paralysis – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com Open Source Entertainment, on Demand. Mon, 22 Feb 2016 02:45:34 +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 paralysis – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com 32 32 Paraplegic Therapy & Exomoon | SciByte 126 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/55232/paraplegic-therapy-exomoon-scibyte-126/ Tue, 15 Apr 2014 20:09:08 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=55232 We take a look at a new treatment for paralysis, spying a possible exomoon, troubles with the Space Station, Viewer Feedback, the Large Hadron Collider and more

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We take a look at a new treatment for paralysis, spying a possible exomoon, troubles with the Space Station, Viewer Feedback, the Large Hadron Collider, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Breakthrough Paraplegic Therapy

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

— NEWS BYTE —

ExoMoon?

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

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

International Space Station (ISS) Glitch

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

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Lunar Eclipses Tetrad

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

— Updates —

Large Hadron Collider – Beginning of Startup

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

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

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

Looking up this week

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]]> Spinal Cord Injuries & Venus Transit | SciByte 49 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/20252/spinal-cord-injuries-venus-transit-scibyte-49/ Tue, 05 Jun 2012 22:18:17 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=20252 We take a look at new rehabilitation for spinal cord injuries, nanotech medical diagnosis, Guinness bubbles, tomato's, spacecraft updates and back into history.

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We take a look at new rehabilitation for spinal cord injuries, nanotech medical diagnosis, Guinness bubbles, tomato’s, a quiet room, tornado map, spacecraft updates and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Spinal Cord injury treatment



YouTube channel Sergeytule | Credit: Courtesy of EPFL

  • The low down
  • Most spinal injuries in people do not sever the spinal cord completely
  • Spinal injuries cause paralysis because they sever or crush nerve fibers that connect the brain to neurons in the spinal cord that move muscles throughout the body
  • These fibers, or axons, are the long extensions that convey signals from one end of a neuron to another, and unfortunately, they don’t regrow in adults
  • Restoring axons’ ability to regrow using growth factors, stem cells, or other therapies has been a longstanding and elusive goal for researchers.
  • Significance
  • To approximate a spinal injury in rats, researchers made two surgical cuts in the spinal cord, severing all of the direct connections from the brain, but leaving some tissue intact in between the cuts (it wouldn’t work for a completely severed cord)
  • The rats then began a rehab regime intended to bypass the fractured freeway, as it were, by pushing more traffic onto neural back roads and building more of them
  • The physical therapy began about a week after the rats were injured, and lasted about 30 minutes a day
  • During each session, the researchers injected the animals with a cocktail of drugs to improve the function of rats’ neural circuits in the part of the spinal cord involved in leg movements
  • They then stimulated this area with electrodes to prime the spinal cord for action
  • A rat was then fitted into a harness attached to a robotic device that supported its weight and allowed it to walk forward on its hind legs to the extent that it was able
  • At first, the rats could not move their legs at all, after 2 or 3 weeks, the rodents began taking steps toward a piece of food after a gentle nudge from the robot
  • By 5 or 6 weeks, they were able to initiate movement on their own and walk to get the food
  • After a few additional weeks of intensified rehab, they were able to walk up rat-sized stairs and climb over a small barrier placed in their path
  • Rats suspended over a moving treadmill that elicited reflex-like stepping movement
  • The amount of recovery depending on making intentional movements, not just any movement
  • Additional experiments in the paper make a compelling case that the rats’ recovery is due to new neural connections forming to create a detour around the injury
  • This study suggests that all three components of the rehab strategy are needed; the drugs, the electrical stimulation, and the robot-assisted physical therapy
  • Of Note
  • A case study published last year reported some recovery of voluntary movements in a man paralyzed in a vehicle accident, after he underwent a combination of electrical stimulation and physical therapy
  • Two more patients are undergoing similar rehab now, and his group hopes to add drug therapy to enhance nerve repair in the future
  • For the rats they could only make voluntary movements while the electrical stimulation was turned on, and the same was mostly true of the human patient in case study
  • YouTube
  • Robotic Rehab Helps Paralyzed Rats Walk Again | Sergeytule
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Robotic Rehab Helps Paralyzed Rats Walk Again | news.sciencemag.org

