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Mars Base

Jeff Bezos Plans to Recover Apollo 11 Rocket Engines From Ocean Floor | Wired Science |... - 0 views

www.wired.com/...jeff-bezos-apollo-11-engines

scibyte40 apollo

shared by Mars Base on 28 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Billionaire Jeff Bezos announced plans to recover from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean at least one of the F-1 engines that carried the Apollo 11 rocket into space
  • If one engine is raised, he imagines the agency would make it available to the public at the Smithsonian museum in Washington, D.C
  • Should he recover more than one, he has asked NASA to consider making the second one available at the Museum of Flight in Seattle
Mars Base

Giant Feathered Tyrannosaur Found in China | Wired Science | Wired.com - 0 views

www.wired.com/...yutyrannus-huali-feathers

scibyte41 dinosaur

shared by Mars Base on 05 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • Artist's impression of Yutyrannus and the smaller Beipiaosaurus. Image: Brian Choo
  • covered from head to tail in downy feathers.
  • 30 feet long and weighing 3,000 pounds, Y. huali wasn’t so large as T. rex,
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • found in the Yixian Formation, a fossil deposit in northeastern China that over the last two decades has yielded dozens of dinosaur skeletons so finely preserved that it’s possible to discern feather-like structures.
  • early feathered members of the tyrannosaur family have been found, they were very smal
  • If the primary purpose of feathers was insulation, a possibility suggested by the feathers’ down-like shape, then larger tyrannosaurs might not have needed them. Thanks to small surface-to-volume body ratios, large-bodied animals tend to maintain heat easily.
  • didn’t know whether these larger-bodied forms would show as many.”
  • significance of Y. huali is its body size and the apparent density of feather-like structures
  • Yutyrannus skull. Image: Zang Hailong
  • What were tyrannosaur feathers used for? Might the king of dinosaurs have strutted like a peacock?
  • At this point we don’t have any data on the coloration of the plumage
Mars Base

Spandex manufacturer makes elastic electrical cable (w/ video) - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...ic-electrical-cable-video.html

scibyte24

shared by Mars Base on 03 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • Japanese company Asahi Kasei Fibers
  • has applied its knowledge of stretchable materials to make stretchable elastic power and USB cables
  • originally designed the elastic cable material, called Roboden, for wiring the soft, flexible skin of humanoid robots
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • human skin can stretch by a factor of 1.5
  • the wiring can stretch with the robots’ movements, such as twisting and turning, without losing its ability to transfer power and data.
  • the elastic cables could prove useful for minimizing cord clutter in homes and offices
  • made of an outer elastic shell with spiraled internal wiring that unspirals when pulled
  • Another application of the elastic cables could be wearable electronics - possibly for health-monitoring materials, wearable solar panels, and futuristic electronic clothing fashions
Mars Base

How One Faulty Nitrogen-Purge Valve Forced SpaceX to Abort | Autopia | Wired.com - 0 views

www.wired.com/...cex-nitrogen-purge-valve-abort

scibyte47 SpaceX PrivateSpaceTravel iss

shared by Mars Base on 22 May 12 - No Cached
  • SpaceX engineers were able to trace the high-pressure problem to a valve that controls the flow of nitrogen used to purge the engine before ignition
  • check valve that allows the nitrogen purge prior to ignition in the Merlin engine was stuck open just before launch
  • stuck valve allowed “liquid oxygen to flow from the main injector [for the rocket engine itself] into the gas generator injector
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • stuck valve meant the liquid oxygen flowed into the gas generator injector, which led to the high pressure in engine five’s combustion chamber. The high pressure caused the flight computer to shutdown the engines, aborting the launch
  • the Falcon 9 may have been okay even if it had launched with the high pressure
Chris Fisher

Trillion FPS Camera Captures Advancing Light Waves - 0 views

www.wired.com/...captures-advancing-light-waves

scibyte light wired waves camera fps

shared by Chris Fisher on 13 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • MIT’s new camera will shoot one trillion frames per second.
  • One trillion seconds is over 31,688 years
  • played it back at 30fps, it’d still take you over 1,000 years to watch it.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • use “femtosecond laser illumination, picosecond-accurate detectors and mathematical reconstruction techniques” to illuminate a scene and then capture the pulses of laser light.
  • The movies are 480 frames long, and show a slice in time of just 1.71 picoseconds.
  • The result is a movie of an advancing wave of light.
Mars Base

