Opportunity rover – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com Open Source Entertainment, on Demand. Mon, 22 Feb 2016 02:47:02 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.5.3 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/cropped-favicon-32x32.png Opportunity rover – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com 32 32 Exoplanets & Diabetes | SciByte 135 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/61887/exoplanets-diabetes-scibyte-135/ Tue, 08 Jul 2014 20:58:08 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=61887 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. Direct Download: MP3 Audio | OGG Audio | HD Video | Video | Torrent | […]

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

]]>

post thumbnail

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.

Direct Download:

MP3 Audio | OGG Audio | HD Video | Video | Torrent | YouTube

RSS Feeds:

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

Show Notes:

Exoplanets? … Not So Fast

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

— NEWS BYTE —

Research on Reversing Type 1 Diabetes

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

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

A New Earth-Like Exoplanet

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

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

Opportunity Rover

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

India’s Mars Orbiter Mission

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

ISEE3 Reboot Project

— 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

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

]]> Auditory Nerves & Cartilage | SciByte 128 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/56267/auditory-nerves-cartilage-scibyte-128/ Tue, 29 Apr 2014 20:38:48 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=56267 Hello everyone and welcome back to SciByte! We take a look at regrowing auditory nerves, growing cartilage, a cold stellar neighbor, viewer feedback on Opportunity rover, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week. Direct Download: MP3 Audio | OGG Audio | HD Video | […]

The post Auditory Nerves & Cartilage | SciByte 128 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]>

post thumbnail

Hello everyone and welcome back to SciByte!

We take a look at regrowing auditory nerves, growing cartilage, a cold stellar neighbor, viewer feedback on Opportunity rover, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

Direct Download:

MP3 Audio | OGG Audio | HD Video | Video | Torrent | YouTube

RSS Feeds:

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

Show Notes:

Gene Therapy with Cochlear Implants

  • Researchers have for the first time used electrical pulses delivered from a cochlear implant to deliver gene therapy, thereby successfully regrowing auditory nerves
  • \”People with cochlear implants do well with understanding speech, but their perception of pitch can be poor, so they often miss out on the joy of music,\” | UNSW Professor Gary Housley
  • **Cochlear Implants **
  • The work centres on regenerating surviving nerves after age-related or environmental hearing loss, using existing cochlear technology
  • The cochlear implants are \”surprisingly efficient\” at localised gene therapy in the animal model, when a few electric pulses are administered during the implant procedure.
  • It has long been established that the auditory nerve endings regenerate if neurotrophins – a naturally occurring family of proteins crucial for the development, function and survival of neurons – are delivered to the auditory portion of the inner ear, the cochlea.
  • Until now, research has stalled because safe, localised delivery of the neurotrophins can\’t be achieved using drug delivery, nor by viral-based gene therapy
  • New Research
  • Researchers have developed a way of using electrical pulses delivered from the cochlear implant to deliver the DNA to the cells close to the array of implanted electrodes.
  • These cells then produce neurotrophins the neurotrophin production dropped away after a couple of months which
  • Ultimately the changes in the hearing nerve may be maintained by the ongoing neural activity generated by the cochlear implant.
  • \”We think it\’s possible that in the future this gene delivery would only add a few minutes to the implant procedure\” | Jeremy Pinyon, PhD is based on this work
  • \”The surgeon who installs the device would inject the DNA solution into the cochlea and then fire electrical impulses to trigger the DNA transfer once the implant is inserted.\” | Jeremy Pinyon, PhD is based on this work
  • The Future
  • Integration of this technology into other \’bionic\’ devices such as electrode arrays used in deep brain stimulation, the treatment of Parkinson\’s disease and depression, for example) could also afford opportunities for safe, directed gene therapy of complex neurological disorders
  • \”Gene therapy has been suggested as a treatment concept even for devastating neurological conditions and our technology provides a novel platform for safe and efficient gene transfer into tissues as delicate as the brain.\” | Professor Matthias Klugmann
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Bionic ear delivers DNA to regrow auditory nerve cells | UNSWTV
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Hearing quality restored with bionic ear technology used for gene therapy | MedicalXPress.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Creating Cartilage

  • The first example of living human cartilage grown on a laboratory chip has been created by scientists
  • The researchers ultimately aim to use their innovative 3-D printing approach to create replacement cartilage
  • Who it Could Help
  • Artificial cartilage built using a patient\’s own stem cells could offer enormous therapeutic potential for patients with osteoarthritis or joint injuries
  • Osteoarthritis is marked by a gradual disintegration of cartilage, a flexible tissue that provides padding where bones come together in a joint and is one of the leading causes of physical disability in the United States
  • Some treatments can help relieve arthritis symptoms, there is no cure. Many patients with severe arthritis ultimately require a joint replacement
  • Replacement cartilage could also be a game-changer for people with debilitating joint injuries, such as soldiers with battlefield injuries
  • The Process
  • Creating artificial cartilage requires three main elements: stem cells, biological factors to make the cells grow into cartilage, and a scaffold to give the tissue its shape
  • This 3-D printing approach achieves all three by extruding thin layers of stem cells embedded in a solution that retains its shape and provides growth factors
  • Other researchers have experimented with 3-D printing approaches for cartilage,
  • This method represents a significant step forward because it uses visible light, while others have required UV light, which can be harmful to living cells.
  • In another significant step this process uses the 3-D printing method to produce the first \”tissue-on-a-chip\” replica of the bone-cartilage interface
  • Housing 96 blocks of living human tissue 4 millimeters across by 8 millimeters deep, the chip could serve as a test-bed for researchers to learn about how osteoarthritis develops and develop new drugs
  • The Future
  • As a next step, the team is working to combine their 3-D printing method with a nanofiber spinning technique they developed previously
  • They hope combining the two methods will provide a more robust scaffold and allow them to create artificial cartilage that even more closely resembles natural cartilage
  • The ultimate vision is to give doctors a tool they can thread through a catheter to print new cartilage right where it\’s needed in the patient\’s body
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Cartilage, made to order: Living human cartilage grown on lab chip — ScienceDaily | ScienceDaily.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

A Cold New Stellar Neighbor

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Opportunity Rover Solar Panel Pictures

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

  • First Ever Asteroid Images from Mars
  • The Curiosity rover has captured the first images of asteroids even taken by a Human probe from the surface of the Red Planet during night sky imaging.
  • “This imaging was part of an experiment checking the opacity of the atmosphere at night in Curiosity’s location on Mars, where water-ice clouds and hazes develop during this season,” | Camera team member Mark Lemmon
  • “The two Martian moons were the main targets that night, but we chose a time when one of the moons was near Ceres and Vesta in the sky.” | Camera team member Mark Lemmon
  • The two asteroids, Ceres and Vesta, were snapped by Curiosity’s high resolution Mastcam camera on Sunday, April 20, 2014
  • Ceres and Vesta appear as streaks since the Mastcam image was taken as a 12 second time exposure.
  • Ceres, the largest asteroid, is about 590 miles (950 kilometers) in diameter. Vesta is the third-largest object in the main belt and measures about 350 miles (563 kilometers) wide.
  • The tinier of Mars’ moons, Deimos, was also caught in that same image.
  • Mars largest moon Phobos as well as Jupiter and Saturn were also visible that same Martian evening, although in a different direction
  • The two asteroids and three stars would be visible to someone of normal eyesight standing on Mars.
  • Analysing a Possible Drilling Location
  • The team operating NASA\’s Curiosity Mars rover is telling the rover to use several tools this weekend to inspect a sandstone slab being evaluated as a possible drilling target
  • If this target meets criteria set by engineers and scientists, it could become the mission\’s third drilled rock, and the first that is not mudstone
  • The planned inspection, designed to aid a decision on whether to drill includes observations with the camera and X-ray spectrometer at the end of the rover\’s arm, use of a brush to remove dust from a patch on the rock, and readings of composition at various points on the rock with an instrument that fires laser shots from the rover\’s mast.
  • The first two Martian rocks drilled and analyzed this way were mudstone slabs neighboring each other in Yellowknife Bay, about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) northeast of the rover\’s current location
  • Those two rocks yielded evidence of an ancient lakebed environment with key chemical elements and a chemical energy source that provided conditions billions of years ago favorable for microbial life.
  • Scientists hope to learn more about the wet process that turned sand deposits into sandstone here and how the composition of the fluids that bound the grains together
  • Understanding why some sandstones in the area are harder than others also could help explain major shapes of the landscape where Curiosity is working inside Gale Crater.
  • Erosion-resistant sandstone forms a capping layer of mesas and buttes. It could even hold hints about why Gale Crater has a large layered mountain, Mount Sharp, at its center.
  • Multimedia
  • Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
  • Social Media
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Curiosity Captures First Ever Asteroid Images from Mars Surface | UniverseToday.com
  • Drill Here? NASA\’s Curiosity Mars Rover Inspects Site – Mars Science Laboratory | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • May 2, 1775 : 239 years ago : Gulf Stream : Benjamin Franklin completed the first scientific study of the Gulf Stream. His observations began in 1769 when as deputy postmaster of the British Colonies he found ships took two weeks longer to bring mail from England than was required in the opposite direction. Thus, Franklin became the first to chart the Gulf Stream
  • YouTube | The Gulf Stream & Climate Change | Kurzgesagt

Looking up this week

The post Auditory Nerves & Cartilage | SciByte 128 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Migraines & John Dobson | SciByte 116 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/50137/migraines-john-dobson-scibyte-116/ Tue, 21 Jan 2014 21:09:47 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=50137 We take a look at treating migraines, remembering John Dobson, sending your name to space, story and spacecraft updates, and more!

