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	(Sponsor this newsletter) SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Launches Turkmenistan's First-Ever Satellite The private spaceflight company SpaceX launched the first-ever satellite for Turkmenistan into orbit Monday evening (April 27), marking the second space mission in less than two weeks for the firm's Falcon 9 rocket. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 7:03 p.m. EDT (2303 GMT) to deliver the TurkmenÄlem52E/MonacoSat communications satellite into orbit, after a 49-minute delay caused by cloudy conditions. The satellite, which was built by France-based aerospace firm Thales Alenia Space, weighs about 9,920 lbs. (4,500 kilograms) and has a design lifetime of 15 years, according to a mission description. "Once operational in orbit, TurkmenÄlem52E/MonacoSAT will allow Turkmenistan to operate its first national satellite telecommunications system, ensuring enhanced, secure telecommunications for the country," SpaceX representatives wrote in a mission fact sheet. Read More » Melanoma Tumor 'Dissolves' After 1 Dose of New Drug Combo A large melanoma tumor on a woman's chest disappeared so quickly that it left a gaping hole in its place after she received a new treatment containing two melanoma drugs, a new case report finds. Doctors are still monitoring the 49-year-old woman, but she was free of melanoma — a type of skin cancer that can be deadly — at her last checkup, said the report's lead author, Dr. Paul Chapman, an attending physician and head of the melanoma section at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. For most of the study participants who took these drugs, the combination worked better than one drug alone. But the doctors were surprised by how well the drug combination worked to treat this particular woman's cancer — they had not anticipated that a melanoma tumor could disappear so quickly that it would leave a cavity in the body — and thus wrote the report describing her case. "What was unusual was the magnitude [of recovery], and how quickly it happened," Chapman told Live Science. Read More » Russian Cargo Ship Suffers Glitch After Launching Toward Space Station Everything went smoothly until the cargo vessel separated from the rocket. Progress 59's solar arrays deployed on schedule, but some of its navigational antennas apparently did not deploy, NASA launch commentators said. Russian flight controllers have also been having trouble uplinking commands to the Progress 59, and there may be issues with the vehicle's propulsion system as well, commentators added. This switch from the fast track, four-orbit route to the International Space Station to a two-day journey that requires 34 orbits to complete is "part of the nominal backup plan for all Soyuz and Progress vehicles" and gives Russian flight controllers time to try to troubleshoot the problems, NASA commentators said. Read More » Bigger Earthquake Coming on Nepal's Terrifying Faults Nepal faces larger and more deadly earthquakes, even after the magnitude-7.8 temblor that killed more than 4,000 people on Saturday (April 25). Earthquake experts say Saturday's Nepal earthquake did not release all of the pent-up seismic pressure in the region near Kathmandu. According to GPS monitoring and geologic studies, some 33 to 50 feet (10 to 15 meters) of motion may need to be released, said Eric Kirby, a geologist at Oregon State University. "The earthquakes in this region can be much, much larger," said Walter Szeliga, a geophysicist at Central Washington University. Read More » Bruce Jenner's Transition: How Many Americans Are Transgender? By opening up on national television about identifying as transgender, Bruce Jenner has become one of a small percentage of people who identify with a gender that conflicts with the one they were assigned at birth. The most frequently cited estimate is that 700,000 people in the United States, or about 0.2 to 0.3 percent of the population, are transgender, though some experts say the true number is probably greater than that. "For all intents and purposes, I am a woman," Jenner told ABC News' Diane Sawyer in a much-anticipated interview that aired on "20/20" on Friday (April 24). The 700,000 number comes from Gary Gates, an LGBT (lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender) demographer at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a legal and policy expert on sexual orientation and gender identity. Gates based his estimate on four national surveys and two state-level ones, combining their results using statistical methods, according to his report published in April 2011. Read More » Tinkling Spoons Can Trigger Seizures in Cats The United Kingdom-based charity International Cat Care reached out to veterinary specialists after receiving surprising complaints from cat owners: Their feline companions were apparently having seizures in response to high-pitched sounds. Louder sounds also seemed to make the seizures more intense. Read More » Space station docking with supply ship delayed by technical hitch Russia was forced to postpone the docking of an unmanned cargo ship with the International Space Station on Tuesday because of a problem receiving data from the supply craft. The Progress M-27M should have docked with