Soft autonomous robot inches along like an earthworm (w/ Video) - 0 views

phys.org/...us-robot-inches-earthworm.html

robot GrabBag

shared by Mars Base on 11 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • made almost entirely of soft materials, is remarkably resilient: Even when stepped upon or bludgeoned with a hammer, the robot is able to inch away
  • Earthworms creep along the ground by alternately squeezing and stretching muscles along the length of their bodies, inching forward with each wave of contractions
  • robot is named "Meshworm" for the flexible, meshlike tube that makes up its body
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • created "artificial muscle" from wire made of nickel and titanium — a shape-memory alloy that stretches and contracts with heat
  • the wire around the tube
  • creating segments along its length, much like the segments of an earthworm
  • the group subjected the robot to multiple blows with a hammer, even stepping on the robot to check its durability. Despite the violent impacts, the robot survived
Mars Base

Invention Awards 2014: Charge Gadgets With Your Footsteps | Popular Science - 0 views

www.popsci.com/...-charge-gadgets-your-footsteps

scibyte129

shared by Mars Base on 04 May 14 - No Cached
  • of a hiker’s heel releases enough energy to illuminate a light bulb
  • Matt Stanton, an engineer and avid backpacker, created a shoe insole that stores it as electricity
  • Instead of using piezoelectric and other inefficient, bulky methods of generating electricity, the pair shrunk down components similar to those found in hand-cranked flashlights.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The result is a near standard–size removable insole that weighs less than five ounces, including a battery pack, and charges electronics via USB.
  • current version, to be released later this year, requires a lengthy 15-mile walk to charge a smartphone.
  • the company is working toward a design that can charge an iPhone after less than five miles of hiking and withstand about 100 million footsteps of wear and tear. 
  • How It Works
  • 1) A drivetrain converts the energy of heel strikes into rotational energy, spinning magnetic rotors
  • 2) The motion of the rotors induces an electrical current within coils of wire
  • 3) Electricity travels along a wire and into a lithium-ion polymer battery pack on a wearer’s shoelaces.
Mars Base

EyeWire gamers help researchers understand retina's motion detection wiring - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...mers-retina-motion-wiring.html

scibyte130 eyes

shared by Mars Base on 06 May 14 - No Cached
  • A team of researchers working at MIT has used data supplied by gamers on EyeWire to help explain how it is that the retina is able to process motion detection
  • the team describes how they worked with gamers at EyeWire and then used the resulting mapped neural networks to propose a new theory to describe how it is the eye is able to understand what happens when something moves in front of it.
  • Scientists have known for quite some time that light enters the eye and strikes the back of the eyeball where photoreceptors respond
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • Those photoreceptors send information they receive to another type of neural cell known as bipolar cells
  • they in turn convert received signals to another signal format which is then sent to what are known as starburst amacrine cells (SACs)
  • Signals from the SAC are sent via the optic nerve to the brain
  • scientists believe they have a pretty good idea about how the whole process works for static images, they have not been able to get a handle on what happens when images sent to the eyeball have information about things that are moving
  • In this new effort, the researchers sought to do just that—via assistance from thousands of gamers on the EyeWire game playing site
  • The problem with figuring out how nerve cells work in the eye, of either mice or humans, is the inability to watch what happens in action—everything is too tiny and intricate
  • To get around that problem, researchers have been building three dimensional models on computers
  • even that gets untenable when considering the complexity and numbers of nerves involved
  • That's where the EyeWire gamers came in, a game was created that involved gamers creating mouse neural networks—the better they were at it the more points they got
  • only the best at it were invited to play
  • The result was the creation of a model that the researchers believe is an accurate representation of the cells involved in processing vision, and the networks that are made up of them
  • the rest was up to the research team
  • They noted that in the model, there were different types of bipolar cells connecting to SACs—some connected to dendrites close to the cells center, and others connected to dendrites that were farther away
  • Prior research had shown that some bipolar cells take longer to process information than others
  • The researchers believe that the bipolar cells that connect closer to the center are of the type that take longer to process signals
  • This, they contend, could set up a scenario where the center of the SAC receives information from both types of bipolar cells at the same time—and that, they suggest, could be how the SAC comes to understand that motion—in one direction—is occurring
  • The researchers suggest their theory can be real-world tested in the lab, and expect other teams will likely do so
  • If they are right, the mystery of how our eyes detect motion will finally be solved.
Mars Base

