|  Of Mice and Synthetic Muscle: Big Science On SpaceX Dragon Spaceship  | SpaceX's Dragon cargo capsule is hauling a lot of science gear up to the International Space Station, including experiments for the orbiting outpost's first one-year crew. The unmanned Dragon launched into space Tuesday (April 14) atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It is due to arrive at the space station at 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT) Friday, April 17. Some of this equipment will help NASA examine the nature of eye problems that have plagued several astronauts on long-term missions.
| Read More » U.S. Air Force moves toward common satellite control system By Andrea Shalal COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force is studying how to develop a common ground system to track, communicate with and control all the satellites it operates, a move that would save money and improve cybersecurity, the head of Air Force Space Command said on Thursday. General John Hyten said in an interview that several options were under discussion that would free up money to focus on the sensors on different satellite systems that are used for communications, navigation, missile warning and other missions. He said the Air Force would continue to use ground systems developed by Lockheed Martin Corp for the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) satellites that provide early warnings of missile launches, and the Raytheon Co ground system that will operate Air Force global positioning satellites(OCX). Read More » Getting around without draining your phone battery Tall buildings and satellite signals don't like each other and in an era where companies like UBER and YELP depend on accurate navigation, Pete Tenereillo of California start up Pathsense has this to say. First off it sucks in accuracy especially in major metros where these transportation apps and delivery apps are thriving and, you know, satellite signals bounce all over the place," he said. GPS also literally suck, quickly draining the battery life of a phone as its processors work overtime to triangulate real time satellite data. Read More » Mercury-orbiting U.S. spacecraft heading for a crash landing  | By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - A NASA spacecraft that made surprising discoveries of ice and other materials on Mercury will make a crash landing into the planet around April 30, scientists said on Thursday. The Mercury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging, or Messenger, probe has been circling the innermost planet of the solar system for more than four years, the first close-up studies of Mercury since NASA's Mariner 10 spacecraft made three flybys in the mid-1970s. "The spacecraft will pass behind the planet, out of view from the Earth, and will just not emerge again," said Daniel O'Shaughnessy, systems engineer with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which operates the spacecraft. The impact at 8,724 miles per hour (14,040 km per hour) will leave a fresh crater, roughly 52 feet (16 meters) in diameter, that should serve as an interesting reference point for a follow-on European spacecraft called BepiColombo, which is due to arrive in 2024.
| Read More » U.S. Air Force sees next step for rocket launch contest by June By Andrea Shalal COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force plans to ask satellite launch providers and engine makers next month or in early June to explain how they would partner up to develop a new launch vehicle powered by a U.S.-built engine, a top Air Force general said on Thursday. General John Hyten, who heads Air Force Space Command, told Reuters the Air Force was finalizing its strategy for spending $220 million in funds set aside by Congress in the fiscal 2015 budget, and would issue a request for proposals soon. Hyten said Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center aimed to publish the document by the end of May, but that might slip to early June since there was "a lot of work left to do." The Air Force is racing to end reliance on the Russian-built RD-180 engine that powers the first stage of the Atlas 5 rocket built by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture run by Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co. Congress last year passed a law banning use of the Russian engines for national security launches after 2019, given Russia's annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine. Read More » Sofia Vergara Lawsuit: Who Owns Frozen Embryos? The fight between actress Sofia Vergara and her ex-fiancé Nick Loeb over the fate of the couple's frozen embryos may hinge on one question: whether the contract the couple signed gives one party or both parties a say in what happens to the embryos, experts say. On Thursday, news outlets reported that Loeb filed a lawsuit to stop Vergara from destroying the frozen embryos the couple created when they were together. The resolution to such disputes "has to do with the contract signed by both parties," said Joshua Forman, a family law expert at Chemtob Moss & Forman, LLP, in New York City. "Some contracts require both parties' consent to implant or destroy the embryos. Read More » Diabetes and Depression May Increase Risk of Dementia Adults who have either depression or type 2 diabetes may have an increased risk of developing dementia, and the risk may be even higher for people who have both conditions, according to a new study. In the study, researchers examined the risk of dementia in more than 2.4 million people in Denmark ages 50 and older, a group that included people who had type 2 diabetes, depression or both conditions. About 2 percent of the people in the study developed dementia over the six-year study period. But among those who developed dementia, more than 26 percent had depression, and almost 11 percent had type 2 diabetes. Read More » Struck by Lightning: Bolt from Above Blinds Woman in One Eye  | "In the future, if patients are struck by lightning, it should be a routine process to refer them to an ophthalmologist to have an eye assessment," said study co-author Dr. Permesh Dhillon, an ophthalmologist at Pilgrim Hospital in Boston, England. When the lightning bolt struck the woman's car, she suffered some back pain, and her hairdresser later noticed minor burns on the woman's scalp.
| Read More » Forget Jeopardy: 5 Abilities That Make IBM's Watson Amazing  | Chef Watson has the recipe, which pairs cinnamon, apricots, vanilla and cheese, that the brainy system created based on its training with the Institute of Culinary Education. IBM's Watson has come a long way since its 2011 victory on the game show "Jeopardy!" Lately, instead of answering trivia in the form of a question, Watson has ventured into the culinary realm, not to mention the medical and veterinary fields. Researchers have also taught Watson how to determine people's personalities on Twitter. Watson has heralded in a new era called "cognitive computing," said Steve Abrams, the director of Watson Life.