The post Migraines & John Dobson | SciByte 116 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]>

post thumbnail

We take a look at treating migraines, remembering John Dobson, sending your name to space, story and spacecraft updates, 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

— FauxShow Sticker Awards: —

A Blood Pressure Drug That Might Help Migraines

  • Researchers have found that the drug Candesartan, used to help lower blood pressure, is as effective in combating migraines as the commonly prescribed drug
  • The Study
  • This finding is a follow up of a ten-year study from NTNU
  • The results were confirmed based on triple a blind test where the doctors, patients and even the researchers were unaware whether the patient was given a placebo or the real drug.
  • The study had 72 participants, who suffered migraine attacks at least twice every month
  • The patients were given placebo, 16 mg of candesartan or 160 mg of propranolol for 12 weeks each and were given a break of 4 weeks without the medicines before the start of the drug and in between too.
  • Study Results
  • More than 20 percent of those suffering with migraine attacks felt better even when they were given a placebo.
  • The blind test revealed that the candesartan works preventively for more 20-30 percent migraine patients
  • The study confirmed that 16 mg of candesartan was as effective as 160 mg of propranolol in treating migraine attacks
  • Researchers say that the drug Candesartan may be prescribed for those who get no relief from propranolol, the most commonly used medication to help prevent migraines
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Migraine Attacks Can be Prevented with High Blood Pressure Drug Candesartan | ScienceWorldReport.com
  • New Hope for Migraine Sufferers | ScienceDaily.com

— NEWS BYTE —

In Memory Of – John Dobson [Sep 14, 1915 – Jan 15, 2014]

  • John Dobson is most notable for being the promoter of a design for a large, portable, low-cost Newtonian reflector telescope that bears his name, the Dobsonian telescope
  • Dobsonian Telescopes
  • Dobsonian Telescope | Wikipedia
  • The design is considered revolutionary since it allowed amateur astronomers to build fairly large telescopes
  • The design is a very simple, low cost [alt-azimuth mounted Newtonian] telescope that employs common materials such as plywood, formica, PVC closet flanges, cardboard construction tubes, recycled porthole glass, and indoor-outdoor carpet
  • He was reluctant to take credit, however, pointing out that he built it that way because it was all he needed
  • Sidewalk Astronomers
  • Sidewalk Astronomers
  • John Dobson was also the co-founder of the amateur astronomical group, the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers
  • Has members throughout the world, and continues to promote public service astronomy by putting telescopes on street corners in urban areas
  • Members of the organization also visit national parks giving slide show presentations, providing telescope viewing
  • Misc
  • Earned a masters degree in chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley in 1943, working in E. O. Lawrence\’s lab
  • Dobson’s interest in telescope building was in part to better understand the universe, and in part to inspire in others a curiosity about the cosmos
  • In 2005, the Smithsonian magazine listed John Dobson as among 35 individuals who have made a major difference during the lifetime of that periodical
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Have Telescopes, Will Travel | theimageweaver
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • John Dobson (amateur astronomer) | Wikipedia

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Send Your Name to an Asteroid on OSIRIS-REx

— Updates —

\”Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey\”

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

Mystery Rock for Opportunity

  • An intriguing recent mystery is a strange rock that suddenly appeared in photos from the Opportunity rover in a spot where photos taken just 12 sols earlier showed no rock
  • The team is currently busy taking measurements on the rock, and discussing its origins
  • Mars Exploration Rovers, mission principal investigator Steve Squyres
  • Described the rock as “white around the outside, in the middle there’s low spot that is dark red that \”looks like a jelly donut\”
  • “We had driven a meter or two away from here and somehow maybe one of the wheels managed spit it out of the ground. That’s the more likely theory.”
  • “One theory is that we somehow flicked it with a wheel\” … \”the other theory is that there might be a smoking hole in the ground nearby and this may be crater ejecta. But that one is less likely,”
  • Another idea suggested by others is that it may have tumbled down from a nearby rock outcrop
  • \”We’ve taken pictures of both the donut part and the jelly part,”
  • “The jelly part is like nothing we’ve seen before on Mars. It’s very high in sulfur and magnesium and it has twice as much manganese as anything we’ve seen before\”
  • \”I don’t know what any of this means. We’re completely confused, everybody on the team is arguing and fighting. We’re having a wonderful time!”
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Mars Exploration Rover Mission: Home | marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov
  • The Rock that Appeared Out of Nowhere on Mars | UniverseToday
  • Mystery Rock \’Appears\’ in Front of Mars Rover | Space.com

New Horizons Journey to Pluto

  • Last Time on SciByte
  • SciByte 30 | Solar Storms & Private Space Flight | Jan 24, 2012
  • Closest approach
  • Closest approach is scheduled for July 2015 when New Horizons flies only 10,000 km [6,200 mi] from Pluto
  • If New Horizons flew over Earth at the same altitude, it could see individual buildings and their shapes
  • Other than a few indistinct markings seen from afar by Hubble, Pluto\’s landscape is totally unexplored
  • Approaching Pluto
  • The first step, in January 2015, is an intensive campaign of photography by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager or \”LORRI.\”
  • This will help mission controllers pinpoint Pluto\’s location, which is uncertain by a few thousand kilometers, 1000-3000 km [ 621 – 1864 mi ]
  • The scientists will then use the images to refine Pluto\’s distance from the spacecraft, and then fire the engines to make any necessary corrections
  • By late April 2015, the approaching spacecraft will be taking pictures of Pluto that surpass the best images from Hubble
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | New Horizons Spacecraft Halfway to Pluto | NASAgovVideo
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • New Horizons | NASA
  • Countdown to Pluto | Phys.org

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • January 26, 1700 : 314 years ago : Canadian Earthquake : In 1700, an earthquake, the most intense Canada has ever seen, hit the sea floor off the British Columbia coast. Long before Europeans first landed on Vancouver Island, native legend tells of a great disaster. The sea rose in a heaving wave, and landslides buried a sleeping village. Myth was resolved with science in 2003 by government research. Earthquakes of that intensity cause tidal waves, and Japanese written history tells of a massive tsunami striking fishing villages the next day along the coast of Honshu, killing hundreds. Coupled with geological evidence of the level 9 quake, the connection was clear. Mythology and seismology came together to validate history. 1700 Cascadia earthquake | Wikipedia

Looking up this week

The post Migraines & John Dobson | SciByte 116 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Weight Loss Microbes & Supernovae | SciByte 88 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/34591/weight-loss-microbes-supernovae-scibyte-88/ Tue, 02 Apr 2013 21:13:14 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=34591 We take a look at stomach microbe changes, a new type of tiny supernovae, tracking a swarm of bugs, spacecraft updates and much more!

