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Sol 3092 (Oct. 4, 2012), the rover moved, likely the smallest amount ever, with less than an inch (1 centimeter) of total motion in order to position the robotic arm favorable on a dark-rind surface target

n Sol 3094 (Oct. 6, 2012), Opportunity performed a 15-minute brush of a surface target with the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT)

followed with the collection of a Microscopic Imager (MI) mosaic

then the placement of the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) for an overnight integration

Total odometry is 21.78 miles (35,050.07 meters)

In its statement, Orbcomm suggested that i

had enough access to the satellite in less than four days in orbit to validate the performance of its major subsystems.

Orbcomm said that, had its satellite been the primary payload on SpaceX’s Oct. 7 flight, the mission would have been a success

OG2 satellite bus systems including power, attitude control, thermal and data handling were also tested to verify proper operation

The solar array and communications antenna deployments were successful

Orbcomm requested that SpaceX carry one of their small satellites

few hundred pounds, vs. Dragon at over 12,000 pounds

on this flight so that they could gather test data before we launch their full constellation next year.

The higher the orbit, the more test data they can gather, so they requested that we attempt to restart and raise altitude

NASA agreed to allow that, but only on condition that there be substantial propellant reserves, since the orbit would be close to the space station

Orbcomm understood from the beginning that the orbit-raising maneuver was tentative

They accepted that there was a high risk of their satellite remaining at the Dragon insertion orbit.

t makes these things totally unique. They're not designed necessarily to stop anything. They're designed to fix what's broken. As far as we can see, they work

current Alzheimer's treatments, which either slow the process of cell death or inhibit cholinesterase, an enzyme believed to break down a key neurotransmitter involved in learning and memory development

Last month, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, reported that only three of 104 possible treatments have been approved in the past 13 years

Development of the WSU drug is only starting

Safety testing alone could cost more than $1 million

been working on their compound since 1992

practical utility of these early drug candidates, however, was severely limited

they were very quickly broken down by the body and couldn't get across the blood-brain barrier,

cellular barrier that prevents drugs and other molecules from entering the brain

'That's useless. I mean, who wants to drill holes in people's heads?

designed a smaller version of the molecule

Not only is it stable but it can cross the blood-brain barrier

added bonus is it can move from the gut into the blood, so it can be taken in pill form

reported similar but less dramatic results in a smaller group of old rats. In this study the old rats

tested the drug on several dozen rats treated with scopolamine, a chemical that interferes with a neurotransmitter critical to learning and memory.

a rat treated with scopolamine will never learn the location of a submerged platform in a water tank, orienting with cues outside the tank

After receiving the WSU drug, however, all of the rats did, whether they received the drug directly in the brain, orally, or through an injection.

statistically valid, additional studies with larger test groups will be necessary to fully confirm the finding.

bench assays using living nerve cells to monitor new neuronal connections

Dihexa to be seven orders of magnitude more powerful than BDNF, which has yet to be effectively developed for therapeutic use

connecting the drill with the music player

, patients are able to control its volume by opening and closing their mouths

e wider they open, the louder the music grows which means the dentist doesn't have to continually urge patients to open wider for better access to back teeth

he invested 6 million rupiah (approximately $595)

mainly for the benefit of frightened children

using it in his practice since 2006 and has noted that many adults also prefer the musical drill to the standard model.

Patients can make requests he says, though he does try to limit the choices to songs that calm the nerves

t it took a year of research and effort to configure the drill

Doctor Gustiana presented his modified drill to attendees at the International Dental Congress held in Greece earlier this year.

A Frenchman and an American shared the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for inventing methods to peer into the bizarre quantum world of ultra-tiny particles, work that could help in creating a new generation of super-fast computers

quantum computers could radically change people's lives in the way that classical computers did last century, but a full-scale quantum computer is still decades away

for experiments on quantum particles that have already resulted in ultra-precise clocks and may one day help lead to computers many times faster than those in use today.

If scientists can make such particles work together, certain kinds of calculations could be done with blazing speed.

The prizes are always handed out on Dec. 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896.

2012: Serge Haroche of France and David Wineland of the U.S. for "for ground-breaking experimental methods" that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems

2011: American physicist Saul Perlmutter, U.S.-Australian researcher Brian Schmidt and American professor Adam Riess "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae."

y still need to confirm this

s further work to see how it behaves and reacts with other particles

there is a remote possibility that the new particle is not the Higgs, although this would be an even more groundshaking announcement.

six physicists, each building on the work of others, published a flurry of papers on aspects of the theory within four months of each other back in 1964.

