problem with the Soyuz’ parachute – it deployed about 5 seconds later than planned – caused the crew to land several miles away from the planned landing site, but a Russian recovery team and NASA personnel reached the landing site by helicopter shortly afterward to assist the crew in getting out of the spacecraft, which landed on its side
127 days in space
125 days spent aboard the International Space Station
Expedition 34 flight engineers — NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield, and Russian Federal Space Agency cosmonaut Roman Romanenko — are scheduled to launch from Baikonur Dec. 19
for a five-month stay
Hadfield will become the first Canadian to command the station when Ford, Novitskiy and Tarelkin depart in March, marking the start of Expedition 35.
no actual footage of the Soyuz touching down, since it was dark and the spacecraft landed well away from the planned landing spot.
current antiretroviral drugs require daily intake.
These especially potent antibodies were only recently discovered
identified and cloned from HIV-infected patients whose immune systems showed an unusually high ability to neutralize HIV
Antibodies had been written off as a treatment for HIV/AIDS because previous studies showed only a limited effect on controlling the virus
before these more potent antibodies were discovered
HIV-1 is notorious for evading the immune system's attacks by constantly mutating
antibodies target HIV-1's surface protein gp160, a large molecule that forms a spike that seeks out host cells and attaches to them
One antibody alone wasn't enough to quell the virus; neither was a mix of three
five of them in unison proved too complicated for gp160 to mutate its way out of.
Although HIV-1 infection in humanized mice differs in many important aspects from infection in humans, the results are encouraging to investigate these antibodies in clinical trials
It also may be that a combination of antibodies and the already established antiretroviral therapy is more efficacious than either alone
could be used as a treatment one day, it is conceivable that patients would only need to take traditional drugs until the virus is controlled
then receive antibodies every two to three months to maintain that control
After three months working on "Mars time," the team operating NASA Mars rover Curiosity has switched to more regular hours, as planned
A Martian day, called a sol, is about 40 minutes longer than an Earth day, so the team's start time for daily planning has been moving a few hours later each week
HARPS (High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher) on ESO's La Silla 3.6m telescope is a dedicated exoplanet hunter
detect the
slight wobble of a star caused by the gravitational tug of orbiting planets
HD 40307 g is located far enough away from its star to likely not be tidally locked
it wouldn't have one side subject to constant heat and radiation while its other "far side" remains cold and dark
the estimated 7-Earth-mass exoplanet receives around 62% of the radiation that Earth gets from the Sun
HD 40307 g is still a candidate—more observations are needed to not only confirm its existence but also to find out exactly what kind of planet it may be.
more detailed characterization of this candidate is very unlikely using ground based studies because it is very unlikely [sic] to transit the star, and a direct imaging mission seems the most promising way of learning more
just finding potential Earth-sized worlds in a system like HD 40307′s is a big deal for planetary scientists