The post Weight Loss Microbes & Supernovae | SciByte 88 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]>

post thumbnail

We take a look at stomach microbe changes, a new type of tiny supernovae, tracking a swarm of bugs, spacecraft and story 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

RSS Feeds:

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

Support the Show:

[asa]B00B7VZN76[/asa]
[asa]B00BAXTY8U[/asa]

Show Notes:

Microbes and Weight Loss

  • Previous studies of people and rats have found that the natural mix of microbes in the intestines changes after gastric bypass, with some groups growing more prominent and others diminishing in number
  • No one knew whether the altered microbial composition was merely a side effect of the surgery, or whether shifting bacterial populations could help people lose weight.
  • The Study
  • To find out researchers fattened up mice then performed either bypass or a sham surgery on the animals
  • They performed a Roux-en-Y, the most common technique for gastric bypass, which diverts food around most of the stomach and upper small intestine
  • Because it bypasses part of the stomach and small intestine, the surgery alters the intestinal environment, changing elements such as pH and bile concentrations
  • Mice in the bypass group lost about 29 percent of their body weight within three weeks of the procedure
  • Even before the mice dropped weight, those in the bypass group already had an altered mix of intestinal bacteria
  • Compared with the sham operation group, the bypass mice had more of certain types of microbes
  • Some species of those microbes are pathogens, but others help prevent inflammation and maintain intestinal health
  • The bypass mice also had more bacteria, which can feed on mucus lining the intestines, particularly when the host is cutting calories
  • Then the researchers transplanted bacteria from the intestines of bypass mice into mice that had been raised without any bacteria
  • The formerly germ-free mice slimmed down, trimming about 5 percent of their body weight, even though they started out lean
  • The germ-free mice that received bacteria from the guts of sham surgery mice actually packed on a bit of fat
  • Of Interest
  • By colonizing mice with the altered microbial community, the mice were able to maintain a lower body fat, and lose weight, about 20% as much as they would if they underwent surgery
  • Researchers speculate that the microbes somehow trigger fat-burning changes in the host’s metabolism
  • Even with these positive results the results were somewhat biased against weight loss
  • The mice used in the study hadn\’t been given a high-fat, high-sugar diet to increase their weight beforehand
  • There is some question whether a stronger effect might have been seen if they were on a different diet
  • In many people with type 2 diabetes, the disease vanishes almost immediately after surgery, too quickly to be explained by the gradual weight loss that happens later
  • Patients also describe not being as hungry, or craving foods like salad that they hadn\’t liked much before
  • Figuring Out What is Going On
  • While the specific microbes found at higher abundance after surgery, are good targets for beginning to understand what\’s taking place, there is a major gap in knowledge is the underlying mechanism linking microbes to weight loss
  • For instance, in addition to changes in the microbes found in the gut, researchers found changes in the concentration of certain short-chain fatty acids
  • Other studies have suggested that those molecules may be critical in signaling to the host to speed up metabolism, or not to store excess calories as fat.
  • The ultimate answer as to what is going on may not be the specific types of microbes, but a by-product they excrete.
  • It may be years before this research could be replicated in humans, and that such microbial changes shouldn\’t be viewed as a way to lose weight without going to the gym
  • The Future
  • More research is needed to learn more about the mechanisms by which a microbial population is changed by gastric bypass exert its effects,
  • Then we need to learn if we can produce these effects, either the microbial changes or the associated metabolic changes, without surgery
  • Another question is whether the transplants will have the same effect in animals who weren\’t raised in a sterile environment and who already have their own gut microbiome, which would more closely mimic people undergoing gastric bypass surgery
  • This technique may one day offer hope to dangerously obese people who want to lose weight without going through the trauma of surgery.
  • Future studies will allow us to understand how host/microbial interactions in general can influence the outcome of a given diet
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Gastric Bypass Surgery | TangstarScience
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Microbes May Slim Us Down After Gastric Bypass – ScienceNOW | news.ScienceMag.org
  • Gut microbes may be behind weight loss after gastric bypass | Genes & Cells | Science News
  • A new way to lose weight? Study shows that changes to gut microbiota may play role in weight loss | MedicalXPress.com

— NEWS BYTE —

New Tiny Supernova\’s

  • Supernovae
  • Until now, supernovae have come in two main versions
  • In Type II supernovae a huge star, 10 to 100 times more massive as our Sun, collapses causing a colossal stellar explosion
  • Type Ia supernovae, occurs when material from a parent star streams onto the surface of a white dwarf. Over time, so much material falls onto the white dwarf that it raises the core temperature igniting carbon and causing a runaway fusion reaction. This event completely disrupts the white dwarf and results in a colossal stellar explosion
  • Now astronomers have found a third type that is fainter and less energetic than a Type Ia, called a Type Iax supernova, essentially a mini supernova only about one-hundredth as bright as their supernova siblings
  • Type Iax Supernova
  • The data gathered suggest that, like a Type Ia supernova, a Type Iax supernova comes from a binary star system containing a white dwarf and a companion star
  • In Type Iax supernovas, the companion star has apparently already lost its outer hydrogen, leaving it dominated by helium
  • The white dwarfs then go on to accumulate helium from their companion stars.
  • What happens from there is unclear
  • One explanation involves the ignition of the outer helium layer from the companion star. The resulting shock wave slams into the white dwarf and disrupts it, causing the explosion.
  • Alternately, the white dwarf might ignite first due to the density and pressure from the overlying helium shell it has collected from the companion star, forcing carbon, oxygen and maybe helium within the star to fuse, triggering an explosion
  • It also appears that in many cases the white dwarf survives the explosion unlike in a Type Ia supernova where the white dwarf is completely destroyed
  • No Type Iax supernovae have been seen so far in elliptical galaxies, which are filled with old stars suggesting that Type Iax supernovae come from young star systems
  • Why Haven\’t We Seen Them Before?
  • Astronomers likely have discovered so few type Iax supernovae only because they are faint, releasing somewhere between 1% and 50% the energy of a type Ia supernova
  • The team has identified 25 examples of this new type of supernova, and there are estimates that for every 100 type Ia supernovae explosions that occur, there are about 31 type Iax supernovae, or roughly a third
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Type IA Supernovae | yoonoose
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • New Type of Star Explosion Discovered | Type Iax Supernovas | Space.com
  • ScienceShot: A New Class of Supernova – ScienceNOW | news.ScienceMag.org
  • New Kind of “Runt” Supernovae Could be Lurking Unseen | UniverseToday.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

What’s the Buzz?

  • Magicicada is a genus of cicada with either a 13- or a 17-year lifespan, depending on species
  • It ranges from the Virginia/North Carolina border up through the northern end of the New York City suburbs
  • Brood II, also known as the \”East Coast Brood,\” is a 17-year cicada due for emergence this summer
  • Brood II
  • The Magicicada larvae live underground for nearly their entire lives, feeding on fluids from tree roots in the northeast United States
  • They then emerge with only a few weeks life in their lives to molt into adults, mate, lay eggs, and die.
  • It\’s not really known why they use this life cycle strategy
  • One theory is that such a long period between broods could fool predators, who likely won\’t have been alive (or won\’t remember) the previous emergence.
  • Tracking with Radiolab
  • The radio shows/podcast Radiolab has come up with a cicada tracker to pinpoint exactly when Brood II will begin \”swarmageddon.\”
  • When the soil eight inches below the surface reaches a steady temperature of 64 degrees F, the cicadas will begin their transformation
  • Radiolab will monitor the soil temperature using crowdsourcing data collection, you can report your findings to Radiolab, starting at the latest in mid-April
  • The interactive map they are putting together will help people track just when they\’ll emerge
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Amazing Cicada life cycle – Sir David Attenborough\’s Life in the Undergrowth | BBCWorldwide
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Magicicada/org
  • Cicada Tracker | Radiolab
  • Radiolab Wants Your Help To Track The Once-Every-17-Year Cicada \”Swarmageddon\” | Popular Science

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Space and Television Entertainment

  • Scott Quinlan
  • Scott Quinlan seems a bit worried about the lack of space ships, real or science fiction
  • Answer
  • An edited version of “We Are The Explorers,” a video highlighting the past successes and future goals of the space administration — created by NASA and featuring an inspiring narration by Peter “Optimus Prime” Cullen — will be screened in several major U.S. cities during the premiere of Star Trek Into Darkness thanks to an overwhelmingly successful crowdfunding effort on Indiegogo.com.
  • Aerospace Industries Association of America) will use any funds donated during the next 29 days to reach its next target: getting the ad in at least one theater in every state in America for two weeks. In order for that to happen, a grand total of $94,000 will need to be reached
  • Announced on April 2nd, the project is now being conducted in partnership with Challenger Center for Space Science Education to further enhance and grow the crowdfund campaign
  • YouTube | We Are the Explorers | ReelNASA
  • YouTube | \”Our next destination awaits\” | We Are the Explorers | ReelNASA
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • WE ARE THE EXPLORERS: A movie trailer for our space program | indiegogo
  • NASA Trailer Achieves Crowdfunding Goal to Run Before Star Trek: Into Darkness | UniverseToday

— Updates —

Fossil Feather Color

  • New research shows that past reconstructions of the original colors of feathers in some fossil birds and dinosaurs may be flawed
  • There is evidence for the colors of feathers-especially melanin-based colors-can be altered during fossilization
  • The New Study
  • In modern birds, black, brown, and some reddish-brown colors are produced by tiny granules of the pigment melanin
  • These features-called melanosomes-are preserved in many fossil feathers, and their precise size and shape have been used to reconstruct the original colors of fossil feathers.
  • Scientists had no idea whether melanosomes could survive the fossilisation process intact, now experiments show that this is not the case.
  • Results from this study cast questions on studies of fossil feather color and suggest that some previous reconstructions of the original plumage colors of fossils may not be accurate
  • Experimental technique pioneered in the group\’s recent study on the colors of fossil insects simulated high pressures and temperatures that are found deep under the Earth\’s surface
  • The team then used feathers of different colors and from different species, but the geometry of the melanosomes in all feathers changed during the experiments
  • This study will lead to better interpretations of the original plumage colors of diverse feathered dinosaurs and fossil birds
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | True Colors of Fossil Feathers in Doubt | LabEquipment
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • True colors of some fossil feathers now in doubt | Phys.org