The first were Belgians Robert Brout, who died last year, and Francois Englert.

followed by Higgs, who was the first to say only a new particle would explain the anomalies of mass

further complication is that thousands of physicists worked in the two labs at CERN's Large Hadron Collider near Geneva where Higgs experiments were conducted independently of each other.

decide whether theoreticians or experimentalists—or both—should get the glory.

At most three names, although they can include organisations, can share a Nobel

e prize cannot be given posthumously.

The Nobel will "eventually" go to the Higgs

s not yet certain that the newly-discovered particle is in fact a Higgs boson

nothing stopping us from giving the prize to an organisation. But it has not been the custom in the scientific prizes

The Nobel Peace Prize has often been awarded to organisations. But in the science prizes we have tried to find the most prizeworthy individuals

bubble of electrically charged particles blowing outward from the sun (called the heliosphere) exactly counterbalances the inward pressure of the gas and dust from interstellar space, causing equilibrium between the two

scientists have had trouble figuring out what, exactly, happens at or near this boundary — making it hard to tell whether Voyager has crossed it

In 2010, Voyager passed the point where the solar wind, a stream of charged particles flowing outward from the sun, seemed to

indicated that the wind had suddenly died down, and all the surrounding solar particles were at a standstill

"stagnation region" came as a surprise

expected to see the solar wind veer sideways

the perplexing collapse of the solar wind at the edge of the heliosphere left them without a working model for the outer solar system

no well-established criteria of what constitutes exit from the heliosphere

"All theoretical models have been found wanting."

a space scientist at Johns Hopkins who works with Voyager 1 data, said that in any model of the heliopause, an object exiting through it should experience three changes: a sharp rise in the number of collisions with cosmic rays (high-energy particles from space), a dramatic drop in the number of collisions with charged particles from the sun, and a change in the direction of the surrounding magnetic field.

Based on two of those criteria, Voyager 1 looks as if it passed through the heliopause at the end of the summer

The level of these cosmic ray collisions jumped significantly in late August.

spacecraft has experienced a steady rise in the number of collisions with particles whose energies are greater than 70 Mega-electron-volts, indicating they are probably cosmic rays emanating from supernova explosions far beyond the solar system

in late August, cosmic ray collisions sharply rose, and solar particle collisions sharply fell: two indicators of a transition through the heliopause

To officially declare Voyager's crossing, the scientists need to check if the third condition holds

change in magnetic field direction

e interstellar field beyond the influence of the sun) is critical because, even though there is debate among astrophysicists as to what direction the field will lie in

unlikely that it is the direction that we have been seeing at Voyager 1 throughout the most recent years

scientists could not say when the magnetic field analysis would be finished. But when it is

Once we have a consensus within the team we will inform NASA for a proper announcement,

evidence comes from this graph, above, which shows the number of particles, mainly protons, from the Sun hitting Voyager 1 across time

uge drop at the end of August hints that Voyager 1 may now be in interstellar space

on July 28, the level of lower-energy particles originating from inside our Solar System dropped by half. However, in three days, the levels had recovered to near their previous levels. But then the bottom dropped out at the end of August.

Voyager team has said they have been seeing two of three key signs of changes expected to occur at the boundary of interstellar space

drop in particles from the Sun

jump in the level of high-energy cosmic rays originating from outside our Solar System.

third key sign would be the direction of the magnetic field

No word on that yet, but scientists are eagerly analyzing the data to see whether that has, indeed, changed direction

Scientists expect that all three of these signs will have changed when Voyager 1 has crossed into interstellar space.

Voyager project scientist for the entire mission, who was quoted in early August. "We are certainly in a new region at the edge of the solar system where things are changing rapidly. But we are not yet able to say that Voyager 1 has entered interstellar space."

the data are changing in ways that the team didn't expect, "but Voyager has always surprised us with new discoveries."

Voyager 1 launched on Sept. 5, 1977, is approximately 18 billion kilometers (11 billion miles) from the Sun

Voyager 2, which launched on Aug. 20, 1977, is close behind, at 15 billion km (9.3 billion miles) from the Sun.