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Mars Base

Regrowing human body parts: The dream comes within reach - NBC News.com - 0 views

www.nbcnews.com/...s-just-over-horizon-6C10984423

scibyte108 ViewerFeedback

shared by Mars Base on 05 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Sometime in the next few decades, humans may be able to regrow a finger here, a toe there – and maybe even fresh patches of beating heart tissue
  • Human hearts are among the most promising targets
  • A decade ago
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • demonstrated that zebrafish had the ability to repair a badly damaged heart, thanks to a particular protein that regulates the regenerative process
  • That trick could work for humans as well as fish
  • this month, researchers from the Gladstone Institutes showed that they could turn human scar tissue into electrically conductive tissue in a lab dish by fiddling with just a few key genes
  • Among the hurdles that lie ahead: taking that technique out of the lab and applying it to living human hearts
  • humans already have demonstrated some ability to regenerate body parts
  • very young children can fill out the tips of chopped off fingers and toes
  • the salamander, which can regrow a whole arm below the joint
  • Young mice are able to regenerate toes, too
  • been studying mouse toes to understand how a similar regrowth mechanism can be reactivated or imitated in adult humans
  • In 2010, his lab showed it was possible to enhance the regenerative response in adult mice
  • researchers are cautious about predicting how studies of animal regeneration will be applied to humans
  • it's dangerous to say, 'Yes, we expect to regenerate a limb
  • the field is reaching a turning point
Mars Base

Kepler Discovers Earth-Sized Mystery Planet - Popular Mechanics - 0 views

www.popularmechanics.com/...-sized-mystery-planet-16101131

scibyte108 exoplanet

shared by Mars Base on 04 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • it is difficult to measure the mass of planets that Kepler finds
  • it hard for ground-based telescopes to spot the subtle wobble of the star
  • since
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • orbits
  • close to its star, the planet exerts a greater gravitational pull on the star that it would if it were as far as Earth is from our sun
Mars Base

New-found Earth-size Exoplanet Doomed - News Watch - 0 views

newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/...d-earth-sized-exoplanet-doomed

scibyte108 exoplanet

shared by Mars Base on 04 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • two independent research teams have now confirmed the planet’s mass and density by measuring “wobbles” of its sun-like host star, seen as the exoplanet orbits around it
  • it couldn’t have formed farther out and migrated inward, because it should have been drawn
  • straight into the star
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • more exotic possibilities is that it is the remnant core of a disrupted gas giant
  • The extreme gravitational pull from its star will draw it ever closer in, ripping the entire planet apart in about three billion years
Mars Base

New Earth-Like Blazing Hot Planet 'Kepler-78b' Discovered - 0 views

www.scienceworldreport.com/...overed-an-impossible-world.htm

scibyte108 exoplanet

shared by Mars Base on 01 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • first known Earth-sized planet with an Earth-like density
  • diameter of 9,200 miles,
  • is 1.2 times the size of Earth and 1.7 times more massive than Earth and it is composed of iron and rock
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • planet circles its star every eight and a half hours at a distance of less than one mile
  • one of tightest known orbit on record and due to this its formation is deemed as impossible and not suitable for life.
  • The scientists believe no planet can form so close to its star nor could it have moved to its current position.
  • Kepler-78b poses a challenge to theorists
  • When this planetary system was forming, the young star was larger than it is now.
  • the current orbit of Kepler-78b would have been inside the swollen star
  • The star of Kepler-78b is slightly smaller and less massive than the sun
  • Sun-like G-type star, which is  located 400 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus
  • The exoplanet was discovered using data from NASA's Kepler Space Telescope
  • follow up observations were made using W.M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii
Mars Base

