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ProVision, made by defense contractor L-3 Communications, a passenger enters a chamber that looks like a round phone booth and is scanned with millimeter waves, a form of low-energy radio waves, which have not been shown to strip electrons from atoms or cause cancer.

Some scientists argue the danger is exaggerated. They claim low levels stimulate the repair mechanism in cells, meaning that a little radiation might actually be good for the body.

But in the authoritative report on low doses of ionizing radiation, published in 2006, the National Academy of Sciences reviewed the research and concluded that the preponderance of research supported the linear link. It found “no compelling evidence” that there is any level of radiation at which the risk of cancer is zero.

Rebecca Smith-Bindman, a radiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, estimated that the backscatters would lead to only six cancers over the course of a lifetime among the approximately 100 million people who fly every year. David Brenner, director of Columbia University’s Center for Radiological Research, reached a higher number — potentially 100 additional cancers every year.

But in 1982, the FDA merged the radiological health bureau into its medical-device unit. “I was concerned that if they were to combine the two centers into one, it would probably mean the ending of the radiation program because the demands for medical-device regulation were becoming increasingly great,” said Villforth, who was put in charge of the new Center for Devices and Radiological Health. “As I sort of guessed, the radiation program took a big hit.”

As a result, there is an FDA safety regulation for X-rays scanning baggage — but none for X-rays scanning people at airports.

The U.S. Customs Service deployed backscatter machines for several years but in limited fashion and with strict supervision. Travelers suspected of carrying contraband had to sign a consent form, and Customs policy prohibited the scanning of pregnant women.

“Establishing a mandatory standard takes an enormous amount of resources and could take a decade to publish,” said Dan Kassiday, a longtime radiation safety engineer at the FDA.

Federal Aviation Administration’s medical institute has advised pregnant pilots and flight attendants that the machine, coupled with their time in the air, could put them over their occupational limit for radiation exposure

It was made up of 15 people, including six representatives of manufacturers of X-ray body scanners and five from U.S. Customs and the California prison system. There were few government regulators and no independent scientists.

The FDA delegated the task of establishing the voluntary standards to the American National Standards Institute.

In July, a federal appeals court ruled that the agency failed to follow rule-making procedures and solicit public comment before installing body scanners at airports across the country

and before 9/11, many states also had the authority to randomly inspect machines in airports. But that ended when the TSA took over security checkpoints from the airlines.

Last year, in reaction to public anger from members of Congress, passengers and advocates, the TSA contracted with the Army Public Health Command to do independent radiation surveys. But email messages obtained in a lawsuit brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a civil liberties group, raise questions about the independence of the Army surveys.

One email sent by TSA health and safety director Jill Segraves shows that local TSA officials were given advance notice and allowed to “pick and choose” which systems the Army could check.

The TSA considered the scanners again after two Chechen women blew up Russian airliners in

Facing a continued outcry over privacy, the TSA instead moved forward with a machine known as a “puffer” because it released several bursts of air on the passengers’ clothes and analyzed the dislodged particles for explosives. But after discovering the machines were ineffective in the field and difficult to maintain, the TSA canceled the program in 2006.

Around that time, Rapiscan began to beef up its lobbying on Capitol Hill. It opened a Washington, D.C., office and, according to required disclosures, more than tripled its lobbying expenditures in two years, from less than $130,000 in 2006 to nearly $420,000 in 2008. It hired former legislative aides to Rep. David Price, D-N.C., then chairman of the homeland security appropriations subcommittee, and to Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss.

In addition, it opened a new North Carolina plant in Price’s district and expanded its operations in Ocean Springs, Miss., and at its headquarters in Torrance, Calif., in Harman’s district.

in 2007, with new privacy filters in place, the TSA began a trial of millimeter-wave and backscatter machines at several major airports, after which the agency opted to go with the millimeter-wave machines. The agency said health concerns weren’t a factor.

that it would draw up draft guidelines to allow fertility clinics to offer the technique

The proposed guidelines would be released for public comment later this year, and Parliament could vote on a final version next year

Mitochondria are the cell's power generators, and they carry their own DNA, called mtDNA

Mutations in those genes cause mitochondrial diseases, which can affect various organs, including the heart, liver, eyes, and brain

Such diseases are passed from mother to child, because the egg provides most of an embryo's mtDNA

The techniques

transfer the nuclear DNA from the sperm and egg of the potential parents into a second egg, provided by a donor who has healthy mitochondria, from which the nuclear DNA has been removed

The technique is still under development and isn't yet considered ready to try in humans

Musk met last week with Texas Gov. Rick Perry to discuss locating a launchpad at the southernmost tip of the Lone Star State.