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

Quick Trip to the Space Station

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

  • Curiosity controllers plan to suspend commanding from April 4 to May 1.
  • NASA\’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity will send no commands between April 9 and April 26
  • The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will go into a record-only mode on April 4 until around May 1.
  • April, the Month of Rest
  • The positions of the planets in April will mean diminished communications between Earth and NASA\’s spacecraft at Mars as Mars will be passing almost directly behind the sun, from Earth\’s perspective. The sun can easily disrupt radio transmissions between the two planets during that near-alignment
  • To prevent an impaired command from reaching an orbiter or rover, mission controllers at NASA\’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., are preparing to suspend sending any commands to spacecraft at Mars for weeks in April
  • The travels of Earth and Mars around the sun set up this arrangement, called a Mars solar conjunction, about once every 26 months, Mars solar conjunctions are not identical to each other. They can differ in exactly how close to directly behind the sun Mars gets, and they can differ in how active the sun is
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Mars in a Minute: What Happens When the Sun Blocks our Signal? | JPLnews
  • Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
  • Social Media
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • April 6, 1938 : 75 years ago : Teflon : Du Pont researcher Roy J. Plunkett and his technician Jack Rebok accidentally discovered the chemical compound polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), later marketed as Teflon. Plunkett was researching chemical reactions of the gas perfluoroethylene in order to synthesize new types of refrigerant gases. Rebok found an apparently defective cylinder of this gas, since no pressure was found when the valve was opened, even though the cylinder weight was the same as full cylinders. Rebok suggested sawing it open to investigate. Inside was a slippery white powder. Plunkett found it had unusual properties, a wonderful solid lubricant in powdered form, was chemically inert and had a very high melting point. He realized it was formed by an unexpected polymerization. It was patented on 4 Feb 1941.

Looking up this week

The post Weight Loss Microbes & Supernovae | SciByte 88 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Multitasking & Tractor Beams | SciByte 79 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/30961/multitasking-tractor-beams-scibyte-79/ Tue, 29 Jan 2013 22:12:40 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=30961 We take a look at multitasking abilities, red pens, tractor beams, bicycle airbags, tracking twitter, spacecraft updates, viewer feedback, and more.

The post Multitasking & Tractor Beams | SciByte 79 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]>

post thumbnail

We take a look at multitasking abilities, red pens, tractor beams, bicycle airbags, tracking twitter, spacecraft updates, viewer feedback, 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

Support the Show:

[asa]B00513H3ME[/asa]

Audible Book: Download Star Wars: The Truce at Bakura

Show Notes:

Multitasking Proficiency

  • The low down
  • Most people believe they can multitask effectively, but a new study indicates that people who multitask the most – including talking on a cell phone while driving – are least capable of doing so.
  • The Study
  • The study participants were 310 University of Utah psychology undergraduates – 176 female and 134 male with a median age of 21 – who volunteered for their department\’s subject pool in exchange for extra course credit.
  • The subjects were put through a battery of tests and questionnaires to measure actual multitasking ability, perceived multitasking ability, cell phone use while driving, use of a wide array of electronic media, and personality traits such as impulsivity and sensation-seeking.
  • Research suggests that people who engage in multitasking often do so not because they have the ability, but because they are less able to block out distractions and focus on a singular task
  • The more people multitask by talking on cell phones while driving or by using multiple media at once, the more they lack the actual ability to multitask, and their perceived multitasking ability \”was found to be significantly inflated
  • The Results
  • To measure actual multitasking ability, participants performed a test named Operation Span, or OSPAN.
  • The test involves two tasks: memorization and math computation where participants must remember two to seven letters, each separated by a math equation that they must identify as true or false
  • A simple example of a question: \”is 2+4=6?, g, is 3-2=2?, a, is 4×3=12.\” Answer: true, g, false, a, true.
  • Participants also ranked their perceptions of their own multitasking ability by giving themselves a score ranging from zero to 100, with 50 percent meaning average, 70 percent of participants thought they were above average at multitasking
  • Study subjects reported how often they used a cell phone while driving, and what percentage of the time they are on the phone while driving
  • Subjects also completed a survey of how often and for how many hours they use which media, including printed material, television and video, computer video, music, nonmusic audio, video games, phone, instant and text messaging, e-mail, the Web and other computer software such as word processing
  • Multitasking, including cell phone use while driving, correlated significantly with sensation-seeking, indicating some people multitask because it is more stimulating, interesting and challenging, and less boring – even if it may hurt their overall performance
  • Of Note
  • The data suggest the people talking on cell phones while driving are people who probably shouldn\’t.
  • In fact the people who are most likely to multitask harbor the illusion they are better than average at it, when in fact they are no better than average and often worse
  • People who score high on a test of actual multitasking ability tend not to multitask because they are better able to focus attention on the task at hand
  • Study participants also reported spending 13 percent of their driving time talking on a cell phone, which Strayer says roughly squares with federal estimates that one in 10 drivers are on the phone at any given time
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube Automated Operation Span Tutorial | zupef
  • Image Driving simulator they use in some research | David Strayer, University of Utah
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Frequent multitaskers are bad at it: Motorists overrate ability to talk on cell phones when driving | MedXPress.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Attack of the red pens

  • The low down
  • Sociologists claim in a paper they\’ve had published that when teachers use a red pen to add comments to student papers, students perceive them more negatively than if they use another color pen
  • The Study
  • The two researchers enlisted the assistance of 199 undergraduate students – each was given four versions of an already graded essay by an unknown instructor
  • The graded remarks were deemed as high or low in quality with some written in red, others in blue
  • Students were asked to read the essay and the remarks given by the instructor and then to rate how they felt about what the instructor had written and to suggest what grade they would have given the essay
  • They were also asked how they felt about the instructor that had written the original remarks
  • The Results
  • After they\’d finished with their opinions, each was also given a questionnaire designed to provide the researchers with more concrete data.
  • The researchers found that the student volunteers didn\’t seem to be impacted one way or another by pen color when they agreed with the instructor\’s comments and grade
  • When they disagreed; however, there were definitely some differences – mainly negative
  • When the instructors\’ comments were written in red versus blue the volunteers judged them more harshly and as a result, rated them lower in \”bedside manner.\”
  • The volunteers didn\’t seem to judge the quality of the comments any differently – their negative feelings were aimed at the person that had written the remarks when they wrote in red ink
  • Of Note
  • The researchers theorize that red ink is akin to using all caps when writing e-mail or text messages – it\’s like shouting at a person
  • Those being graded naturally feel a little bit abused and respond by growing angry or sad, which, they note, doesn\’t really promote the learning process
  • The team suggest instructors stop using red pens and go with a shade of blue instead
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Study shows red pen use by instructors leads to more negative response | phys.org

Tractor Beams a reality?

  • Although light manipulation techniques have existed since the 1970s, this is the first time a light beam has been used to draw objects towards the light source, albeit at a microscopic level.
  • What is it?
  • Researchers have found a way to generate a special optical field that efficiently reverses radiation pressure of light.
  • The new technique could lead to more efficient medical testing, such as in the examination of blood samples
  • The team discovered a technique which will allow them to provide \’negative\’ force acting upon minuscule particles
  • The technique
  • Normally when matter and light interact the solid object is pushed by the light and carried away in the stream of photons
  • Such radiation force was first identified by Johanes Kepler when observing that tails of comets point away from the sun
    Over recent years researchers have realised that while this is the case for most of the optical fields, there is a space of parameters when this force reverses.
  • Scientists have now demonstrated the first experimental realisation of this concept together with a number of exciting applications for biomedical photonics and other disciplines
  • What does it mean to todays science?
  • The occurrence of negative force is very specific to the properties of the object, such as size and composition
  • This allows optical sorting of micro-objects in a simple and inexpensive device
  • Optical fractionation has been identified as one of the most promising biomedical applications of optical manipulation allowing
  • Scientists identified certain conditions, in which objects held by the \”tractor\” beam force-field, rearranged themselves to form a structure which made the beam even stronger
  • Multimedia
  • Image Example of comet with two tails | SpacePlace.nasa.gov
  • First video reveals working tractor beam in action | newscientist.com
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Star Trek\’s \’tractor\’ beam created in miniature by researchers | phys.org

