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Space Shuttle Enterprise Opens to Public in NYC | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/le-enterprise-exhibit-nyc.html scibyte55 enterprise
shared by Mars Base on 20 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • On Thursday (July 19), the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum on Manhattan's west side opened its new "Space Shuttle Pavilion" to the public
  • NASA Administrator Charles Bolden joined a dozen of his fellow shuttle-era astronauts — including three of the four pilots who flew Enterprise during its atmospheric approach and landing test program in 1977
  • Enterprise, which never flew in space, is presented in a darkened display with dramatic blue lighting, evoking the atmosphere of flight
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • raised platform at the front of the vehicle allows guests to come nose-to-nose with the Enterprise, as well as look into its crew cabin's windows and down the length of the 122 foot (37 meter) prototype spacecraft
  • During the opening ceremony, Marenoff-Zausner, together with Mosler and Fisher, presented the Enterprise veterans with plaques commemorating that their names would be displayed alongside the shuttle in the form of star-shaped displays
  • Also on hand
  • Karol "Bo" Bobko, who served as prime chase plane pilot for Enterprise's approach and landing test (ALT) program
  • The entire Intrepid team is working hard to raise the funds and develop a plan for the permanent home for Enterprise, on the grounds of this museum but not on the flight deck
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600-year-old linen bras found in Austrian castle - 0 views

phys.org/...inen-bras-austrian-castle.html scibyte55 OldestBra
shared by Mars Base on 20 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • The bra is commonly thought to be little more than 100 years old as corseted women abandoned rigid fashions and opted for the more natural look
  • timeline is about to be revised with the discovery of four brassieres from the Middle Ages in a debris-filled vault of an Austrian castle
  • formally announced Wednesday July 18, 2012
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • archeologists found four linen bras dating from the Middle Ages in an Austrian castle
  • find as surprising because the bra had commonly been thought to be only little more than 100 years old as women abandoned the tight corset.
  • One specimen in particular "looks exactly like a (modern) brassiere
  • unearthed in 2008, they did not make news until now
  • carbon dating them to make sure they were genuine took some time
  • delivered a lecture on them last year but the information stayed within academic circles until a recent article in the BBC History Magazine.
  • the four bras were among more than 2,700 textile fragments
  • found intermixed with dirt, wood, straw and pieces of leather
  • intricately decorated with lace and other ornamentation
  • Women started experimenting with bra-like garments in the late 1800s and the first modern brassiere was patented in the early 19th century
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Music has big brain benefits compared to other leisure pursuits - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...ig-brain-benefits-leisure.html GrabBag MusicalScience
shared by Mars Base on 20 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Musical instrumental training, when compared to other activities, may reduce the effects of memory decline and cognitive aging
  • second study
  • which confirms and refines findings from an original study
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • that revealed that musicians with at least 10 years of instrumental musical training remained cognitively sharp in advanced age
  • range of cognitive benefits, including memory, was sustained for musicians between the ages of 60-80 if they played for at least 10 years throughout their life
  • While years of playing music were the best indication of enhanced cognition in advanced age, the results revealed different sensitive periods for cognitive development across the lifespan
  • before age nine, predicted verbal working memory functions
  • Sustained musical activity in advanced age predicted other non-verbal abilities involving visuospatial judgment, suggesting it is never too late to be musically active
  • Continued musical activity in advanced age also appeared to buffer lower educational levels
  • to obtain optimal results, individuals should start musical training before age nine, play at least 10 years or more and if possible, keep playing for as long as possible over the age of 60.
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Japanese Cargo Ship Launches to Space Station - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...ship-launches-to-space-station scibyte55 iss japanese
shared by Mars Base on 21 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Japanese resupply ship, the HTV-3 “Kountouri” (White Stork) launched Saturday
  • at 02:06 UTC.
  • contains supplies such as food, clothing and equipment for experiments
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • should reach the ISS on July 27,
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Cargo Ship Launches to ISS - YouTube - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch iss japanese
shared by Mars Base on 21 Jul 12 - No Cached
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Japanese Satellite to Write Morse Code in Sky | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/ats-space-station-fitsat1.html scibyte56 FITSAT-1
shared by Mars Base on 25 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • robotic Japanese cargo vessel now en route to the International Space Station is loaded with food, clothes, equipment — and a set of tiny amateur radio satellites, including one that will write Morse code messages in the sky
  • slated to arrive at the station
  • July 27
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • ultrasmall satellites it's carrying, which are known as cubesats, will likely remain on the orbiting lab until September
  • using the Kibo module's robotic arm.
  • One of the cubesats, FITSAT-1, will write messages in the night sky with Morse code, helping researchers test out optical communication techniques for satellites, researchers said.
  • One of FITSAT-1's experimental duties is to twinkle as an artificial star
  • just under 3 pounds (1.33 kilograms
  • high power light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that will produce extremely bright flashes.
  • hope, will be observable by the unaided eye or with small binoculars
  • the cubesat's high-output LEDs will blink in flash mode, generating a Morse code beacon signal.
  • contains a neodymium magnet that forces it to always point to magnetic north, like a compass.
  • Mars Base on 25 Jul 12
     
