“Virgin Galactic” – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com Open Source Entertainment, on Demand. Mon, 22 Feb 2016 02:48:29 +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 “Virgin Galactic” – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com 32 32 Multiple Sclerosis & Ancient Comet | SciByte 106 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/45152/multiple-sclerosis-ancient-comet-scibyte-106/ Tue, 22 Oct 2013 20:01:52 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=45152 We take a look at a possible new Multiple Sclerosis treatment, an ancient comet strike, a reality show that might win you a trip to space, and more!

The post Multiple Sclerosis & Ancient Comet | SciByte 106 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]>

post thumbnail

We take a look at a possible new Multiple Sclerosis treatment, an ancient comet strike, a reality show that might win you a trip to space, an update on the meteorite that hit Ruia last year, 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

[asa]B008U69DDG[/asa]

— Show Notes —

New Multiple Sclerosis Treatment

  • Scientists have identified a set of compounds that may be used to treat multiple sclerosis (MS) in a new way
  • The newly identified compounds, a Parkinson\’s disease drug called benztropine, was highly effective in treating a standard model of MS in mice, both alone and in combination with existing MS therapies
  • The compounds boost a population of progenitor cells that can in turn repair MS-damaged nerve fibers
  • Another Study SciByte Recently Looked At
  • In trial, a MS patients\’ own specially processed white blood cells were used to stealthily deliver billions of myelin antigens into their bodies so their immune systems would recognize them as harmless and develop tolerance to them
  • SciByte 97 | CoQ10 & Smart LEGO – Multiple Sclerosis Treatment | June 11, 2013
  • SciByte Does Not Approve Self Medicating
  • Benztropine is a drug with dose-related adverse side effects, and has yet to be proven effective at a safe dose in human MS patients
  • Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
  • MS currently affects more than half a million people in North America and Europe, and more than two million worldwide
  • The precise cause isunknown, but certain infections and a lack of vitamin D are thought to be risk factors
  • In MS, immune cells known as T cells infiltrate the upper spinal cord and brain, which causes inflammation and ultimately the loss of an insulating coating called myelin on some nerve fibers
  • As nerve fibers lose this myelin coating, they lose their ability to transmit signals efficiently, and in time may begin to degenerate
  • Current therapies aim to suppress the immune attack that demyelinated nerve fibers. But they are only partially effective and are apt to have significant adverse side effects
  • The New Study
  • Aims at restoring a population of progenitor cells called oligodendrocytes
  • These cells normally keep the myelin sheaths of nerve fibers in good repair and in principle could fix these coatings after MS damages them
  • In MS oligodendrocyte decline sharply in number, due to a still-mysterious problem with the stem-like precursor cells that produce them
  • The team screened a library of about 100,000 diverse compounds for any that could potently induce OPCs to mature or \”differentiate.\”
  • Several compounds scored well but benztropine, had already been well characterized and was already FDA-approved for treating Parkinson\’s disease
  • Tests show benztropine had a powerful ability to prevent autoimmune disease and also was effective in treating it after symptoms had arisen
  • Benztropine on its own worked about as well as existing treatments, it also showed a remarkable ability to complement these existing treatments
  • In Conjunction With Current Therapies
  • The two first-line immunosuppressive therapies are interferon-beta and fingolimod
  • Adding even a suboptimal level of benztropine allowed to cut the dose of fingolimod by 90% for the same effect as a normal dose
  • The reduction could translate into a big reduction in potentially serious side effects
  • The Test
  • Researchers confirmed that benztropine works against disease in this mouse model by boosting the population of mature oligodendrocytes
  • This allowed the oligodendrocytes to restore the myelin sheaths of damaged nerves even while the immune continues to attack
  • The benztropine-treated mice showed no change in the usual signs of inflammation, yet their myelin was mostly intact, suggesting that it was probably being repaired as rapidly as it was being destroyed
  • Researchers hope to learn more about how its molecular structure might be optimized for this purpose
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Multiple Sclerosis | AsapSCIENCE
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • New strategy to treat multiple sclerosis shows promise in mice
  • Multiple sclerosis breakthrough: Trial safely resets patients\’ immune systems and reduces attack on myelin protein| MedicalXPress.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Ancient Comet Strike Evidence

