Show Notes: techsnap.systems/421

The post Firewall Fun | TechSNAP 421 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Angela and Chris discuss all sorts of space goods that might be cool to have as well as a couple up and coming projects that are really breaking ground for space utilization to keep us all connected.

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— Show Notes —

Main Topic:

• Luna: Bring the moon along with you | Indiegogo
• Planetary Glass Set | ThinkGeek
• Star Trek Enterprise Projection Alarm Clock | ThinkGeek
  +Jupiter Solar Spinning Globe | ThinkGeek
• I Heart Pluto T-Shiirt | SnorgTees
• Caelus Cubesat Bringing Revolutionary technology to space. by Sakarias — Kickstarter
• Lantern: One Device, Free Data From Space Forever | Indiegogo
  +Dans Space Van – Tour & Webcast | Indiegogo
• Pornhub Space Program – SEXPLORATION | Indiegogo

Email angela@jupiterbroadcasting.com your computer based PORN SKIT! Yes, write your own potentially horribly geeky porn skit and email it in. Send in a pic and/or link and IRC nick.

WTR

• Check out Technology For Connection | WTR 43 | Jupiter Broadcasting
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The post Space Goods | FauxShow 225 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Hello everyone and welcome back to SciByte!

We take a look at a theory breaking exoplanet, a theory confirming star, Saturn moon Titan, lunar formation theories, 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:

Breaking Planetary Formation Theories Again

• Astronomers have announced that they have discovered a new type of planet – a rocky world weighing 17 times as much as Earth
• Past theories believed such a world couldn’t form because anything so hefty would grab hydrogen gas as it grew and become a Jupiter-like gas giant
• This planet; however. is solid and much bigger than previously discovered “super-Earths,” making it a “mega-Earth.”
• Kepler-10c
• It is located about 560 light-years from Earth in the constellation Draco
• It’s orbit lasts 45 days
• The system also hosts a 3-Earth-mass “lava world,” Kepler-10b, in a remarkably fast, 20-hour orbit
• Discovery
• Kepler-10c was originally spotted by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft.
• By measuring the amount of dimming, astronomers can calculate the planet’s physical size or diameter
• However, Kepler can’t tell whether a planet is rocky or gassy
• Kepler-10c was known to have a diameter 2.3 times as large as Earth
• This suggested it fell into a category of planets known as mini-Neptunes, which have thick, gaseous envelopes
• It’s a Rocky Planet
• The team used the HARPS-North instrument on the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) in the Canary Islands to measure the mass of Kepler-10c
• They found that it weighed 17 times as much as Earth – far more than expected, this showed that Kepler-10c must have a dense composition of rocks and other solids.
• It is so massive that it would have been able to hold onto an atmosphere if it ever had one
• Planetary Formation Theories
• Planet formation theories have a difficult time explaining how such a large, rocky world that need elements like silicon and iron, could develop
• The Kepler-10 system is about 11 billion years old, which means it formed less than 3 billion years after the Big Bang
• The early universe contained only hydrogen and helium
• Heavier elements are created and scattered through the universe when a star goes supernova, when help create later generations of stars and planets
• This process should have taken billions of years; however, Kepler-10c shows that the universe was able to form such huge rocks even during the time when heavy elements were scarce.
• What This Means
• This tells us that rocky planets could form much earlier than we thought
• This research implies that astronomers shouldn’t rule out old stars when they search for Earth-like planets
• If old stars can host rocky Earths too, then we have a better chance of locating potentially habitable worlds in our cosmic neighborhood
• Further Reading / In the News
• Astronomers find a new type of planet: The ‘mega-Earth’ | Phys.org

— NEWS BYTE —

A New Sneaky Star Type

• A Thorne-Zytkow Object, or TZO are actually two stars in one: a binary pair where a superdense neutron star has been absorbed into its less dense supergiant
• Thorne-Zytkow Object
• First theorized in 1975 they are difficult to find in real life because of their similarity to red supergiants, it is only through detailed spectroscopy that the particular chemical signatures can be identified.
• While normal red supergiants derive their energy from nuclear fusion in their cores, TOs are powered by the unusual activity of the absorbed neutron stars in their cores
• Discovery
• The astronomers were examining the spectrum of light emitted from apparent red supergiants, which tells them what elements are present
• When the spectrum of one star, HV 2112, was analyzed the scientists were quite surprised by some of the unusual features
• They took a close look at the subtle lines in the spectrum they found that it contained excess rubidium, lithium and molybdenum
• Past research has shown that normal stellar processes can create each of these elements; however, high abundances of all three of these at the temperatures typical of red supergiants is a unique signature of TŻOs
• Only by absorbing a much hotter star – such as a neutron star left over from the explosive death of a more massive partner – is the production of such elements presumed to be possible
• Formation Theory
• TOs are thought to be formed by the interaction of two massive stars-a red supergiant and a neutron star formed during a supernova explosion-in a close binary system
• The much more massive red supergiant essentially swallows the neutron star, which spirals into the core of the red supergiant
• Scientists are careful to point out that HV 2112 displays some chemical characteristics that don’t quite match theoretical models
• There are some minor inconsistencies between some of the details of what we found and what theory predicts, but the theoretical predictions are quite old, and there have been a lot of improvements in the theory since then
• What This Might Mean
• Studying these objects represents a completely new model of how stellar interiors can work
• In these interiors we also have a new way of producing heavy elements in our universe
• Further Reading / In the News
• Astronomers discover first Thorne-Zytkow object, a bizarre type of hybrid star | ScienceDaily
• Astronomers Find Evidence of a Strange Type of Star | UniverseToday.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Waves on Saturns Moon?

