound together).
Ringwoodite has been found in meteorites but, until now, no terrestrial sample has ever been unearthed because scientists haven\’t been able to conduct fieldwork at extreme depths
The Discovery
The discovery was almost accidental in that the team had been looking for another mineral when they purchased a three-millimetre-wide, dirty-looking, commercially worthless brown diamond
The diamond had been brought to the Earth\’s surface by a volcanic rock known as kimberlite — the most deeply derived of all volcanic rocks.
The ringwoodite itself is invisible to the naked eye, buried beneath the surface, so it was fortunate that it was found
The sample underwent years of analysis using Raman and infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction before it was officially confirmed as ringwoodite
Significance
This discovery confirms about 50 years of theoretical and experimental work by geophysicists, seismologists and other scientists trying to understand the makeup of the Earth\’s interior.
One of the world\’s leading authorities in the study of deep Earth diamond host rocks, said that the discovery ranks among the most significant of his career
Scientists have been deeply divided about the composition of the transition zone and whether it is full of water or desert-dry, analysis of the mineral shows it contains a significant amount of water — 1.5 per cent of its weight
Finding that confirms scientific theories about vast volumes of water trapped 410 to 660 kilometres beneath Earth\’s surface, between the upper and lower mantle.
This sample really provides extremely strong confirmation that there are local wet spots deep in the Earth, the transition zone, might have as much water as all the world\’s oceans put together
Knowing water exists beneath the crust has implications for the study of volcanism and plate tectonics, affecting how rock melts, cools and shifts below the crust
Further Reading / In the News
Water-rich gem points to vast \’oceans\’ beneath Earth\’s surface, study suggests — ScienceDaily | ScienceDaily.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Largest Yellow \”Hypergiant\” Star Discovered

A recent analysis of the star HR 5171 A in the south hemisphere constellation of Centaurus, has revealed the nature of a massive yellow \”hypergiant\” star as one of the largest stars known
Hypergiant
These latest measurements place HR 5171 A firmly in the “Top 10” for largest stars in terms of size known, as well as the largest yellow hypergiant star known
If it was placed into the center of our own solar system, and it would extend out over 6 astronomical units (A.U.s) past the orbit of Jupiter
Only eight yellow hypergiants have been identified in our Milky Way galaxy but are some of the brightest stars known, if you placed a star like HR 5171 A 32 light years from the Earth, it would easily cast a shadow.
Companion Star
The relatively small companion star orbitis across our line of sight once every 1300 days, and is a large star in its own right at around six solar masses and 400 solar radii in size.
The discovery of a companion around such a bright star was a big surprise since any ‘normal’ star should at least be 10,000 times fainter than the hypergiant
What we see is not the companion itself, but the regions gravitationally controlled and filled by the wind from the hypergiant
The System
The binary system weighs in at a combined 39 solar masses, has a radius of over 1,300 times that of our Sun, and is a million times as luminous
The surface-to-surface distance for the A and B components of the system are “only” about 2.8 A.U.s apart
This all means that these two massive stars are in physical contact, with the expanded outer atmosphere of the bloated primary contacting the secondary, giving the pair a distorted peanut shape.
Further Reading / In the News
Astronomers Identify the Largest Yellow \”Hypergiant\” Star Known | UniverseToday.com

Frozen Moss Back to Life

Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey and Reading University have demonstrated that, after over 1,500 years frozen in Antarctic ice, moss can come back to life and continue to grow
The Discovery
This is the first study to show such long-term survival in any plant; similar timescales have only been seen before in bacteria
This moss would already have been at least decades old when it was first frozen
The team took cores of moss from deep in a frozen moss bank in the Antarctic then placed it in an incubator at a normal growth temperature and light level and after only a few weeks, the moss began to grow
Using carbon dating, the team identified the moss to be at least 1,530 years of age, and possibly even older, at the depth where the new growth was seen.
Further Reading / In the News
Back to life after 1,500 years: Moss brought back to life after 1,500 years frozen in ice | ScienceDaily.com

