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new bendable Li-ion battery

several other flexible Li-ion batteries have been developed already, none has achieved a sufficient performance in operation stability to be applied to commercial products

the electrodes for these batteries can only be made of a few materials due to fabrication difficulties, and

don’t have very good performance

one type of ideal cathode material would be a lithium transition metal oxide

researchers developed a fabrication technique that allows them to thermo-treat the electrode material, enabling the use of almost any material as an electrode

depositing the battery materials onto a brittle mica substrate

Then, using sticky tape, the researchers peeled the mica substrate away, layer by layer

After about 10 minutes of peeling, the researchers could remove the entire mica substrate without damaging the thin-film battery.

Next, the flexible battery is transferred onto a flexible polymer sheet and capped with another flexible polymer sheet

tests, the researchers demonstrated that the new flexible Li-ion battery has the highest charging voltage (4.2 V) and charging capacity (106 μAh/cm2) ever achieved for flexible Li-ion batteries

also demonstrated that the battery could be bent with a high curvature angle

after 100 charge-discharge cycles, the battery lost some of its capacity

Depending on the degree of bending deformation, it maintained between 88.2% and 98.4% of its original capacity.

In the future, the researchers plan to improve the battery performance, particularly its energy density, as well as work on mass production through a one-step laser lift-off process instead of using sticky tape

as it can only go 31 miles per hour maximum, though it does have a range of 75 miles

The company has

made 20 of the cars which are being tested by various groups

are currently trying to sell to San Francisco, Berlin and Barcelona, at a price of about $16,000 each.

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

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

you can go into the facility, you can go into some of the large areas there, like the Vehicle Assembly Building. You can go down to the launch pad and actually go up several floors of the launch pad and see where the astronauts would walk and where they would go as they were boarding the shuttle

actually got to take a snapshot of these structures and these systems in place before all those transitions happened

Many of those facilities are going to be decommissioned or converted to different uses

So the opportunity to kind of capture that moment in Street View and preserve it, and make it accessible to people around the world, is I think really valuable and important

capsule

blasted off from a floating platform in the Baltic Sea

The flight was designed to see how well the LES

Launch Escape System (LES

various parachutes would work in the event of a serious launch mishap

results were a bit mixed,

LES spinning out of control and cutting Beautiful Betty loose at an altitude too low for the capsule's parachutes to deploy properly. Betty slammed hard into the ocean

Still, the

was pleased.

The ultimate goal

, is to launch people into suborbital space on the cheap

The group relies on private donations and money from sponsors to fund its activities.

working fulltime to develop a series of suborbital space vehicles — designed to pave the way for manned spaceflight on a micro size spacecraft

If you want to

see a satellite image of the entire planet, there are

weather satellites

NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) release images of an entire hemisphere of planet Earth every 3 hours

you can see major weather patterns affecting parts of the Earth. But you really can’t see any specific spot on Earth with any detail

these satellite views is that they’re live.

The weather systems

are happening on the planet right now

If you don’t want a live view

check out

images produced by NASA. Here’s a composite photograph that shows the Earth’s Western Hemisphere, and here’s a view of the Earth’s Eastern Hemisphere.

There were also some amazing new satellite images of the Earth released from the European Space Agency’s 3rd generation Meteosat spacecraft

zoom in, and see some pictures of houses from space

Google Maps and the other internet mapping services are really just customers for the satellite services that actually take these photographs from space

There are a few major services on the market, including GeoEye

DigitalGlobe and Spot Image.

Each company has a fleet of Earth observation satellites, with a capability of resolving features on the surface of the Earth as small as about 45 cm (18 inches). In other words, an object 45 centimeters across would appear as a single pixel in their photographs

GeoEye – 5 satellites: IKONOS, OrbView-2, OrbView-3, GeoEye-1, GeoEye-2 (in 2013).

DigitalGlobe – 4 satellites: Early Bird 1, Quickbird, WorldView-1, Worldview-2

Spot Image – 2 satellites: Spot 4, Spot 5

Each of these services allow customers to purchase satellite imagery directly

the prices are

hundreds or even thousands of dollars for satellite imagery

typically can’t buy directly from the satellite company itself

All of the free satellite images you’re accessing were captured by various spacecraft over the last couple of years

. A live satellite view of your house, is still a few years off.

you can access a live broadcast from NASA’s International Space Station. About 40% of the time, if you follow this link you can see a live view of Earth from the space station.

Another service called Urthecast will be attaching a high definition camera to the International Space Station in 2013 to broadcast a live view of Earth from space.

could also benefit diabetic patients with poor circulation, preventing leg amputation

Stem cell therapy to treat heart disease is already being carried out in the clinic using bone marrow cells

the long-term effectiveness at the moment is minimal and some types of stem cells have the potential to become a tumour

a new type of partial stem cell developed from fibroblasts (skin cells) can be reprogrammed into vascular cells before going into the body, which have no risk turning into tumours.

