SciByte

launch

ISRO engineers successfully completed the first of six orbit raising “Midnight Maneuver” burns at 01:17 hrs IST

Nov. 6

The goal is to gradually maneuver MOM – India’s 1st mission to the Red Planet – into a hyperbolic trajectory so that the spacecraft will

eventually arrive at the Mars Sphere of Influence after a 10 month interplanetary cruise

India’s PSLV rocket is not powerful enough to send MOM on a direct flight to Mars

The launch “placed MOM very precisely into an initial elliptical orbit around Earth

ISRO’s engineers devised a

procedure to get the spacecraft to Mars on the least amount of fuel via six “Midnight Maneuver” engine burns over the next several weeks – and at an extremely low cost

engine fires when

is at its closest point in orbit above Earth. This increases the ships velocity and gradually widens the ellipse

raises the apogee of the six resulting elliptical orbits around Earth that eventually injects MOM onto the Trans-Mars trajectory

expected to achieve escape velocity on Dec. 1 and depart Earth’s sphere of influence tangentially to Earth’s orbit to begin the 300 day

voyage

arrives in the vicinity of Mars on September 24, 2014

, NASA’s

MAVEN orbiter remains on target to launch

on Nov. 18 – from Cape Canaveral, Florida

Both MAVEN and MOM’s goal

study the Martian atmosphere , unlock the mysteries of its current atmosphere and determine how, why and when the atmosphere and liquid water was lost

MOM science teams will “work together” to unlock the secrets of Mars atmosphere and climate history

demonstrated that zebrafish had the ability to repair a badly damaged heart, thanks to a particular protein that regulates the regenerative process

That trick could work for humans as well as fish

this month, researchers from the Gladstone Institutes showed that they could turn human scar tissue into electrically conductive tissue in a lab dish by fiddling with just a few key genes

Among the hurdles that lie ahead: taking that technique out of the lab and applying it to living human hearts

humans already have demonstrated some ability to regenerate body parts

very young children can fill out the tips of chopped off fingers and toes

the salamander, which can regrow a whole arm below the joint

Young mice are able to regenerate toes, too

been studying mouse toes to understand how a similar regrowth mechanism can be reactivated or imitated in adult humans

In 2010, his lab showed it was possible to enhance the regenerative response in adult mice

researchers are cautious about predicting how studies of animal regeneration will be applied to humans

it's dangerous to say, 'Yes, we expect to regenerate a limb

the field is reaching a turning point

orbits

close to its star, the planet exerts a greater gravitational pull on the star that it would if it were as far as Earth is from our sun

more exotic possibilities is that it is the remnant core of a disrupted gas giant

The extreme gravitational pull from its star will draw it ever closer in, ripping the entire planet apart in about three billion years

planet circles its star every eight and a half hours at a distance of less than one mile

one of tightest known orbit on record and due to this its formation is deemed as impossible and not suitable for life.

The scientists believe no planet can form so close to its star nor could it have moved to its current position.

Kepler-78b poses a challenge to theorists

When this planetary system was forming, the young star was larger than it is now.

the current orbit of Kepler-78b would have been inside the swollen star

The star of Kepler-78b is slightly smaller and less massive than the sun

Sun-like G-type star, which is  located 400 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus

The exoplanet was discovered using data from NASA's Kepler Space Telescope

follow up observations were made using W.M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii

A press release from his office said the presence of the private space company would boost jobs in the region

There’s little information on SpaceX’s website about what the Raptor engine is or specific development plans

Space News reports that it would be used for deep-space missions

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has mentioned the engine previously when talking about Mars missions, according to multiple media reports

test the whole engine at Stennis

the first phase starts with the components

E-2 stand at Stennis is big enough for components, but we would need a bigger stand for the whole Raptor

reportedly hashing out a Space Act agreement to establish user fees and other parameters

Once that’s finished, the testing will begin, perhaps as early as next year

SpaceX currently does most of its rocket testing in Texas

The virtually impassable mountain range is home to millions of black granite boulders the size of cars and houses piled hundreds of metres high

Cape Melville, a plateau of boulder-strewn rainforest on top

a small boulder-dwelling frog, the Blotched Boulder-frog, which during the dry season lives deep in the labyrinth of the boulder-field where conditions are cool and moist

In the absence of water

tadpole develops within the egg and a fully formed frog hatches out.