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show a new channel in the southern hemisphere region of Terra Siernum that appeared between November 2010 and May 2013, this particular feature is likely not due to that liquid
Images
- This pair of images shows that material flowing down from an alcove at the head of a gully broke out of an older route and eroded a new channel
Gullies or ravinea landforms are common on Mars, particularly in the southern highlands, these ravines tend to happen in the southern highlands and other mid-latitude regions on
It’s unclear in what season the activity occurred because the observations took place more than a Martian year apart
This type of activity generally occurs in winter, at temperatures so cold that carbon dioxide, rather than water, is likely to play the key role
Further Reading / In the News
New Gully Appears On Mars, But It\’s Likely Not Due To Water | UniverseToday.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

NASA’s Curiosity rover has just pulled into terrain chock full of curvy rock outcrops at Kimberly that’s suitable for contact science and drilling action
The robot’s arm has been deployed to investigate the most scientifically productive spots, and is conducting contact science with the cameras and spectrometers on the terminus of the 7 foot long robotic arm
The mast mounted ChemCam laser and high resolution cameras are being used to determine the best spot for drilling and sampling.
The team commanded Curiosity to clean out the arms CHIMRA sample handling mechanism in anticipation of boring into the Martian outcrops and delivering samples of cored Martian rocks to the SAM and CheMin miniaturized chemistry labs
Scientists directed Curiosity on a pinpoint drive to Kimberly after their interest was piqued by orbital images taken NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) where they see three terrain types exposed and a relatively dust-free surface
The missions science focus has shifted to “search for that subset of habitable environments which also preserves organic carbon
To date Curiosity’s odometer stands at 6.2 kilometers and has somewhat over another 4 kilometers to go to reach the base of Mount Sharp
It may arrive at the lower reaches of Mount Sharp sometime in mid 2014, but must first pass through a potentially treacherous dune field
Multimedia
Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
Social Media
Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
Further Reading / In the News
Curiosity Pulls into Kimberly and Spies Curvy Terrain For Drilling Action | UniverseToday.com

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

Mar 28, 1949 : 65 years ago : “Big Bang” Coined : Fred Hoyle unintentionally coined the term “Big Bang” as a household name, in a scripted radio broadcast on the BBC Third Programme. His talk was printed in the The Listener (7 Apr 1949). He compared his own belief in a “steady state” universe, saying, “earlier theories … were based on the hypothesis that all the matter in the universe was created in one big bang at a particular time in the remote past.” He repeated its use in a 1950 broadcast published in The Listener (9 Mar 1950): “One [idea] was that the Universe started its life a finite time ago in a single huge explosion… This big bang idea seemed to me to be unsatisfactory.” His critics found the “big bang” term pejorative, yet Hoyle has said his intention was to make a vivid description for the radio audience. The term stuck

Looking up this week

Keep an eye out for …
Thurs, Mar 26 | ~1 hour before dawn | Venus is near the thin moon in the E-SE
Planets
Venus | \”Morning Star\” | Before and during dawn Venus is in the SE
Mars | 9pm | Rises in the SE, with Spica 6* to its right. The two are their highest point around 2am with Spica now 5-6* 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 around 3am
Saturn | 11pm | Rises around 11 or and is highest in the south around 4am. By then it\’s far to the left of Mars and Spica
Further Reading and Resources
Sky&Telescope
SpaceWeather.com
StarDate.org
For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au
Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org
Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz
AstronomyNow
HeavensAbove

The post Inflation & Frozen Moss | SciByte 124 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Martian Life & Tetris | SciByte 122

chris — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 21:38:11 +0000

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

“SPRING” AHEAD
“Losing” 1 Hour
Further Reading and Resources
Sky&Telescope
SpaceWeather.com
StarDate.org
For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au
Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org
Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz
AstronomyNow
HeavensAbove