The process of developing vascular cells from skin cells took two weeks

the next step is to test this approach in cells from patients with vascular disease

This is an early study and more research needs to be done into how this approach works in patients, but the aim is to be able to inject reprogrammed cells into areas of restricted blood flow, or even graft an entirely new blood vessel into a patient to treat serious cardiovascular diseases

This team showed they can derive so-called ‘partial pluripotent’ cells from human skin cells in just four days, and convert them directly into a type of cell that lines our blood vessels

Traditional methods take longer and come with an increased chance of tumours forming from the new cells

discovery could help lead towards future therapies to repair hearts after they are damaged by a heart attack

possible future regenerative treatment, these cells might also be used in drug screening to find new treatments to tackle inherited diseases

the drug (+)-naloxone (pronounced: PLUS nal-OX-own) will selectively block the immune-addiction response

a necropsy on the euthanized python revealed she was carrying 87 eggs—also a state record for the species

The Everglades is home to a growing population of the invasive Asian pythons, many of which originate from snakes that either escaped into or were dumped into the wild in the 1990s

To biologist

those 87 eggs are "just more evidence that they are pretty much established—they're breeding in the Everglades

Python Patrol, focuses not on eradicating invasive pythons but on stopping the spread of the snake to sensitive areas, such as bird breeding spots

don't think we can necessarily get rid of every last one. We just want to keep them from moving elsewhere

pythons are going to be part of the native fauna in the next few decades

Cilia—which resemble a "constantly moving shag carpet" under the microscope—propel potentially harmful material out of our lungs and either up to our nostrils to be expelled or down to our gullets, where stomach acid zaps any harmful organisms

People with sinusitis and genetic disorders such as cystic fibrosis have trouble clearing out mucus, even though they sneeze a lot.

For cilia to work, they need mucus

contradiction

wonder whether sneezing has a role in getting cilia to clear out mucus—and whether that process was somehow impaired in sinusitis patients

puffed air on the lining—a sort of "in vitro sneeze

If you puff air on these cells, [their cilia] beat faster

from sinusitis patients

, the cilia did not beat faster

patients aren't getting the same cellular response as patients who don't have the syndrome

chronic inflammation or toxins in sinusitis-related bacteria may be preventing the cilia from working properly

Can we actually take this information and translate it into a novel therapy

scientists could theoretically develop nasal sprays or other topical treatments to get the cilia revved up in people with impaired mucus clearance

no "satisfactory treatment option" for chronic sinusitis, which affects an estimated 14 to 16 million Americans

usually treated with medicine and surgery to relieve the symptoms, which can include congestion, reduced smell and taste, and pain or swelling in the face

a neurobiologist at University of California–Irvine

Huntington’s disease occurs when the C-A-G sequence of DNA base pairs repeat too often on the HTT gene, resulting in an abnormally long version of the huntingtin protein, that therefore folds incorrectly and forms clumps in the brain

usually begins to affect people in their 30s and 40s, causing movement problems and early death

No drug is currently available to stop the disease from progressing

For their experiment, researchers fed methylene blue mixed with food for a week to Drosophila flies

brains showed that protein clumps had been reduced by 87 percent compared with a control group

given methylene blue

underwent several tests to assess mobility

At two months of age, the treated mice showed abnormal clasping of their hind claws only 20 percent of the time

untreated counterparts clasped at a 60 percent rate

the number of mice used was not sufficient to provide statistically significant results and the difference in the test quickly dropped off at nine weeks of age

the data as hopeful, because even a delay in Huntington’s symptoms would be very helpful

more research is needed

Methylene blue would absolutely require further testing in mouse models and would need safety and efficacy trial before it could be used for humans."

This study shows promise pre-clinically and follow-up studies are needed in a more representative mouse model that expresses the full-length Huntingtin protein

The X-51 Waverider program is a cooperative effort of the Air Force, DARPA, NASA, Boeing and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne

technology would be successful enough to eventually be used for more efficient transport of payloads into orbit

Pentagon has touted its ability to deliver strikes around the globe within minutes.

craft was carried to about 15,240 meters (50,000 ft.) by a B-52 from Edwards Air Force Base in California

dropped over the Pacific Ocean

Designers were hoping the Waverider would reach Mach 6 or more

scramjet (short for “supersonic combustion ramjet”) is an air-breathing engine, where intake air blows through its combustion chamber at supersonic speeds

engine has no moving parts

oxygen needed by the engine to combust is taken from the atmosphere passing through the vehicle, instead of from a tank onboard

Some designers have predicted it could reach speeds of anywhere from Mach 12 to Mach 24. Mach 24 is more than 29,000 km/hour (18,000 miles per hour.) This could cut an 18-hour trip to Tokyo from New York City to less than 2 hours.

