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Mars Base

Memories 'geotagged' with spatial information - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...131128141405.htm

scibyte111 memories

shared by Mars Base on 01 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Using a video game in which people navigate through a virtual town delivering objects to specific locations, a team of neuroscientists
  • has discovered how brain cells that encode spatial information form "geotags" for specific memories and are activated immediately before those memories are recalled.
  • work shows how spatial information is incorporated into memories and why remembering an experience can quickly bring to mind other events that happened in the same place
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • findings provide the first direct neural evidence for the idea that the human memory system tags memories with information about where and when they were formed
  • this study involved playing a simple video game on a bedside computer
  • The game in this experiment involved making deliveries to stores in a virtual city
  • The participants were first given a period where they were allowed to freely explore the city and learn the stores' locations
  • When the game began, participants were only instructed where their next stop was, without being told what they were delivering
  • After they reached their destination, the game would reveal the item that had been delivered, and then give the participant their next stop
  • After 13 deliveries, the screen went blank and participants were asked to remember and name as many of the items they had delivered in the order they came to mind
  • This allowed the researchers to correlate the neural activation associated with the formation of spatial memories (the locations of the stores) and the recall of episodic memories: (the list of items that had been delivered).
  • "Having these patients play our games allows us to record every action they take in the game and to measure the responses of neurons both during spatial navigation and then later during verbal recall."
  • By asking participants to recall the items they delivered instead of the stores they visited, the researchers could test whether their spatial memory systems were being activated
  • map-like nature of the neurons associated with spatial memory made this comparison possible
  • During navigation, neurons in the hippocampus and neighboring regions can often represent the patient's virtual location within the town
  • Using the brain recordings generated while the participants navigated the city, the researchers were able to develop a neural map that corresponded to the city's layout
  • As participants passed by a particular store, the researchers correlated their spatial memory of that location with the pattern of place cell activation recorded
  • With maps of place cell activations in hand, the researchers were able to cross- reference each participant's spatial memories as they accessed their episodic memories of the delivered items
  • given just the place cell activations of a participant
  • could predict, with better than chance accuracy, the item he or she was recalling
  • cannot distinguish whether these spatial memories are actually helping the participants access their episodic memories
  • seeing that this place cell activation plays a role in the memory retrieval processes
  • Earlier neuroscience research
  • had suggested the hippocampus has two distinct roles
  • tracking location information for spatial memory, and
  • recording events for episodic memory
  • This experiment provides further evidence that these roles are intertwined
Mars Base

ScienceShot: Printing a Dinosaur | Science/AAAS | News - 0 views

news.sciencemag.org/...scienceshot-printing-dinosaur

scibyte111 dinosaur

shared by Mars Base on 02 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • The target fossil for the new study was a specimen that had been dug up from a German clay pit in the early 1900s
  • The object, still encased in much of the rock that had entombed it, had been slathered in concrete and then transported back to a museum in Berlin
  • struck by a bomb during World War II, sending the specimen and hundreds of others into a jumbled heap of rubble
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Most of the fossils that weren’t blasted to dust had had their labels burned, so no one could identify what the remaining concrete jackets held or where they had been dug up
  • A CT scan of one such lump
  • revealed that it held a vertebra
  • from a Plateosaurus
  • the researchers report
  • That, in turn, allowed the researchers to determine where the fossil had originally been unearthed, among other details
  • Scientists have long used CT scans to peek inside fossil-bearing rocks, but the increasing use of 3D printers now enables them to make endless numbers of exact copies of those relics
  • The technique might even help museum folk speed up their analyses: By knowing what’s inside a lump of rock, researchers can determine which fossils are worth extracting, and which ones can wait
Mars Base

Spectacular Liftoff Thrusts China's First Rover 'Yutu' to the Moon - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...s-first-rover-yutu-to-the-moon