• Cameras on NASA’s spacecraft Cassini recently saw what appear to be waves on one of Titan’s largest methane lakes, if confirmed, the discovery would mark the first time waves have been seen outside Earth.
• What Did They See?
• The team found patterns in the sunlight reflecting off a northern lake called Punga Mare that they interpret as two-centimeter-high waves
• It may simply be a mudflat instead of a deep lake, and a shallow film of liquid on top may be the cause of the unique light signature
• What it Might Mean
• Waves on Titan would confirm that the lakes actually are deep reservoirs of methane and ethane,
• If life on Titan exists, the best place to look is in large bodies of liquid, the kind that form waves
• True liquid bodies would also make a robotic spacecraft mission to explore Titan’s habitability more feasible
• More Certainty
• By 2017 scientists should know for certain whether what they are seeing is indeed caused by waves
• Cassini has been observing the moon during its northern winter, when weak winds are at work
• As spring starts over the next few years, it brings stronger winds to kick up seas, so the probe should capture more definitive evidence of waves if they exist
• Further Reading / In the News
• Lake on Saturn’s Largest Moon May Have Waves | Scientific American

Lunar Formation Theory Evidence?

• Current Lunar Formation Theory
• According to one lunar formation theory billions of years ago a Mars-sized body (sometimes called “Theia”) smashed into Earth
• Earth survived and the fragments from the crash gradually coalesced into the Moon that we see today
• The problem with this was that no evidence had been found of “Theia”
• Scientists now believe they have found traces of Theia in lunar rocks pulled from the Apollo missions
• Oxygen Isotopes
• Before, the “resolution” of microscopes couldn’t find any significant differences isotopes or types of oxygen of any of the Lunar samples of the Moon brought back by the Apollo missions
• New research appears to show a difference between the Earth and the Moon which implies that a body of different composition caused the changes
• The new data reveals the moon rocks have 12 parts per million more oxygen-17 than the Earth rocks
• “The differences are small and difficult to detect, but they are there,” | lead researcher Daniel Herwartz
• What This Means
• First, scientists can now be reasonably sure that the giant collision took place
• Second, it gives us an idea of the geochemistry of Theia
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Where Did The Moon Come From? – Do We Really Need the Moon? – Preview – BBC Two | BBC
• Further Reading / In the News
• The work was published in Science and will also be presented at the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference in California on June 11.
• Hulk Smash! Collision That Formed Our Moon Shows Up In Lunar Rocks, Study Says | UniverseToday.com
• New isotopic evidence supporting moon formation via Earth collision with planet-sized body | phys.org

—UPDATE—

Asteroid UQ4 Catalina Turns Comet – Still Looking Promising

• Last Time on SciByte …
• SciByte 130 | Solar Sibling & Comets | May 13, 2014
• Asteroid Turns 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
• 2013 UQ4 belongs to a class of objects known as damocloids, these are thought to be inactive varieties of comet nuclei
• By May 7, the asteroid had grown a little fuzz, making the move to comethood, soon afterwards it displayed a substantial coma or atmosphere
• It is brightening on schedule and should be a binocular object greater than +10th magnitude by the end of June
• It will reach perihelion on July 6th only four days before its closest approach to the Earth
• At that point, the comet will have an apparent motion of about 7 degrees a day — that’s the span of a Full Moon once every 1 hour and 42 minutes
• Further Reading / In the News
• Asteroid-Turned-Comet 2013 UQ4 Catalina Brightens: How to See it This Summer | UniverseToday.com

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

ISEE-3 Reboot Project

• The team is now receiving information from the spacecraft’s magnetometer
• Last Time on SciByte …
• SciByte 132 | ISEE-3 Back To Life | May 27, 2014
• SciByte 133 | Orion Heat Shield & Dragon V2 | June 3, 2014
• What ISEE-3 Really Looks Like
• Spacecraft Mass: 479 kg [1,056 lb]
• Spacecraft Dimensions: 16-sided body 1.7m [5.6ft] diameter, 1.6m [5.2ft] high
• Spacecraft Power: solar cells
• Maximum Power: 173.0 W (nominal power)
• It has 4 large antennas that span 91 meters and it spins ~ once every 3 seconds
• The spacecraft is spinning at 19.16 rpm, the mission specification is 19.75 +/- 0.2 rpm so the spin rate of spacecraft is slightly below what it should be
• Image | ISEE-3 Status Report 5 June 2014 (Morning) | Space College
• Image | ISEE-3 Propulsion System Overview | Space College
• Using GNU Radio to Talk to ISEE-3
• The amazing accomplishment of successfully designing a deep-space uplink modulator in a couple of days was accomplished through a lot of team work, strong leadership, and generous support from the community at large
• The uplink commands to the spacecraft uses products like the Ettus Research USRP, the open source SDR framework GNU Radio have made this exceedingly easy
• Transmitting Rate Change
• On Just 9, the team was able to switch ISEE-3’s B transmitter to a data rate of 64 bps, they hope to eventually leave it this way so as to allow dishes smaller than Arecibo to complete the link and have solid two-way communication with ISEE-3.
• After this they were able to detect signals from the craft with an 8 foot dish
• Telemetry Data
• On June 12, telemetry from ISEE-3 indicating that its entire suite of science instruments is powered up and has been powered up since NASA last commanded the spacecraft many years ago
• The engineers are getting data back from the magnetometer that indicates that science data is coming back; however, just because an instrument is powered up doesn’t mean that it is functioning normally
• Some of the ISEE-3 instruments had begun to fail or become partially functional as early as 1982
• Spinning Up
• The team plans to briefly fire two of the spacecraft’s thrusters on 21 June so as to spin it up from 19.16 rpm to the mission specification of 19.75 +/- 0.2 rpm [the spin-up target is 19.733 rpm]
• This optimal spin rate is required in order to properly fire the axial thrusters during the much longer trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) we need to perform to adjust the spacecraft’s course
• Multimedia
• Image | ISEE-3 Status Report 5 June 2014 (Morning) | Space College
• Twitter | @ISEE3Reboot
• YouTube | ISEE-3 Reboot Channel
• Further Reading / In the News
• Space College: ISEE-3 Reboot Project Archives
• Contact With 36-Year Old Spacecraft Results in Dancing, Hugs. Now Comes Even Bigger Challenge | UniverseToday.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