The post Martian Life & Tetris | SciByte 122 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Medical Tech & Martian Crater | SciByte 119

chris — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 20:53:23 +0000

We take a look at treating a gunshot wound in 15 sec, fatigue and light, a new Martian crater, the Olympic torch, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Show Notes:

Sealing a Gunshot Wound in 15 sec

When a soldier is shot on the battlefield a medic must pack gauze directly into the wound cavity
A startup called RevMedx, a small group of veterans, scientists, and engineers are working on a better way to stop bleeding
XStat
XStat is a modified syringe that injects specially coated sponges into wound faster and more efficiently than gauze.
Early efforts were inspired by Fix-a-Flat foam for repairing tires
After seeing early prototypes, the U.S. Army gave the team $5 million to develop a finished product
The final material would need to be sterile, biocompatible, and fast-expanding
The team settled on a sponge made from wood pulp and coated with chitosan, a blood-clotting, antimicrobial substance that comes from shrimp shells
In just 15 seconds, they expand to fill the entire wound cavity, creating enough pressure to stop heavy bleeding
A tricky part was getting the sponges into a wound, they needed a lightweight, compact way to get the sponges deep into an injury
To ensure that no sponges would be left inside the body accidentally, they added X-shaped markers that make each sponge visible on an x-ray image.
Applicator
A 30 mm-diameter, [1.2 in] polycarbonate syringe that stores with the handle inside to save space
To use the applicator, a medic pulls out the handle, inserts the cylinder into the wound, and then pushes the plunger back down to inject the sponges as close to the artery as possible.
Three single-use XStat applicators would replace five bulky rolls of gauze in a medic’s kit
RevMedx also designed a smaller version of the applicator, with a diameter of 12 mm, for narrower injuries
Each XStat will likely cost about $100, Steinbaugh says, but the price may go down as RevMedx boosts manufacturing
The Future
When RevMedx submitted its application to the FDA, the U.S. Army attached a cover letter requesting expedited approval
In the future, RevMedx hopes to create biodegradable sponges that don’t have to be removed from the body
They are also working on an applicator that could cover large by using expanding gauze made of the same material as XStat sponges
Further Reading / In the News
How A Simple New Invention Seals A Gunshot Wound In 15 Seconds | Popular Science

— NEWS BYTE —

Blue Light

According to researchers they\’ve found that exposure to short wavelength, or blue light, during the day can improve alertness and overall performance.
Previous research has shown that blue light is able to improve alertness during the night, but new data demonstrates that these effects also extend to daytime
The Study
Researchers measured wavelengths of light that were most effective in warding off fatigue via the development of specialized light equipment
They compared the effects of blue light exposure to an equal amount of green light on alertness and performance in 16 study participants for 6.5 hours over a day.
Participants were rated based on how they felt through reaction times that measured electrodes to assess changes going on in the brain due to light exposure.
Results
Results showed that participants exposed to blue light consistently rated themselves as less sleepy with quicker reaction times and fewer attention relapses.
They also showed changes in brain activity patterns that indicated a more alert state.
The Future
This opens up a new range of possibilities for using light to improve human alertness, productivity and safety by
helping to improve alertness in day shift workers in addition to night workers
A better quality lighting that would not only help them see better but also make them more alert
The next big challenge is to determine how to deliver better lighting in many places such as schools, homes and workplaces that could provide a more productive and alert atmosphere.
Further Reading / In the News
Could Blue Light Help Fight Fatigue? Study | ScienceWorldReport.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

New Mars Crater

Researchers used HiRISE to examine a site after the orbiter\’s Context Camera had revealed a change in appearance here between observations in July 2010 and May 2012
Before-and-after imaging that brackets appearance dates of fresh craters on Mars has indicated that impacts producing craters at least 12.8 feet (3.9 meters) in diameter occur at a rate exceeding 200 per year globally
The impact crater dominates the image taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA\’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Nov. 19, 2013.
It shows a 30-meter-wide crater with a rayed blast zone and far-flung surrounding secondary material and debris as far as 15 kilometers [9.3 miles] in distance.
In examining ejecta distribution, scientists can learn more about the impact event
Also Seen By
Michael Thalleen ‏@ThalleenM
Further Reading / In the News
Space Images: A Spectacular New Martian Impact Crater – NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory | jpl.nasa.gov
Brand New Impact Crater Shows Up on Mars | UniverseToday.com