— NEWS BYTE —

Nanotechnology meets medical diagnosis



Credit: Stephen Chou/Analytical Chemistry

  • The low down
  • A common biological test called immunoassay, mimics the action of the immune system to detect the presence of biomarkers
  • When biomarkers are present they produce a fluorescent glow (light) that can be measured in a laboratory
  • The greater the glow, the more of the biomarker is present; however, if the amount of biomarker is too small, the fluorescent light is too faint to be detected
  • Princeton researchers have tackled this limitation by using nanotechnology to greatly amplify the faint fluorescence
  • Significance
  • The key to the breakthrough lies in a new artificial nanomaterial called D2PA
  • The new material consists of a series of glass pillars in a layer of gold, speckled on their sides with gold dots and capped with a gold disk.
  • The sides of each pillar are speckled with even tinier gold dots about 10 to 15 nanometers in diameter Each pillar is just 60 nanometers in diameter, 1/1,000th the width of a human hair
  • The pillars are spaced 200 nanometers apart and capped with a disk of gold on each pillar
  • Using this material laboratory test used to detect disease and perform biological research could be made more than 3 million times more sensitive
  • Increased performance could greatly improve the early detection of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and other disorders by allowing doctors to detect far lower concentrations of telltale markers than was previously practical.
  • Of Note
  • When a sample such as blood, saliva or urine is added to small glass vials containing antibodies that are designed to “capture” or bind to biomarkers of interest in the sample
  • Another set of antibodies that have been labeled with a fluorescent molecule are then added to the mix
  • When biomarkers are not present in the vials the fluorescent detection antibodies do not attach to anything and are washed away
  • This new technology could play a significant role in other areas of chemistry and engineering, from light-emitting displays to solar energy harvesting
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Nanotechnology breakthrough could dramatically improve medical tests

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

The rise and fall of Guinness bubbles

Credit : E. S. Benilov, et al.

  • The low down
  • Why do the bubbles in a glass of stout beer such as Guinness sink while the beer is settling, even though the bubbles are lighter than the surrounding liquid?
  • Stout beers such as Guinness foam due to a combination of carbon dioxide and nitrogen bubbles, while other beers foam due only to carbon dioxide bubbles
  • In 2004 high-speed photography proved that bubbles do indeed sink
  • Significance
  • Simulations of the elongated vortices in a pint glass, where bubbles sink near the glass wall, and an anti-pint glass, where bubbles rise near the wall
  • A team of mathematicians from the University of Limerick has shown that the sinking bubbles result from the shape of a pint glass
  • As the glass narrows downwards and causes a circulation pattern that drives both fluid and bubbles downwards at the wall of the glass
  • It is not just the bubbles themselves that are sinking (in fact, they’re still trying to rise), but the entire fluid is sinking and pulling the bubbles down with it.
  • Of Note
  • Researchers are still uncertain of the specific mechanism responsible for reducing the bubble density near the wall for the pint geometry and increasing it for the anti-pint one.
  • The same flow pattern occurs with other types of beers, but the larger carbon dioxide bubbles are less subject to the downward drag than the smaller nitrogen bubbles in stout beers.
  • For a tilted straight-sided glass the side in the direction of the tilt represents the normal situation of a pint glass, while the opposite side is the “anti-pint” – and bubbles can be seen to both rise and fall in the same glass.
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Irish mathematicians explain why Guinness bubbles sink | Phys.org
  • Falling stout bubbles explained | BBC News

You say tomato I say potato?