scibyte111 ChineseSpaceProgram

shared by Mars Base on 02 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • China successfully launched its first ever lunar rover bound for the Moon’s surface aboard a Long March rocket
  • at 1:30 a.m. Beijing local time, Dec. 2, 2013 (12:30 p.m. EST, Dec. 1) from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China.
  • The name for the ‘Yutu’ rover – which translates as ‘Jack Rabbit’ – was chosen after a special naming contest involving a worldwide poll and voting to select the best name
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • ‘Yutu’ stems from a Chinese fairy tale, in which the goddess Chang’e flew off to the moon taking her little pet Jade rabbit with her.
  • The Chang’e 3 lander will fire thrusters to enter lunar orbit on Dec. 6.
  • It is due to make a powered descent to the lunar surface on Dec. 14, firing thrusters at an altitude of 15 km (9 mi) for touchdown in a preselected area called the Bay of Rainbows or Sinus Iridum region.
  • If successful, the Chang’e 3 mission will mark the first soft landing on the Moon since the Soviet Union’s unmanned Luna 24 sample return vehicle landed nearly four decades ago back in 1976.
  • Jack Rabbit measures 150 centimeters high and weighs approximately 120 kilograms
  • The rover and lander are equipped with multiple cameras, spectrometers, an optical telescope, radar and other sensors to investigate the lunar surface and composition
  • The rover is expected to continue operating for at least three months
  • The next step will be an unmanned lunar sample return mission, perhaps around 2020
Mars Base

India's First Mars Probe 'MOM' Blasts Free of Earth Joining MAVEN in Race to Red Planet - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...ng-maven-in-race-to-red-planet

scibyte111 India-MarsOrbiterMission

shared by Mars Base on 02 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • India’s first ever Mars probe ‘MOM’ successfully fired its main engine
  • Dec. 1)
  • to begin her nearly yearlong momentous voyage to the Red Planet.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Indian space engineers initiated the 440 Newton liquid fueled engine firing precisely as planned at 00:49 hrs (IST) on Sunday, Dec. 1, 2013 during a critical nail-biting burn lasting some 22 minutes
  • MOM is nicknamed ‘Mangalyaan’ – which in Hindi means ‘Mars craft
Mars Base

Comet ISON faded again | Human World | EarthSky - 0 views

earthsky.org/...n-might-be-spectacular-in-2013

scibyte111 CometISON

shared by Mars Base on 01 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • NOVEMBER 29, 2013.
  • Comet ISON rounded the sun yesterday at 18:45 UTC/ 1:45 p.m. EST, and appeared to be disintegrating
  • Then yesterday evening the comet started appearing brighter again
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  • NOVEMBER 30, 2013
Mars Base

Remnants Suggest Comet ISON Still Going: Scientific American - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm

scibyte111 CometISON

shared by Mars Base on 01 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • as ISON got closer to the star
  • Analyses of light captured by NASA’s twin STEREO spacecraft seemed to show the comet growing dimmer
  • Next, pictures from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which should have captured ISON on its closest approach to the Sun, showed absolutely nothing
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Then the European–US Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spotted a faint glimmer on the other side of the Sun, on a trajectory where ISON would have been expected to appear
  • ISON is probably the most observed comet ever
Mars Base

ScienceShot: Comet ISON Could Be No More | Science/AAAS | News - 0 views

news.sciencemag.org/...ot-comet-ison-could-be-no-more

scibyte111 CometISON

shared by Mars Base on 28 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • ISON was
  • on course to swing by the sun less than one solar diameter above the sun’s searing surface on 28 November, Thanksgiving Day in the United States
Mars Base

SOHO shows new images of Comet ISON - 0 views

phys.org/...11-soho-images-comet-ison.html

scibyte111 CometISON

shared by Mars Base on 28 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • scientists have been watching through many observatories to see if the comet has already broken up under the intense heat and gravitational forces of the sun
  • The comet is too far away to discern how many pieces it is in, so instead researchers carefully measure how bright it is,
  • Less light can sometimes mean that more of the material has boiled off and disappeared, perhaps pointing to a disintegrated comet
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • a disintegrating comet sometimes gives off more light, at least temporarily, so researchers look at the comet's pattern of behavior over the previous few days to work out what it may be doing.
  • At times observations have suggested ISON was getting dimmer and might already be in pieces
  • over Nov. 26-27, 2013, the comet once again brightened. In the early hours of Nov. 27, the comet appeared in the view of the European Space Agency/NASA mission the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory in the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph instrument
  • If the comet has already broken up, it should disintegrate completely as it makes its slingshot around the sun
  • This would provide a great opportunity for scientists to see the insides of the comet, and better understand its composition
Mars Base