  • Comet fragments have not been found on Earth before except as microscopic sized dust particles in the upper atmosphere and some carbon-rich dust in the Antarctic ice.
  • Now the first ever evidence of a comet entering Earth\’s atmosphere and exploding, raining down a shock wave of fire which obliterated every life form in its path, has been discovered
  • Comet Strike?
  • The comet entered Earth\’s atmosphere above Egypt about 28 million years ago
  • As it entered the atmosphere, it exploded, heating up the sand beneath it to a temperature of about 2,000C [3,632F]
  • That resulted in the formation of a huge amount of yellow silica glass which lies scattered over a 6,000 sq km [2,316 sq mi] area in the Sahara
  • One specimen of the glass, polished by ancient jewellers, is in Tutankhamun\’s brooch with its striking yellow-brown scarab
  • Impact Produced Microscopic Diamonds
  • The impact of the explosion also produced microscopic diamonds
  • A mysterious black pebble found years earlier by an Egyptian geologist in the area of the silica glass
  • After conducting highly sophisticated chemical analyses on this pebble it was concluded that it represented the very first known hand specimen of a comet nucleus
  • The team have named the diamond-bearing pebble \”Hypatia\” in honour of the first well known female mathematician, astronomer and philosopher, Hypatia of Alexandria
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • First ever evidence of a comet striking Earth | Phys.org

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Reality TV Meets Space!?!?!?

— Updates —

Russian Meteor

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

  • Examination of the Martian atmosphere by NASA\’s Curiosity Mars rover confirms that some meteorites that have dropped to Earth really are from the Red Planet
  • Exact Measurements
  • A key new measurement of the inert gas argon in Mars\’ atmosphere by Curiosity\’s laboratory provides the most definitive evidence yet of the origin of Mars meteorites while at the same time providing a way to rule out Martian origin of other meteorites
  • The new measurement is a high-precision count of two forms of argon — argon-36 and argon-38 — accomplished by the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument inside the rover.
  • These lighter and heavier forms, or isotopes, of argon exist naturally throughout the solar system
  • On Mars the ratio of light to heavy argon is skewed because much of that planet\’s original atmosphere was lost to space
  • The lighter form of argon was taken away more readily because it rises to the top of the atmosphere more easily and requires less energy to escape
  • That left the Martian atmosphere relatively enriched in the heavier isotope, argon-38
  • Past analyses by Earth-bound scientists of gas bubbles trapped inside Martian meteorites had already narrowed the Martian argon ratio to between 3.6 and 4.5
  • Measurements by NASA\’s Viking landers in the 1970s put the Martian atmospheric ratio in the range of four to seven
  • The new SAM direct measurement on Mars now pins down the correct argon ratio at 4.2
  • What\’s Next?
  • The Curiosity measurements do not directly measure the current rate of atmospheric escape
  • NASA\’s next mission to Mars, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN), is designed to do so, which is being prepared for a launch-opportunity period that begins on Nov. 18
  • Multimedia
  • Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
  • Social Media
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite | NASA
  • Mars Science Laboratory: NASA Rover Confirms Mars Origin of Some Meteorites | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • October 27, 1780 : 233 years ago : First U.S. astronomy expedition views eclipse : The first U.S. astronomical expedition to record an eclipse of the sun observed the event which lasted from 11:11 am to 1:50 pm. The observers left about three weeks earlier, on 9 Oct from Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass., for Penobscot Bay, led by Samuel Williams. A boat was supplied by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts the four professors and six students. Although the U.S. was at war with Britain, the British officer in charge of Penobscot Bay permitted the expedition to land and set up equipment to observe the predicted total eclipse of the sun. The expedition was shocked to find itself outside the path of totality. They saw a thin arc of the sun instead of its complete obscuration by the moon

Looking up this week

The post Multiple Sclerosis & Ancient Comet | SciByte 106 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Apollo 13 & Brain Training | SciByte 91 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/36201/apollo-13-brain-training-scibyte-91/ Tue, 23 Apr 2013 21:03:25 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=36201 We take a look at critiquing the Apollo 13 movie, training your brain, inspecting power lines, SpaceShipTwo, solar cells, Viewer Feedback, and more!