  • The low down
  • The genome of the tomato has been sequenced one from the “Heinz 1706” tomato as well as the sequence of a wild relative
  • Researchers report that tomatoes possess some 35,000 genes arranged on 12 chromosomes
  • Significance
  • The team has captured virtually all the genes for various characteristics, such as taste, natural pest resistance or nutritional content
  • Now that the genome sequence of one variety of tomato is known, it will also be easier and much less expensive for seed companies and plant breeders to sequence other varieties
  • The sequencing of the tomato genome has implications for other plant species such as Strawberries, apples, melons, bananas and many other fleshy fruits, share some characteristics with tomatoes
  • Information about the genes and pathways involved in fruit ripening can potentially be applied to them, helping to improve food quality, food security and reduce costs
  • Of Note
  • The gene sequencing confirms that the tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable
  • The tomato shares 92% of its more than 34,000 protein-coding genes with its close relative, the recently sequenced potato
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Tomato genome fully sequenced | phys.org
  • ScienceShot: Tapping the Tomato’s Secrets | news.sciencemag.org

Hear your own heart beat



Credit: Renee Jones Schneider / Minneapolis Star Tribune.

56 years of Tornado’s



Credit: John Nelson

  • The low down
  • Using information from data.gov, tech blogger John Nelson has created this spectacular image of tornado paths in the US over a 56 year period
  • The storms are categorized by F-scale with the brighter neon lines representing more violent storms
  • The tracker shows straight lines, but it is only because the data used in this study only tracked start and stop points
  • Also provided are some stats on all the storms in the different categories
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Stunning Visualization of 56 Years of Tornadoes in the US | UniverseToday.com
  • Data.gov

SPACECRAFT UPDATE

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo receives permit



Credit: VirginGalactic YouTube Channel | Credit: TSC

  • The low down
  • Virgin Galactic’s flight system consists of two vehicles, SpaceShipTwo and its WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft
  • SpaceShipTwo is designed to launch six passengers and two pilots into suborbital space and offer a few minutes of weightlessness, then return to Earth
  • Significance
  • Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo suborbital space tourism vehicle has won U.S. regulatory approval to begin powered flight testing of the rocket-propelled craft later this year
  • The experimental launch permit from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) authorizes the Scaled Composites development team "to progress to the rocket-powered phase of test flight
  • Before the rocket-powered testing phase they will perform aerodynamic performance of the spacecraft with the full weight of the rocket motor system on board
  • Integration of key rocket motor components, already begun during a now-concluding period of downtime for routine maintenance, will continue in the autumn
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube Video : SS2 First Feather Flight, Mojave, May 2011)
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • FAA Clears Virgin Galactic to Begin SpaceShipTwo Rocket Test Flights | Space.com

GRAIL Moon mission extension



Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MIT

Dragon SpaceCraft Splashdown



Credit: YouTube Channel ReelNASA

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • June 09 1822 : 190 years ago : False teeth : Charles Graham received the first patent for false teeth. His were not the first false teeth in use, however. In the Colonial years, rotten teeth were considered the cause of many illnesses, and they would be extracted. Varied ways of replacing them were tried. For example, George Washington had at least four sets of false teeth (though none were wooden, despite a myth to that effect). Washington’s first dentures were made using human teeth inserted into carved ivory. In 1789, dentist John Greenwood of New York, made Washington another set from gold, hippo teeth, and hippo and elephant ivory. The one natural remaining tooth was a molar, and a hole was left for that.
  • June 08 1937 : 75 years ago : Titan Arum : A specimen of the world’s largest flower, first bloomed in the U.S. in the NY Botanical Garden. The giant Sumatran Titan Arum, Amorphophallus titanum, measured 8½-ft high and 4-ft diam. Its putrid rotting-corpse fragrance repelled visitors. Native in Sumatran jungles of Indonesia, it is known there as the “corpse flower.” Dr. Odoardo Beccari, an Italian botanist, was the first western expert to find the Titan Arum in the Pading Province during 1878. Seeds he sent back to his patron, the Marchese Corsi Salviati were grown in Italy, and a few plants were at Beccari’s request sent to Kew Gardens in England in 1879. One of those seedlings flowered in June 1887. Another plant bloomed there in 1926, to wide attention.

Looking up this week : You May Have Seen

Looking up this week

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