ESTCube-1 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/ESTCube-1

scibyte86 ESTCube

shared by Mars Base on 13 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • scheduled to be launched to orbit in second half of 2013
  • Student Satellite is an educational project that university and high school students can participate in
  • The CubeSat standard for nanosatellites was followed during the engineering of ESTCube-1, resulting in a 10x10x11.35 cm cube, with a volume of 1 liter and a mass of 1.048 kg.
  • ...44 more annotations...
  • According to the CubeSat standard there are three different sized CubeSats corresponding to size 1U, 2U and 3U. Base side lengths are the same but height is 2 to 3 times bigger than 1U CubeSats
  • Mass is also set in CubeSat standard, the highest possible mass for 1U CubeSat is 1300 grams, 2U CubeSat 2600 grams and 3U CubeSat 4000 grams
  • CubeSat base side length must be 100.0±0.1 millimeters and satellite height must be 113.5±0.1 mm
  • the Estonian satellite
  • a 1U CubeSat
  • Although
  • its main purpose was to educate students, the satellite does have a scientific purpose.
  • On board of the satellite is an electric solar wind sail (e-sail) which was created by a Finnish scientist Pekka Janhunen
  • it is the first real experimentation of the e-sail
  • 10 meters of e-sail 50 to 20 micrometers thick wire of high-technology structure so-called Heytether will be deployed from the satellite.
  • The deployment of the Heytether can be detected by decrease of the satellite's speed of rotation or by a on-board camera
  • To control the loaded solar wind sail elements interaction with the plasma surrounding the earth and the effect it has on the spacecraft spinning speed the spacecraft has two on-board nanotechnologic electron emitters/gun
  • The electron emitters are connected to the e-sail element and by shooting out electrons it loads the e-sail element positively to 500 volts
  • The positive ions in the plasma push the e-sail element and have an influence on the satellites rotation speed
  • The effect of the e-sail is measured by the change in rotation speed
  • The camera is used to take a picture of Earth and the successfully deployed Heytether. [edit]
  • ESTCube-1 will be sent to orbit by the European Space Agency's rocket Vega in spring of 2013
  • Start in spring of 2013
  • Half an hour after the satellites deployment from the start capsule satellites antennas will be opened and radio transmitter and important subsystems will be switched on
  • First days or weeks will be used to test the satellite and set it to work on full capacity.
  • Orienting the satellite so the on-board camera will be faced to earth
  • trying to take a picture of Estonia
  • Rotating the satellite on an axis with a speed of 1 revolution per second
  • E-sail element deployment from the satellite by a centrifugal force and confirming the deployment via the on-board camera
  • Activating the electron emitter and loading the e-sail
  • Measuring the e-sails and Lorentz force by satellites revolutions per second
  • If possible using the negatively charged e-sail to take the satellite off orbit and burn it in the earths atmosphere
  • If everything goes perfect the mission can be completed within a few weeks to a month
  • Lifespan of the satellite
  • Measurements and weight
  • Scientific purpose
  • Communicating with the satellite
  • held by two International Amateur Radio Unions three registered frequencies
  • Periodic but very slow communication is done on a telegraphic signal on a frequency of 437.250 MHz
  • the most important satellite parameters are transmitted every 3 to 5 minutes
  • For fast connections FSK-modulation radio signal on a frequency of 437.505 MHz with a 9600 baud connection speed and AX.25 standard is used.
  • Somewhat slow connection speed is caused by the usage of amateur radio frequencies which allow a maximum of 25 kiloherz bandwidth
  • Fast connection is used only when the satellite has been given a specific
  • Using the GFSK-modulation maximum possible connection speed is 19,200 bits per second
  • Software
  • FreeRTOS on the satellite's Command and Data Handling System and camera module
  • TinyOS on the satellite's communication module
  • Financing and costs
  • Cheapest possibility to send a satellite onto orbit is offered by European Space Agency. Because Estonia is an associated member of ESA most of the launch expenses (about 70,000 euros) will be covered from Estonian member fee for educational expenses. With the launch total expenses for the project are approximately 100,000 euros.
Mars Base