• The Road Trip Continues
• Curiosity is currently driving toward Mount Sharp, the layered mountain at the middle of Mars’ Gale Crater.
• The rover is carrying with it some of the drilled powdered sample material from the Windjana location that can be delivered for additional internal laboratory analysis during pauses in the drive.
• Mercury Transit
• The observations were made on June 3, 2014
• Mercury fills only about one-sixth of one pixel as seen from such great distance, so the darkening does not have a distinct shape, but its position follows Mercury’s expected path based on orbital calculations.
• This is the first transit of the sun by a planet observed from any planet other than Earth, and also the first imaging of Mercury from Mars
• The same Mastcam frames show two sunspots approximately the size of Earth. The sunspots move only at the pace of the sun’s rotation, much slower than the movement of Mercury.
• Mercury and Venus transits are visible more often from Mars than from Earth, the next Mercury transit visible from Earth will be May 9, 2016.
• Mercury Passes in Front of the Sun, as Seen From Mars – Mars Science Laboratory | Mars.jpl.nasa.gov
• Testing Future Landing Technologies
• Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) | nasa.gov
• The Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) will gather data about landing heavy payloads on Mars and other planetary surfaces
• As NASA plans increasingly ambitious robotic missions to Mars, laying the groundwork for even more complex human science expeditions to come, accommodating extended stays for explorers on the Martian surface will require larger and heavier spacecraft
• This test will use a helium balloon (that, when fully inflated, would fit snugly into Pasadena’s Rose Bowl) to lift the vehicle to 120,000 feet
• A fraction of a second after dropping from the balloon, and a few feet below it, four small rocket will stabilize the saucer
• A half second later, a solid-fueled rocket engine will send the test vehicle to the edge of the stratosphere
• “Our goal is to get to an altitude and velocity which simulates the kind of environment one of our vehicles would encounter when it would fly in the Martian atmosphere,” | Ian Clark, principal investigator of the LDSD project at JPL
• Two supersonic decelerator technologies that will be thoroughly tested during two LDSD flight tests next year.
• The SIAD-R, is essentially an inflatable doughnut that increases the vehicle’s size and, as a result, its drag to quickly slow the vehicle
• A second system being tested is the largest supersonic parachute ever flown, to be used when the craft first hits the supersonic flow
• NASA’s flying saucer-shaped test vehicle was not able to be flight tested during the reserved testing launch period unfavorable weather conditions, NASA is continuing to look at options for a future launch window.
• Multimedia
• YouTube Curiosity Rover Report JPLnews
• Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
• Social Media
• Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
• Further Reading / In the News
• Mercury Passes in Front of the Sun, as Seen From Mars – Mars Science Laboratory | Mars.jpl.nasa.gov
• NASA’s LDSD ‘Flying Saucer’ Test–Update – Mars Science Laboratory | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

• June 25, 1997 : 17 years ago : Space Station Mir Accident : The space-station Mir suffered a near-fatal mishap when a Progress ferry being docked via remote control by Russian cosmonaut Vasily Tsibliyev accidentally rammed into the Spektr science module, putting a hole in the pressure vessel and damaging its solar arrays beyond use. To salvage the station, which consisted of a core, a connecting node, and five science modules, crew members severed electrical and data connections between Spektr and the rest of the station and then sealed off the module. They saved the station but lost about half of their electrical power
• The One Martian Year Birthday to Curiosity June 24, 2014. The length of time for Mars to complete one orbit around the Sun is its sidereal year, and is about 686.98 Earth solar days.

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …
• Planets
• Mercury | Hidden by the sunrise
• Venus | Dawn | Low in the East
• Mars | Twilight | High in the SW, with the Blue-White giant star Spica to its left. Mars sets in the W ~ 1AM DST
• Jupiter | Twilight | Low in the W-NW in twilight, setting by nightfall

• Saturn | Evening | S sky in the evening

• 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 Super-Earth & Lunar Formation | SciByte 134 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We take a look at sleeping away fear, lunar formation, neonatal hypoglycemia, sending messages to interstellar space, viewer feedback, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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[asa]B00BHJRYYS[/asa]

— Show Notes —

Sleep and Fear

• A fear memory was reduced in people by exposing them to the memory over and over again while they slept
• The Study
• Scientists have shown that sleep is very important for strengthening new memories
• Previous projects have shown that spatial learning and motor sequence learning can be enhanced during sleep
• If the results of this new study continue to show promising results it will be the first time that emotional memory have been manipulated in humans during sleep
• What it Could Mean
• It offers the potential of a new way to enhance typical daytime treatments of phobias, through exposure therapy by adding a nighttime component
• If it can be extended to pre-existing fear, the bigger picture is that, perhaps, the treatment of phobias can be enhanced during sleep.\”
• The Test
• 15 healthy human subjects received mild electric shocks while seeing two different faces
• Subjects also received different odorants to smell with each face such as woody, clove, new sneaker, lemon or mint
• This caused the brain to associate the faces and corresponding smells with fear
• During the slow wave sleep state, when memory consolidation is thought to occur, a smell was represented without the corresponding face and shock
• When a given smell was reintroduced during sleep, it was activating the memory of that face over and over again
• The Results
• When the subjects woke up they saw the face linked to the smell they had been exposed to during sleep
• Their fear reactions were lower than their fear reactions to the other face
• Fear was measured in two ways, through small amounts of sweat in the skin, similar to a lie detector test and through neuroimaging with fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging).
• The fMRI results showed changes in regions associated with memory and changes in patterns of brain activity in regions associated with emotion
• These brain changes reflected a decrease in reactivity that was specific to the targeted face image associated with the odorant presented during sleep
• Further Reading / In the News
• First evidence that fear memories can be reduced during sleep | MedicalXpress.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Lunar Formation and Age