    FITSAT-1
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FITSAT - 0 views

www.fit.ac.jp/...fitsat.shtml scibyte56 FITSAT-1
shared by Mars Base on 25 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • The shape is a 10cm cube, and the weight is 1.33kg.
  • The main mission of this satellite is to demonstrate the high speed transmitter developed. It can send a jpeg VGA-picture(480x640) within 6 seconds
  • NIWAKA will write messages in the night sky with Morse code as: (JAXA movie 120MB)
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The beacon signal is a standard Morse code CW signal. The signal starts with "HI" and telemetry data follows.
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New drug could treat Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis and brain injury - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...-multiple-sclerosis-brain.html Alzheimer MultipleSclerosis GrabBag
shared by Mars Base on 25 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • A new class of drug
  • shows early promise of being a one-size-fits-all therapy for Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis and traumatic brain injury by reducing inflammation in the brain
  • The drugs
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • target a particular type of brain inflammation
  • brain inflammation, also called neuroinflammation, is increasingly believed to play a major role in the progressive damage characteristic of these chronic diseases and brain injuries.
  • offers an entirely different therapeutic approach to Alzheimer's than current ones being tested to prevent the development of beta amyloid plaques in the brain
  • The plaques are an indicator of the disease but not a proven cause
  • given to a mouse genetically engineered to develop Alzheimer's, it prevents the development of the full-blown disease
  • identifies the optimal therapeutic time window for administering the drug, which is taken orally and easily crosses the blood-brain barrier.
  • In previous animal studies, the same drug reduced the neurological damage caused by closed-head traumatic brain injury and inhibited the development of a multiple sclerosis-like disease. In these diseases as well as in Alzheimer's, the studies show the therapy time window is critical
  • work by preventing the damaging overproduction of brain proteins called proinflammatory cytokines
  • Scientists now believe overproduction of these proteins contributes to the development of many degenerative neurological diseases
  • When too many of the cytokines are produced, the synapses of the brain begin to misfire
  • mouse model of Alzheimer's received MW151 three times a week starting at six months of age, right at the time the proinflammatory cytokines began to rise. This would be the comparable stage when a human patient would begin to experience mild cognitive impairment
  • drug protected against the damage associated with learning and memory impairment
  • before Alzheimer's memory changes are at a late stage may be a promising future approach to therapy
  • In M.S., overproduction of the proinflammatory cytokines damage the central nervous system and the brain
  • proteins directly or indirectly destroy the insulation or coverings of the nerve cells that transmit signals down the spinal cord
  • insulation is stripped, messages aren't properly conducted down the spinal cord
  • When mice that were induced to develop an M.S.-like disease received MW151 orally, they did not develop disease as severe.
  • After a traumatic brain injury, the glia cells in the brain become hyperactive and release a continuous cascade of proinflammatory cytokines
  • As a result of this hyperactivity, researchers believe the brain is more susceptible to serious damage following a second neurological injury.
  • when MW151 is given during an early therapeutic window three to six hours after the injury, it blocks glial activation and prevents the flood of proinflammatory cytokines after a traumatic brain injury
  • early on after traumatic brain injury or a even a stroke, you could possibly prevent the long-term complications of that injury including the risk of seizures, cognitive impairment and, perhaps, mental health issues
  • Stroke also causes inflammation in the brain that may also be linked to long-term complications including epilepsy and cognitive deficits
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Decoding the secrets of balance - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...2012-07-decoding-secrets.html vertigo GrabBag