SpaceX Aborts Thanksgiving Rocket Launch Due to Engine Trouble | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/hanksgiving-rocket-launch.html

scibyte111 SpaceX

shared by Mars Base on 01 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket fired its engines and was moments away from liftoff from Cape Canaveral
  • but the commercial booster aborted the launch after computers detected the engines were too slow building up thrust.
  • Engineers raced to understand and resolve the problem, but they could not get comfortable enough to attempt the launch again
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Officials had not announced a new target launch date
  • SpaceX was targeting liftoff of the 22-story rocket at 5:39 p.m. EST (2239 GMT) Thursday, aiming to achieve the first Thanksgiving Day launch from Florida's Space Coast since 1959
  • The launch was pushed back to Thursday after multiple technical problems thwarted an initial launch attempt Monday
  • The rocket's mission is to place the SES 8 television broadcasting satellite into orbit
  • e highest altitude ever achieved by a SpaceX launch.
  • the flight is critical to SpaceX's future in the commercial launch market, in which it competes against stalwart launch vehicles from Europe and Russia to haul large telecommunications satellites into orbit.
  • The Falcon 9 pressurized its propellant tanks, switched to internal power and ignited its nine Merlin 1D first stage engines a few seconds before the appointed launch time
  • the Falcon 9's computer-controlled countdown sequencer recognized a problem and called off the launch
  • As engineers continued to study the problem, SpaceX elected to restart the countdown to preserve a chance to launch Thursday
  • Ultimately, however, SpaceX said they could not get comfortable with the issue in time and ordered another hold with less than a minute left in the day's second countdown.
Mars Base

India's MOM Mars Probe Images Earth's Children Prior to Nail Biting Red Planet Insertion - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...il-biting-red-planet-insertion

scibyte111 India-MarsOrbiterMission

shared by Mars Base on 28 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • First ever image of Earth Taken by Mars Color Camera aboard India’s Mars Orbiter Mission
  • age is focused on the Indian subcontinent and captured from an altitude of 70,000 kilometers. Credit: ISRO
  • image was taken on Nov. 20 at around 1350 hrs (IST) from a height of almost 70,000 km above earth and has a spatial resolution of 3.5 km, said ISRO
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The image also gives a rather good approximation of what MOM’s color camera will actually see
  • since the probe will enter a similarly highly elliptical orbit around Mars
Mars Base

A Sunny Outlook for NASA Kepler's Second Light | NASA - 0 views

www.nasa.gov/...-for-nasa-keplers-second-light

scibyte110 scibyte111 Kepler

shared by Mars Base on 26 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • A repurposed Kepler Space telescope may soon start searching the sky again.
  • A new mission concept, dubbed K2, would continue Kepler's search for other worlds, and introduce new opportunities to observe star clusters, young and old stars, active galaxies and supernovae
  • In May, the Kepler spacecraft lost the second of four gyroscope-like reaction wheels, which are used to precisely point the spacecraft, ending new data collection for the original mission
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • required three functioning wheels to maintain the precision pointing necessary to detect the signal of small Earth-sized exoplanets
  • With the failure of a second reaction wheel, the spacecraft can no longer precisely point at the mission's original field of view. The culprit is none other than our own sun
  • pushes the spacecraft around
  • the pressure exerted when the photons of sunlight strike the spacecraft
  • Without a third wheel to help counteract the solar pressure, the spacecraft's ultra-precise pointing capability cannot be controlled in all directions.
  • Kepler mission and Ball Aerospace engineers have developed an innovative way of recovering pointing stability by maneuvering the spacecraft so that the solar pressure is evenly distributed across the surfaces of the spacecraft
  • To achieve this level of stability, the orientation of the spacecraft must be nearly parallel to its orbital path around the sun
  • This technique of using the sun as the 'third wheel' to control pointing is currently being tested on the spacecraft and early results are already coming i
  • During a pointing performance test in late October, a full frame image of the space telescope's full field of view was captured showing part of the constellation Sagittarius
  • Photons of light from a distant star field were collected over a 30-minute period and produced an image quality within five percent of the primary mission image quality
  • Additional testing is underway to demonstrate the ability to maintain this level of pointing control for days and weeks.
  • The K2 mission concept has been presented to NASA Headquarters
  • A decision to proceed to the 2014 Senior Review – a biannual assessment of operating missions – and propose for budget to fly K2 is expected by the end of 2013
  • For four years, the space telescope simultaneously and continuously monitored the brightness of more than 150,000 stars, recording a measurement every 30 minutes.
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