SpaceX has not disclosed what incentives it has been offered or the timing of its decision

Musk recently indicated that Texas might have the inside track

Florida officials acknowledge the competition is keen. They're hoping to leverage the fact that SpaceX already has one launchpad at Cape Canaveral

SpaceX officials said the one Florida pad isn't enough to handle both its government work and flights for commercial customers

d a deal with Intelsat, a major satellite operator, for a future launch aboard a massive new rocket that is still under developmen

manifest already shows more than a half-dozen commercial flights through 2014 in which SpaceX will carry satellites to orbit.

Florida officials also note they have a track record of helping the company. Space Florida, the state's aerospace booster, has invested more than $8.5 million so far to help establish the company at Cape Canaveral.

Florida faces one obstacle that has no immediate solution. The Air Force and NASA already use Cape Canaveral for launches - of government satellites and space probes - and SpaceX at times could be forced to wait its turn until the range is clear.

autonomous as possible, having

Puerto Rican officials are making geography a core argument in their pitch.

Puerto Rico is closer to the equator than Cape Canaveral or Brownsville, which means SpaceX rockets would use less fuel (and thus cost less to launch to orbit) because rockets get more of a "boost" from Earth's rotation near the equator.

US embassy air quality Twitter feed gained a major following in Beijing, and later in Shanghai when it was introduced at the US consulate there

Beijing announced earlier this year it would change the way it measured air quality to include the smaller particles experts say make up much of the pollution in Chinese cities, after a vocal campaign

publishing of China's air quality are related to the public interests and as such are powers reserved for the government

vice minister of environment protection

did not name the US, but called on embassies to abide by China's laws

China's air quality is among the worst in the world

According to the latest Environmental Performance Index compiled by Yale University, China ranked 128th out of 132 countries for air quality.

Most Chinese cities base their air-quality information on particles of 10 micrometres or larger

China seeks to control the sources of particulates, such as coal burning and auto emissions

The abnormality occurred due to the “complicated lunar surface environment,” said the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence

took place just prior to the beginning of the 2nd lunar night and

‘dormancy’ for both ‘Jade Rabbit’ and the Chang’e-3

Based on unofficial accounts, it appears that one of the solar panels did not fold back properly over Yutu’s mast after it was lowered to the required horizontal position into a warmed box to shield and protect it from the extremely frigid lunar night time temperatures

could potentially spell doom for the mast mounted instruments and electronic systems, including the color and navigation cameras and the high gain antenna, if true

each Lunar night also lasts approximately 14 Earth days

there is no communication possible during sleep mode, no one will know until the resumption of daylight some two weeks from now – around Feb. 8 to 9.

can include a brief dip in air pressure, a change in wind direction, a change in wind speed, a rise in air temperature or a dip in ultraviolet light reaching the rover

Two of the events included all five characteristics.

dust-devil tracks and shadows have been seen from orbit, but those visual clues have not been seen in Gale Crater

possibility is that vortex whirlwinds arise at Gale without lifting as much dust as they do elsewhere

The rover is just north of a mountain called Mount Sharp

air movement up and down the mountain's slope governed wind direction, dominant winds generally would be north-south

east-west winds appear to predominate. The rim of Gale Crater may be a factor

If we don't see a change in wind patterns as Curiosity heads up the slope of Mount Sharp—that would be a surprise."

may be seeing more of the wind blowing along the depression in between the two slopes, rather than up and down the slope of Mount Sharp

The atmosphere provides a level of shielding, and so charged-particle radiation is less when the atmosphere is thicker. Overall, Mars' atmosphere reduces the radiation dose compared to what we saw during the flight to Mars

Europa recently hit the headlines after planetary scientists

uncovered the presence of magnesium sulfate salt — a.k.a. Epsom salt — on Europa’s surface

the presence of magnesium sulfate is suggestive of a cycling of Europa’s salty ocean with the surface.

Although this is good news, it’s also a reminder that potentially habitable moons don’t only orbit Jupiter

Enceladus

the Saturnian moon

is known to possess salty liquid water beneath its surface, plus an internal heat source, that generates Enceladus’ famous geysers

Maya leader Gomez urged the Tourism Institute to rethink the doomsday celebration, which he criticized as a "show" that was disrespectful to Mayan culture.

Oxlajuj Ajpop is holding events it considers sacred in five cities to mark the event and Gomez said the Culture Ministry would be wise to throw its support behind their real celebrations

The Mayan calendar has

18 months of 20 days each plus a sacred month, "Wayeb," of five days

B'aktun" is the larget unit in the time cycle system, and is about 400 years

broader era spans 13 B'aktun, or about 5,200 years.

be used to explore how images were "built" by the brain and eye.