May 2010, the first test of the vehicle had sort of a “successful” flight of 200 seconds of autonomous flight

another test in 2011 failed

made the findings in mice, whose brains are remarkably similar to the human brain

Scientists have known that cerebrospinal fluid or CSF plays an important role cleansing brain tissue, carrying away waste products and carrying nutrients to brain tissue through a process known as diffusion

The newly discovered system circulates CSF to every corner of the brain much more efficiently, through what scientists call bulk flow or convection

It's as if the brain has two garbage haulers – a slow one that we've known about, and a fast one that we've just met

How has this system eluded the notice of scientists up to now

the system operates only when it's intact and operating in the living brain, making it very difficult to study

study the living, whole brain, the team used a technology known as two-photon microscopy, which allows scientists to look at the flow of blood, CSF and other substances in the brain of a living animal

If the glymphatic system fails to cleanse the brain as it is meant to, either as a consequence of normal aging, or in response to brain injury, waste may begin to accumulate in the brain. This may be what is happening with amyloid deposits in Alzheimer's disease

Perhaps increasing the activity of the glymphatic system might help prevent amyloid deposition from building up or could offer a new way to clean out buildups of the material in established Alzheimer's disease

took an in-depth look at amyloid beta

found that more than half the amyloid removed from the brain of a mouse under normal conditions is removed via the glymphatic system

offers a promising lead

originally developed as an anticancer agent

designed to inhibit a protein called BRD4, which helps regulate cell division and is known to be involved in a type of aggressive skin cancer

after 6 weeks of daily injections of JQ1 the animals' sperm counts were reduced by nearly 90%. Only 5% of the remaining sperm were able to swim properly, compared with 85% of sperm in control mice. After 3 months of treatment, none of the mice were able to sire offspring

had no apparent effect on the production of testosterone or other hormones made by the testes

A month or two after treatment stopped, all of the mice were again able to father as many pups as control mice

no obvious side effects in the mice, and the offspring of the treated animals showed no abnormalities.

compound seems to target developing sperm both before and after meiosis

If you're taking healthy people in their twenties and giving them a drug, you want to be very sure it doesn’t affect anything else

the lifespans of mice aren’t sufficient to test the possible long-term effects of drugs that people might want to be able to take for decades

Primate experiments, meanwhile, are prohibitively expensive, and funding is scarce

sort of a target practice

Curiosity won't go straight to Mount Sharp

it will head first for Glenelg

captures much of the geological diversity of Gale Crater's floor

Researchers will likely keep checking out Curiosity and its instruments for another few weeks

the trip to Glenelg could take up to two months, depending upon how much science the team wants to do

team will probably keep Curiosity at Glenelg for about a month

The rover will use its drill for the first time at the site, boring more deeply into Martian rock than any robot has before

Researchers at the Sophia Agrobiotech Institute in France, have found that not only do aphids produce carotenoids, but the amount they produce seems to be directly influenced by the amount of sunshine they receive in their daily life

Carotenoids are pigments that in most animals are obtained via consumption of other organisms that create it via photosynthesis

Aphids

are able to synthesize them all by themselves, making them stand out

Researchers aren’t sure why they do so, but many other animals rely on carotenoids to help bolster a strong immunity system

carotenoids in aphids are responsible for their color

high levels are green, those with very low levels are white, and those in-between are orange.

In this new research the team found that the levels of carotenoids in the aphids appeared to correlate with levels of adenosine triphosphate (ATP),

the way to measure the transfer of energy in living things

higher the level of carotenoids were the more ATP was present

when the team moved orange aphids in and out of direct sunlight, levels of carotenoids and ATP rose and sunk

suggesting the insect was getting energy directly through such exposure

Martian day

is about 24 hours, 39 minutes

Mars Clock, by SunlightAndTime, is a 99-cent app that displays Mars time and a host of other Mars time goodies

for your Apple device

Features include local mean solar time for the rover, coordinated Mars time, sunrise and sunset times for the Curiosity landing site (I think this might be the coolest feature), current season, a countdown to landing feature (which is counting up since MSL landed on Mars on August 5th), current Earth time, a distance calculator between the Earth and Mars and radio communications delay estimate.

stopped at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum to shoot prototype shuttle Enterprise before it was moved to New York City

we had written the Chasing Atlantis Twitter account and site URL on our cars

A NASA software engineer, Ryan Horan, saw our car with Paul shooting out the window as we passed by the sign for the Kennedy Space Center. He was interested in our project and sent us a tweet.

arranged

to join one of the first tours following the reopening of the Vehicle Assembly Building to the public.

The building is monstrously huge. It will generate its own weather system inside, sometimes producing micro-rain clouds.

The film was completely self-funded

posting an Indie-Go-Go or Kickstarter profile up in hopes of helping to cover the post-production costs