SciByte

Officials had not announced a new target launch date

SpaceX was targeting liftoff of the 22-story rocket at 5:39 p.m. EST (2239 GMT) Thursday, aiming to achieve the first Thanksgiving Day launch from Florida's Space Coast since 1959

The launch was pushed back to Thursday after multiple technical problems thwarted an initial launch attempt Monday

The rocket's mission is to place the SES 8 television broadcasting satellite into orbit

e highest altitude ever achieved by a SpaceX launch.

the flight is critical to SpaceX's future in the commercial launch market, in which it competes against stalwart launch vehicles from Europe and Russia to haul large telecommunications satellites into orbit.

The Falcon 9 pressurized its propellant tanks, switched to internal power and ignited its nine Merlin 1D first stage engines a few seconds before the appointed launch time

the Falcon 9's computer-controlled countdown sequencer recognized a problem and called off the launch

As engineers continued to study the problem, SpaceX elected to restart the countdown to preserve a chance to launch Thursday

Ultimately, however, SpaceX said they could not get comfortable with the issue in time and ordered another hold with less than a minute left in the day's second countdown.

Then the European–US Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spotted a faint glimmer on the other side of the Sun, on a trajectory where ISON would have been expected to appear

ISON is probably the most observed comet ever

NOVEMBER 30, 2013

When biomaterials do not biodegrade

may continuously cause problems

In extreme conditions, it is possible that the different mechanical properties of the artificial bone graft may cause a re-fracture or become a source for bacterium growth in infection

In order to get around this issue

researchers decided to study the calcium carbonate found in the exoskeleton of sea coral and convert it into coralline hydroxyapatite (CHA)

then refined the material to produce coralline hydroxyapatite/calcium carbonate (CHACC)

This CHACC composition contained 15 percent of CHA in a thin layer around the calcium carbonate and had a strong, porous structure that has made CHA commercially successful, but contained significantly improved biodegrading properties to support natural bone healing.

not to say that the material is ready to be used across the globe

There is a ways to go before the material can match the benefits of an autograft

and can be used by the several million people worldwide that undergo bone grafting procedures each year

the development of the CHACC material could provide an important step toward creating a biodegradable material that could help patients in the future

findings provide the first direct neural evidence for the idea that the human memory system tags memories with information about where and when they were formed

this study involved playing a simple video game on a bedside computer

The game in this experiment involved making deliveries to stores in a virtual city

The participants were first given a period where they were allowed to freely explore the city and learn the stores' locations

When the game began, participants were only instructed where their next stop was, without being told what they were delivering

After they reached their destination, the game would reveal the item that had been delivered, and then give the participant their next stop

After 13 deliveries, the screen went blank and participants were asked to remember and name as many of the items they had delivered in the order they came to mind

This allowed the researchers to correlate the neural activation associated with the formation of spatial memories (the locations of the stores) and the recall of episodic memories: (the list of items that had been delivered).

"Having these patients play our games allows us to record every action they take in the game and to measure the responses of neurons both during spatial navigation and then later during verbal recall."

By asking participants to recall the items they delivered instead of the stores they visited, the researchers could test whether their spatial memory systems were being activated

map-like nature of the neurons associated with spatial memory made this comparison possible

During navigation, neurons in the hippocampus and neighboring regions can often represent the patient's virtual location within the town

Using the brain recordings generated while the participants navigated the city, the researchers were able to develop a neural map that corresponded to the city's layout

As participants passed by a particular store, the researchers correlated their spatial memory of that location with the pattern of place cell activation recorded

With maps of place cell activations in hand, the researchers were able to cross- reference each participant's spatial memories as they accessed their episodic memories of the delivered items

given just the place cell activations of a participant

could predict, with better than chance accuracy, the item he or she was recalling

cannot distinguish whether these spatial memories are actually helping the participants access their episodic memories

seeing that this place cell activation plays a role in the memory retrieval processes

Earlier neuroscience research

had suggested the hippocampus has two distinct roles

tracking location information for spatial memory, and

recording events for episodic memory

This experiment provides further evidence that these roles are intertwined

Indian space engineers initiated the 440 Newton liquid fueled engine firing precisely as planned at 00:49 hrs (IST) on Sunday, Dec. 1, 2013 during a critical nail-biting burn lasting some 22 minutes

MOM is nicknamed ‘Mangalyaan’ – which in Hindi means ‘Mars craft

‘Yutu’ stems from a Chinese fairy tale, in which the goddess Chang’e flew off to the moon taking her little pet Jade rabbit with her.

The Chang’e 3 lander will fire thrusters to enter lunar orbit on Dec. 6.

It is due to make a powered descent to the lunar surface on Dec. 14, firing thrusters at an altitude of 15 km (9 mi) for touchdown in a preselected area called the Bay of Rainbows or Sinus Iridum region.