— Updates —

Olympic Torch

Last Time On SciByte …
SciByte 109 | ‘Earth-Like’ Planets & Sharks | November 12, 2013
Olympic Torch in Space
Ever since the first relay for the 1936 summer Olympic games in Berlin, Olympic torches have traditionally been used to carry a burning flame from Greece to the host country’s stadium
On Nov. 6, 2013 (Nov. 7 UT) a Soyuz TMA-11M rocket launched with the Expedition 38/39 crew on the ISS and an Olympic torch
The Olympic Torch was taken on a space walk for the first time on Nov 9, 2013 handed off from one cosmonaut to the other in a symbolic relay in orbit [the torch was not lit during its time aboard the ISS or, obviously, while in space]
The real reason for the spacewalk is to do some routine Russian maintenance outside the station
The ISS travels around the Earth 16 times each day, and the torch spent nearly four days in space [~64 orbits]
That particular torch
The torch was given back to Olympic officials and was the one used to light the 2014 Olympic cauldron during the Opening Ceremony in Sochi on Feb. 7.
Multimedia
YouTube | Raw: Spacewalkers Hand Off Olympic Torch | AssociatedPress
Further Reading / In the News
The Olympic Torch That Went Around the World… Literally | UniverseToday.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

Traversing Sand Dunes
Image of Wheel
Up close view of hole in one of rover Curiosity\’s six wheels caused by recent driving over rough Martian rocks.
Mosaic assembled from Mastcam raw images taken on Dec. 22, 2013 (Sol 490).
Credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS/Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo
Sand Dune
Curiosity reached the eastern side of a dune on Jan. 30 and returned images that the rover team is using to guide decisions about upcoming drives
Before giving the go ahead to move forward, engineers took a few days to carefully assess the dune’s integrity and physical characteristics
Curiosity was able to pass over the dune in Dingo Gap without difficulty
The rovers science instruments and cameras to insure there wasn’t the potential to get irretrievably stuck in a deep sand trap.
The team even commanded Curiosity to carry out a toe dip by gently rolling the 20 inch (50 cm) diameter wheels back and forth over the crest on Tuesday, Feb. 4 to insure it was safe to mount
Previous Images of Earth
NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit imaged Earth from the surface in March 2004, soon after landing
Mars Global Surveyor in 2003 and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2007
NASA’s Cassini orbiter at Saturn captured the Earth and Moon in 2013
Earth Images
New images from NASA\’s Curiosity Mars rover show Earth shining brighter than any star in the Martian night sky and it even includes our moon, just below Earth
The images, taken on Jan. 31, 2014 about 80 minutes after sunset, used both of her high resolution color mast mounted cameras to collect the series of Earth/Moon images
The distance between Earth and Mars when Curiosity took the photo was about 99 million miles (160 million kilometers).
“A human observer with normal vision, if standing on Mars, could easily see Earth and the moon as two distinct, bright “evening stars,” said NASA
Multimedia
Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
Social Media
Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
Further Reading / In the News
Curiosity Crosses Dingo Gap Dune – Gateway to Valley and Mountain Destinations Beyond | UniverseToday.com
Mars Science Laboratory: NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Sees \’Evening Star\’ Earth | mars.jpl.nasa.gov
Mars Science Laboratory: NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Sees \’Evening Star\’ Earth | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