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Bicycle Airbags

HIggs-Boson Twitter Rumors and Following

  • Last time on SciByte
  • SciByte 53 | Higgs Boson – To Higgs-Boson or not to Higgs-Boson | July 10, 2012
  • The low down
  • For the first time scientists have been able to analyse the dynamics of social media on a global scale before, during and after the announcement of a major scientific discovery.
  • The model is based on the spread of gossip on Twitter prior to the Higgs boson discovery announcement
  • The Data
  • According to the analysed data, the rumours that the Higgs boson had been discovered started around 1st July 2012
  • That means it was one day before the announcement at Tevatron, and three days before the official announcement from CERN on 4th July.
  • The research shows that rumours started to spread on Twitter firstly in the USA, UK, Spain, Canada, Australia, as well as Italy, France, Switzerland and Germany, all countries with strong scientific connections to the experiments at the LHC.
  • What it means
  • Other researchers on the project are also interested in how information spreads on social media
  • This is really useful for practical applications such as marketing, for example if you want to run a global marketing campaign you can identify key people on social media to help you to spread your message
  • Once you have identified these key advocates, you can change and steer the message in a different direction, potentially modifying opinions of millions of people or keep the interest in the topic going
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube The Anatomy of a Scientific Gossip – World View | networkedsystemslab
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Scientists analyse global Twitter gossip around Higgs boson discovery | phys.org

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE —

Opportunity rover still on the move

  • Last time on SciByte
  • SciByte 61 | ‘Tatooine’ Exoplanets & Eye’s – Opportunity, Driving Distance and life | September 4, 2012
  • Nine Years of Service
  • NASA\’s Opportunity rover landed on Mars the night of Jan. 24, 2004 PST (just after midnight EST on Jan. 25), three weeks after its twin, Spirit, touched down
  • Spirit and Opportunity were originally supposed to spend three months searching for evidence of past water activity on the Red Planet
  • Spirit finally stopped communicating with Earth in March 2010, after getting mired in soft sand and failing to maneuver into a position that would allow it to slant its solar panels toward the sun over the 2009-2010 Martian winter. NASA declared the rover dead in 2011 after 7 years of service
  • Opportunity, after 9 years of service, is currently inspecting clay deposits along the rim of Mars\’ huge Endeavour Crater. Clays form in relatively neutral (as opposed to acidic or basic) water, so
  • Rover road trips
  • So far, robotic rovers have been to the moon and Mars, with astronauts actually driving a lunar car on the moon during NASA\’s Apollo program
  • Soviet-era Lunakhod 2 : In the lead for total distance travelled the farthest is the the Soviet-era Lunakhod 2, which drove 23 miles (37 kilometers) during its 1973 mission
  • NASA\’s Apollo 17 moon rover : The next rover with the most driving distance is NASA\’s Apollo 17 moon rover, which was driven 22.3 miles (35.89 km) by astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt in 1972
  • Opportunity rover : Next, in a close third, is the Opportunity rover, which has been driving across the plains of Meridiani Planum on the Red Planet since 2004 and has driven more than 22.03 miles (35.46 km) and is still going today
  • This means that Opportunity is a mere one third of a mile (0.4 km) to being the second farthest driven, and a little under a mile (1.5 km) to being the farthest
  • I estimate, barring any delays for science or equipment and based on past mileage, that in the next 2 months it might overtake the distance travelled by Apollo 17 rover, and the distance by the Lunokhod in the next 6 months.
  • The latest to enter the race is Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity, which is just getting started with only 0.4 mile (0.7 km) traveled so far.
    the area may once have been capable of supporting primitive microbial life
  • Multimedia
  • Distances Driven on Other Worlds Infographic | Space.com
  • Social Media
  • Spirit and Oppy @MarsRovers
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Distance Traveled, Extraterrestrial Vehicles | Wheeled Vehicles, Moon & Mars | Space.com
  • NASA\’s Opportunity Rover Begins Year 10 on Mars | Space.com

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Dyscalculia

  • Last time on SciByte
  • SciByte 78 | Dyscalculia & the Flu – Dyscalculia | January 22, 2013
  • James Lewis
  • Suggests a concern that there is an overdiagnosis of \’labels\’
  • Could simply be that you could learn differently
  • Response
  • Almost certainly “the system” can over-diagnose students
  • Are you or were you “diagnosed”? If so learn what exemptions, etc, that you qualify for should you choose to utilize them
  • Try different ways of learning outside the classroom that can help in the classroom or supplement

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

THIS WEEK

  • NASA – Day of Remembrance
  • Apollo 1 | January 27, 1967 | Command Pilot Virgil \”Gus\” Grissom, Senior Pilot Edward H. White and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee
  • Challenger | January 28, 1986 | Francis R. Scobee – Mission Commander, Michael J. Smith – Pilot, Ellison S. Onizuka – Mission Specialist 1, Judith A. Resnik – Mission Specialist 2, Ronald E. McNair – Mission Specialist 3, Christa McAuliffe – Payload Specialist 1, Gregory B. Jarvis – Payload Specialist 2
  • Columbia | February 1, 2003 | Rick Husband, Commander; William C. McCool, Pilot; Michael P. Anderson, Payload Commander; David M. Brown, Mission Specialist 1; Kalpana Chawla, Mission Specialist 2; Laurel Clark, Mission Specialist 4; and Ilan Ramon, Payload Specialist 1

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • Feb 01, 1972 : 40 years ago : Hand-held calculator : The first scientific handheld calculator was introduced for $395 by Hewlett- Packard, named the HP-35 for having 35 keys. It was the first handheld calculator able to perform logarithmic and trigonometric functions with one keystroke. The red LED display could give scientific notation up to 10 digits mantissa and 2 digits exponent. The price was reduced several times, eventually to $195. By Feb 1975 (when production of the model was discontinued), 300,000 had been sold. The numbers and functions for calculations were entered in “Reverse Polish Notation”(RPN), which used an “ENTER” key but needed no parentheses or “=” key. It ran on rechargeable batteries and had electronics with several integrated circuits in a 3.1\” x 5.8\” x 1.4\” (79 ×147×34 mm) case.
  • Image author : Seth Morabito | originally posted to Flickr as HP 35 Calculator

Looking up this week

The post Multitasking & Tractor Beams | SciByte 79 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Mayan Calendar & Cancer Research | SciByte 46 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/19587/mayan-calendar-cancer-research-scibyte-46/ Tue, 15 May 2012 22:46:13 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=19587 We take a look at a new archeological site concerning the Mayan calendar, a new use for breathalyzers, cancer research, and more!

The post Mayan Calendar & Cancer Research | SciByte 46 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]>

post thumbnail

We take a look at a new archeological site concerning the Mayan calendar, a new use for breathalyzers, cancer research, exoplanet, retinal prostheses, spacecraft updates,and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

Direct Download:

MP3 Download | Ogg Download | HD Video | Mobile Video | YouTube

RSS Feeds:

MP3 Feed | Ogg Feed | iTunes Feed | HD Feed | Mobile Feed

Support the Show:

[asa]B00178630A[/asa]
[asa]B0050SZC5U[/asa]

Show Notes:

Mayan prediction for end of the world?