The post Apollo 13 & Brain Training | SciByte 91 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]>

post thumbnail

We take a look at critiquing the Apollo 13 movie, training your brain, inspecting power lines, SpaceShipTwo, solar cells, 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]B00B7VZN76[/asa]
[asa]B00BAXTY8U[/asa]

Show Notes:

Apollo 13, Truth vs Movie

  • Many people have seen the Apollo 13 movie, but sometimes the truth is stranger, and sometimes more amazing, than fiction.
  • This is from a 2001 interview with Thomas K. Mattingly II, the member of Apollo 13 who was bumped from the roster days before launch because of exposure to the German measles.
  • Crew Breakdown
  • Prime Crew : Commander – James Lovell, Command Module Pilot – Kenneth Mattingly, Lunar Module Pilot – Fred Haise
  • Backup Crew : Commander – John Young, Command Module Pilot – John Swigert, Lunar Module Pilot – Charles Duke
  • Flight Crew : Commander – James Lovell, Command Module Pilot – John Swigert, Lunar Module Pilot – Fred Haise
  • Mattingly Dropped From the Crew
  • Roughly 2 weeks before launch the crew was able to go home to visit and spend time with family
  • Charles Duke, a member of the backup crew, had attended a picnic where a family with a kid who had the measles which meant he was considered exposed
  • All members of the prime and backup crew had their blood tested, and it turned out that Mattingly had never contracted the measles and was considered a risk
  • Two days before launch he was driving and turned on the radio to head that he had been replaced by another member of the backup crew, Jack Swigered
  • As neither a member of the official back up crew or part of any official team in mission control, Mattingly did get to come in, but simple bounced around between teams
  • \”Houston, We Had a Problem\” … but What Kind of Problem
  • All problem solving problems were in part based on the rule that structural things don\’t break
  • \”Joints can leak, shorts can happen to wires, but physical structure doesn’t break,\” but physical structures don\’t break
  • Hardware goes through a lot of testing and has margins of safety, so they never looked at those kind of problems
  • The teams were trying to figure out what instrumentation failed when Flight Director, Gene Kranz, said “Sy, didn’t Jim say that he looked out the window and there’s stuff out in the sky and he heard something?” He says, “Does that sound like instrumentation to you?”
  • \”Failure is not an option\”
  • This catch phrase said by Gene Kranz, the lead flight director, in the movie was never actually said, it was based on a mentality
  • In an interview he said \”No, when bad things happened, we just calmly laid out all the options, and failure was not one of them. We never panicked, and we never gave up on finding a solution.\”
  • It was from the very first moment they assumed they would succeed and didn\’t do anything that got in the way.
  • The Return Debate
  • What to do and how to get back to earth was a rather \’charged\’ debate
  • One group wasn\’t sure what had happened and what the condition of anything was and didn\’t want to touch anything but to figure things out first
  • The other group saw the limited resources and wanted to turn around and come back immediately before the batteries ran out
  • Sim Preparation, Actually Not \’On The Fly\’
  • Thanks to the simulation training program things may not have been exactly the same or in the same order, but everything ended having been done before
  • During the mission didn’t actually solve any problems in the simulator, they ran those procedures, verified them, made some red lines
  • LM Lifeboat | In a previous sim about a contaminated atmosphere, they had prepared what they called a LM lifeboat, which meant they had to get the crew out of the command module and into the lunar module, and stay there
  • Midcourse Correction | On the way back the spacecraft started drifting slightly so they had to make a course correction, this too had been practiced in a sim at some point
  • Return Trajectory | Contrary to the nail biting moments in the movie, you don’t need to be the nearest five degrees. They had practiced it in simulation before and found they didn\’t have to be very accurate
  • Inertial Unit \”Semi-Apocryphal\” Story
  • Maintains a reference that lets you know where the whole universe is in terms of attitude so you can find stars, planets , etc
  • These units are notoriously very delicate, and they were going to have to bring them up from scratch
  • In order to achieve the precision needed they were allowed to run at a temperature of near 70, and tested at plus or minus 10.
  • During the mission they didn\’t know what temperature they were, but they knew they were below freezing
  • The story is that one of the employees at the company had accidentally had left had an IMU in the back of the station wagon during a snowstorm the winter before
  • When he discovered that and brought it back into the lab he hooked it up and tested it without any problems
  • \’Monday Morning Quarterbacking\’
  • A few weeks before the launch engineers saw some kind of a problem with detanking the oxygen from the service module, it took all night and a good bit of the next day to review the problem
  • The engineers had seen a problem like this before, and they could boil the oxygen out even though the regular drain system wasn’t working, it took eight hours of 65-volt DC power from the ground-support equipment to dissipate the oxygen.
  • Due to an oversight in replacing an underrated component during a design modification, this turned out to severely damage the internal heating elements of the tank
  • The oxygen tank that was discussed prior to launch was, in fact, the culprit in the explosion; although it was damaged in a the process and way that wasn\’t anticipated
  • Multimedia
  • Damage to Apollo 13 | Astronomy Picture of the Day
  • YouTube | Houston, We Have a Problem | Apollo 13 Movie Clip 4/11 | movieclips
  • YouTube | Sim Prep | Square Peg in a Round Hole | Apollo 13 Movie Clip 7/11 | movieclips
  • YouTube | The Return Debate | A New Mission | Apollo 13 Movie Clip 5/11 | movieclips
  • YouTube | \”Failure Is Not an Option\” | Apollo 13 Movie Clip 6/11 | movieclips
  • YouTube | Real Footage | Apollo 13 – Houston, We\’ve Got A Problem | AIRBOYD
  • YouTube | Real Footage | Apollo 13 Post Flight Press Conference (1970) | AIRBOYD
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Apollo 13 Mission Highlights | NASA.gov
  • Mission Transcripts: Apollo 13 | jsc.NASA.gov
  • T. K. Mattingly Oral History | jsc.NASA.gov
  • Ken Mattingly Explains How the Apollo 13 Movie Differed From Real Life | UniverseToday.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Train Your Brain