Feb 15, 2013 : 1 year ago : Chelyabinsk Meteor : A meteor exploded in the sky over Chelyabinsk , Russia. It produced a shock wave so intense that about 1,000 people were reported injured, mostly by flying glass fragments. To view the meteor streaking across the sky, many people were at their windows when the sonic boom shattered the glass panes. The meteor was estimated to be 2 meters in diameter, with a mass of about 10 tons. It entered the Earth\’s atmosphere at a hypersonic speed of at least 33,000 mph when it was viewed by residents of Chelyabinsk (a city of 1 million about 930 miles east of Moscow) at about 9:20 am local time, just after sunrise. They saw a thick, white contrail and an intense flash of light ending with a loud thundering sound as the shattering of the meteor blew apart with several kilotons of energy (equivalent to an atomic bomb)
YouTube | Meteorite crash in Russia: Video of meteor explosion that stirred panic in Urals region | RT
Last Time on SciByte
SciByte 82 | Meteorites & Asteroids | February 19, 2013
SciByte 83 | Tiny Exo-planet & Medical Glue | February 26, 2013
SciByte 84 | HIV & SpaceX Troubles | March 5, 2013

Looking up this week

Keep an eye out for …
Friday, February 14 | Full Moon (exactly full at 6:53 p.m. EST). Regulus in constellation Leo to the Moon\’s left during evening. You might be able to see part of Leo that looks like a backwards question mark, with Regulus being the period
Planets
Venus | Dawn | \”Morning Star\” in the SE
Mars | ~10-11 pm | Spica, blue giant variable star, 5* to it\’s left. They are highest in the sky around 3-4am, with Spica now to the lower right. [5* ~ 3 middle fingers held at arms length
Jupiter | Early evening | Eastern Sky, crossing overhead around 9pm and setting in the W before dawn
Saturn | ~1am | Rises in the E-SE, moves to its highest in the S at dawn.
Further Reading and Resources
Sky&Telescope
SpaceWeather.com
StarDate.org
For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au
Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org
Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz
AstronomyNow
HeavensAbove

The post Medical Tech & Martian Crater | SciByte 119 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Happy Science of 2013 | SciByte 114

chris — Tue, 07 Jan 2014 21:16:58 +0000

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.

Curiosity | Evidence of Ancient Habitable Water Locations

Habitable Water
Jan | Curiosity sees calcium rich deposits that on Earth are associated with water percolating through cracks and fractured rocks.
Mar | Drilling samples taken in Feb show that the minerals that are present in a lakebed sedimentary rock at John Klein were very different from just about anything ever analyzed before on Mars and was deposited in a freshwater environment
Sep | The Curiosity rover team revealed that the first scoop of soil analyzed by the rover showed several percent water by weight.
Dec | Curiosity rover has discovered evidence that an ancient Martian lake had the right chemical ingredients that could have sustained microbial life
Multimedia
YouTube | Curiosity Rover Report (Jan. 18, 2013): Curiosity Finds Calcium-Rich Deposits | NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
YouTube | Curiosity Rover Report (Mar. 15, 2013): Rover Hits Paydirt | NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Image | Pebbly Sandstone Conglomerate Rock at Curiosity’s Waypoint 1 | mars.jpl.nasa.gov
YouTube | Curiosity Rover Report (Dec. 9, 2013): Dating Younger Rocks | NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
SciByte Episodes
SciByte 78 | Dyscalculia & the Flu | January 22, 2013
SciByte 86 | Exoplanet & Bee Venom | March 19, 2013
SciByte 104 | Fear & Lunar Formation | October 1, 2013
SciByte 112 | Typing & Dying Silk | December 10, 2013

— NEWS BYTE —

Voyager 1 | “Interstellar Space” Announcement

September
NASA says that the Voyager 1 spacecraft is in interstellar space and actually made the transition about a year ago.
Evidence is overwhelming that Voyager 1 has crossed the heliopause, but acknowledge that they have to determine why the magnetic field direction didn’t shift.
The data does show that Voyager 1 in certainly in a new region at the edge of the solar system where things are changing rapidly
Multimedia
YouTube | Voyager Captures Sounds of Interstellar Space | Sep 6, 2013
YouTube | Voyager Welcomed To Interstellar Space | VideoFromSpace
YouTube | Voyager 1 Goes Interstellar: Solar System Boundary Passed | VideoFromSpace
SciByte Episodes
SciByte 102 | Voyager 1 & Insect Gears | September 17, 2013