Conductive paint lands in pens and pots for creatives - 0 views

phys.org/...13-05-pens-pots-creatives.html

scibyte96

shared by Mars Base on 28 May 13 - No Cached
  • The substance allows the painting of "liquid wiring" on any surface. Except for skin
  • Nontoxic and drying at room temperature, the product has caught on with educators, DIY makers and inventors
  • Radio Shack stocks their paint pen
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • they hope to appeal to a wide creative gamut of hobbyists, artists, and engineers for innovative ways to use their products
  • are Paint, they emphasized, is the first non-toxic electrically conductive paint available
  • the substance is child friendly, which opens the door to educational projects, including toys, and touch-sensitive paper drawings that play sounds
  • According to the company, Bare Paint has a surface resistivity of approximately 55 ohms/square at 50 microns layer thickness
  • The product is water-based but it is not waterproof
  • generally split applications into two simple classifications, signaling and powering
  • Signaling could include using the Paint as a potentiometer while interfacing with a micro-controller, as a conduit in a larger circuit or as a capacitive sensor
  • Powering a device would include lighting LED's or driving small speakers
Mars Base

These Artificially Intelligent Legos Look Awesome | Popular Science - 0 views

www.popsci.com/...intelligent-legos-look-awesome

scibyte97

shared by Mars Base on 04 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • IDG News Service took a tour of Sony Computer Science Laboratories in Tokyo, and found a series of wired Legos, complete with cameras, motors, and a dash of artificial intelligence, all stuffed inside special bricks
  • a motorized Lego platform controlled by a computer squared off against a platform controlled by a human with a PlayStation controller
  • The computer's platform used a camera to locate and chase down the human's platform
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • This project's still in the experimental phase, so it'll likely be quite a while before anyone can pick up a kit from the store
Mars Base

