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Mars Base

Cloned Horses Coming to the Olympics? - 0 views

news.nationalgeographic.com/...ondon-olympics-2012-equestrian

scibyte58 horse Olympics

shared by Mars Base on 04 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • July 2012 the Féderation Equestre Internationale (FEI) lifted a ban on cloned horses and their progeny competing in the Olympic Games
  • cloning isn't easy, it isn't cheap, and there are no guarantees that the clone will match the talent of the original
  • cloning process can cost more than a hundred thousand U.S. dollars.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • first successfully cloned horse
  • was born in 2003
  • Today, there are only a few hundred equine clones, created mainly for breeding
  • a top stallion for in vitro fertilization can go for tens of thousands of dollars
  • most male horses in high-level competitions are geldings
  • a mare can bear only so many foals
  • most common use for cloned horses is to perpetuate genetic material. The original horse can travel and compete, while its copy becomes a full-time foal-making machine
  • 2007 the FEI's general assembly decided that cloning was "potentially against the spirit of sport in that it was unfair
  • key factor in the decision was the high price of cloning, which has since come
  • federation determined that the clones were only 98 percent copies of the originals
  • the error margin of a full 2 percent was what ultimately caused the FEI to overturn the ban
  • widely agreed that environment, training, nutrition, and relationship with the rider have an incalculable impact on the horse's performance
  • American Quarter Horse Association won't allow clones
  • Neither will the Jockey Club, which registers thoroughbreds in North America
  • FEI has been careful to emphasize that cloning is a breeding technique only
  • only 300-odd horses competing in the Olympics, clones have to battle their way to the top just as traditionally bred horses do.
Mars Base

Cheetah Breaks Speed Record-Beats Usain Bolt by Seconds - 0 views

news.nationalgeographic.com/...rd-science-usain-bolt-olympics

scibyte58 cheetahs

shared by Mars Base on 04 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Sarah the cheetah has shattered the world record for the standing 100-meter dash, clocking a time of 5.95 seconds—making Olympian Usain Bolt's world record of 9.58 seconds look positively stodgy by comparison
  • USA Track & Field-certified course established by the Cincinnati Zoo, the 11-year-old cheetah was radar-timed at up to 61 miles (98 kilometers) an hour
  • National Geographic magazine
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • featured in its November issue, which will include unprecedented high-speed pictures
  • June 20 sprint is the fastest timed 100 meters ever run by anything on the planet
  • five cheetahs each completed several sprints a day
  • bolting out of the back of one of the zoo's vans and chasing fluffy toy dogs as they were pulled across a meadow on a high-speed cord.
  • used to long sprints, regularly running for zoo crowds
  • not only good for the individual cats, who get much-needed exercise, but good for the species as well:
  • zoo's track-star cheetahs have helped raise over a million U.S. dollars for conservation
  • almost certain that cheetahs in the wild—lean, hungry, chasing down antelopes for their own survival or that of their cubs—have run considerably faster.
Mars Base

Summer Olympics: 2020 | Popular Science - 0 views

www.popsci.com/...look-summer-olympics-2020

scibyte58 Olympics

shared by Mars Base on 05 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • HOLOGRAPHIC OBSTACLES
  • 100 riders are injured in eventing falls every year, and when a multimillion-dollar horse goes down, even a minor injury like a twisted ankle can end its career
  • Line-of-sight infrared beams could monitor the edges of the obstacles; if the horse breaks the beam, the system would instantly alert the judges—and the crowd—to the fault
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • SMART LANDING PADS
  • Scoring the exact length of a long or triple jump can be imprecise and time-consuming
  • land in a sand pit
  • Researchers at Arizona State University have developed a 2,016-pressure-sensor array to map where an athlete hits the ground
  • underneath the sand in the landing pit, a dozen or so of the mats could record the exact point of touchdown
  • computer could automatically calculate the length of the jump
  • HEAD-UP GOGGLES
  • Swimmers
  • with an integrated head-up display could broadcast a live view of the competition and help racers to better pace themselves
  • AUTOMATIC GOAL KEEPER
  • German research
  • has developed an automated goal-tracking system
  • Actuators around the net generate a magnetic field across the face of the goal. When the ball passes through that field, a chip embedded in the ball sends a signal to the ref’s watch within one tenth of a second.
  • RETRACTABLE DIVING BOARD
  • On a good day, a diver’s head misses the board by a couple of inches
  • famously, Greg Louganis in the 1988 Olympics.
  • In the one second a typical diver is airborne above the plane of the board, it could retract as much as three feet
Mars Base