Exoplanets

How Common are Habitable 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
[SciByte 109 | ‘Earth-Like’ Planets & Sharks | November 12, 2013]
Clouds on Alien Planet Mapped for 1st Time
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\’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
[SciByte 105 | Exoplanet Clouds & Updates | October 15, 2013]
Two Potentially Habitable Planets
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
Two of the worlds, 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
[SciByte 92 | Habitable Exoplanets & Diabetes | May 7, 2013]
Exoplanet Atmosphere
Found hints of ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide and acetylene in an exo-planets’ atmosphere in the sharpest spectrum ever obtained of an extrasolar planet
[SciByte 86 | Exoplanet & Bee Venom | March 19, 2013]
Small Exoplanet Discovered by Listening to Star
Scientists discovered a new planet orbiting a Sun-like star, and the exoplanet is the smallest yet found in data from the Kepler mission
They discovered it by measuring oscillations in the star’s brightness caused by continuous star-quakes, and turning those tiny variations in the star’s light into sounds
[SciByte 83 | Tiny Exo-planet & Medical Glue | February 26, 2013]
Multimedia
YouTube | One in Five Sun-Like Stars Have \’Goldilocks\’ Planets | VideoFromSpace
YouTube | Remote Reconnaissance of Another Solar System | American Museum of Natural History
3D Visualization Tool | A fully rendered tool, available for download at eyes.nasa.gov/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

Kepler Space Telescope
Jan | Kepler develops another reaction wheel problem, \’rests\’ for 1 days and then goes back to work | SciByte 78 | Dyscalculia & the Flu | January 22, 2013
May | [SciByte 94] | The second of four reaction wheel fails and may bring the mission to an end. NASA starts to put options together
Aug | NASA announces that Kepler may not fully recover, ends primary mission, opens up the possibility and ideas of another mission
K2 Second Light | Uses pressure from photons from the Sun some functionality will return
Image Galleries | kepler.nasa.gov
Twitter | NASA Kepler [@NASAKepler]
Russian Chelyabinsk Meteorite
SciByte 82 | Meteorites & Asteroids – 2013 Russian Meteorite Strike | February 19, 2013
SciByte 83 |
Tiny Exo-planet & Medical Glue – Russian Meteorite Orbital Calculations | February 26, 2013
SciByte 84 |
HIV & SpaceX Troubles – Russian Meteorite Chunk Found | March 5, 2013
Infographic | Huge Russian Meteor Blast is Biggest Since 1908 | Space.com
YouTube | Meteorite crash in Russia: Video of meteorite explosion that stirred panic in Urals region | RT
YouTube Huge hole as Russian meteor smashes into icy lake | RT
YouTube | Meteor Hits Russia 2013 – Best Footage Collection | Tuvix72

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

Software Upgrade
Curiosity engineers uploaded the third upgrade version of the software, completing the switch to the new software took about a week
Wheel Wear
An upcoming activity will be driving to a relatively smooth patch of ground to take a set of images of Curiosity\’s aluminum wheels, using the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera at the end of the rover\’s arm.
Curiosity\’s recent driving has crossed an area that has numerous sharp rocks embedded in the ground. Routes to future destinations for the mission may be charted to lessen the amount of travel over such rough terrain, compared to smoother ground nearby.
Multimedia
Image | Left-Front Wheel of Curiosity Rover, Approaching Three Miles | mars.nasa.gov/msl
Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
Social Media
Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
Further Reading / In the News
Curiosity Team Upgrades Software, Checks Wheel Wear | December 20, 2013