• New research suggests that the moon is younger than scientists had previously believed
• Current Leading Lunar Formation Theory
• Suggest that the Moon was created when a mysterious planet, one the size of Mars or larger, slammed into the Earth about 4.56 billion years ago, just after the solar system came together
• New analyses of lunar rocks suggest that the moon, is actually between 4.4 billion and 4.45 billion years old
  +This analysis would mean the moon would 100 million years younger than previously thought and would reshape scientists\’ understanding of the early Earth
• Opens New Questions
• Giving the Earth another 100 million years of development before a giant impact could have provided enough time for a primordial atmosphere to develop
• If that did have time to occur, could an impact have been able to \’blown off\’ that atmosphere
• Age of Smaller Solar System Bodies
• Scientists are very sure that the solar system\’s age is 4.568 billion years
• They can pin down the formation times of relatively small bodies such as asteroids precisely
• By noting when these objects underwent extensive melting, from the heat generated by the collision and fusion of these objects\’ building-block \”planetesimals.\”
• Analysis of meteorites that came from the asteroid Vesta and eventually rained down on Earth reveals that the 330-mile-wide (530 kilometers) space rock is 4.565 billion years old
• Vesta cooled relatively quickly and is too small to have retained enough internal heat to drive further melting or volcanism
• Age of Larger Solar System Bodies
• The age of larger solar-system bodies is harder to narrow down
• Earth likely took longer to grow to full size compared to a small asteroid like Vesta
• Every step in its growth tends to erase, or at least cloud, earlier events
• Lunar formation Impact Event
• Currently the \’lunar formation impact event\’ puts the age of the Moon at around 4.56 billion years ago
• As scientists refine techniques and technology improves, estimates are pushing the moon\’s formation date farther forward in time
• The moon is thought to have harbored a global ocean of molten rock shortly after its formation
• Currently, the most precisely determined age for the lunar rocks that arose from that ocean is 4.360 billion years
• Here on Earth, scientists have found signs in several locations of a major melting event that occurred around 4.45 billion years ago
• Evidence is building that the catastrophic collision that formed the moon and reshaped Earth occurred around that time, rather than 100 million years or so before
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Where Did The Moon Come From? – Do We Really Need the Moon? – Preview – BBC Two | BBC
• YouTube | The formation of the Moon | piesforyou
• Further Reading / In the News
• The Moon Is 100 Million Years Younger Than Thought | Space.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Infant Blood Sugar

• Newborns with low blood sugar sometimes have to go to the intensive care unit for intravenous infusions of glucose
• A new study has found that rubbing a sweet gel onto the insides of babies’ cheeks can also help with low blood sugar
• Neonatal Hypoglycemia
• Low blood sugar in newborns, or neonatal hypoglycemia, occurs when the tiny body needs more glucose to meet energy needs than is available in the bloodstream
• Prolonged hypoglycemia risks neurological injury.
• Prevalence
• Low blood glucose shows up in 5 to 15 percent of otherwise healthy newborns as measured by blood tests
• Of note, doctors typically don’t run the analysis on every newborn
• Doctors often only call for blood sugar blood tests if they see symptoms, such as poor color, seizures, irritability, lethargy, jittery behavior and a lack of interest in feeding
• Although many infants with low blood glucose don’t have such symptoms
• One report designates at-risk infants as those who are born preterm, have diabetic mothers, or are either large or small for their gestational age
• The Study
• In the new study, researchers identified 237 apparently healthy newborns who had one of those risk factors or who were feeding poorly
• Half of the babies were randomly assigned to get a gel made of dextrose, a form of glucose, rubbed on the inner cheeks up to six times over 48 hours; the rest received a placebo gel
• Results in the Following Week
• Placebo gel group | 30 babies, 25%, were placed in intensive care for hypoglycemia
• Dextrose gel group | 16 babies, 13%, were placed in intensive care for hypoglycemia
• Previous Usage
• Dextrose had been tried in the 1990s as an oral rub for infants but wasn’t fully tested or put into widespread use
• Further Reading / In the News
• Dextrose rub helps newborns with low blood sugar | Body & Brain | Science News

New Horizons Message Initiative

• SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) have created a petition called the New Horizons Message Initiative
• This petition is asking NASA officials to upload a yet-to-be-determined crowdsourced message from humanity onto the New Horizons craft after its encounter with the Pluto system
• \”This website is an opportunity for anyone who is interested to sign a petition that asks NASA to approve the future use of the spacecraft\”
• Were There Plans About This from NASA?
• Before New Horizons launched, NASA officials discussed including an onboard message, but decided against it due to a small team on a tight budget
• The team didn\’t want to get distracted from the project
• New Horizons Message Initiative
• The group would need formal permission from the agency and sub-support to make this happen
• NASA funds will not be used for the project, but initiative officials are asking for support from private individuals.
• The idea is to use some of the spacecraft\’s memory to store messages from earthlings beamed up to the probe, when New Horizons completes its mission
• They say that it might be possible to reprogram about 100 megabytes of its memory and upload a new sights and sounds of Earth
• Further Reading / In the News
• Want to Phone Aliens? Help Get Your Messages On NASA\’s Pluto-Bound Spacecraft | Space.com
• New Horizons Message Initiative
• Twitter | New Horizons Message @NewHorizonsMsg

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Lightsaber Tech?!?!?!

