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Sunday, July 5, 2015

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Russian Cargo Spacecraft Arrives at Space Station

A robotic Russian resupply ship arrived at the International Space Station early Sunday morning (July 5), ending a streak of two straight cargo-mission failures.

Pluto Probe Suffers Glitch 10 Days Before Epic Flyby

A glitch caused NASA's New Horizons spacecraft to go dark for more than an hour Saturday (July 4), just 10 days before its historic flyby of Pluto. "During that time, the autonomous autopilot on board the spacecraft recognized a problem and — as it's programmed to do in such a situation — switched from the main to the backup computer," New Horizons team members wrote in an update Saturday. Members of an "anomaly review board" are currently investigating the issue and working to get New Horizons back up to speed.

New Horizons space probe suffers glitch on approach to Pluto

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA scientists were working on Sunday to revive the New Horizons spacecraft after it suffered a computer malfunction just nine days before it was due to fly past Pluto. On Saturday, an unknown glitch caused New Horizons to switch to a backup computer, which triggered an 81-minute break in radio communications with mission controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, NASA said in a status report. "Full recovery is expected to take from one to several days," NASA said.

New Horizons space probe suffers glitch on approach to Pluto

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Saturday, July 4, 2015

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Ebola Returns to Liberia: Where Did It Come From, and Could It Spread?

The return of Ebola in Liberia — with three new cases reported this week in the previously Ebola-free country — is worrisome, and raises questions about whether Liberia was really free of the disease to begin with, experts say. Liberian health officials reported the death of a 17-year-old boy from Ebola on Sunday, and two other cases of Ebola in people who were with the boy when he died, according to ABC News. The new cases are the first in Liberia since the country was declared free of the disease on May 9.

Colorful Arctic Animals Revealed in Thousands of Undersea Images

New photographs of fluorescent sea creatures — including bright orange animals that resemble feather dusters with long, skinny handles, and spongy, neon-pink anemones — on the Arctic seafloor could help researchers determine how much methane, a potent greenhouse gas, will make its way to the atmosphere and contribute to climate change. It's amazing," said Guiliana Panieri, a scientist on the photo-taking expedition and a professor in environment and climate at The Arctic University of Norway. The colorful sea creatures live near methane seeps, or cracks in the ocean floor that naturally release methane.

Solar-Powered Plane Soars to New World Records

A solar-powered airplane currently soaring over the Pacific Ocean, from Japan to Hawaii, has set a slew of new world records, logging the farthest and longest flights made so far in a solar-powered aircraft. The Solar Impulse 2 plane set the new distance and duration records when it flew 3,519 miles (5,663 kilometers) in 80 hours. The solar-powered aircraft is currently partway through a planned journey around the world.

Red, White & Blue! Stars Cluster in Festive Cosmic Portrait

Reminiscent of the colors in the American flag, and released just in time for America's Independence Day on July 4 , the image shows open star cluster NGC 2367 and the surrounding hydrogen gas. The stars of NGC 2367 are young and hot, and shine with a brilliant blue light.

NASA Slammed a Probe Into a Comet 10 Years Ago Today

When you're watching the fireworks displays this Fourth of July, take a moment to reflect on some cosmic pyrotechnics that NASA pulled off a decade ago. On July 4, 2005, while zooming along millions of miles from Earth, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft released an 820-lb. (370 kilograms) probe that smashed into Comet Tempel 1 at 23,000 mph (37,000 km/h), gouging out a crater about 500 feet (150 meters) wide. The Deep Impact mothership watched the powerful collision — which marked the first time a manmade object interacted with the surface of a comet — from a safe distance, studying the material blasted into space by the impactor.

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Friday, July 3, 2015

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Mass Shootings Are Contagious

Mass shootings spawn subsequent mass shootings, new research finds. The researchers discovered statistical "clusters" of shootings in which four or more people die, the standard definition of a mass shooting. School shootings also cluster, said study researcher Sherry Towers, a professor of mathematical and computational modeling at Arizona State University.

Lawsuit filed against U.S. over protections for rare wolf

(Reuters) - A coalition of environmental groups filed a lawsuit on Thursday against U.S. wildlife officials arguing that the government's management plan for the endangered Mexican gray wolf, one of the most imperiled mammals in North America, does not go far enough. The Western Environmental Law Center filed the suit on behalf of several organizations in a federal Arizona court, alleging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's plans for the wolves violate the Endangered Species Act and other laws. "Unfortunately, politics supplants wildlife biology in key parts of the USFWS Mexican gray wolf plan," attorney John Mellgren of the Western Environmental Law Center said in a statement.