If successful, the Chang’e 3 mission will mark the first soft landing on the Moon since the Soviet Union’s unmanned Luna 24 sample return vehicle landed nearly four decades ago back in 1976.

Jack Rabbit measures 150 centimeters high and weighs approximately 120 kilograms

The rover and lander are equipped with multiple cameras, spectrometers, an optical telescope, radar and other sensors to investigate the lunar surface and composition

The rover is expected to continue operating for at least three months

The next step will be an unmanned lunar sample return mission, perhaps around 2020

Most of the fossils that weren’t blasted to dust had had their labels burned, so no one could identify what the remaining concrete jackets held or where they had been dug up

A CT scan of one such lump

revealed that it held a vertebra

from a Plateosaurus

the researchers report

That, in turn, allowed the researchers to determine where the fossil had originally been unearthed, among other details

Scientists have long used CT scans to peek inside fossil-bearing rocks, but the increasing use of 3D printers now enables them to make endless numbers of exact copies of those relics

The technique might even help museum folk speed up their analyses: By knowing what’s inside a lump of rock, researchers can determine which fossils are worth extracting, and which ones can wait

One expedition, in Tanzania, ran from 1909 to 1913 and brought back 235 tons of fossils, labeled with letters based on their locations.

The other fossils came from a 1909 discovery in Halberstadt, Germany. Those bones also used a letter-based label system

individual animals

By comparing the scans to sketches of the long-ago digs, the researchers determined that the vertebra came from the Halberstadt dig in Germany

The scans showed a fractured bone. Some of the cracks were no doubt from fossilization

But one crunched-up corner was likely the result of the bombing

To recreate the bone as it was before the bombing, the researchers took data from the CT scan and built a blueprint to 3D print the fossil

When the process was done

The researchers were even able to print the bone chip from the bombing damage, which fit into the rest of the vertebra like a puzzle piece.

launch pad and the first commercial flight from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in over five years

SpaceX has nearly 50 launches on manifest, of which over 60% are for commercial customers

This launch also marks the second of three certification flights needed to certify the Falcon 9 to fly missions for the U.S. Air Force under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program

When Falcon 9 is certified, SpaceX will be eligible to compete for all National Security Space (NSS) missions

The water gets contaminated with dangerous chemicals in the process, requiring costly treatment before factories can dump it back into waterways—or wreaking havoc when factory owners dodge cleanup rules

Scientists are just starting to study this idea, however, it remains to be seen if it's commercially viable

In this experiment, the Indian team tested seven azo dyes, which are cheap and popular in the industry

The scientists found different dyes moved through silkworms' bodies differently. Some never made it into the worms' silk at all

Others colored the worms and their cocoons, but the color molecules settled mostly in the sticky protein the worms add to their cocoons

That sticky stuff gets washed away before the silk is turned into fabric

Only one dye, named "direct acid fast red," showed up in the final, washed silk threads. By the time it made it there, it was a pleasant, light pink.

we're capable of doing extremely complicated things without knowing explicitly what we are doing

The researchers recruited 100 university students and members from the surrounding community to participate in an experiment

The participants completed a short typing test

Then, they were shown a blank QWERTY keyboard and given 80 seconds to write the letters in the correct location

On average, they typed 72 words per minute, moving their fingers to the correct keys six times per second with 94 percent accuracy

By contrast, they could accurately place an average of only 15 letters on a blank keyboard.

The fact that the typists did so poorly at identifying the position of specific keys didn't come as a surprise

For more than a century, scientists have recognized the existence of automatism: the ability to perform actions without conscious thought or intention

Automatic behaviors of this type are surprisingly common, ranging from tying shoelaces to making coffee to factory assembly-line work to riding a bicycle and driving a car

What did come as a surprise, however, was evidence that conflicts with the basic theory of automatic learning which holds that it starts out as a conscious process and gradually becomes unconscious with repetition

According to the widely held theory, when you perform a new task or the first time, you are conscious of each action and store the details in working memory

Then, as you repeat the task, it becomes increasingly automatic

This allows you to think about other things while you performing the task but your conscious recollection of the details gradually fades away

researchers were surprised when they found evidence that the typists never appear to memorize the key positions, not even when they are first learning to type.

Evidence for this conclusion came from another experiment included in the study

The researchers recruited 24 typists who were skilled on the QWERTY keyboard and had them learn to type on a Dvorak keyboard, which places keys in different locations.

After the participants developed a reasonable proficiency with the alternative keyboard, they were asked to identify the placement of the keys on a blank Dvorak keyboard

On average, they could locate only 17 letters correctly, comparable to participants' performance with the QWERTY keyboard.

According to the researchers, the lack of explicit knowledge of the keyboard may be due to the fact that computers and keyboards have become so ubiquitous that students learn how to use them in an informal, trial-and-error fashion when they are very young