• Viewer Feedback : Check This Out
• Nikki, Summer SciByte co-host, current STOked radio co-host
• What’s Going On?
• Researchers have found a way to bind photons together much like molecules
• This discovery goes against what scientists previously understood of photons: that elementary light particles are massless loners that do not interact with each other.
• Most of the properties of light we know about originate from the fact that photons are massless, and that they do not interact with each other
• The Test
• Researchers fired a couple of photons into a cloud of rubidium – a chemical element belonging to the metal group – in a vacuum chamber cooled to just a few degrees above absolute zero.
• When the photons exited the other side of the cloud of atoms the researchers were surprised to see the pair emerge as a single molecule.
• The cloud they passed through is a special type of medium in which photons interact with each other strongly that they begin to act as though they have mass, and they bind together to form molecules
• Rydberg Blockade
• Rydberg blockade states that when an atom has energy imparted to it, nearby atoms cannot be excited to the same degree
• The pair of photons moved through the cloud of atoms, the first photon excited atoms, but had to move forward before the second photon could do the same.
• The pair of photons pushed and pulled each other through the cloud like atomic interaction, which made these two photons behave like a molecule
• The Future
• The team is hoping to use their newly discovered state of matter in the advancement of quantum computing
• Further Reading / In the News
• Researchers at Harvard University and MIT discover previously unobserved state of matter by binding photons together into molecules, creating real-life \’lightsaber\’ | CTVNews

SciByte Pages / How to Contact?

• Todd Thiner ‏@mininessie
• *Do you have a Facebook page?
• Ways To Contact Me
• Twitter | @JB_Mars_Base
• JupiterBroadcasting.com Contact Form
• Google+ Mars_Base

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

• Water in the Soil
• The Curiosity rover team has now revealed that the first scoop of soil analyzed by the rover showed several percent water by weight
• The data showed about 2% of the soil on the surface of Mars is made of up water
• The sample also released significant carbon dioxide, oxygen, and sulfur compounds when heated
• Organics would not likely preserved in surface soils, which are exposed to harsh radiation and oxidants
• The team says that the layer of surface soil that has been mixed and distributed by frequent dust storms, so that a scoop of this stuff is basically a microscopic Mars rock collection
• Another Ancient River
• Curiosity has discovered a new patch of pebbles formed and rounded eons ago by flowing liquid water
• The new finding at a sandstone outcrop called ‘Darwin’ during a brief science stopover spot called ‘Waypoint 1’.
• This discovery is important because it significantly broadens the area here that was altered by flowing liquid water
• The other location that showed ancient fluid flow was at Yellowknife Bay where the mission spent it\’s first six months exploring
• Because the veins are different, we know that they were made at different times in history
• Further analysis of any other locations like this will help scientists to get a better idea of when and where the water flowed in this location
• Multimedia
• Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
• Pebbly Sandstone Conglomerate Rock at Curiosity\’s Waypoint 1 | mars.jpl.nasa.gov
• Social Media
• Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
• Further Reading / In the News
• [Pebbly Sandstone Conglomerate Rock at Curiosity\’s Waypoint 1 | mars.jpl.nasa.gov(https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/?ImageID=5564)
• Mars rover Curiosity finds water in first sample of planet surface | Phys.org
• Curiosity Discovers Patch of Pebbles Formed by Flowing Martian Water on Mount Sharp Trek | UniverseToday.com
• Curiosity Finds Water And Poison In Martian Soil | Popular Science
• Curiosity gets the dirt on Mars | Atom & Cosmos | Science News
• NASA\’s Curiosity Rover Finds More Signs that Ancient Mars Had Water | Space.com

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

• Oct 04, 1958 : 55 years ago : Sputnik : The Space Age began as the Soviet Union, to the dismay of the United States, launched Sputnik, the first manmade satellite, into orbit around the earth. The craft circled the earth every 95 minutes at almost 20,000 miles per hour 500 miles above the Earth. The Sputnik (meaning \”companion\” or \”fellow traveller\”) was launched from Kazakhstan. It stayed in orbit for about three months. Sputnik fell from the sky on 4 Jan 1958. The 184-lb satellite had transmitted a radio signal picked up around the world, and instrumentation for temperature measurement
• Wikipedia Sputnik

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …
• For the next two weeks you might be able to spot the “false dawn” , also known as Zodiacal light. Caused by sunlight scattered by space dust in the zodiacal cloud, it is so faint that either moonlight or light pollution renders it invisible. YouTube Zodiacal Light from Rozhen | emivanov1
• Thurs, Oct 3 | 12-1 am local | Jupiter rises and climbs higher until dawn
• Fri, Oct 4 | Twilight | Cassiopeia is high in the NE, shaped like a broad W nearly on its end
• Tri, Oct 4 | Twilight | The Big Dipper is lowering in the NW
• Planets
• Venus and Saturn | Are both low in the W-SW during twilight. Saturn is much fainter and is 17* to the right of Venus on Friday (15* ~ pinky to pointer finger stretched out held at arms length)
• Mars | ~3am local | Rises in the E, below Mars is blue-white \’star\’ Regulus (actually two binary stars orbiting each other). They are separated by roughly 6* on the 5th (5* ~ your three middle fingers held together at arms length)

• Jupiter | Rises ~ midnight | Rises in the E and is in he high E-SE by early 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 Fear & Lunar Formation | SciByte 104 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We take a look at Woolly Mammoth blood, University Rover Challenge, conductive paint, crowdsourcing a telescope, frozen moss, viewer feedback, spacecraft updates, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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MP3 Audio | OGG Audio | Video | Torrent | YouTube

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Book Pick:

• Earth Strike: Star Carrier: Book One

• Earth Strike: Star Carrier, Book One Audiobook

Woolly Mammoth Blood!?!?!?