The Cape Melville Leaf-tailed Gecko, which has huge eyes and a long, slender body, is highly distinct from its relatives

National Geographic, the team plans to return to Cape Melville within months to search for more new species, including snails, spiders, and perhaps even small mammals

ISRO says the primary objectives of the orbiter are to demonstrate India’s technological capability, look for signs of life and study the planet’s atmospheric composition

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)

since the discovery of the first antibiotic, penicillin, antibiotics

have saved countless lives and impacted on the well-being of humanity

the future impact of antibiotics is dwindling

with more and more bacteria

'out-evolving' these miracle drugs

bacteriophages

are specific in what they kill and will generally only infect one particular species, or even strain, of bacteria

Following attachment to their hosts, they inject their DNA into the bacterium, which then replicates many times over, ultimately causing the bacterial cell to burst open

team have

, a specific mixture of phages have been proved, through extensive laboratory testing, to be effective against 90% of the most clinically relevant C. diff strains currently seen in the U.K

US-based biopharmaceutical company and pioneers in developing phage-based therapeutics

have already made progress in developing phages targeted against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a pathogen that causes acute, life-threatening lung infections in cystic fibrosis patients

funding further development and testing

phages developed

is to have a phage mixture ready to go into phase 1 and 2 clinical trials

Evaluations of the efficacy of bacteriophage therapy and optimisation of dosing regimes will be carried out

bacteria primarily affect our digestive system

pose a serious threat when our natural digestive environment is disrupted or depleted, such as after chronic antibiotic use

antibiotics also destroy the 'good' gut bacteria, in turn increasing the potential for relapse or new infections

The key advantage of using phages over antibiotics

A phage will infect and kill only a specific strain/species of bacteria.

Antibacterial resistance is a major and growing threat to health globally

This study

examines a new way to kill bacteria to circumvent resistance formation

most of the satellite will disintegrate in the atmosphere, some smaller parts are expected to reach Earth’s surface

GOCE satellite launched in March 2009 on a planned two-year mission to map the variations in Earth's gravity field.

The spacecraft consumed fuel at a much lower rate than expected, however, allowing GOCE to continue gathering data far beyond its expected lifespan

the most accurate gravity data ever available to scientists

the bots that could become part of our lives, in our own lifetimes, won’t look like Boston Dynamics’ Atlas, or NASA’s (and GM’s) Robonaut 2. Chances are, they’ll look a lot more like a walking stick, with a bunch of stuff bolted onto it.

a navigation-aid,

the robotic cane being developed by the University of Arkansas at Little Rock acts as a kind of seeing-eye walking stick

It maps the user’s path with a vision and 3D camera, and picks out stairways, low overhangs, and other features of interest to the visually-impaired

the bot will be able to verbally warn or guide the operator, speaking through a Bluetooth earpiece (and possibly through tactile feedback), it will also be able to perform limited steering maneuvers

. “In navaid mode, the device's roller tip is activated, and may drive the cane and point it towards the desired direction of travel

The six-degree-of-freedom roller isn’t driving the operator, but making suggestions, and can be toggled on and off by switching between navaid and white cane modes

robots designed by companies like iRobot can already drive themselves around indoors with a minimum of collisions

problems of obstacle detection and avoidance are far from licked

The margin of failure for a robot cane has to be vanishingly small, and that level of accuracy could also benefit systems that aren’t attached to humans

the co-robotic cane was co-funded for a three-year period by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) and the National Eye Institute (NEI), both of which are part of NIH

One of the new projects funded by NSF is an effort to make robots that can better read the emotional needs of Parkinson’s sufferers, specifically those whose faces have been significantly paralyzed

In order to serve as mediators between victims of “facial masking” and their caregivers

the project aims to “develop a robotic architecture endowed with moral emotional control mechanisms, abstract moral reasoning, and a theory of mind that allow corobots to be sensitive to human affective and ethical demands

whether it will be an existing system, or a new one

is unclear

one of the project’s collaborators is

the famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) roboticist who proposed the use of so-called “ethical governors” for autonomous military robots