SciByte

After gathering at least 200 such reports from the three men, the researchers used a lexical database to group the dreamed objects in coarse categories, such as street, furniture and girl

On average, the computer could pick which of two objects had appeared in a dream 70 percent of the time

Computer algorithms sorted through

patterns of brain activity, linking particular patterns with objects

The study bolsters the notion that the vivid imagery of dreams, no matter how fantastic, is as real as waking life,

from the brain’s perspective

right after being awakened from the early stages of sleep, the researchers asked the subjects to describe the dream they were having

used functional MRI to monitor brain activity of the participants and polysomnography to record the physical changes that occur during sleep

compared evidence of brain activity when participants were awake and looking at real images to the brain activity they saw when participants were dreaming

the study shows it may be possible to use brain activity patterns to understand something about what a person is dreaming about

current approach requires the data of image viewing and sleep within the same [person

methods being developed for aligning brain patterns across people

there are practical applications to the research

evidence suggesting that the pattern of spontaneous brain activity is relevant to health issues

researchers chose to awaken the subjects in light sleep rather than in deeper "rapid eye movement" (REM) sleep solely to make the research easier to do

it takes at least an hour to reach first REM stage, it would be difficult to get sleep and dream data from multiple participants

why it is so hard to remember a dream minutes after waking up

thinks it is because particular neurotransmitters or brain regions involved in memory are not active during sleep

During sleep and dreaming, part of the brain—the higher visual cortex—is working as if seeing images

one expert said the results are intriguing, he was cautious

previous disappointments relating brain activity to complex visual experience

like to see this replicated

The oxidizer pressure was low in three tanks. And the propulsion system is required to orient the craft for two way communication and to propel the Dragon to the orbiting lab complex

The problem was a very tiny change to the check valves that serve the oxidizer tanks

Three of the check valves were actually different from the prior check valves that had flown – in a very tiny way. Because of the tiny change they got stuck

able to write some new software in real time and upload that to Dragon to build pressure upstream of the check valves and then released that pressure- to give it a kind of a kick

that got the valves unstuck and then they worked well

difficulty communicating with the spacecraft because it was in free drift in orbit

worked closely with the Air Force to get higher intensity, more powerful dishes to communicate with the spacecraft and upload the software

there had been a small design change to the check valves by the supplier

supplier had made mistakes that we didn’t catch

You would need a magnifying glass to see the difference

SpaceX had run the new check valves through a series of low pressurization systems tests and they worked well and didn’t get stuck. But SpaceX had failed to run the functional tests at higher pressures

SpaceX will revert to the old check valves and run tests to make sure this failure doesn’t happen again

the first results from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, known by its acronym AMS,

show evidence of new physics phenomena that could be the strange and unknown dark matter or could be energy that originates from pulsars

expects a more definitive answer in a matter of months

Unraveling the mystery of dark matter could help scientists better understand the composition of our universe and, more particularly, what holds galaxies together

The 7-ton detector with a 3-foot magnet ring at its core was sent into space in 2011

The device is transmitting its data to CERN, where it is being analyzed

For 80 years scientists have theorized the existence of dark matter but have never actually observed it directly

They have looked for it in accelerators that smash particles together at high speed

deep underground with special detectors

no luck

there's a third way: looking in space for the results of rare dark matter collisions

If particles of dark matter crash and annihilate each other, they should leave a footprint of positrons—the anti-matter version of electrons—at high energy levels

found some. But they could also be signs of pulsars

What's key is the curve of the plot of those positrons. If the curve is one shape, it points to dark matter. If it's another, it points to pulsars

they should know the curve—and the suspect—soon

since its installation on 19 May 2011 it has measured over 30 billion cosmic rays at energies up to trillions of electron volts

Its permanent magnet and array of precision particle detectors collect and identify charged cosmic rays passing through AMS from the far reaches of space

Over its long duration mission on the ISS, AMS will record signals from 16 billion cosmic rays every year and transmit them to Earth for analysis by the AMS Collaboration.

In the initial 18 month period of space operations, from 19 May 2011 to 10 December 2012, AMS analyzed 25 billion primary cosmic ray events

Of these,

6.8 million, were unambiguously identified as electrons and their antimatter counterpart, positrons.