• The Wooly Mammoth
• An expedition led by Russian scientists earlier this month uncovered the well-preserved carcass of a female mammoth on a remote island in the Arctic Ocean
• The head of the expedition, said the animal died 10,000 to 15,000, at the age of around 60 some, making it the first time that an old female had been found
• Wooly mammoths are thought to have died out around 10,000 years ago
• Scientists think small groups of them lived longer in Alaska and on Russia\’s Wrangel Island off the Siberian coast.
• The Claim on the Body Preservation
• The lower part of the carcass was very well preserved as it ended up in a pool of water that later froze over
• The upper part of the body including the back and the head are believed to have been eaten by predators
• The team was surprised that the carcass was so well preserved that it still had blood and muscle tissue, and that when they broke the ice beneath the stomach, very dark blood flowed out
• The muscle tissue is also said to be red, the colour of fresh meat
• The temperature at the time of excavation was -7 to – 10 degrees Celsius [19.4 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit]
• Because these temperatures are below freezing it may be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryoprotective properties
• To Be Studied
• If these claims are true, it will be the most well-preserved tissue found from a Woolly Mammoth
• Mammoth specialists from South Korea, Russia and the United States are expected to study the remains which the Russian scientists are now keeping at an undisclosed northern location
• \”Jurassic Park Prize\”
• Scientists already have deciphered much of the genetic code of the woolly mammoth from balls of mammoth hair found frozen in the Siberian permafrost
• The discovery gives researchers a really good chance of finding live cells which can help in cloning a mammoth
• Last year the researchers signed a deal with cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-Suk of South Korea\’s Sooam Biotech Research Foundation, who in 2005 created the world\’s first cloned dog.
• Those who succeed in recreating an extinct animal could claim a \”Jurassic Park prize\”, the concept of which is being developed by the X Prize Foundation
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Russians Find Mammoth Carcass With Liquid Blood | AssociatedPress
• Further Reading / In the News
• Russian scientists make rare find of \’blood\’ in mammoth | Phys.org

— NEWS BYTE —

University Rover Challenge

• What is the University Rover Challenge?
• The competition is hosted by the Mars Society, a non-profit research organization dedicated to promoting the exploration and eventual settlement of Mars
• The competition site is located at the society\’s Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), a rocky barren landscape that\’s similar to Martian terrain
• Each team was allowed to spend up to $15,000 on their rovers, which can weigh no more than 50 kilograms – about 110 lbs.
• The URC is based on the assumption that the rovers are telerobots, which means they would be operated by astronauts on or orbiting Mars
• Team members must guide their rovers via a remote connection, such as a computer in the back of a truck, as long as it\’s shielded so the team can\’t see their rovers
• Teams compete in four challenges, which change year to year, designed to replicate the activities of NASA\’s rovers on Mars.
• The Tasks for 2013
• Teams will guide their rovers to collect the subsurface soil samples most likely to contain photosynthetic bacteria, lichen and other bits of living material
• Deliver a series of packages, such as emergency supplies to \”astronauts\” (URC staff) in the field
• Fix a dust-covered solar panel (without water, of course)
• Navigate an obstacle course that will include climbing steep grades, getting over boulders and passing through PVC pipe gates, aimed to test each rover\’s maneuverability
• The Teams
• This year\’s teams represent universities and colleges in Canada, India, Poland and the United States
• These include two-time returning champions Toronto\’s York University (2012 and 2009) and Oregon State (2010 and 2008)
• Full list of entries for the 2013 URC
• Winners
• First Place with 493 out of 500 points (highest ever scored) | The Hyperion Team from Bialystok University of Technology, Poland
• Second Place with 401 out of 500 points | Scorpio 3 team from Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland
• Third Place with 350 out of 500 points | OSU Mars Rover Team from Oregon State University, USA
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Bialystok University of Technology – Hyperion Team
• YouTube | Wroclaw University of Technology – Scorpio 3 Team
• YouTube | University Rover Challenge Clips | Jeremy LeFevre
• Further Reading / In the News
• The Rocky Road to Building the Next Mars Rover | Space.com
• Contest Challenges Students to Design Next Mars Rover | University Rover Challenge | Space.com
• University Rover Challenge | MarsSociety.org

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Conductive Paint

• What Is It?
• The substance allows the painting of \”liquid wiring\” on any surface, except for skin
• Radio Shack stocks paint pens, which the inventors emphasized, is the first non-toxic electrically conductive paint available and it dries at room temperature
• The inventors also say that they hope to appeal to a wide creative range of hobbyists, artists, and engineers for innovative ways to use their products
• In addition the substance is child friendly, which opens the door to educational projects, including toys, and touch-sensitive paper drawings that play sounds
• Applications
• Generally split into two simple classifications, signaling and powering
• Signaling could include using the Paint as a potentiometer while interfacing with a micro-controller, as a conduit in a larger circuit or as a capacitive sensor
• Powering a device would include lighting LED\’s or driving small speakers
• According to the company, Bare Paint has a surface resistivity of approximately 55 ohms/square at 50 microns layer thickness (human hair is ~100 microns)
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Bare Conductive Paint | Adafruit Industries
• Further Reading / In the News
• BareConductive.com
• Conductive paint lands in pens and pots for creatives | Phys.org