T. K. Mattingly Oral History - 0 views

www.jsc.nasa.gov/...MattinglyTK_11-6-01.htm

scibyte91 Apollo13

shared by Mars Base on 18 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • The Race to the Moon book’s description is probably a little better
  • The way back, the spacecraft started drifting off its trajectory, and now they had to make their midcourse corrections to get back
  • turns out that, too, we had practiced in some simulation somewhere. It’s not very accurate, but it doesn’t have to be
  • ...40 more annotations...
  • It was hard to get people to recognize that we do that, but you don’t need to be the nearest five degrees
  • didn’t solve any problems in the simulator
  • actually ran those procedures, verified them, made some red lines, I think, brought them back over
  • They had to take their flight plan and turn it over and tear out pages and write on the back of it. The only thing they had were pencils and ball pens
  • actually had extra electrical power in the lunar module batteries
  • Somebody came in and found a way to do a jumper cord and take battery power out of the lunar module and top off the command module and to use that power to help get the command module stuff started so we didn’t use all the power from the batteries. So we ended up with a good margin on the batteries
  • Because all our procedures were based on two practical rules. One of them is, structural things don’t break. Actually, that drove everything. Fluid lines and structural—you know, joints can leak, shorts can happen to wires, but physical structure doesn’t break
  • if you admitted to that, then the number of things that you could have to prepare for is infinite.
  • had done a lot of testing of this, a lot of margin of safety in the hardware, so we never looked at those kinds of implications
  • Got in the car to drive back up. This is two days, I think, two days before launch, I think. I’m driving up the road, turned the radio on, and they interrupt the news announcement that this afternoon NASA has announced that they have changed and substituted Jack Swigert for me.
  • Gene says, “Sy, didn’t Jim say that he looked out the window and there’s stuff out in the sky and he heard something?” He says, “Does that sound like instrumentation to you?”
  • thanks to the kind of simulation training program we had, maybe the things weren’t exactly the same or in an exactly the same order, but everything we ended up doing had been done somewhere.
  • somewhere in an earlier sim, there had been an occasion to do what they call LM lifeboat, which meant you had to get the crew out of the command module and into the lunar module, and they stayed there
  • when you get out in space, that all those black spots in between the stars are filled with stars, and those constellations are nowhere near as obvious as they were
  • The guys in the lunar module electrical system had calculated how much time we had, and the two numbers didn’t match. So bringing on this platform is probably the biggest energy user in the spacecraft. Didn’t want to do it
  • They had a capability to maneuver, and they knew where they were, and now they could figure out what to do
  • a big debate about what to do next, as I recall, the books and the movies and all don’t really capture.
  • That debate of what to do next was also rather charged because there was one group of people that said, “You know, this has really been a bad day. We don’t know the condition of any piece of hardware we’ve got. We don’t want to do anything. Don’t touch anything. Let’s just figure this out.”
  • There’s others that said, “There’s only this much electricity and water in the lunar module. We need to turn around and come home as fast as possible.
  • Somewhere in there—I don’t remember all the details—we found out that a family that had gone to a picnic with Charlie and his family over the weekend, one of their kids had the measles, and Charlie was considered exposed
  • One of the many lessons out of all this is starting on day one it was from the very first moment, assume you’re going to succeed and don’t do anything that gets in the way.
  • you had to write down all the numbers in the command module, put them on a list, and then do some math, and then punch the numbers into the lunar module computer
  • you could get a very good alignment so that now you could go in with the lunar module and make a little tweak to tighten up the alignment
  • to get back before the batteries run out
  • while
  • debating what to do with this inertial unit in the command module we had to bring up from scratch, these units are very, very delicate
  • they were allowed to run at a temperature of like 70 plus or minus one. They were tested to see that they would work at plus or minus 10.
  • had one that we don’t know what its temperature is, but we know it’s below freezing
  • didn’t do any testing at those kind of temperatures
  • semi-apocryphal story is that one of the employees at the company
  • had a snowstorm
  • last winter
  • had an IMU in the back of the station wagon
  • took it inside
  • hooked it up and ran it, and they didn’t have any trouble
  • they had had a problem down on the spacecraft, some kind of a problem with detanking the oxygen from the service module
  • took all night and a good bit of the next day
  • to review
  • they’d seen a problem like this before, and even though the regular drain system wasn’t working, they could boil the oxygen out
  • the oxygen tank that we discussed prior to launch was, in fact, the culprit in the explosion. It was damaged in the process that we used in ways that we didn’t anticipate
Mars Base

Printable 'bionic' ear melds electronics and biology - 0 views

phys.org/...nic-ear-melds-electronics.html

scibyte92 scibyte93 BionicEar

shared by Mars Base on 02 May 13 - No Cached
  • Scientists at Princeton University used off-the-shelf printing tools to create a functional ear that can "hear" radio frequencies far beyond the range of normal human capability
  • primary purpose was to explore an efficient and versatile means to merge electronics with tissue
  • used 3D printing of cells and nanoparticles followed by cell culture to combine a small coil antenna with cartilage, creating what they term a bionic ear.
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • Previously, researchers have suggested some strategies
  • That typically happens between a 2D sheet of electronics and a surface of the tissue
  • our work suggests a new approach—to build and grow the biology up with the electronics synergistically and in a 3D interwoven format
  • Last year, a research effort
  • resulted in the development of a "tattoo" made up of a biological sensor and antenna that can be affixed to the surface of a tooth
  • This project, however, is the team's first effort to create a fully functional organ: one that not only replicates a human ability, but extends it using embedded electronics
  • Creating organs using 3D printers is a recent advance; several groups have reported using the technology for this purpose in the past few months
  • this is the first time that researchers have demonstrated that 3D printing is a convenient strategy to interweave tissue with electronics
  • Ear reconstruction "remains one of the most difficult problems in the field of plastic and reconstructive surgery
  • the team turned to a manufacturing approach called 3D printing
  • The finished ear consists of a coiled antenna inside a cartilage structure
  • Two wires lead from the base of the ear and wind around a helical "cochlea" – the part of the ear that senses sound – which can connect to electrodes
  • further work and extensive testing would need to be done before the technology could be used on a patient
  • the ear in principle could be used to restore or enhance human hearing.
  • electrical signals produced by the ear could be connected to a patient's nerve endings, similar to a hearing aid
  • The current system receives radio waves, but he said the research team plans to incorporate other materials, such as pressure-sensitive electronic sensors, to enable the ear to register acoustic sounds
  • researchers used an ordinary 3D printer to combine a matrix of hydrogel and calf cells with silver nanoparticles that form an antenna. The calf cells later develop into cartilage
Mars Base