SpaceX Signs Pact To Start Rocket Testing At NASA Stennis - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...rocket-testing-at-nasa-stennis

scibyte108 SpaceX

shared by Mars Base on 01 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • SpaceX
  • has signed a contract to research, develop and test Raptor methane rocket engines at the NASA Stennis Space Center in southern Mississippi
  • plans to use the E-2 test stand at Stennis, which is able to support both vertical and horizontal rocket engine tests
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • A press release from his office said the presence of the private space company would boost jobs in the region
  • There’s little information on SpaceX’s website about what the Raptor engine is or specific development plans
  • Space News reports that it would be used for deep-space missions
  • SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has mentioned the engine previously when talking about Mars missions, according to multiple media reports
  • test the whole engine at Stennis
  • the first phase starts with the components
  • E-2 stand at Stennis is big enough for components, but we would need a bigger stand for the whole Raptor
  • reportedly hashing out a Space Act agreement to establish user fees and other parameters
  • Once that’s finished, the testing will begin, perhaps as early as next year
  • SpaceX currently does most of its rocket testing in Texas
Mars Base

'Lost world' discovered in remote Australia - 0 views

phys.org/...st-world-remote-australia.html

scibyte108

shared by Mars Base on 30 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • An expedition to a remote part of northern Australia has uncovered three new vertebrate species isolated for millions of years
  • University and a National Geographic film crew were dropped by helicopter onto the rugged Cape Melville mountain range on Cape York Peninsula
  • leaf-tail gecko, a gold-coloured skink—a type of lizard—and a brown-spotted, yellow boulder-dwelling frog, none of them ever seen before
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The virtually impassable mountain range is home to millions of black granite boulders the size of cars and houses piled hundreds of metres high
  • Cape Melville, a plateau of boulder-strewn rainforest on top
  • a small boulder-dwelling frog, the Blotched Boulder-frog, which during the dry season lives deep in the labyrinth of the boulder-field where conditions are cool and moist
  • In the absence of water
  • tadpole develops within the egg and a fully formed frog hatches out.
  • The Cape Melville Leaf-tailed Gecko, which has huge eyes and a long, slender body, is highly distinct from its relatives
  • National Geographic, the team plans to return to Cape Melville within months to search for more new species, including snails, spiders, and perhaps even small mammals
Mars Base

India's First Mars Probe Launch Set for Nov. 5 | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/s-orbiter-november-launch.html

scibyte107 SpacecraftUpdate

shared by Mars Base on 24 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • India's 4.5 billion rupee ($73.5 million) mission to Mars, the nation’s first true interplanetary probe, is now slated to lift off Nov.
  • , Mangalyan will leave Earth orbit in November and cruise in deep space for 10 months using an onboard propulsion system
  • elliptical orbit around Mars
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • ISRO says the primary objectives of the orbiter are to demonstrate India’s technological capability, look for signs of life and study the planet’s atmospheric composition
  • Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)
Mars Base

The Skull | Joe the Dinosaur - 0 views

dinosaurjoe.org/...the-skull

scibyte107 dinosaur

shared by Mars Base on 27 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • exposing structures on the inside of the skull that would otherwise be inaccessible
  • split into left and right halves by erosion
  • The skull of “Joe” is remarkably complete
Mars Base

Bacteria-eating viruses 'magic bullets in the war on superbugs' - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...131016212558.htm

scibyte107 ViewerFeedback

shared by Mars Base on 27 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • A specialist team of scientists from the University of Leicester has isolated viruses that eat bacteria -- called phages -- to specifically target the highly infectious hospital superbug Clostridium difficile
  • predominantly been funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC).
  • been investigating an alternative approach to antibiotics, which utilizes naturally occurring viruses called bacteriophages, meaning 'eaters of bacteria'.
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • since the discovery of the first antibiotic, penicillin, antibiotics
  • have saved countless lives and impacted on the well-being of humanity
  • the future impact of antibiotics is dwindling
  • with more and more bacteria
  • 'out-evolving' these miracle drugs
  • bacteriophages
  • are specific in what they kill and will generally only infect one particular species, or even strain, of bacteria
  • Following attachment to their hosts, they inject their DNA into the bacterium, which then replicates many times over, ultimately causing the bacterial cell to burst open
  • team have
  • , a specific mixture of phages have been proved, through extensive laboratory testing, to be effective against 90% of the most clinically relevant C. diff strains currently seen in the U.K
  • US-based biopharmaceutical company and pioneers in developing phage-based therapeutics
  • have already made progress in developing phages targeted against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a pathogen that causes acute, life-threatening lung infections in cystic fibrosis patients
  • funding further development and testing
  • phages developed
  • is to have a phage mixture ready to go into phase 1 and 2 clinical trials
  • Evaluations of the efficacy of bacteriophage therapy and optimisation of dosing regimes will be carried out
  • bacteria primarily affect our digestive system
  • pose a serious threat when our natural digestive environment is disrupted or depleted, such as after chronic antibiotic use
  • antibiotics also destroy the 'good' gut bacteria, in turn increasing the potential for relapse or new infections
  • The key advantage of using phages over antibiotics
  • A phage will infect and kill only a specific strain/species of bacteria.
  • Antibacterial resistance is a major and growing threat to health globally
  • This study
  • examines a new way to kill bacteria to circumvent resistance formation
Mars Base