  • Using sea snail nerve cells, scientists have reversed memory loss by determining when the cells were primed for learning
  • Scientists were able to help the cells compensate for memory loss by retraining them through the use of optimized training schedules
  • The Study Model
  • The study is built on a 2012 investigation that pioneered a memory enhancement strategy that showed a significant increase in long-term memory in healthy sea snails
  • This study\’s co-lead author and a research scientist has developed a sophisticated mathematical model that can predict when the biochemical processes in the snail\’s brain are primed for learning
  • The model is based on five training sessions scheduled at different time intervals ranging from 5 to 50 minutes
  • The model can generate 10,000 different schedules and identify the schedule most attuned to optimum learning
  • Memory Impairment
  • Memory is due to a change in the strength of the connections among neurons. In many diseases associated with memory deficits, the change is blocked
  • A senior research scientist simulated a brain disorder in a cell culture by taking sensory cells from the sea snails and blocking the activity of a gene that produces a memory protein
  • This resulted in a significant impairment in the strength of the neurons\’ connections, which is responsible for long-term memory
  • Testing the Model
  • To mimic training sessions, cells were administered a chemical at intervals prescribed by the mathematical model
  • After five training sessions, which like the earlier study were at irregular intervals, the strength of the connections returned to near normal in the impaired cells
  • This methodology may apply to humans if we can identify the same biochemical processes in humans and suggest a new strategy for treatments of cognitive impairment
  • Optimization in the Future
  • Mathematical models might help design therapies that optimize the combination of training protocols with traditional drug treatments
  • Combining these two could enhance might increase effectiveness while compensating at least in part for any limitations or undesirable side effects of drugs
  • These two approaches are likely to be more effective together than separately and may have broad generalities in treating individuals with learning and memory deficits.\”
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Scientists reverse memory loss in animal brain cells | MedicalXPress