Supersonic Skydive's 5 Biggest Risks: Boiling Blood, Deadly Spins, and Worse - 0 views

news.nationalgeographic.com/...sound-barrier-joseph-kittinger

scibyte66 RedBullStratos

shared by Mars Base on 06 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • history's largest helium balloon—55 stories tall and as wide as a football field
  • s team estimates the Austrian sky diver and helicopter pilot will reach Mach 1.2—roughly 690 miles (1,110 kilometers) an hour
  • Originally scheduled for Monday but postponed due to projected high winds
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • atmosphere above 12 miles, or 63,000 feet (19,200 meters)
  • is so thin that, if not protected, human blood will literally boil
  • , Baumgartner's airtight suit and the capsule around him will be continuously pressurized to create a personal atmosphere that isolates him from the void surrounding him
  • The smallest crack in this protective layer would cause almost immediate death
  • It is assumed this is what occurred on previous attempts to break Kittinger's record. Russian Pyotr Dolgov (1962) and American Nick Piantanida (1966) both died, most likely due to depressurization at extreme altitude
  • Baumgartner's balloon will be stressed by the cold, constructed as it is from plastic film just 0.0008 inch (0.02 millimeter) thick, to optimize weight-to-lift ratio
  • his balloon and capsule will pass through an atmospheric layer called the tropopause
  • Wind Could Blow Baumgartner off Course
  • Baumgartner Could Spin Uncontrollably, Even Fatally
  • flat-spin risk can be mediated with a technology first developed for Kittinger: a stabilization parachute to prevent further increase in rotation, deployed on command, or automatically if -3.5 G's are achieved.
  • Baumgartner has his eyes on a new speed record
  • won't open automatically
  • he will assume a rigid aerodynamic body position for the entire free fall—head first, arms at sides—and hope for the best.
  • Sonic Boom Could Do Unknown Damage
  • If Baumgartner becomes the first human to achieve supersonic speed with just his body—and without breaking his body—he will break new scientific ground.
Mars Base

Ultrathin flexible brain implant offers unique look at seizures - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...ible-brain-implant-unique.html

scibyte21

shared by Mars Base on 14 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have developed a flexible brain implant that could one day be used to treat epileptic seizures
  • a type of electrode array that conforms to the brain's surface – to take an unprecedented look at the brain activity underlying seizures
  • Someday, these flexible arrays could be used to pinpoint where seizures start in the brain and perhaps to shut them down
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • These flexible electrode arrays could significantly expand surgical options for patients with drug-resistant epilepsy
  • In an animal model, the researchers saw spiral waves of brain activity not previously observed during a seizure
  • Similar waves are known to ripple through cardiac muscle during a type of life-threatening heart rhythm called ventricular fibrillation.
  • A stimulating electrode array might one day be designed to suppress seizure activity, working like a pacemaker for the brain
  • The brain contains billions of interconnected neurons that normally transmit electrical pulses
  • During a seizure, these pulses occur in abnormal, synchronized, rapid-fire bursts that can cause convulsions, loss of consciousness and other symptoms
  • is made of a pliable material that is only about one quarter the thickness of a human hair
  • It contains 720 silicon nanomembrane transistors in a multiplexed 360-channel array, which allow for minimal wiring and dense packing of the electrodes
  • The flexibility of the array allows it to conform to the brain's complex shape, even reaching into grooves that are inaccessible to conventional arrays
  • the array could be rolled into a tube and delivered into the brain through a small hole rather than by opening the skull
  • The researchers tested the flexible array on cats. Although mice and rats are used for most neuroscience research, cats have larger brains that are anatomically more like the human brain, with simplified folds and grooves
Mars Base

Wireless 'tooth tattoo' detects harmful bacteria - 0 views

phys.org/...ess-tooth-tattoo-bacteria.html

scibyte49 bacteria tooth health

shared by Mars Base on 30 May 12 - No Cached
  • Using silk strands pulled from cocoons and gold wires thinner than a spider's web, researchers at Princeton University have created a removable tattoo that adheres to dental enamel and could eventually monitor a patient's health with unprecedented sensitivity
Mars Base