European Satellite, Out of Fuel, Will Plunge to Earth Next Month | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/goce-satellite-fall-earth.html

scibyte107

shared by Mars Base on 24 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • A European gravity-mapping satellite has run out of fuel and will likely die a fiery death in Earth's atmosphere
  • Oct. 21
  • The Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer, or GOCE for short, exhausted its supply of xenon fuel on
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • most of the satellite will disintegrate in the atmosphere, some smaller parts are expected to reach Earth’s surface
  • GOCE satellite launched in March 2009 on a planned two-year mission to map the variations in Earth's gravity field.
  • The spacecraft consumed fuel at a much lower rate than expected, however, allowing GOCE to continue gathering data far beyond its expected lifespan
  • the most accurate gravity data ever available to scientists
Mars Base

An Autonomous, Self-Steering Robo-Cane, And Other Co-Robots to Come | Popular Science - 0 views

www.popsci.com/...-cane-and-other-co-robots-come

scibyte107 MedicalDevice

shared by Mars Base on 26 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • National Robotics Initiative, a federal program that aims to push the development of co-robots, or bots that work alongside—and occasionally inside—humans
  • NRI is a panoply of loosely-related ideas, few of which are photogenic
  • But this research is worth a closer look
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • the bots that could become part of our lives, in our own lifetimes, won’t look like Boston Dynamics’ Atlas, or NASA’s (and GM’s) Robonaut 2. Chances are, they’ll look a lot more like a walking stick, with a bunch of stuff bolted onto it.
  • a navigation-aid,
  • the robotic cane being developed by the University of Arkansas at Little Rock acts as a kind of seeing-eye walking stick
  • It maps the user’s path with a vision and 3D camera, and picks out stairways, low overhangs, and other features of interest to the visually-impaired
  • the bot will be able to verbally warn or guide the operator, speaking through a Bluetooth earpiece (and possibly through tactile feedback), it will also be able to perform limited steering maneuvers
  • . “In navaid mode, the device's roller tip is activated, and may drive the cane and point it towards the desired direction of travel
  • The six-degree-of-freedom roller isn’t driving the operator, but making suggestions, and can be toggled on and off by switching between navaid and white cane modes
  • robots designed by companies like iRobot can already drive themselves around indoors with a minimum of collisions
  • problems of obstacle detection and avoidance are far from licked
  • The margin of failure for a robot cane has to be vanishingly small, and that level of accuracy could also benefit systems that aren’t attached to humans
  • the co-robotic cane was co-funded for a three-year period by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) and the National Eye Institute (NEI), both of which are part of NIH
  • One of the new projects funded by NSF is an effort to make robots that can better read the emotional needs of Parkinson’s sufferers, specifically those whose faces have been significantly paralyzed
  • In order to serve as mediators between victims of “facial masking” and their caregivers
  • the project aims to “develop a robotic architecture endowed with moral emotional control mechanisms, abstract moral reasoning, and a theory of mind that allow corobots to be sensitive to human affective and ethical demands
  • whether it will be an existing system, or a new one
  • is unclear
  • one of the project’s collaborators is
  • the famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) roboticist who proposed the use of so-called “ethical governors” for autonomous military robots
Mars Base

Joe's Fossil Skull | Joe the Dinosaur - 0 views

dinosaurjoe.org/...joes-fossil-skull

scibyte107 dinosaur

shared by Mars Base on 27 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • The right and left halves were separated by weathering, and the left is the best preserved. The model here was created from CT scan data, and shows all of the features exactly as they are in the original specimen
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