YouTube channels : NationalGeographic | AP

  • Thanks for making sure I saw this story Michael Henriques
  • 6 Maya Apocalypse Myths Debunked
  • Magnetic Flip : while magnetic evidence in rocks confirms that continents have undergone such drastic rearrangement, the process took millions of years slow enough that humanity wouldn’t have felt the motion
  • Planet X crash : if there were a ( planet / brown dwarf / etc ) that was going to be in the inner solar system three years from now, astronomers would have been studying it, and it would be visible to the naked eye by now
  • Galactic Alignment : some worry the path of the sun in the sky would appear to cross through what, from Earth, looks to be the midpoint of our galaxy, but there is no alignment in 2012. A type of “alignment” occurs during every winter solstice, when the sun, as seen from Earth, appears in the sky near what looks to be the midpoint of the Milky Way.
  • End of Calendar : During the 2012 winter solstice, time runs out on the current era of the Long Count calendar, which began on what the Maya saw as the dawn of the last creation period
  • Sun to Savage Earth : While the sun isn’t always on schedule; the peak of solar activity this cycle probably won’t happen for a year or two
  • Predictions Calendar : The Maya did pass down a graphic end-of-the-world scenario, it was undated
  • The low down
  • Just 6 square miles (16 square kilometers) of jungle floor the Mayan city now known as Xultun was first discovered in 1915 in northeast Guatemala, and less than 0.1 percent of the city has been explored to date
  • Looters damaged much of the ancient city in the 1970s losing much of historical significance; archaeologists still don’t even know how far the boundaries of the town extend.
  • In 2010, archeologists (from Boston University) were mapping the city when one undergraduate student while looking into an old trench dug by looters, reported seeing traces of faint red and black lines of ancient paint.
  • Paint doesn’t preserve well in the rain forest climate of Guatemala, so it was assumed the find would not yield much information
  • In the end the professor decided he should excavate the room looters had tried to reach if only to be able to report the size of the structure along with the paint finding.
  • The Murals
  • They were shocked to run into a 1,200-year-old 6×6 foot room with a brilliantly painted portrait: a Mayan king, sitting on his throne, wearing a red crown with blue feathers flowing out behind him.
  • Other figures in the room are three loincloth-clad figures sit, wearing feathered headdresses and a man painted in brilliant orange wearing jade bracelets reaches out with a stylus
  • Unfortunately the name of the king pictured in the mural room has been lost, but the scribe and king are referred to as Older/Senior & Younger/Junior Obsidian
  • In front of the mural of the king talking to a kneeling attendant is a plaster bench that resembles those used by Mayan rulers at royal court meetings
  • The murals only survived, because, instead of collapsing the room, Mayan engineers filled it with rubble and then built on top of it.
  • The Calendars
  • Along the north and east walls of the room researchers noticed several barely visible hieroglyphic texts, painted and etched
  • The team scanned all of the paintings and numbers, digitally stitched them together, the images were then sent the images to a epigrapher who specializes in studying Maya inscriptions
  • Analysis revealed that at least five of the numerical columns were topped by hieroglyphs that Maya scribes once used to record lunar data
  • The numbers on the wall were calculations that scribes could refer to, much like those in the back of textbooks, to help them track vast amounts of time
  • The books the scribe would have written using these references would have been filled with elaborate calculations intended to predict the city’s fortunes.
  • The calendars mentioned are the 260-day ceremonial calendar, the 365-day solar calendar, the 584-day cycle of the planet Venus and the 780-day cycle of Mars.
  • Symbols of gods head the top of each lunar cycle, suggesting that each cycle had its own patron deity.
  • Near the calendars is a “ring number”-something previously known only from much later Maya books, where it was used as part of a backward calculation in establishing a base date for planetary cycles.
  • These newly discovered astronomical tables are 600 years older than the previous known examples.
  • The markings also suggest dates more than 7,000 thousand years in the future
  • Of Note
  • Until now, Maya astronomical tables were known from bark-paper books, the ‘Dresden Codex,’ created 400 years or more after the ancient civilization’s demise
  • Researchers believe that both these calculations and the ‘Dresden Codex’ came from earlier books that long ago rotted away
  • This room was likely the ancient workroom of a Maya scribe, a record-keeper of Xultún
  • This space is where someone important was living, this important household of the noble class, and here you also have a mathematician working in that space which shows how closely those roles were connected in Mayan society
  • It is likely that this type of room exists at every Maya site in certain periods of the Mayan civilization, but it’s currently the only example thus far
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube VIDEO : Mysterious Maya Calendar & Mural Uncovered | NationalGeographic
  • YouTube VIDEO : Doomsday Delayed? New Maya Calendar Unearthed | AP
  • VIDEO : History News: Mysterious Maya Calendar & Mural Uncovered | nationalgeographic.com
  • VIDEO : Explorers Journal | nationalgeographic.com (vimeo)
  • IMAGES : New Maya Mural, Calendars Debunk 2012 Myth | nationalgeographic.com
  • IMAGE : Calender | LiveScience.com
  • IMAGE GALLERY : Maya Murals: Stunning Images of King & Calendar
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Ancient Maya Astronomical Tables from Xultun, Guatemala | sciencemag.org
  • Painted ancient Maya numbers reflect calendar reaching well beyond 2012 (w/ Video) | phys.org
  • Looting Leads Archaeologists to Oldest Known Mayan Calendar | news.sciencemag.org
  • Nevermind the Apocalypse: Earliest Mayan Calendar Found | news.discovery.com
  • Mayan Ruins Describe Dates Beyond 2012 ‘Doomsday’ | news.discovery.com
  • Unprecedented Maya Mural Found, Contradicts 2012 “Doomsday” Myth | nationalgeographic.com
  • 2012 Pictures: 6 Maya Apocalypse Myths Debunked | nationalgeographic.com
  • End of the World Averted: New Archeological Find Proves Mayan Calendar Doesn’t End | universetoday.com
  • Painted ancient Maya numbers reflect calendar reaching well beyond 2012 (w/ Video) | phys.org
  • Maya wall calendar discovered | ScienceNews.org

*— NEWS BYTE — *

A breathalyzer that does more than find out how much you’ve had to drink



Credit: YouTube Channel VideoNSF

  • The low down
  • Blow into the Single Breath Disease Diagnostics Breathalyzer, and you get tested for a biomarker, a sign of disease
  • The unit is about half the size of your typical shoe box and weighs less than one pound
  • Lights on top of the box will give you an instant readout
  • Green light means you pass (bad breath is not indicative of an underlying disease; perhaps it’s just a result of the raw onions you ingested recently)
  • Red light means you might need to take a trip to the doctor’s office to check if something more serious is an issue.
  • Significance
  • Inside is a sensor chip that is coated with tiny nanowires that look like microscopic spaghetti and are able to detect minute amounts of chemical compounds in the breath
  • The nanowires enable the sensor to detect just a few molecules of the disease marker gas in a ‘sea’ of billions of molecules of other compounds that the breath consists of
  • The nanowires can be rigged to detect infectious viruses and microbes like Salmonella, E. coli or even anthrax
  • Of Note
  • Individual tests such as an acetone-detecting breathalyzer for monitoring diabetes and an ammonia-detecting breathalyzer to determine when to end a home-based hemodialysis treatment–are still being evaluated clinically now
  • Researchers envision developing the technology so that a number of these tests can be performed with a single device
  • It might be possible self-detect a whole range of diseases and disorders, including lung cancer, by just exhaling into a handheld breathalyzer.
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube : Science Nation – This Breathalyzer Reveals Signs of Disease | VideoNSF
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • This breathalyzer reveals signs of disease (w/ Video) | cdn.physorg.com

—TWO-BYTE NEWS—

New cancer research

  • Cancer Inhibitor
  • Bowman-Birk Protease Inhibitor (BBI), has shown promise for preventing certain forms of cancer in clinical trials.
  • BBI is derived from the large amounts of soybeans in traditional Japanese diets might underpin low cancer mortality rates in Japan
  • The current method of extracting BBI from soybeans is time-consuming and involves harsh chemicals
  • Scientists have now found that soybean seeds incubated in water at 122 degrees Fahrenheit naturally release large amounts of BBI that can easily be harvested from the water
  • The protein appeared to be active, with tests showing that it stopped breast cancer cells from dividing in a laboratory dish.
  • Surviving chemotherapy
  • Some cancers are resistant to chemotherapy because they harbor an overactive gene called MGMT, which repairs the cancer cells after chemotherapy damages them.
  • To counteract the gene, physicians sometimes add an MGMT-blocking drug, benzylguanine, but is also makes healthy blood and bone marrow cells easy to kill.
  • Scientists wondered what would happen if healthy cells had mutated version of MGMT called P140K
  • Researchers inserted the P140K gene into the patient’s blood stem cells in bone marrow
  • Immediately after a chemotherapy session the team infused the tweaked stem cells back into each patient.
  • Within weeks, the stem cells had developed into mature blood and marrow cells, with 40% to 60% of them carrying the mutated gene.
  • The chemoresistant healthy cells helped patients undergo the benzylguanine treatments
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Soybeans soaked in warm water naturally release key cancer-fighting substance | phys.org
  • A Shield Against Chemotherapy | news.sciencemag.org

M2-F2 lifting body crash of 1967

  • The low down
  • A Lifting body is a fixed wing aircraft that is designed so that it produces its own lift, where a flying wing has no fuselage a lifting body does
  • On May 10, 1967, the NASA lifting body M2-F2 launched
  • When attempting roll maneuvers the craft unfortunately had a soft feel, which caused the pilot to overcompensate trying to bring the plane under control
  • This lead to “Pilot induced oscillations”, and while the pilot did eventually get control, the aircraft crashed when the pilot saw a rescue helicopter that seemed to pose a collision threat
  • While trying to land in a lakebed, altitude was very hard to judge and the aircraft hit the ground before the landing gear was fully deployed and locked
  • The pilot actually survived and recovered from the crash, but lost vision in his right eye due to infection
  • Significance
  • Portions of the video from that flight from the ground video of the oscillations and the pilot camera were seen in the TV movie The Six Million Dollar Man
  • A brief shot of a later HL–10 model was also seen as it released from its carrier plane
  • Of Note
  • The M2-F2, was reborn as the M2-F3, and was later given to Smithsonian Air and Space Museum You can see it hanging there now.
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube VIDEO : M2-F2 03 | knightwizz
  • YouTube VIDEO : The Six Million Dollar Man TV Intro | The1970sChannel
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • A Crash Made Famous on TV | blog.nasm.si.edu