Chocolate makes snails smarter - 0 views

phys.org/...-chocolate-snails-smarter.html

scibyte65 chocolate

shared by Mars Base on 27 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • some websites even maintain that dark chocolate can have beneficial effects
  • the science underpinning these claims, and you'll discover just how sparse it is
  • University of Calgary undergraduate
  • ...25 more annotations...
  • became curious about how dietary factors might affect memory
  • Despite his misgivings
  • decided to concentrate on a group of compounds – the flavonoids – found in a wide range of 'superfoods' including chocolate and green tea, focusing on one particular flavonoid, epicatechin (epi).
  • figuring out how a single component of chocolate might improve human memory is almost impossible
  • too many external factors influence memory formation
  • the pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis, to find out whether the dark chocolate flavonoid could improve their memories
  • publish their discovery that epi improves the length and strength of snail memories in The Journal of Experimental Biology
  • molluscs can be trained to remember a simple activity: to keep their breathing tubes (pneumostomes) closed when immersed in deoxygenated water
  • t pond snails usually breathe through their skins, but when oxygen levels fall, they extend the breathing tube above the surface to supplement the oxygen supply
  • e snails can be trained to remember to keep the breathing tube closed in deoxygenated water by gently tapping it when they try to open it,
  • the strength of the memory depends on the training regime.
  • identified an epi concentration – 15 mg m3 pond water – that didn't affect the snails' behaviour
  • to be sure that we're not looking at wired animals
  • ested the molluscs' memories. Explaining that a half-hour training session in deoxygenated water allows the snails to form intermediate-term memories (lasting less than 3 h) but not long-term memories (lasting 24 h or more)
  • when Fruson plunged the molluscs into deoxygenated water to tested their memories a day later, they remembered to keep their breathing tubes closed
  • provided the snails with two training sessions, the animals were able to remember to keep their breathing tubes shut more than 3 days later
  • boosted the molluscs' memories and extended the duration, but how strong were the epi-memories
  • memories can be overwritten by another memory
  • process called extinction
  • the original memory is not forgotten and if the additional memory is stored weakly
  • can be lost and the original memory restored
  • then tried to replace it with a memory where the snails could open their breathing tubes
  • instead of learning the new memory, the epi-trained snails stubbornly kept their breathing tubes shut. The epi-memory was too strong to be extinguished.
  • also found that instead of requiring a sensory organ to consolidate the snails' memories – like their memories of predators triggered by smell – epi directly affects the neurons that store the memory
  • that the cognitive effects of half a bar of dark chocolate could even help your grades: good news for chocoholics the world over.
Mars Base

Mars Science Laboratory: Rover Team Working to Diagnose Electrical Issue - 0 views

mars.jpl.nasa.gov/...index.cfm

scibyte110 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 26 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Science observations by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity have been suspended for a few days while engineers run tests to check possible causes of a voltage change detected on Nov. 17
  • "The vehicle is safe and stable, fully capable of operating in its present condition, but we are taking the precaution of investigating what may be a soft short," said Mars Science Laboratory Project Manager
  • The team detected a change in the voltage difference between the chassis and the 32-volt power bus that distributes electricity to systems throughout the rover
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • A "soft" short is a leak through something that's partially conductive of electricity, rather than a hard short such as one electrical wire contacting another
  • The level had been about 11 volts since landing day, and is now about 4 volts
  • The rover's electrical system is designed with the flexibility to work properly throughout that range and more -- a design feature called "floating bus."
  • Curiosity had already experienced one soft short on landing day in August 2012
  • A soft short can cause such a voltage change
  • That one was related to explosive-release devices used for deployments shortly before and after the landing
  • It lowered the bus-to-chassis voltage from about 16 volts to about 11 volts but has not affected subsequent rover operations
  • Soft shorts reduce the level of robustness for tolerating other shorts in the future, and they can indicate a possible problem in whichever component is the site of the short
  • Operations planned for Curiosity for the next few days are designed to check some of the possible root causes for the voltage change
  • Analysis so far has determined that the change appeared intermittently three times during the hours before it became persistent
  • The electrical issue did not cause the rover to enter a safe-mode status, in which most activities automatically cease pending further instructions, and there is no indication the issue is related to a computer reboot that triggered a "safe-mode" earlier this month
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