Black Hole 'Wakes Up' After 26-Year Slumber

After taking a 26-year nap, a waking black hole released a burst of X-rays that lit up astronomical observatories on June 15 — and it's still making a ruckus today. Astronomers identified the revived black hole as an "X-ray nova" — a sudden increase in star luminosity — coming from a binary system in the constellation Cygnus. The burst was first caught by NASA's Swift satellite, and then by a Japanese experiment on the International Space Station, called Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI).

Genome study reveals how the woolly mammoth thrived in the cold

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Woolly mammoths spent their lives enduring extreme Arctic conditions including frigid temperatures, an arid environment and the relentless cycle of dark winters and bright summers. An exhaustive genetic analysis of these bygone Ice Age giants and their living cousins, Asian and African elephants, has revealed a slew of genetic adaptations that enabled woolly mammoths to thrive for eons in such adverse circumstances. The study, published on Thursday in the journal Cell Reports, compared the genomes of two mammoths whose remains were found in permafrost in northeastern Siberia, one 18,500 years old and the other 60,000 years old, with genomes of three Asian elephants and one African elephant.

Air Force says rocket accident won't bump SpaceX from competition

By Irene Klotz and Andrea Shalal CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - SpaceX can compete to launch a U.S. Global Positioning System satellite despite a Falcon 9 rocket accident this weekend, the Air Force said on Wednesday. "SpaceX remains certified and can compete for the upcoming GPS III launch service," Lt. General Samuel Greaves, who heads the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center, wrote in an email to Reuters. The Air Force plans to release a solicitation for launch service proposals this month, the first time SpaceX, which is owned and operated by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, will be eligible to compete against United Launch Alliance (ULA).

Solar-powered plane breaks solo flight record across Pacific to Hawaii

By Suzanne Roig HONOLULU (Reuters) - A Swiss man attempting to circumnavigate the globe with an aircraft powered only by the sun's energy has broken a world record for the longest non-stop solo flight, the pilots said on Thursday. The Solar Impulse, which took off from Japan on Monday on the seventh leg of its journey and is expected to land in Hawaii by the weekend, shattered the solo-flight record threshold of 76 hours while crossing the Pacific.. The aircraft, piloted by Swiss explorers Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, set off on its 22,000-mile (35,000-km) journey around the world from Abu Dhabi on March 9. "Can you imagine that a solar powered airplane without fuel can now fly longer than a jet plane!" said Piccard.

Russian Cargo Spacecraft Launches Toward Space Station

It looks like a robotic cargo ship will actually make it to the International Space Station this time.

Solar-powered plane breaks solo flight record across Pacific to Hawaii

By Suzanne Roig HONOLULU (Reuters) - A Swiss man attempting to circumnavigate the globe with an aircraft powered only by the sun's energy has broken a world record for the longest non-stop solo flight, the project team said on Thursday. The Solar Impulse, which took off from Japan on Monday on the seventh leg of its journey and is expected to land in Hawaii early on Friday, shattered the solo-flight record threshold of 76 hours while crossing the Pacific.. The aircraft, piloted alternatively by Swiss explorers Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard, set off on its 22,000-mile (35,000-km) journey around the world from Abu Dhabi on March 9. "Can you imagine that a solar powered airplane without fuel can now fly longer than a jet plane!" said Piccard in a statement.

Russian cargo ship heads to space station, breaking string of failures

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - A Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off on Friday to deliver a cargo ship loaded with food, water and equipment to the International Space Station, breaking a string of launch failures, a NASA TV broadcast showed. The Progress capsule, carrying more than three tons (2,700 kg) of supplies, was expected to reach the orbiting outpost on Sunday following launch at 12:55 a.m. EDT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. "All of the systems on the Progress (are) in excellent shape," said NASA launch commentator Rob Navias.

7 Shark Attacks in 3 Weeks: Are North Carolina Beaches Safe?

Fourth of July weekend is a popular time to hit the beach, but this year, vacationers may not be the only ones swarming the waters off North Carolina. In the past three weeks, there have been seven shark attacks along the state's coast, which may leave some beachgoers wondering if it's time to get out of the water. "A shark attack is an equation of shark plus human equals attack, and we can't really deal with the shark part that well, so we have to deal with the human part," said George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida's Florida Museum of Natural History.

Seabirds Smell Their Way Home

By assessing bird flight patterns, a team of scientists has found evidence supporting the idea that seabirds navigate using smell. This is the "first direct evidence that seabirds use odor maps to navigate over vast expanses of visually featureless oceans to locate preferred grounds, and then to return home and pinpoint their breeding colony," said Andrew Reynolds, lead author of the new study detailing the findings. Reynolds is a research scientist in the Department of Computational and Systems Biology at Rothamsted Research, an agricultural research center in the United Kingdom.