Crowdsourced Telescope

• A commercial asteroid-mining company aiming to launch a crowdfunded space telescope raised more than $200,000 on the first day of its campaign
• Total raised by the morning of filming this show (June 3) $714,473
• The Plan
• Planetary Resources, a private venture aiming to mine near-Earth space rocks announced on May 29 that it would build and launch a space telescope for public use if it could raise at least $1 million in 33 days.
• The telescope will be a twin copy of the Arkyd spacecraft the company is developing to detect, track and study asteroids in preparation for its mining mission
• A test version of the spacecraft is set for its maiden trial flight in April 2014, while the crowdfunded model would launch in early 2015
• What the Backers Get
• Public backers would use it to study celestial objects of their choice, they also have the option of sponsoring research projects at schools, universities or museums that could use the instrument.
• The telescope will also take self portraits that show the telescope in orbit, with a user-submitted photo displayed on the instrument\’s screen, a camera mounted on the hull of the spacecraft will snap the photo.
• Where Does the Name \”ARYKD\” Come From?
• To some Star Wars fans, it might sound familiar
• In the start of the project while looking for a code name the idea was to make a derivation of Arakyd Industries from the Star Wars universe
• According to the StarWars.wikia : \”Arakyd Industries was a major manufacturer of droids, heavy weapons, and starships, dating back to the days of the Galactic Republic\”
• They made such things as the Viper probe droid model, which the Empire used to locate the Echo Base on the planet Hoth
• The Viper probe droids themselves were based on earlier probe droids that were the first true probe droids to search planets and asteroids for valuable resources, such as metals to fuel the processing plants of industry
• Other Random/Interesting Facts
• The space shuttle had room for 1 Hubble Space Telescope in its payload bay, it could have fit 1,000 ARKYD Space Telescopes
• Going at 5 mi/sec it will travel 8x faster than an SR-71 Blackbird flying at mach 3, that\’s going from San Francisco to Boston in 10 min
• At those speeds it will have a few min each orbit to download information at DSL speeds, the primary/first ground station will be in Seattle
• Once the mission is going it will take 150 \”selfies\” and make 15 astronomical observations per day
• It will run off of only 50 W, the same amount as a standard household light … or 111 hamster wheels
• ARYKD Dimensions
• Weight : 15 kg / 33 lb
• Height 200 mm / 7.8 in
• Wingspan Deployed : 600 mm / 23.6 in
• Peak Power : 50 W
• Multimedia
• YouTube | ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone | PlanetaryResources
• YouTube | Planetary Resources Announces ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone | PlanetaryResources
• YouTube | Planetary Resources Kickstarter Community Event with Star Trek\’s Brent Spiner (Lt. Cmdr Data) | PlanetaryResources
• Further Reading / In the News
• Space Telescope Crowdfunding Project Raises $167,000 | Space.com
• Asteroid Mining Company Puts Orbital Telescope On Kickstarter | Popular Science
• Find out more on Kickstarter

Frozen Moss, Back to Life

• Zombie Moss?
• Scientists have recently found that even after hundreds of years buried under ice, mosses can regrow
• The revived plants come from Canada’s Ellesmere Island, where the Teardrop Glacier has retreated since the end of a cold period in 1550 to 1850 known as the Little Ice Age
• On recently exposed ground they found clumps of mosses that looked dead. But among the brown tangles, the team noticed a few green sprigs
• The team took brown moss samples back to the lab and used radiocarbon dating to determine that they had lived about 400 years ago
• Based on the glacier’s retreat rate, the researchers estimated the plants had been uncovered for less than two years.
• The team then ground up some of the plants and gave them nutrients, water and light
• From seven of 24 samples, a total of four moss species grew
• The budding plants didn’t come from seeds or spores because in moss, any cell can be reset, almost like a stem cell, to grow a new plant
• How long a moss cell can stay viable is “anyone’s guess,”
• The findings suggest that the regenerated mosses may help repopulate ecosystems after glaciers retreat
• Further Reading / In the News
• Mosses frozen in time come back to life | Life | Science News

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

EyeSpy an Exoplanet!

• The Hubby | Check This Out! | Exoplanet Directly Observed
• A newly discovered gaseous planet has been directly photographed orbiting a star about 300 light-years from Earth
• Only a few planets have been directly observed so far, and this world may be the least massive planet directly observed outside of the solar system
• The Planet
• The photo released by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) on June 3 depicts the suspected gas giant (called HD 95086 b) circling its young star (named HD 95086) in infrared light
• The planet was discovered by ESO\’s Very Large Telescope in Chile. Based on the planet\’s brightness, scientists estimate that it is only about four or five times more massive than Jupiter
• The planet orbits its star at about twice the distance from the sun to Neptune and about 56 times the distance between Earth and the sun, the blue circle in the photo represents the distance between the sun and Neptune.
• The star is relatively young, at only 10 million to 17 million years old, making the formation of the exoplanet and the dusty disc surrounding the star potentially intriguing to researchers
• Formation
• The planet might have grown by assembling the rocks that form the solid core and then slowly accumulated gas from the environment to form the heavy atmosphere
• It also might have started forming from a gaseous clump that arose from gravitational instabilities in the disc
• Interactions between the planet and the disc itself or with other planets may have also moved the planet from where it was born
• Further Reading / In the News
• Never-Before-Seen Alien Planet Imaged Directly in New Photo | Space.com

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

Lunar Gravity Map

• Mascons
• Mascons, or gravitational anomalies, were discovered on the moon in the 1960s, as NASA officials were planning for the Apollo moon missions, but the cause of these anomalies was unknown
• By mapping the moon\’s gravity field, the Grail probes uncovered the locations of lunar mascons, and offered unprecedented views of the moon\’s interior structure
• This enabled scientists to study two basins – one on the lunar nearside and one on the far side of the moon – to develop sophisticated computer models for how mascons form
• New Ideas How They Formed
• Billions of years ago, massive asteroids that collided with the moon left deep craters that reached into the mantle material that lies beneath the thin lunar crust
• What had been unexplained until now was how these big impact sites could support extremely dense material, and how the gravity field in these basins could be in such disequilibrium
• Mascon basins on the near side of the moon were partially filled in with ancient flows of dense lava, which seemed able to account for the mass excess and positive gravity anomalies
• For some basins, however, the observed lava flows were too thin to explain the mass excess, some basins were even found that exhibited mascons but lacked lava infill altogether
• The researchers determined that ancient asteroid impacts excavated large craters on the moon, causing surrounding lunar materials and rocks from the moon\’s mantle to melt and collapse inward
• This melting caused the material to become denser and more concentrated than the strong lunar crust, which also slides down into the impact hole, eventually forms a curved but rigid barrier over the basin, holding the dense materials down
• New models from this data gave the researchers a glimpse of how the moon\’s mascons formed in the aftermath of huge asteroid impacts
• Further Reading / In the News
• Mystery of Moon\’s Lumpy Gravity Explained | Moon Missions | Space.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