shared by Mars Base on 25 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • New understanding of how the brain processes information from inner ear offers hope for sufferers of vertigo
  • vestibular dysfunction such as vertigo and dizziness
  • t a sensory system in the inner ear (the vestibular system) is responsible for helping us keep our balance by giving us a stable visual field as we move around
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • researchers have already developed a basic understanding of how the brain constructs our perceptions of ourselves in motion
  • until now no one has understood the crucial step by which the neurons in the brain select the information needed to keep us in balance.
  • The peripheral vestibular sensory neurons in the inner ear take in the time varying acceleration and velocity stimuli caused by our movement in the outside world
  • These neurons transmit detailed information about these stimuli to the brain
  • in the form of nerve impulses.
  • Scientists had previously believed that the brain decoded this information linearly and therefore actually attempted to reconstruct the time course of velocity and acceleration stimuli
  • by combining electrophysiological and computational approaches
  • two professors
  • have been able to show for the first time that the neurons in the vestibular nuclei in the brain instead decode incoming information nonlinearly as they respond preferentially to unexpected, sudden changes in stimuli.
  • the selective transmission of vestibular information they were able to document for the first time occurs as early as the first synapse in the brain
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Skydiver Leaps From 18 Miles Up in 'Space Jump' Practice | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/artner-space-jump-skydive.html scibyte56 SpaceSkyDive
shared by Mars Base on 26 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • 18 miles above the Earth today (July 25
  •  Felix Baumgartner stepped out of his custom-built capsule at an altitude of 96,640 feet (29,456 meters)
  • freefall for three minutes and 48 seconds
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • top speed of 536 mph (863 kph
  • opened his parachute and glided to Earth safely about 10 minutes and 30 seconds
  • , a "space jump" from 125,000 feet (38,100 m) in the next month or so.
  • current record for highest-altitude skydive, which stands at 102,800 feet (31,333 m
  • set in 1960 by U.S. Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger, who serves as an adviser for Baumgartner's Red Bull Stratos mission.
  • helium-filled balloon
  • took about 90 minutes to reach the skydiver's jumping-off altitude
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Skydiver Baumgartner Takes Test Jump from 30 kilometers - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...s-test-jump-from-30-kilometers scibyte56 SpaceSkyDive
shared by Mars Base on 26 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • practice jump
  • July 25, 2012)
  • prepare for his leap from the edge of space later this year where he hopes to not only break the sound barrier with his body, but also break the record for the longest freefall
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • rode his specially-made pressurized capsule via a helium balloon and jumped from an altitude of over 29,455 meters (96,640 feet), falling for 3 minutes, 48 seconds, reaching speeds of 862 km/h (536 mph).
  • this is the final milestone before his attempt of jumping from 36,500 meters (120,000 feet), to break the current jump record held by Joe Kittinger a retired Air Force officer – and Baumgartner’s current adviser and mentor — who jumped from 31,500 m (31.5 km, 19.5 miles) in 1960.
  • test launch was twice delayed due to bad weather
  • balloon took about 90 minutes to reach the desired altitude
  • floated down on his parachute for about eight minutes
  • landed in the New Mexico desert, just about 15 minutes by helicopter from his launch site
  • balloon over four times as large as the one that carried Baumgartner for the first test flight in March
  • did not provide an official date for the record-setting attempt
  • it is now subject to favorable weather conditions and critical post-jump assessments of the capsule and equipment
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Pop music has become louder, less original: study finds - 0 views