Scientists convinced European heat waves boosted by climate change

By Laurie Goering LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - As Germany and Spain sweated and London sweltered through its hottest July day on record this week, scientists said it is "virtually certain" that climate change is increasing the likelihood of such heat waves in Europe. In real-time data analysis released on Friday, a team of international climate scientists from universities, meteorological services and research organizations said the kind of heat waves hitting Europe this week – defined as three-day periods of excessive heat – are becoming much more frequent in the region. In De Bilt in the Netherlands, for example, a heat wave like the one forecast for the next few days would have been a roughly 1-in-30-years event in the 1900s, according to the scientists.

Is Technology Destroying Empathy? (Op-Ed)

Empathy — the ability to share someone else's feelings — is perhaps the most important trait humans demonstrate. I wrote the science fiction novel "(R)EVOLUTION" (47North, June 2015) in part to examine what it would be like for a person whose brain has been technologically enhanced for empathy to the point that even the emotions and physical sensations his most deadly enemies would be felt. While that was fun (and dramatic!) to imagine, it's only a small part of the empathy story.

Kepler Planet-Hunting Visionary Retires After 53 Years at NASA

The driving force behind NASA's prolific planet-hunting Kepler mission is retiring, ending a 53-year career with the space agency. Bill Borucki came up with the idea for the Kepler observatory in the early 1980s and continued championing the concept through four failed proposals until the mission was finally approved in 2000. "Bill's unique leadership, vision and research tenacity has and will continue to inspire scientists around the world," former astronaut John Grunsfeld, head of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement.

NASA Astronaut Hopes to See Fourth of July Fireworks from Space

Orbiting NASA astronaut Scott Kelly doesn't have any special plans for the Fourth of July, though he will try to catch a glimpse of the fireworks displays down on Earth. "Hopefully the timing will be right, and I'll be able to look down and see little specks of light over the United States on the evening of the Fourth of July," Kelly said Thursday (July 2) during a video interview with NASA spokesman Dan Huot of Johnson Space Center in Houston. Kelly currently lives aboard the $100 billion orbiting outpost along with Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Gennady Padalka.

Awake Again: Is It Insomnia or Just Segmented Sleep? (Op-Ed)

Sleep is perhaps the most mysterious of all human activities. Soldiers, shift workers, medical residents, flight attendants, pilots and most parents of small children suffer from insufficient sleep. You need just as much sleep, but it's harder to get it in one stretch.

7 Famous Fourths: How Independence Day Has Transformed

Americans celebrated the first July Fourth in 1777, a year after declaring independence from England. The festivities have varied in the years since then, but several mainstays have emerged (parades and fireworks) while other patriotic pastimes (drunken toasts made by menfolk) have gone out of style. Philadelphia held one of the largest Independence Day festivities for the country's first Fourth.

Climate Change Sparks Turbulence in Aviation Industry (Op-Ed)

Dan Upham, writer and editor at Environmental Defense Fund contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. This summer, some 222 million Americans will take to the skies, according to industry trade group Airlines for America — a record high, to say nothing of how many packets of peanuts that represents. In June, a proposed "endangerment finding" by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) noted that carbon pollution from airplanes creates risks to the public's health and welfare.

Beam Me Up, Scotty: Technobabble's Role in the Arts (Op-Ed)

Peter Clines has published short fiction and articles on the film and television industries and is author of the new novel "The Fold"(Crown Publishing, 2015). I'm not sure, but I think it was watching "The Amazing Colossal Man" on Creature Double Feature as a kid that gave me my first, foul-tasting dose of technobabble. The doctors were trying to tell Glenn Manning's wife why his uncontrolled growth was causing him so much pain.

Solar-powered plane lands in Hawaii, pilot sets nonstop record

(Reuters) - A Swiss man attempting to circumnavigate the globe with an aircraft powered only by the sun's energy landed in Hawaii on Friday, after a record-breaking five-day nonstop solo flight across the Pacific Ocean from Japan. The Solar Impulse 2 is the first aircraft to fly day and night without any fuel. Pilot Andre Borschberg's 120-hour voyage shattered the 76-hour record for nonstop flight by late American adventurer Steve Fossett in 2006 on the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer.

First US Measles Death in 12 Years: How Was It Missed?

A woman in Washington state is the first person to die of measles in the United States in a dozen years, authorities said today. The woman appears to have caught measles when she stayed at local medical facility. It's not clear exactly why doctors failed to catch her measles diagnosis until after her death, but the woman's compromised immune system may have played a role, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease specialist and a senior associate at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Center for Health Security.

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