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Inspecting Power Lines

  • New Invention
  • Mechanical engineers at the University of California has invented a robot designed to scoot along utility lines, searching for damage and other problems that require repairs.
  • The prototypes is made of off-the-shelf electronics and plastic parts printed on an inexpensive 3D printer
  • Utility companies may also use manned or unmanned helicopters equipped with infrared imaging to inspect lines, the current line inspection robots are large, complex, and expensive
  • The SkySweeper prototype could be scaled up for less than $1,000, making it significantly more economical than the two models of robots currently used to inspect power lines
  • SkySweeper could be outfitted with induction coils that would harvest energy from the power line itself, making it possible for the robot to stay deployed for weeks or months at a time
  • By strengthening the clamps so they can release from the rope and swing down the line, one end to the other, thereby swinging past cable support points
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | SkySweeper Robot Makes Inspecting Power Lines Simple and Inexpensive | JacobsSchoolNews
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • SkySweeper robot makes inspecting power lines simple and inexpensive | Phys.org

Virgin Galactic Test Flight

  • Flight Test
  • Virgin Galactic\’s suborbital SpaceShipTwo successfully conducted its first \”cold flow\” flight test above the Mojave Desert on April 12
  • During the test, oxidizer was run through the rocket\’s propulsion system and out the back nozzle of the ship, though the vehicle\’s rocket engine was not turned on
  • The next big step will probably be conducting a full flight test, igniting the rocket in the air.
  • Once SpaceShipTwo is operational, WhiteKnightTwo will carry the vehicle up to an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,240 meters) before releasing it.
  • After separation, SpaceShipTwo will accelerate to 2,500 mph (4,000 km/h) and eventually pass an altitude of 62 miles (100 kilometers), the point at which passengers are considered astronauts
  • The spaceship will reach a peak altitude of 68 miles (110 km), giving the six passengers and two pilots about five minutes of weightlessness
  • Upon re-entry, SpaceShipTwo will be able to land on a conventional runway
  • A seat on board a SpaceShipTwo flight costs $200,000. More than 550 people have put down deposits to reserve a spot
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube Clip | Release and Rocket Start
  • YouTube Clip | In Orbit
  • YouTube Clip | Weightless M-M\’s
  • YouTube | Virgin Galactic 8 5min video
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Virgin Galactic\’s SpaceShipTwo Makes Stunning Leap Toward Private Spaceflight | Space.com

More Efficient Solar Cells

  • A silicon solar cell can never generate more than one electron from a single photon which severely limit the conversion efficiency of photovoltaic cells, and scientists have spent decades looking for workarounds
  • In Solar cells if an incoming photon has too little energy, the cell won’t absorb it and if a photon has too much, the excess is wasted as heat
  • What’s New?
  • The key to greater solar efficiency might be an organic dye called pentacene
  • A photovoltaic cell based on pentacene can generate two electrons from a single photon-more electricity from the same amount of sun.
  • The key is a phenomenon called singlet-exciton fission, in which an arriving photon generates two “excitons” (excited states) that can be made to yield two electrons.
  • Previous researchers had accomplished similar tricks using quantum dots (tiny pieces of matter that behave like atoms) and deep-ultraviolet light
  • Why it works is still not particularly clear, and for now, the pentacene cell works only with an extremely narrow band of visible light
  • It should be possible to create a pentacene coating for silicon solar cells that boosts the total conversion efficiency from today’s 25 percent to a shade over 30 percent-a significant jump
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • The Solar Cell That Turns 1 Photon into 2 Electrons: Scientific American | ScientificAmerican.com