Light from another planet

  • The low down
  • In 2004, scientists discovered one of the first known stars to host an extrasolar planet, 55 Cancri, via radial velocity measurements
  • Infrared light from ’Hot Jupiters" has been seen from Spitzer, Hubble and Kepler telescopes
  • Spitzer became the first telescope to detect light from a planet beyond our solar system, when it saw the infrared light of a “hot Jupiter
  • When a telescope gazes at a star as a planet circles behind it, the planet disappears from view, the light from the star system dips ever so slightly, but enough that astronomers can determine how much light came from the planet itself
  • The information does however reveal the temperature of a planet, and, in some cases, its atmospheric components
  • Other current planet-hunting methods obtain indirect measurements of a planet by observing its effects on the star.
  • Now for the first time that same method has been used to detect light from a “SuperEarth”
  • At about 8.57 Earth masses Cancri e is tidally locked, so one side always faces the star
  • It was a radius 1.63 times that of Earth, a density is 10.9 ± 3.1 g cm–3 (the average density of Earth is 5.5 g cm–3)
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Light From a ‘SuperEarth’ Detected for the First Time | universetoday.com

Eye see you

  • The low down
  • A handheld computer processes images from a video camera that sits on specialized goggles.
  • Lasers using infrared light inside the goggles send that information to photovoltaic chips implanted in the eye, one-third as thin as a strand of hair
  • Electric currents from the photodiodes on the chip would then trigger signals in the retina, which then flow to the brain, enabling a patient to regain vision.
  • Scientists tested the process in rat retinas in vitro and how they elicited electric responses, which are widely accepted indicators of visual activity, from retinal cells
  • They are now testing the system in live rats, taking both physiological and behavioral measurements
  • There are several other retinal prostheses being developed, and at least two of them are in clinical trials.
  • Those devices require coils, cables or antennas inside the eye to deliver power and information to the retinal implant
  • This new device uses near-infrared light to transmit images, thereby avoiding any need for wires and cables, and making the device thin and easily implantable
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Solar-panel-like retinal prosthesis could better restore sight to blind | phys.org
  • Retinal implants could restore partial vision | sciencenews.org

The water of Earth

  • The low down
  • Although oceans of water cover about 70 percent of Earth’s surface, these oceans are shallow compared to the Earth’s radius
  • This illustration shows what would happen is all of the water on or near the surface of the Earth were bunched up into a ball
  • Further Reading / Media
  • All the Water on Planet Earth | Astronomy Picture of the Day; nasa.gov

SPACECRAFT UPDATE

Opportunity Rover



Credit: marsrover.nasa.gov

Curiosity Rover

SpaceX Dragon



Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back

  • May 16, 1866 : 146 years ago : Rootbeer : Charles Elmer Hires a pharmacist from Pennsylvania formulated the eponymous Hires Root Beer. Some say Hires discovered root beer on his honeymoon in New Jersey where the woman who ran his honeymoon hotel served root tea. Hires thought that “root beer” would be more appealing to the working class. Originally, Hires packaged the mixture in boxes and sold it to housewives and soda fountains. They needed to mix in water, sugar, and yeast.He became a millionaire just for selling drinks.
  • May 18 1980 : 32 years ago : Mt. St. Helens : Following a weeklong series of earthquakes and smaller explosions of ash and smoke, the long-dormant Mount St. Helens volcano erupted in Washington state, U.S., hurling ash 15,000 feet into the air and setting off mudslides and avalanches. The eruptions caused minimal damage in the sparsely populated area, but about 400 people – mostly loggers and forest rangers – were evacuated. The explosion was characterized as the equivalent of 27,000 atomic bombs. The cloud of ash eventually circled the globe

Looking up this week

The post Mayan Calendar & Cancer Research | SciByte 46 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Neutrinos & Leap Year | SciByte 35 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/17493/neutrinos-leap-year-scibyte-35/ Tue, 28 Feb 2012 22:24:58 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=17493 We take a look at the “are they / aren’t they travelling faster than the speed of light” Neutrino’s, the science of leap year, and more!

The post Neutrinos & Leap Year | SciByte 35 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]>

post thumbnail

We take a look at the “are they / aren’t they travelling faster than the speed of light” Neutrino’s, a Legged Squad support robot that is both awesome and frightening, the science of leap year, tornadoes on the sun, space craft updates and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

Direct Download:

MP3 Download | Ogg Download | HD Video | Mobile Video | YouTube

RSS Feeds:

MP3 Feed | Ogg Feed | iTunes Feed

Support the Show:

   

Show Notes:

*— UPDATE — *

Neutrino News

*— NEWS BYTE — *

Legged Squad Support System (LS3)

*— TWO-BYTE NEWS — *

Science of Leap Year

  • The low down
  • A day, defined by how long it takes for a star to appear in the same place again, is 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds.
  • During that time the Earth has moved forward one day in it’s orbit of the sun in order to keep up with this so that the Sun appears the in same place you have to add about 3min 56 seconds, and that’s where 24 hours comes from.
  • Earths orbit is not precisely circular, it is actually a eccentric circle
  • Average Year is 365.242374 days long, that’s 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, 12 seconds
  • Significance
  • Adding a day every fours years makes the average 365.25, which gets closer than the calenders 365
  • Leap year are there to keep the calender aligned so that roughly noon on Dec 21 (solstice) the same point on the Earth is tilted towards the sun.
  • To get even closer every 100 years is not a leap year but every 400 years is a leap year.
  • * Of Note*
  • Related to the Year 2000 computer program, many programs would have calculated leap year incorrectly
  • For example, 1600 and 2000 were leap years, but 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not. Similarly, 2100, 2200, 2300, 2500, 2600, 2700, 2900 and 3000 will not be leap years, but 2400 and 2800 will be.
  • Multimedia
  • IMAGE : Gregorian Calendarleap solstice @ Wikipedia
  • Social Media
  • Twitter Results for [#LeapYear](https://twitter.com/#!/search/leapyear)
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Earth’s Orbit Creates More Than A Leap Year: Orbital Behaviors Also Drive Climate Changes, Ice Ages @ ScienceDaily
  • How could the year 2000 be a leap year when 1900 was not? @ HowStuffWorks.

Solar Tornado

SPACECRAFT UPDATE - Solar Dynamics Observatory

* SPACECRAFT UPDATE - Opportunity*

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back

  • Mar 06, 1869 : 143 years ago : Periodic Table : Dmitry Mendeleev published his first version of the periodic table of the elements. He was a Russian chemist who developed the periodic classification of the elements. In his final version of the periodic table (1871) he left gaps, foretelling that they would be filled by elements not then known and predicting the properties of three of those elements. The Periodic Table | SciByte 10 (Aug 3, 2011)
  • Mar 06, 1950 : 62 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

The post Neutrinos & Leap Year | SciByte 35 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Solar Storms & Private Space Flight | SciByte 30 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/16276/solar-storms-private-space-flight-scibyte-30/ Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:40:15 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=16276 We take a look at the recent solar flare, SpaceX's plans for reaching the space station, dolphin speech, getting energy from seaweed, and more!

The post Solar Storms & Private Space Flight | SciByte 30 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]>

post thumbnail

We take a look at the recent solar flare, SpaceX’s plans for reaching the space station, dolphin speech, exoplanets, getting energy from seaweed, crowd sourcing earthquake data, spacecraft updates, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

Direct Download:

MP3 Download | Ogg Download | HD Video | Mobile Video | YouTube

RSS Feeds:

MP3 Feed | Ogg Feed | iTunes Feed

Support the Show:

   

Show Notes:

You might have seen meets ‘Breaking’ Science with Coronal Mass Ejection

*— NEWS BYTE — *

SpaceX Space Station resupply mission resceduled

Do dolphins talk in their sleep?

