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which fuels the growth of blood vessels

Researchers hope the protein will one day work as a treatment for retinopathy in people.

called “Autonomous navigation

Humans are still

going to tell her where to go.  Curiosity is going to decide how to get there

Curiosity takes pictures from the navigation cameras, with the hazard cameras, and it’s able to combine that information, put it all together to define a safe way to get to where we ask her to go

The drive lasted about 10 meters

she turned her camera this way and that to look at what’s ahead of her.

She actually curved a little bit to the right to avoid some of the small rocks that were directly in front of her.

the actual speed that Curiosity

only about 2 inches per second

Another part of the autonomous navigation capability is using visual odometry

Visual odometry uses images from the mast cameras to look at the terrain before and after a small drive step.

Curosity will see a few hundred features and see how they move across the step

by tracking those features she can know exactly how far she moved, whether she slipped or twisted a little bit during the drive

tiny drones the size of bees

flying robots designed to be small enough to pollinate a flower (they weigh just 80 milligrams

are also designed to hover, giving them plenty of time to transfer pollen

wings mimic those of a fly,

special ceramic that contracts when stimulated by electricity

The robo-bees aren't ready

time yet

they're so tiny, they can't fit a battery pack for power

will also need some sort of computer so they can guide themselves in flight

here are many types of terrestrial microbes that don’t generate methane

Curiosity

sniffed the atmosphere six times for methane between October 2012 and June 2013

didn’t see any sign of the molecule

The instrument

would be able to detect minute concentrations

Scientists today estimate methane on Mars must be 1.3 parts per billion at the most, which is only one-sixth as much as earlier estimates

results are intriguing given that other teams have spotted methane on Mars as far back as 1999

Mars Global Surveyor, which was working for more than 10 years, charted the evolution of Martian methane over three years

NASA Earth-bound observations using spectroscopic measurements reported even greater amounts in the Martian atmosphere in 2009,

reports of the highest concentrations of Mars methane came from Earth-based observatories

imply that they think peering through Earth’s atmosphere may have distorted the measurements

Some Earthly measurements indicated local regions with methane as high as 45 parts per billion

s no known way for methane to disappear quickly from the atmosphere

team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has reluctantly pronounced the mission at an end after being unable to communicate with the spacecraft for over a month

The last communication with the probe was Aug. 8

journeyed a total of about 4.7 billion miles (7.58 billion kilometers).

Launched in January 2005

the spacecraft first traveled about 268 million miles (431 million kilometers) to the vicinity of comet Tempel 1.

On July 3, 2005, the spacecraft deployed an impactor into the path of comet to essentially be run over by its nucleus on July 4

caused material from below the comet’s surface to be blasted out into space

examined by the telescopes and instrumentation of the flyby spacecraft

in late December 2007 to put it on course to encounter another comet, Hartley 2 in November 2010

Sixteen days after that comet encounter, the Deep Impact team placed the spacecraft on a trajectory to fly back past Eart

The spacecraft’s extended mission

the successful flyby of comet Hartley 2 on Nov. 4, 2010

Along the way, it also observed six different stars to confirm the motion of planets orbiting them

took images and data of the Earth, the Moon and Mars

data helped to confirm the existence of water on the Moon, and attempted to confirm the methane signature in the atmosphere of Mars

It took images of comet ISON this year and collected early images of comet ISON in June

After losing contact with the spacecraft last month, mission controllers spent several weeks trying to uplink commands to reactivate its onboard systems

Although the exact cause of the loss is not known

analysis has uncovered a potential problem with computer time tagging that could have led to loss of control for Deep Impact’s orientation.

That would then affect the positioning of its radio antennas, making communication difficult

its solar arrays, which would in turn prevent the spacecraft from getting power

allow cold temperatures to ruin onboard equipment, essentially freezing its battery and propulsion systems.

Issus coleoptratus

juveniles

The researchers’ high-speed videos showed that the creatures

, is believed to be the first functional gearing system ever discovered in nature

The finding,

used electron microscopes and high-speed video capture to discover the existence of the gearing and figure out its exact function.

To jump, both of the insect’s hind legs must push forward at the exact same time

The reason for the gearing, they say, is coordination

have an intricate gearing system that locks their back legs together, allowing both appendages to rotate at the exact same instant, causing the tiny creatures jump forward.

cocked their back legs in a jumping position, then pushed forward, with each moving within 30 microseconds

if one tooth breaks, it limits the effectiveness of the design

30 millionths of a second

the skeleton is used to solve a complex problem that the brain and nervous system can’t

The gears are located at the top of the insects’ hind legs

and include 10 to 12 tapered teeth, each about 80 micrometers wide (or 80 millionths of a meter).

In all the Issus hoppers studied, the same number of teeth were present on each hind leg, and the gears locked together neatly

adults of the same insect species don’t have any gearing—as the juveniles grow up and their skin molts away

the adult legs are synchronized by an alternate mechanism (a series of protrusions extend from both hind legs, and push the other leg into action).

hypothesize that this could be explained by the fragility of the gearing

jump at speeds as high as 8.7 miles per hour

isn’t such a big problem for the juveniles, who repeatedly molt and grow new gears before adulthood

for the mature Issus, replacing the teeth would be impossible

There have been gear-like structures previously found on other animals

but they’re purely ornamental

simian immunodeficiency virus, or SIV, which causes AIDS in monkeys

it is hoped an HIV-form of the vaccine candidate can soon be tested in humans

approach involves the use of cytomegalovirus, or CMV, a common virus already carried by a large percentage of the population

the researchers discovered that pairing CMV with SIV had a unique effect

a modified version of CMV engineered to express SIV proteins generates and indefinitely maintains so-called "effector memory" T-cells that are capable of searching out and destroying SIV-infected cells

About 50 percent of monkeys given highly pathogenic SIV after being vaccinated with this vaccine became infected with SIV but over time eliminated all trace of SIV from the body

vaccine mobilized a T-cell response that was able to overtake the SIV invaders in 50 percent of the cases treated

testing suggests SIV was banished from the host

lab is now investigating the possible reasons why only a subset of the animals treated had a positive response in hopes that the effectiveness of the vaccine candidate can be further boosted

science team carefully choose a few stopping points for study along the way to help characterize the local terrain

Curiosity has arrived at Waypoint 1

has now driven nearly 20% of the way towards the base of the giant layered mountain

Altogether, the team selected five ‘Waypoints’ to investigate for a few days each

stay just a couple of sols at Waypoint 1 and then we hit the road again

Waypoint 1’ is an area of intriguing outcrops that was chosen based on high resolution orbital imagery taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)

Curiosity will only stay a short time at each of the stops, the measurements collected at each ‘Waypoint’ will provide essential clues to the overall geologic and environmental history

scientists goal is to compare the floor of Gale Crater to the sedimentary layers of 3 mile high (5 kilometer high) Mount Sharp

Waypoint 1 is just over 1 mile along the approximately 5.3-mile (8.6-kilometer) route from ‘Glenelg’ to the entry point at the base of Mount Sharp

Curiosity spent over six months investigating the ‘Yellowknife Bay’ area inside Glenelg before departing on July 4, 2013

On Sept. 5, Curiosity set a new one-day distance driving record for the longest drive yet by advancing 464 feet (141.5 meters) on her 13th month

As Curiosity neared Waypoint 1 she stopped at a rise called ‘Panorama Point’ on Sept. 7

will not conduct any drilling here or at the other waypoints

unless there is some truly remarkable discovery

If all goes well Curiosity could reach the entry point to Mount Sharp sometime during Spring 2014, at her current driving pace