phys.org/...2012-07-music-louder.html music scibyte56
shared by Mars Base on 26 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • conclusion of a computer analysis of nearly half-a-million songs recorded between 1955 and 2010
  • global loudness level of music recordings has consistently increased over the years
  • the diversity of chords and melodies has "consistently diminished in the last 50 years
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • spanned a variety of genres, including rock, pop, hip hop, metal and electronic
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Write to Me Only With Thine Eyes - ScienceNOW - 0 views

news.sciencemag.org/...o-me-only-with-thine-eyes.html scibyte56 communication
shared by Mars Base on 26 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • People "locked in" by paralyzing disorders
  • have long relied on blinks or facial twitches to build sentences one letter at a time
  • Over three 30-minute sessions, he trained six volunteers
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • For the volunteers, who couldn't see what they were writing, it was like writing with a pen that had run out of ink
  • some participants had a harder time of learning to control their eye movements than others
  • by the end of the sessions most could freely draw legible letters and numbers
  • reverse phi motion." The illusion helped reveal that when the brightness of an object changes rapidly; our brain "sees" the object moving in the opposite direction.
  • Mars Base on 26 Jul 12
     
    ckly as they can write with a pen. In addition to providing a new medium for self-expression, the technique challenges traditional ideas about the limits of human vision. In 1970, illusionist and cognitive psychologist Stuart Anstis of the University of California, San Diego, was playing around
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Is Pop Music Evolving, or Is It Just Getting Louder? | Observations, Scientific America... - 0 views

blogs.scientificamerican.com/...g-or-is-it-just-getting-louder music scibyte56
shared by Mars Base on 27 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • quantitative analysis of nearly half a million songs
  • songs from nearly 45,000 artists
  • Of the million songs therein, 464,411 came out between 1955 and 2010
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • examined three aspects of those songs: timbre (which “accounts for the sound color, texture, or tone quality,” according to Serrà and his colleagues); pitch (which “roughly corresponds to the harmonic content of the piece, including its chords, melody, and tonal arrangements”); and loudness
  • peaking in the 1960s, timbral variety has been in steady decline to the present day
  • implies a homogenization of the overall timbral palette, which could point to less diversity in instrumentation and recording techniques
  • Musicians today seem to be less adventurous in moving from one chord or note to another, instead following the paths well-trod
  • no surprise that music has gotten louder
  • the same notes and chords that were popular in decades past are popular today
  • found that the loudness of recorded music is increasing by about one decibel every eight years
  • The Million Song Dataset, huge as it is, may not provide a representative slice of pop music, especially for old songs
  • heavily weighted to modern music
  • only 2,650 songs released between 1955 and 1959
  • 177,808 songs—released between 2005 and 2009
  • draws on what’s popular now, as well as what has been digitized and made available for download
  • may not be the same ones that people enjoyed when those songs first came out.
  • the trend is consistent in short time spans
  • also consistent for longer time spans
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Writing in cursive with your eyes only - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...2012-07-cursive-eyes.html scibyte56 communication
shared by Mars Base on 27 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • A new technology
  • might allow people who have almost completely lost the ability to move their arms or legs to communicate freely
  • eye-writing technology tricks the neuromuscular machinery into doing something that is usually impossible: to voluntarily produce smooth eye movements in arbitrary directions
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • could be of great benefit for people deprived of limb movements, such as those with Lou Gehrig's disease (also known as ALS), the researchers say. It might also help to improve eye movement control in people with certain conditions such as dyslexia or ADHD and/or for experts, such as athletes or surgeons, whose activities strongly rely on eye movements
  • In everyday life, smooth pursuit eye movement is used to track moving targets
  • fact our eyes never cease to move
  • normally impossible to control those movements smoothly in any direction.
  • got a hint that smooth eye movements just might be possible in a completely accidental way
  • technology relies on changes in contrast to trick the eyes into the perception of motion
  • now working on a better version of his eye writer, and tests with ALS patients should start next year
  • He was moving his own eyes in front of an unusual visual display in his lab and discovered that it produced some odd effects. For one thing, he could see his own eye movements. With a little practice, he gradually discovered that he could control those eye movements, too.
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T Minus 9 Days - Mars Orbiters Now in Place to Relay Critical Curiosity Landing Signals - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...ical-curiosity-landing-signals scibyte56 Curiosity
shared by Mars Base on 28 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • NASA’s Mars Odyssey will relay near real time signals of this artist’s concept depicting the moment that NASA’s Curiosity rover touches down onto the Martian surface
  • Engines aboard NASA’s long lived Mars Odyssey spacecraft fired for about 6 seconds to adjust the orbiters location about 6 minutes ahead in its orbit. This will allow Odyssey to provide a prompt confirmation of Curiosity’s landing inside Gale crater at about 1:31 a.m. EDT (531 GMT) early on Aug. 6 (10:31 p.m. PDT on Aug. 5) – as NASA had originally planned.
  • Watch NASA TV online for live coverage of Curiosity landing: mars.jpl.nasa.gov or www.nasa.gov
33More