| Read More » Man Goes Exploring with Metal Detector, Finds Roman-Era Grave  | A man in England went exploring with a metal detector and made the discovery of a lifetime: an exquisitely preserved Roman-era grave filled with artifacts, including bronze jugs, mosaic glassware, coins and hobnails from a pair of shoes, all dating to about A.D. 200. The grave likely belonged to a wealthy individual, said Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews, the archaeology and outreach officer for the North Hertfordshire District Council. Once Fitzpatrick-Matthews and his colleagues located the grave, they also found evidence of a nearby building, likely a shrine or temple, attached to a villa. The man with the metal detector, Phil Kirk, found the grave in a field in Kelshall, a small village located between London and Cambridge.
| Read More » 1st Photo of Rare Monkey Proves It's Not Extinct  | An African monkey thought to be extinct has been spotted again by researchers, who returned from a remote Congo forest in March with the first-ever photos of the rare red primate. Until this year, scientists hadn't seen the Bouvier's red colobus monkey in the wild since the 1970s. The researchers, Lieven Devreese of Belgium and Gaël Elie Gnondo Gobolo of the Republic of the Congo, set off in February to track down the elusive species. Their expedition was supported by donations collected through the crowdfunding website Indiegogo, and funding from the Wildlife Conservation Society. There are several species of red colobus monkey.
| Read More » NASA electric rover goes for a spin By Jim Drury Texas, Houston, U.S. - Driving NASA's Modular Robotic Vehicle (MRV) looks out of this world - and the leading space agency say this might one day be a possibility. Developed at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas it's a fully electric vehicle which the agency say is well-suited for busy urban environments. Turns of the steering wheel are recorded by sensors and sent to computers at the vehicle's rear where they are interpreted immediately, instructing motors in one or all of its four wheels to turn as commanded. A force feedback system in the steering wheel means the driver will feel the same resistance and sensations as a car. Read More » ReNeuron stem cell therapy shows long-term promise for stroke A pioneering stem cell treatment for patients disabled by stroke has continued to show long-term promise in a clinical trial, the British biotech company behind the project said on Friday. News that two-year follow-up data from a small Phase I study showed improvements in limb function with no worrying safety issues lifted shares in ReNeuron 10 percent by 0830 EDT. The clinical results were presented at the European Stroke Organisation Conference in Glasgow. The procedure involves injecting ReNeuron's neural stem cells into patients' brains to repair areas damaged by stroke, thereby improving both mental and physical function. Read More » Physicists try to make sense of a dark matter puzzle from space  | Clamped to the International Space Station, the 7.5-tonne Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) intercepts particles from outer space, looking for evidence of "dark matter", which has never been seen but is thought to be five times as abundant in the universe as visible matter. We are taking 1,000 pictures per second," said Stefan Schael, a professor at RWTH Aachen University. The space camera gives a new perspective on results gathered on earth at the CERN physics research centre's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva. "At the LHC we have found exactly what we were predicting.
| Read More » NASA Probe Sees North Pole of Dwarf Planet Ceres (Video)  | After spending several weeks in the shadow of Ceres, NASA's Dawn spacecraft is finally getting a close-up glimpse of the dwarf planet. The photos are the highest-resolution views of the world that Dawn has gotten since entering Ceres' orbit on March 6, NASA officials said. In future weeks, NASA hopes the mission will help scientists better understand a key mystery of Ceres: strange bright spots on its surface that, in some cases, have different temperatures than the terrain surrounding them. Mission scientists still don't know what the spots are made of.
| Read More » WWII Ship Used for Atomic Bomb Tests Found 'Amazingly Intact'  | The USS Independence aircraft carrier, which operated during World War II, has been located about a half mile underwater off California's Farallon Islands. Using an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) dubbed the Echo Ranger and a 3D-imaging sonar system, researchers have created a detailed picture of the 622-foot-long (190 m) ship, revealing that it is "amazingly intact," said scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). "After 64 years on the seafloor, Independence sits on the bottom as if ready to launch its planes," James Delgado, chief scientist on the Independence mission, said in a statement. It is a reminder of the industrial might and skill of the 'greatest generation' that sent not only this ship, but their loved ones to war," added Delgado, maritime heritage director for NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries.
| Read More » Amazonian tribe study shows how human bodily bacteria is changing  | By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Everyone's body is brimming with bacteria, and these microbes do plenty of good things like building the immune system and helping digestion. A study published on Friday looking at the gut, mouth and skin microbes in people from a small, isolated tribe in southern Venezuela's Amazonian jungles shows just how much modern life may be altering humankind's bodily bacteria. The Yanomami villagers, secluded from the outside world until 2009, possessed the most diverse collection of bacteria ever found in people including some never before detected in humans, said scientists whose research appears in the journal Science Advances. The researchers were surprised to learn the Yanomami's microbes harbored antibiotic-resistant genes including those conferring resistance to manmade antibiotics, considering they never had exposure to commercial antibiotics.
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