Positrons are clearly distinguished from this background through the robust rejection power of AMS of more than one in one million

Currently, the total number of positrons identified by AMS, in excess of 400,000, is the largest number of energetic antimatter particles directly measured and analyzed from space

The exact shape of the spectrum, as shown in Figure 2, extended to higher energies, will ultimately determine whether this spectrum originates from the collision of dark matter particles or from pulsars in the galaxy

by measuring the ratio between positrons and electrons and by studying the behavior of any excess across the energy spectrum, a better understanding of the origin of dark matter and other physics phenomena can be obtained

An animation of seven images from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show a “flapping” of the parachute that allowed the Curiosity rover to descend safely through Mars atmosphere images

Both problems have the same underlying defect: the inability to remove a buildup of fat and cholesterol

researchers shed new light on how deposits of cholesterol contribute to macular degeneration and atherosclerosis and even blood vessel growth in some types of cancer

Patients who have atherosclerosis often are prescribed medications to lower cholesterol and keep arteries clear

This study suggests that some of those same drugs could be evaluated in patients with macular degeneration

we need to investigate whether vision loss caused by macular degeneration could be prevented with cholesterol-lowering eye drops or other medications that might prevent the buildup of lipids beneath the retina

The new research centers on macrophages, key immune cells that remove cholesterol and fats from tissues

In macular degeneration, the excessive buildup of cholesterol begins to occur as we age, and our macrophages begin to malfunction

In the "dry" form of age-related macular degeneration, doctors examining the eye can see lipid deposits beneath the retina

As those deposits become larger and more numerous, they slowly begin to destroy the central part of the eye, interfering with the vision needed to read a book or drive a car

As aging macrophages clear fewer fat deposits beneath the retina, the macrophage cells themselves can become bloated with cholesterol, creating an inflammatory process that leads to the formation of new blood vessels that can cause further damage

Those vessels characterize the later "wet" form of the disease

that inflammation creates a toxic mix of things that leads to new blood vessel growth

Most of the vision loss

is the result of bleeding and scar-tissue formation related to abnormal vessel growth

the scientists identified a protein that macrophages need to clear fats and cholesterol

As mice and humans age, they make less of the protein, and macrophages become less effective at engulfing and removing fat and cholesterol

team found that macrophages, from old mice and in patients with macular degeneration, have inadequate levels of the protein, called ABCA1, which transports cholesterol out of cells

As a result, the old macrophages accumulated high levels of cholesterol and couldn't inhibit the growth of the damaging blood vessels

when the researchers treated the macrophages with a substance that helped restore levels of ABCA1, the cells could remove cholesterol more effectively, and the development of new blood vessels was slowed

able to deliver the drug, called an LXR agonist, in eye drops

found that we could reverse the macular degeneration in the eye of an old mouse

could focus therapy only on the eyes, and we likely could limit the side effects of drugs taken orally

since macrophages are important in atherosclerosis and in the formation of new blood vessels around certain types of cancerous tumors, the same pathway also might provide a target for more effective therapies for those diseases

can reverse the disease cascade in mice by improving macrophage function, either with eye drops or with systemic treatments,

Some of the therapies already being used to treat atherosclerosis target this same pathway, so we may be able to modify drugs that already are available and use them to deliver treatment to the eye

the event is a preview of a similar feeding event that is expected to take place with the black hole at the center of our own Milky Way Galaxy

galaxy NGC 4845, 47 million light-years away

Astronomers were using Integral to study a different galaxy when they noticed a bright X-ray flare coming from another location in the same wide field-of-view

the origin was confirmed as NGC 4845, a galaxy never before detected at high energies

the emission was traced from its maximum in January 2011, when the galaxy brightened by a factor of a thousand, and then as it subsided over the course of the year

By analyzing the characteristics of the flare, the astronomers could determine that the emission came from a halo of material around the galaxy’s central black hole as it tore apart and fed on an object of 14–30 Jupiter masses, and so the astronomers say the object was either a super-Jupiter or a brown dwarf

This object appears to have been ‘wandering,’ which would fit the description of recent studies

The black hole in the center of NGC 4845 is estimated to have a mass of around 300,000 times that of our own Sun

This is the first time where we have seen the disruption of a substellar object by a black hole

estimate that only its external layers were eaten by the black hole, amounting to about 10% of the object’s total mass, and that a denser core has been left orbiting the black hole

The flaring event in NGC 4845 might be similar to what is expected to happen with the supermassive black hole at the center of our own Milky Way Galaxy

these events will tell astronomers more about what happens to the demise of different types of objects as they encounter black holes of varying sizes

Estimates are that events like these may be detectable every few years in galaxies around us

the emission brightened and decayed shows there was a delay of 2–3 months between the object being disrupted and the heating of the debris in the vicinity of the black hole.