• Radiation Findings
• Curiosity\’s Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) is the first instrument to measure the radiation environment during a Mars cruise mission from inside a spacecraft that is similar to potential human exploration spacecraft
• The findings,indicate radiation exposure for human explorers could exceed NASA\’s career limit for astronauts if current propulsion systems are used.
• Forms of Radiation
• GCR\’s. Galactic cosmic rays are particles caused by supernova explosions and other high-energy events outside the solar system.
• SEP\’s. Solar energetic particles are associated with solar flares and coronal mass ejections from the sun
• Radiation Exposure
• NASA has established a three percent increased risk of fatal cancer as an acceptable career limit for its astronauts currently operating in low-Earth orbit
• Only about three percent of the radiation dose was associated with solar particles because of a relatively quiet solar cycle and the shielding provided by the spacecraft
• The radiation detected for the accumulated dose during the trip was about what you would get if you had a whole-body CT scan once every five or six days
• Shielding
• Current spacecraft shield much more effectively against SEPs than GCRs. To protect against the comparatively low energy of typical SEPs, astronauts might need to move into havens with extra shielding on a spacecraft or on the Martian surface, or employ other countermeasures
• GCRs tend to be highly energetic, highly penetrating particles that are not stopped by the modest shielding provided by a typical spacecraft.
• The Future
• RAD data collected during Curiosity\’s science mission will continue to inform plans to protect astronauts as NASA designs future missions to Mars in the coming decades
• Radiation
• The MSL spacecraft structure (which includes the backshell and heat shield as well as the Curiosity rover and its descent stage) provided significant shielding from the deep space radiation environment
• The spikes in radiation levels occurred in February, March and late May of 2012 because of large solar energetic particle events caused by solar activity
• Multimedia
• Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
• Social Media
• Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
• Further Reading / In the News
• Data From NASA Rover\’s Voyage To Mars Aids Planning | mars.jpl.nasa.gov+ Comparison of Some Radiation Exposures to Mars-Trip Level | mars.jpl.nasa.gov
• Calculating Radiation Dose for Biological Tissue | mars.jpl.nasa.gov
• Radiation Measurements During Trip From Earth to Mars | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

• June 6, 1878 : 135 years ago : Liquid air : In 1878, liquid air obtained at a temperature of -192ºC was exhibited by Professor James Dewar at the Royal Institution, London. His work followed the small-scale production of liquid air by Raoul Pictet of Geneva (Dec 1877) and Cailletet of Paris (Jan 1878). In March 1893, Dewar produced solid air. He gave six well-illustrated Christmas Lectures on “Air: gaseous and liquid” at the Royal Institution between 28 Dec 1893 and 9 Jan 1894. (Some of the air in the room was liquefied in the presence of the audience, and remained so for some time, when enclosed in a vacuum jacket.) He demonstrated several physical properties of liquid air, and produced solid air at the Friday 19 Jan 1894 meeting of the Royal Institution

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …
• Fri, Jun 07 | ~45 after sunset | Mercury and Venus are to the W-NW about 5*, or three finger-widths, apart. Look above and to the left for the stars Castor and Pollux about the same distance apart, they are the two heads in the constellation Gemini
• Sat, Jun 08 | After Dark | In the SE, the orange-red star you see is the red supergiant star Antares
• Planets
• Saturn | In the south during the evenings

• Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter | Afterglow of sunset | They form a straight line pointing to the W-NW horizon. Mercury is the highest one, Venus is the brightest, and Jupiter is closest to the horizon and getting progressively harder to see

• 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 Mammoth Blood & Crowdsourced Telescope | SciByte 96 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We take a look at measuring arthritis, Stephen Hawking’s voice, building moons with a game, an update on subglacial lakes, viewer feedback, spacecraft updates, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

Direct Download:

MP3 Audio | OGG Audio | Video | Torrent | YouTube

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

Support the Show:

Audible Book: Download Star Wars: The Truce at Bakura

Show Notes:

Arthritis

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

— NEWS BYTE —

Stephen Hawking\’s Voice

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

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Moon Games

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

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE —

Kepler back on track

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

— Updates —

Antarctic Subglacial lake

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

World’s largest prime number

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

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Finding an observatory

• Tom Grady
• I\’m looking for an observatory in the Denver area …
• Planetariums are useful when
• For those who are far away to a dark area to do observations
• Where a ‘regular’ observatory is not nearby
• For people, often young children, who may not be able to stay up late enough to be able to view, especially during times of the year when ‘full dark’ happens late at night
• Telescope observatories with public viewing nights
• Often the best idea if to find a local astronomy club
• They will know the nearby observatories or if they might have ‘Star Parties’ that the public can attend to look through their telescopes
• Telescope observatory in Denver
• Chamberlin Observatory, owned and operated by University of Denver, is located in Denver, Colorado in Observatory Park near University and Evans
• Chamberlin Observatory – University of Denver
• Public Nights at Chamberlin Observatory
• Multimedia
• YouTube Chamberlin Observatory at the University of Denver | uofdenver
• Interactive Worldwide Planetariums Database
• Further Reading / In the News
• International Planetarium Society
• Astronomical League
• Chamberlin Observatory – University of Denver
• Public Nights at Chamberlin Observatory

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

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

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

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

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …
• Thurs-Sat | Feb 7-9 | ~30 min after sunset | If you have binoculars then look low in the W-SW skies and you can see Mars and Mercury very close to each other
• Venus | No longer very visible in the glow of sunrise

• Jupiter | Early Evening it\’s in the high Southern skies moving to the SW later. The orange star Aldebaran is still around this week to it\’s left

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

We take a look at dyscalculia, the flu, laser communication, viewer feedback, spacecraft updates, Curiosity news and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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