  • The low down
  • A group of dolphins born in captivity were performing in their shows every day
  • Performing dolphins are primed to learn and remember information
  • During their show music and sounds were played in the background, a new track included music, sea gulls, dolphin whistles and humpback whale calls
  • Significance
  • Because little is known about the nighttime sounds of dolphins researchers had hand hung underwater microphones into the dolphins tank at night
  • One night they discovered that they had produces 25 new sounds that they had never made before
  • When playing back the tapes the researcher found that the new sounds sounded similar to whale songs
  • A new sound track including
  • When analyzed by a computer program the two sounds were very similar
  • When 20 human volunteers were asked to listen to and identify the dolphin nocturnal sounds and humpback whale songs, 76% of the time they classifies the imitations as sounds from real whales
  • Since the dolphins did not make the noises during the day, it indicates that they wanted to wait to practice the sounds at night
  • Of interest is finding out if the dolphins are asleep and dreaming during the time they are making the noises
  • If the dolphins are dreaming it might indicate that, like humans, they etch new information into memories during sleep
  • Next for the research is to take electroencephalogram recordings of the dolphins’ brains at night to determine if they are asleep during the time they make the sounds
  • * Of Note*
  • Before the whale sounds sound track was added to the show the dolphins did not make produces the ‘humpback whale song’
  • Some scientists are not convinced saying that dolphins make so many different sounds that it would be too difficult to quantitatively identify one as an imitation of a particular sound
  • Dolphins are known for mimicry and songbirds rehearse imitations of sounds at night, it is not all that unlikely that if they mimicking dolphins might do the same
  • Multimedia
  • Page with clips of sounds
  • Social Media
  • Science Mag News @ScienceNOW
  • Facebook : ScienceNOWhttps://www.facebook.com/ScienceNOW.
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Do Dolphins Speak Whale in Their Sleep? @ news.sciencemag.org
  • Do dolphins rehearse show-stimuli when at rest? Delayed matching of auditory memory @ frontiersin.org

Supercritical water and homeless exoplanets

  • The low down
  • The size of a planet can be measured indirectly by analyzing the amount of dimming of a star when the planets transits, and the mass can be identified though ground based measurements of how much gravitational force the planet excerpts on it’s star.
  • From those measurements the density of a planet can be roughly calculated
  • Exoplanets themselves are estimated to outnumber the stars in out galaxy by almost two-to-one
  • One such planet scientist have been analyzing is 55 Cancri, a rocky planet about 7.8 times the size of the Earth, orbiting relatively closely to it’s sun and 40 light-years away from Earth .
  • Significance
  • New observations of a this explanet suggest that about a fifth of the planet’s mass must be made up of light elements and compounds, including water
  • Since this planet if thought to have surface temperatures as high as 4,800 F [2,700 C] this planet is a much weirder planet than originally thought to be
  • The high temperature and pressure conditions on this planet are so extreme the liquids likely exist in a supercritical state
  • Super-critical fluids can best be imagined as liquid-like gases in high pressure and temperature conditions, water becomes supercritical in some steam turbines
  • These superritical fluids could be seeping up from the outer layers of the planets crust, giving scientists an interesting study of a planet
  • * Of Note*
  • Perhaps even stranger is that almost 75% of the exoplants in our galaxy might be ‘free-floating’ planets no longer orbiting a star
  • Some suspected free-floating planets have already been observed and it has been speculated that those free-floating exoplanets would be from gravitationally unstable orbits
  • Recent computer simulations indicate there may be more exotic reasons for the planets to be ejected.
  • One simulation blames end of life stars that expand into red giants litterely pushing their planets into interstellar space
  • Another simulation blames gravitational forces by passing stars, planetary system moving either in or out of a galacy’s dense spiral arms, or interactions with dense molecular clouds
  • The most likely reason for ejection of exoplanets would be from parent stars being gravitationally acted upon in tightly packed star clusters
  • Multimedia
  • VIDEO : Oozing planet @ Space.com
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Weird World! ‘Oozing’ Alien Planet Is a Super-Earth Wonder @ Space.com
  • ScienceShot: Why So Many Homeless Planets? @ news.sciencemag.org

Running your car with … seaweed?

  • The low down
  • Biofuel is energy from biological material from living or recently living organisms, biomass, that use carbon to grow
  • Using seaweed to create biomass has been a sought after source of biofuel for years as it is full of the sugars needed for the process
  • Seaweed also grows very fast, does not compete for land with crops, and requires no fertilizer or freshwater
  • If a process could be made to meet a certain efficiency it would broaden the biofuels possibilities
  • Significance
  • Unfortunately the gummy cell walls of seaweed make it very hard to get the needed components to make biofuel, making it difficult to compete with other forms of biomass.
  • Researchers have now engineered a bacterium that has the ability to break down those cell walls so that ethanol and other useful products can be gained
  • The process was developed by combining several enzymes that could convert the interior into fuel,
  • The researchers then used the cellular transportation system to inject the combination so that it would secrete the enzyme
  • * Of Note*
  • Currently the bacteria yields approximately 80% of it’s theoretical maximum of ethenol, with further tweaking that number may go even higher
  • Partially broken down product could be used in processes for making nylons or plastics
  • The newly engineered E.coli has no danger of escaping into the environment and consuming seaweed, as it lives best in the human gut, and would likely die in an ocean environment in a short period of time
  • Multimedia
  • IMAGE GALLERY: Top 10 Sources for Biofuel @ news.discovery.com
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Genetically Engineered Stomach Microbe Converts Seaweed into Ethanol @ scientificamerican.com
  • Seaweed Biofuel Breakthrough Found @ News.Discovery.com
  • Seaweed study fuels bioenergy enthusiasm @ ScienceNews.org

Crowd sourcing hits earthquakes

  • The low down
  • We mentioned before what social media can do to help the medical community track outbreaks of communicable diseases
  • Seismologists are now getting on the social media tracking band wagon
  • In the past seismologists have relied on sensors in the vicinity of an earthquake and post anecdotal evidence from interviews of people who experienced it
  • Significance
  • There have already been instances where citizen-generated reports have had value in information gathering for earthquakes
  • Scientists had begun to set up websites specifically for people to add what they know about an earthquake to existing data
  • Being a public system seismologists can filter Twitter messages so focus on earthquake related messages, giving researchers real time data as people message about the earthquake
  • Also available to the public are seismic monitors that can attach to building, public or private, to send data via WiFi to designated research facilities
  • In addition to social media there are also Smartphone apps that are available that can be used to turn the phone itself into a vibration sensing device when it is not being carried
  • Other new sensors will become available as interest increases
  • * Of Note*
  • As these new sources of information become available it increases the amount and density of the observational and scientific data
  • More data from earthquakes gives scientists more detailed information about earthquakes, which increases the understanding of them
  • The ability to understand the precursors of an earthquake or even what leads to earthquakes will increase the prediction models
  • Multimedia
  • VIDEO : Page with video about crowdsourcing earthquakes @ physorg.com
  • Social Media
  • Twitter Results for [#earthquake](https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23earthquake)
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Scientists turning to crowdsourcing to gather more information about earthquakes @ PhysOrg.com
  • Transforming Earthquake Detection? @ sciencemag.org

SPACECRAFT UPDATE

New Horizons

Opportunity Rover

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back

  • Jan 27, 1888 : 124 years ago : National Geographic Society founded : The National Geographic Society was established with Gardiner Greene Hubbard as its first president. Two weeks earlier, on 13 Jan 1888, 33 founders in Washington, D.C., U.S.A., had met at the Cosmo Club in Lafayette Square, across from the White House. Their mission was to establish “a society for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge.” By Oct 1888, the first National Geographic Magazine was published as a society membership benefit, which continues its monthly issues to the present with photographs and popular articles now expanded from topics of geography and exploration to science, history and world cultures. The society has awarded over 9,000 grants for scientific research, and sponsors a museum and travelling exhibits.
  • Jan 27, 1957 : 55 years ago : Hearts get a portable jump-start](todayinsci.com) : In 1957, an external artificial pacemaker with internal heart electrode is first used. To maintain a patient’s heartbeat rhythm an electrode was sewn to the wall of the heart and connected through the chest to an external desk-top pulse generator. A team of scientists at the University of Minnesota, led by Dr C. Walton Lillehei, made this medical advance. However, such bulky equipment was not a good long-term solution since infection often occurred along the electrode wires, and the device required no interruption in the house electricity. So Dr. Lillehei also initiated research on the use of a small portable external pacemaker for these patients with heart block. This ultimately led to the development of the billion-dollar pacemaker industry.
  • Jan 30, 1958 : 54 years ago : Please be careful stepping on or off the platform](todayinsci.com) : Although the first moving sidewalk was a whopping 119 years ago, at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893. The first two-way, moving sidewalk, 1,425 feet long, was put in service at Love Field Air Terminal in Dallas, TX. It consisted of three loops. In each loop a continuous rubber carpet was attached to a continuous train of wheeled pallets, flexibly interconnected so they could follow vertical or horizontal curves as required. It was known not only as a moving sidewalk, but also as a passenger conveyor. more icon

Looking up this week

The post Solar Storms & Private Space Flight | SciByte 30 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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

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

]]>

post thumbnail

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

Direct Download:

MP3 Download | Ogg Download | YouTube

RSS Feeds:

MP3 Feed | Ogg Feed | iTunes Feed

Support the Show:

   

Show Notes:

The Exoplanet and Exomoon News keeps coming

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

Lunar Minerals found

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

*— NEWS BYTE — *

Dogs know when your not looking

The low down

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

Neutrinos strike again!

The low down

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

The anti-alcohol drug that lessens hangovers too?

The low down

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

SPACECRAFT UPDATE

Opportunity Rover gets ready for hibernation

The low down

Phobos-grunt round 342

* Last time on SciByte*

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

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back

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

Looking up this week

You might have seen …

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

Keep an eye out for …

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

  • Jan 16 : Last Quarter Moon

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

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

  • Jan 16 : Last Quarter Moon

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

More on whats in the sky this week

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

]]>