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

Keep an eye out for …
Fri, Jan 10 | Nightfall | To the left of the moon you might be able to see the Pleiades star cluster, by 8-9 they will be above the moon
Sat, Jan 11 | Dusk | The orange giant star Aldebaran, \’eye\’ of the Constellation Taurus, will be below the moon and moving to the left of the Moon by around 11
Planets
Venus | Hiding in the glare of the sun
Mars | ~midnight | HIghest in the S before first light of dawn, with Spica to the lower left
Jupiter | Rises at sunset, highest in the sky around midnight. In the evenings it is the brightest object in the sky. On Jan 5, it is in opposition, directly opposite the Sun from our perspective.
Saturn | Dawn it\’s in the SE, far to the lower left of Mars and Spica
Further Reading and Resources
Sky&Telescope
SpaceWeather.com
StarDate.org
For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au
Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org
Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz
AstronomyNow
HeavensAbove

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

Glacial Lava & Artificial Intelligence | SciByte 110

chris — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 21:34:18 +0000

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.

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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

Astrophysicists have managed to detect and record the mysterious phenomena known as cosmic neutrinos
The nearly massless particles that stream to Earth at the speed of light from outside our solar system, striking the surface in a burst of energy that can be as powerful as a baseball pitcher\’s fastball
Cosmic Rays
Scientists have pondered the source of cosmic rays, which contain the energy of a rifle bullet in a single atomic nucleus
It\’s thought that objects such as supernovas, black holes or gamma ray bursts may produce cosmic rays, but their origin is difficult to detect
Instead, scientists look for neutrinos – subatomic particles with no charge and very little mass – produced when cosmic rays interact with their surroundings
Neutrinos
Astrophysical neutrinos move in straight lines unimpeded by outside forces, they can act as pointers to the place in the galaxy where they originated this, in turn, can tell astronomers quite a bit out our universe
The 28 events recorded so far are too few to point to any particular location
Billions of neutrinos pass through a square centimeter of Earth every second, and only a tiny fraction of them interact with matter
The Study
In this particular study, the researchers observed 28 very high-energy particle events with the use of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica
These events constitute the first solid evidence for astrophysical neutrinos from cosmic sources
IceCube
IceCube is located inside a cubic kilometer of ice beneath the South Pole.
It is made up of 5,160 digital optical modules suspended along 86 strings embedded in ice beneath the South Pole
It detects neutrinos through the tiny flashes of blue light, called Cherenkov light, produced when neutrinos interact in the ice.
Computers then collect near-real-time data from the optical sensors and send information about interesting events north via satellite
Multimedia
YouTube | Chasing the Ghost Particle From the South Pole to the Edge of the Universe | IceCube Neutrino
YouTube | A 10-millisecond view of IceCube | IceCube Neutrino
YouTube | Francis Halzen On the first evidence for astrophysical neutrinos from cosmic accelerators | IceCube Neutrino
Further Reading / In the News
Neutrino Detector Finds Elusive Extraterrestrial Particles in \’Major Breakthrough\’ | Space.com
New Era of Neutrino Astronomy Begins at the South Pole | ScienceWorldReport.com
Neutrino Detection Could Help Paint an Entirely New Picture | UniverseToday.com

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?

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

Keep an eye out for …
Fri, Nov 29 | ~45 before sunrise | The star Spica will be to the lower left of the Moon
Planets
Venus / \”Evening Star\” | Dusk | In the SW and setting more than an hour after dark, it is at its highest and brightest that it will be for the rest of the year
Mars | ~1am local | Rises around 1 am moving to the upper SE skies by dawn
Jupiter | ~8pm local | Rises in the E-NE, with two stars from the constellation Gemini, Castor and Pollux, to it\’s left. It will be at it\’s highest point in the night at ~3am local. Jupiter will be in opposition, directly opposite the sun, on Jan 5th
Further Reading and Resources
Sky&Telescope
SpaceWeather.com
StarDate.org
For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au
Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org
Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz
AstronomyNow
HeavensAbove

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