the orbiting station about six hours after its launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan early on Tuesday but the Roscosmos space agency said it now expected a delay of at least two days. Space exploration is a subject of national pride in Russia, rooted in the Cold War "space race" with the United States, but the collapse of the Soviet Union starved the space program of funds and it has been beset by problems in recent years. The current crew on the International Space Station is made up of Americans Terry Virts and Scott Kelly, Russians Anton Shkaplerov, Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Korniyenko and Italian Samantha Cristoforetti. Read More » SpaceX rocket blasts off with 1st satellite for Turkmenistan By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla (Reuters) - An unmanned SpaceX rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Monday to put a communications satellite into orbit for the government of Turkmenistan, a first for the Central Asian nation. After waiting almost an hour for cloudy skies to clear, the 22-story Falcon 9 rocket bolted off its seaside launch pad at 7:03 p.m. (2303 GMT). Perched on top of the rocket was a Spacebus 4000 telecommunications satellite, built by Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture of Thales SA and Finmeccanica SpA. Once in orbit, the five-ton (4,500-kg) satellite, known as TurkmenAlem52E, will become Turkmenistan's first telecommunications spacecraft, relaying television broadcasts and other services to more than 1.2 billion people in Central Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, according to Thales Alenia Space. Read More » Nepal Earthquake: Health Threats Loom Over Survivors The aftermath of the Nepal earthquake brings a risk of disease outbreaks — including measles and diarrheal diseases — among the survivors, and humanitarian agencies are rushing to bring aid to help. The 7.8-magnitude earthquake that hit the region Saturday (April 25) has had a devastating impact, with an estimated 7 million people affected, including 2.8 million children, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). As many as 1.5 million people in the Kathmandu Valley are now spending their nights outdoors, either because their homes have been destroyed or they are afraid to spend the night in their homes, said Christopher Tidey, a UNICEF spokesman. "If you have people living in very close proximity to each other…then diseases can spread much faster," Tidey told Live Science. Read More » Bullying May Leave Worse Mental Scars Than Child Abuse Being bullied during childhood may have even graver consequences for mental health in adulthood than being neglected or sexually abused, according to the first-ever study to tease out the effects of peer abuse from childhood maltreatment. Children in the study who had been bullied by their peers, but didn't suffer maltreatment from family members, were more likely to have depression and anxiety in adulthood than children who experienced child abuse but weren't bullied, according to researchers from the United States and United Kingdom. One in 3 children worldwide reports being bullied, Dieter Wolke, a professor of psychology at the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, and his colleagues note in their report, published today (April 28) in the journal Lancet Psychology.  Studies have shown that victims of bullying have impaired stress responses and high levels of inflammation, as well as worse health and less workplace success as adults, the researchers said. The ill effects of any type of child maltreatment — including sexual abuse, physical abuse and neglect — on mental health and physical health are well-documented. Read More » Russian Spacecraft Spinning Out of Control in Orbit, with Salvage Bid Underway The Russian space agency Roscosmos is scrambling to regain control of a robotic Progress 59 cargo ship that appears to have suffered a serious malfunction shortly after launching into orbit early today (April 28). Russian flight controllers abandoned plans to attempt to dock the cargo ship with the International Space Station on Thursday (April 30), NASA spokesman Rob Navias said in a NASA TV update. The problems began shortly after Progress 59 launched into space atop a Russian Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. "Almost immediately after spacecraft separation, a series of telemetry problems were detected with the Progress 59," Navias said during a televised broadcast from NASA's Mission Control center at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Read More » Why Some Lithium-Ion Batteries Explode Real-time images have captured the chain reaction that causes lithium-ion batteries to explode. The process can occur in just milliseconds: Overheated battery modules create a domino effect, producing more and more heat, and the battery explodes. "The presence of certain safety features can mitigate against the spread of some of this thermal runaway process," said study co-author Paul Shearing, a chemical engineer at the University College London in the United Kingdom. The results suggest some ways to make rechargeable lithium-ion batteries safer, the researchers wrote in the paper. Read More »
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