NASA's Morpheus lander in fiery crash at Cape Canaveral | Reuters - 0 views

in.reuters.com/...accident-idINBRE8781A220120810

scibyte58 Morpheus

shared by Mars Base on 10 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • The insect-like vehicle, designed and built by engineers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, had made several flights attached to a crane before Thursday's attempted free-flight
  • Morpheus' engines, which burn liquid oxygen and methane, appeared to ignite as planned, lifting the 1,750-pound (794 kg) vehicle into the air. But a few seconds later, Morpheus rolled over on its side and plummeted to the ground.
  • An investigation is under way
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • an example of what the former project manager called "“Home Depot engineering" - low-budget projects that use existing resources and partner with non-traditional aerospace companies.
  • Instead of building some elaborate test structure, you go to Home Depot and build something very quickly that gets you 80 percent of the answer and allows you to keep moving forward
  • designed to deliver about 1,100 pounds (500 kg) of cargo to the moon
Mars Base

ScienceShot: New Species Discovered, Thanks to Flickr - ScienceNOW - 0 views

news.sciencemag.org/...shot-new-species-discover.html

scibyte58 species

shared by Mars Base on 10 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Researchers recently spotted a previously unknown species of lacewing while randomly flipping through images posted on the online database Flickr
  • The images of the new lacewing, which has a 30-millimeter wingspan, were taken in a forested park north of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, by an amateur photographer and then posted online
  • entomologist randomly viewing the images
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • suspected the creature was an undescribed species
  • the photographer had released the insect after taking its picture, so researchers had to wait until the shutterbug revisited the area and collected a specimen before they could officially write up their discovery
Mars Base

areo.info: PanCam true color images from Spirit and Opportunity Mars Exploration Rovers - 1 views

areo.info/mer

scibyte58 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 09 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Every Martian day (Sol) new raw images are downloaded
  • raw images are black & white images, each taken through a colored glass (filter) by the Panoramic Camera on the Rover
  • using 3 filters, each one only letting pass red, green and blue light, a true color image can be created
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • in principle the same as every common photo or video camera creates color images
  • Rover Panoramic Camera differs from normal digital cameras by having filters with smaller bandwidth resulting in images with appear as having too much color saturation. To counteract this effect a special but simple processing
  • combining the black & white images from two filters a visual effect is created as the image would have been taken through one filter with wider bandwidth
  • is a good approximation to
  • Rover Panoramic Camera contains more than only red, green and blue filters there are more combinations available to create color images
  • images created with these additional filters (L2, L3 and L7) show slightly different colorizations as L2 and L3 pass only light of near infrared wavelengths and L7 pass only violet light
  • MER2RGB-process described above the overall colors approximate true colors sufficiently. That means, the soil looks still "Earth-like" and the sky is still blue to white.
  • How precise the true colors are reproduced
  • a 100% precise reproduction is not possible as the human visual system can only be approximated by technical devices
  • some scientist claim, that it is impossible to recreate the Martian colors
  • on Mars the same Sun is shining as on Earth with just reduced intensity by 40% and the same optical and physical laws are valid
  • Color is not always 100% correct, but the general colorization is represented so we can get the impression how it would look like on that location when viewing it with our own eyes
  • controversy about
  • colorization since the first color image was taken by the Viking Lander in 1976
  • color calibration problem seems to be unsolvable
  • from Spirit and Opportuniy Mars Exploration Rover
Mars Base

Voyager 1 Spacecraft Nearing Solar System's Edge | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/yager-1-solar-system-edge.html

scibyte58 Voyager1

shared by Mars Base on 08 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Researchers are eyeing three key parameters for signs that Voyager 1, which launched in 1977, has escaped into interstellar space
  • two of these three parameters are now changing faster than at any other time in the last seven years
  • a single day (July 28), the probe measured a 5-percent jump in the level of high-energy cosmic rays coming from outside our solar system, researchers
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The last 5-percent increase Voyager 1 observed took place over a full week in May
  • Three days later, however, both measurements had returned to near their previous levels
Mars Base

NASA - Signs Changing Fast for Voyager at Solar System Edge - 0 views

www.nasa.gov/...voyager20120803.html

scibyte58 Voyager1

shared by Mars Base on 08 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • third key sign is the direction of the magnetic field, and scientists are eagerly analyzing the data to see whether that has, indeed, changed direction
  • Scientists expect that all three of these signs will have changed when Voyager 1 has crossed into interstellar space
  • preliminary analysis of the latest magnetic field data is expected to be available in the next month
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The increase and the decrease are sharper than we've seen before, but that's also what we said about the May data
  • Voyager 1, which launched on Sept. 5, 1977, is 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from the sun. Voyager 2, which launched on Aug. 20, 1977, is close behind, at 9.3 billion miles (15 billion kilometers) from the sun.
Mars Base

Moon Lander Project to Continue Despite Crash | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/pheus-lander-crash-future.html

scibyte58 Morpheus

shared by Mars Base on 13 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • NASA engineers are forging ahead on work
  • that's part of development, especially lean development
  • also testing out automated hazard-detection technology, which would use lasers to spot dangerous boulders or craters on the surface of another world
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • lander that crashed Thursday is apparently a lost cause. But
  • already begun work on another vehicle, which could be ready for its first tests by early 2013
  • second lander will not pick up where the first left off
  • It would have to work up to a free-flight test, going through a series of tethered flights first
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