'Predictive policing' takes byte out of crime - 0 views

phys.org/...12-07-policing-byte-crime.html GrabBag PredictingCrime
shared by Mars Base on 29 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Without some of the sci-fi gimmickry, police departments from Santa Cruz, California, to Memphis, Tennessee, and law enforcement agencies from Poland to Britain have adopted these new techniques
  • criminals follow patterns, and with software -- the same kind that retailers like Wal-Mart and Amazon use to determine consumer purchasing trends -- police can determine where the next crime will occur and sometimes prevent it.
  • criminal behavior was not that different from examining other types of behavior like shopping
  • ...29 more annotations...
  • People are creatures of habit
  • could help in cities where tight budgets were forcing patrol reductions.
  • The key to success in predictive policing is getting as much data as possible to determine patterns. This can be especially useful in property crimes like auto theft and burglary, where patterns can be detected
  • factors in attributes like the time of year, whether it is hot and humid or cold and snowy, if it is a payday when people are carrying a lot of cash
  • not saying a crime will occur at a particular time and place
  • can expect a wave of vehicle thefts based one everything we know
  • officials said serious crimes fell 30 percent and violent crimes declined 15 percent since implementing predictive analytics
  • in 2006
  • CRUSH -- Criminal Reduction Utilizing Statistical History
  • targeted certain "hot spots" to allow police to deploy more efficiently
  • "If the data is indicating a hot spot, we are able to immediately deploy resources there
  • beat officers can use their instincts for similar results
  • software could be far more precise, such as predicting burglaries in a small geographic area between 10 pm and 2 am.
  • the software was able to help police break up a group that was committing armed robberies
  • 84 robberies, but we had no idea it was so organized
  • crunching the numbers, police were able to pinpoint the zone and time of likely holdups
  • police officials from as far away as Hong Kong, Rio de Janeiro and Estonia have come to review the experience in Memphis
  • In Los Angeles, another program
  • was tested in a single precinct, and resulted in a 12 percent drop in crime while the rest of the city saw a 0.2 percent increase
  • led to the creation of a company called PredPol
  • based on a model from mathematician
  • science that underlies the tool will work anywhere. The question is does the agency maintain a database
  • While
  • helping "smarter" policing, it does raise concerns about Big Brother-like snooping
  • technology could be positive but that it could lower the threshold for constitutional protections on "unreasonable" searches.
  • IBM's Cleverly said the technology can in many cases improve privacy
  • How do you cross-examine a computer
  • If the search is based on a computer algorithm
  • how will this affect reasonable suspicion
  • Mars Base on 29 Jul 12
     
    nd in a lot of instances we are able to make quality arrests because we're in the right area at the right time," he told AFP. Although beat officers can use their instincts for similar results, Williams said the software could be far more precise, such as predicting burglaries in a small geographic area between 10 pm and 2 am. In one case, the software was able to help police break up a group that was committing armed robbe
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NASA's Mars Rover Set for Red Planet Landing Next Week | MSL & Curiosity | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/riosity-landing-next-week.html scibyte57 Curiosity
shared by Mars Base on 30 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Mars Base on 30 Jul 12
     
    Less Than a Week Remains Before NASA's Biggest Rover Yet Lands on Mars
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The Grand Entrance (William Shatner) - YouTube - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch scibyte57 Curiosity
shared by Mars Base on 31 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • William Shatner shares this thrilling story of NASA's hardest planetary science mission to date
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Quick and Curious Facts About the Mars Science Laboratory Mission - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...ars-science-laboratory-mission scibyte57 Curiosity
shared by Mars Base on 02 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Quick and Curious Facts About the Mars Science Laboratory Mission
  • Curiosity rover will land on Mars at 05:31 UTC on Aug. 6 (10:31 p.m. PDT on Aug. 5 and 1:31 a.m. EDT Aug. 6
  • Earth-received time
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • (13.8 minutes) for radio signal to reach Earth from Mars
  • landing will be at about 3 p.m. local time at the Mars landing site.
  • How long does it take for the rover to get to Mars’ surface after it reaches the outer atmosphere?
  • How big is the parachute?
  • How big are the spacecraft and the rover?
  • How does the rover get its power for roving?
  • What are the science instruments on board Curiosity?
  • How many cameras are on Curiosity?
  • When did Curiosity launch?
  • How far is Mars away from Earth?
  • How fast can Curiosity rove?
  • Where is Curiosity’s landing site?
  • What will the weather be like at Gale Crater?
  • How many possible landing sites did scientists considered before deciding on Gale Crater?
  • How long is the primary mission?
  • How much does this mission cost?
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