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

TETRIS Lazy Eye

  • **”The Hubby” | Check This Out! **
  • TETRIS to Treat Lazy Eye?!?
  • A research team has used Tetris in an innovative approach to treat adult amblyopia, commonly known as \”lazy eye.\”
  • Amblyopia is the most common cause of visual impairment in childhood from poor processing in the brain results in suppression of the weaker eye by the stronger eye
  • It affects up to 3 per cent of the population and if not treated early, lazy eye can lead to permanent loss of vision in the weak eye
  • Previous treatments focused largely on covering the stronger eye in order to force the weaker eye to work and has proven only partially successful in children and have been ineffective in adults
  • The key to improving vision for adults was to enable the two eyes to cooperate for the first time in a given task
  • The adult human brain has a significant degree of plasticity and this provides the basis for treating a range of conditions where vision has been lost as a result of a disrupted period of early visual development in childhood
  • Using head-mounted video goggles we were able to display the game dichoptically, where one eye was allowed to see only the falling objects, and the other eye was allowed to see only the ground plane objects
  • By distributing information between the two eyes in a complementary fashion, the video game trains both eyes to work together, instead of making only the weak eye work like in patching
  • Researchers tested a sample of 18 adults with amblyopia; nine played the game monocularly with the weaker eye, while the stronger eye was patched; the other nine played the same game dichoptically, where each eye was allowed to view a separate part of the game.
  • After two weeks, the group playing the dichoptic game showed a dramatic improvement in the vision of the weaker eye as well as in 3-D depth perception
  • The monocular patching group, who had showed only a moderate improvement, was switched to the new dichoptic training, the vision of this group also improved dramatically
  • The suitability of this treatment in children will be assessed later this year in a clinical trial across North America
  • Nine of the participants wore the goggles an hour a day for two weeks while playing the popular game Tetris
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Researchers Treat Lazy Eye With Tetris | PopSci.com
  • Lazy Eye Disorder Treated With Video Game Tetris | ScienceDaily

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

  • Accurate Lasers
  • NASA\’s Curiosity Mars rover targeted the laser of the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument with remarkable accuracy for assessing the composition of the wall of a drilled hole and tailings that resulted from the drilling
  • ChemCam fired its laser 150 times (5 bursts of 30 shots, each burst at a different target point) on the drill tailings between the two holes and 300 times (10 bursts of 30 shots) in the drill hole itself
  • The same day, ChemCam\’s remote micro-imager (RMI) captured images of the laser pits: small craters in the loose tailing and tiny scrapes on the hard surface of the hole walls
  • Conjunction
  • YouTube | Mars in a Minute: What Happens When the Sun Blocks our Signal? | JPLnews
  • Multimedia
  • Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
  • Social Media
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Accurate pointing by Curiosity | Mars.jpl.NASA.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • April 28, 1896 : 117 years ago : First Manual Parachute Jump : The first jump with the Army manually operated army parachute was made by Leslie LeRoy Irvin in Dayton, Ohio. This was the first test of this type, known as the \”free parachute,\” with which the operator jumps before pulling the ripcord. He jumped at an altitude of 1,500-ft from a de Havilland DH-9 biplane while flying at 100-mph over McCook Field, Dayton, Ohio. He broke his ankle upon landing on the ground. Later, he founded the Irving Air Chute, Co., now Irvin Aerospace which business name resulted from an spelling error on the incorporation papers

Looking up this week

The post Apollo 13 & Brain Training | SciByte 91 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> 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.

The post Spinal Cord Injuries & Venus Transit | SciByte 49 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]>

post thumbnail

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.

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]B001TOQ8X4[/asa]
[asa]B006X1JLZU[/asa]
   

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

The post Spinal Cord Injuries & Venus Transit | SciByte 49 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]>