Feedback from the device will be fed into a "vision processor" allowing doctors to determine exactly what Ashworth sees when her retina is subjected to various levels of stimulation

team is working towards a "wide-view" 98-electrode device that will provide users with the ability to perceive large objects such as buildings and cars, and a "high-acuity" 1,024-electrode device

high-acuity device are expected to be able to recognise faces and read large print

Every time there was stimulation there was a different shape that appeared

switched on the device in their laboratory last month after Ashworth had fully recovered from surgery

Ceres is classified as a dwarf planet, a solar system body bigger than an asteroid and smaller than a planet.

"This is the first time water vapor has been unequivocally detected on Ceres or any other object in the asteroid belt and provides proof that Ceres has an icy surface and an atmosphere,"

Michael Küppers of ESA in Spain

NASA's Dawn mission, which is on its way to Ceres now after spending more than a year orbiting the large asteroid Vesta

Dawn is scheduled to arrive at Ceres in the spring of 2015, where it will take the closest look ever at its surface.

will map the geology and chemistry of the surface in high resolution

International Astronomical Union, the governing organization responsible for naming planetary objects

Ceres was known as the largest asteroid in our solar system

reclassified Ceres as a dwarf planet because of its large size. It is roughly 590 miles (950 kilometers) in diameter

When it first was spotted in 1801, astronomers thought it was a planet orbiting between Mars and Jupiter

Scientists believe Ceres contains rock in its interior with a thick mantle of ice that, if melted, would amount to more fresh water than is present on all of Earth

The materials making up Ceres likely date from the first few million years of our solar system's existence and accumulated before the planets formed.

Until now, ice had been theorized to exist on Ceres but had not been detected conclusively

far-infrared vision to see, finally, a clear spectral signature of the water vapor. But

did not see water vapor every time it looked

spied water vapor four different times, on one occasion there was no signature.

what scientists think is happening

when Ceres swings through the part of its orbit that is closer to the sun, a portion of its icy surface becomes warm enough to cause water vapor to escape in plumes

a rate of about 6 kilograms (13 pounds) per second

When Ceres is in the colder part of its orbit, no water escapes

The strength of the signal also varied over hours, weeks and months

water vapor plumes rotating in and out of Herschel's views as the object spun on its axis

This enabled the scientists to localize the source of water to two darker spots on the surface of Ceres

previously seen by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes. The dark spots might be more likely to outgas because dark material warms faster than light material.

"The lines are becoming more and more blurred between comets and asteroids," said Seungwon Lee of JPL

Paul von Allmen, also of JPL. "We knew before about main belt asteroids that show comet-like activity, but this is the first detection of water vapor in an asteroid-like object."

Each lunar day and night lasts for alternating periods of 14 Earth days

During each long night, the Moon’s temperatures plunge dramatically to below minus 180 Celsius, or minus 292 degrees Fahrenheit

The 140 kg Yutu robot is located some 100 m south of the lander.

February 13

(Feb. 12) amateur radio operators at UHF-satcom reported detection of a signal from Yutu.

In 240 BC, Eratosthenes, a Greek astronomer and mathematician, estimated the circumference of the earth. As the director of the great library of Alexandria, he read in a papyrus book that in Syene, approaching noon on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, shadows of temple columns grew shorter. At noon, they were gone. The sun was directly overhead. However, a stick in Alexandria, far to the north, could cast a pronounced shadow. Thus, he realized that the surface of the Earth could not be flat. It must be curved. Not only that, but the greater the curvature, the greater the difference in the shadow lengths. By measurement on the ground and application of geometry, he calculated the circumference of the earth.

This Cisco Systems router at CERN was probably one of the first IP routers deployed in Europe

Soon after the laboratory's establishment, its work went beyond the study of the atomic nucleus into higher-energy physics

In September 2032, the European spacecraft will arrive at Ganymede, becoming the first probe to enter orbit around the moon of another planet

Equipped with radar, a mapping camera and other instruments, JUICE will measure the thickness of global ice sheets covering Jupiter's moons and produce terrain and mineral maps of Ganymede

Russia's plan is to implement a Ganymede Lander

Russian mission planners initially proposed the lander to target Europa, another of Jupiter's moons with a frozen crust thinner than the ice cap covering Ganymede

After a NASA mission to orbit Europa never materialized, Russia retooled the project to focus on Ganymede, falling in line with the goals of Europe's Jupiter mission

advantages of landing on Ganymede as opposed to Europa

The radiation environment at Ganymede is less severe than at Europa, which lies closer to Jupiter

this is one of the reasons ESA picked Ganymede as the destination for JUICE

Russian scientists say mapping and reconnaissance of Ganymede are required before any attempted landing

If Russia becomes a full partner in Europe's JUICE mission, the development of the lander will need to be accelerated to launch in 2022, if managers want the Russian craft to ride to Jupiter as a piggyback payload.