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Mars Base

NASA - Astronauts Complete Spacewalk to Repair Ammonia Leak, Station Changes Command - 0 views

www.nasa.gov/...e35_051113_eva.html

scibyte94 iss ViewerFeedback

shared by Mars Base on 19 May 13 - No Cached
  • Expedition 35 Flight Engineers
  • completed a spacewalk
  • to inspect and replace a pump controller box on the International Space Station’s far port truss (P6) leaking ammonia coolant
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • A little more than 2 1/2 hours into the spacewalk
  • removed the 260-pound pump controller box from the P6 truss and replaced it with a spare that had been stowed nearby
  • Spacewalkers practice underwater in the facility and divers provide assistance and dive safety protection during spacewalk simulations
  • The spacewalk is the 168th in support of the assembly and maintenance of the space
  • The device contains the mechanical systems that drive the cooling functions for the port truss.
Mars Base

Mars Science Laboratory: Images - 0 views

mars.jpl.nasa.gov/...images

scibyte94 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 21 May 13 - No Cached
  • This pair of images from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the rock target "Cumberland" before and after Curiosity drilled into it to collect a sample for analysis
  • The "before" image was taken during the 275th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (May 15, 2013).
  • Curiosity drilled into Cumberland on Sol 279 (May 19, 2013) and took the second image later that same sol.
Mars Base

Mars Science Laboratory: NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Drills Second Rock Target - 0 views

mars.jpl.nasa.gov/...index.cfm

scibyte94 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 21 May 13 - No Cached
  • The first was Curiosity's drilling at a target called "John Klein" three months ago
  • Cumberland resembles John Klein and lies about nine feet (2.75 meters) farther west
  • The hole that Curiosity drilled into Cumberland on May 19 is about 0.6 inch (1.6 centimeters) in diameter and about 2.6 inches (6.6 centimeters) deep
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The science team expects to use analysis of material from Cumberland to check
  • Preliminary findings from analysis of
  • rock powder by Curiosity's onboard laboratory instruments indicate that the location long ago had environmental conditions favorable for microbial life
Mars Base

Dog sniffs out grammar | Psychology | Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...Dog_sniffs_out_grammar

scibyte95

shared by Mars Base on 22 May 13 - No Cached
  • Chaser isn’t just a 9-year-old border collie
  • She’s a grammar hound.
  • In experiments directed by her owner
  • ...21 more annotations...
  • Chaser demonstrated her grasp of the basic elements of grammar by responding correctly to commands such as “to ball take Frisbee” and its reverse, “to Frisbee take ball.”
  • The dog had previous, extensive training to recognize classes of words including nouns, verbs and prepositions
  • Throughout the first three years of Chaser’s life, Pilley and a colleague trained the dog to recognize and fetch more than 1,000 objects by name
  • researchers also taught Chaser the meaning of different types of words, such as verbs and prepositions
  • Chaser learned that phrases such as “to Frisbee” meant that she should take whatever was in her mouth to the named object.
  • Exactly how the dog gained her command of grammar is unclear
  • suspects that
  • first mentally linked each of two nouns she heard in a sentence to objects in her memory. Then
  • held that information in mind while deciding which of two objects to bring to which of two other objects.
  • Chaser started sentence training at age 7. She stood facing a pair of objects she knew by name
  • An experimenter would say, for instance, “to ball take Frisbee.” In initial trials, the experimenter pointed at each item while saying its name.
  • After several weeks of training, two experiments conducted
  • had to choose an object from one pair to carry to an object from the other pair
  • read commands that included words for those objects. Only some of those words had been used during sentence training
  • To see whether Chaser grasped that grammar could be used flexibly
  • student also read sentences in the reversed form of “take sugar to decoy.”
  • In 28 of 40 attempts, Chaser grabbed the correct item in her mouth and dropped it next to the correct target.
  • Another experiment tested Chaser’s ability to understand commands when she couldn’t see the objects at first
  • with two objects behind her at the other end of the bed
  • After hearing a command, Chaser turned around and nabbed one of the objects.
  • then ran to the living room and delivered the item to one of another pair of objects. She succeeded on all 12 trials
Mars Base

Study shows how bilinguals switch between languages - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...3-05-bilinguals-languages.html

scibyte95

shared by Mars Base on 22 May 13 - No Cached
  • Individuals who learn two languages at an early age seem to switch back and forth between separate "sound systems" for each language, according to new research
  • The research
  • addresses enduring questions in bilingual studies about how bilingual speakers hear and process sound in two different languages.
  • ...27 more annotations...
  • "A lot of research has shown that bilinguals are pretty good at accommodating speech variation across languages, but there's been a debate as to how,"
  • lead author Kalim Gonzales, a psychology doctoral student at the University of Arizona
  • two views: One is that bilinguals have different processing modes for their two languages—they have a mode for processing speech in one language and then a mode for processing speech in the other language
  • Another view is that bilinguals just adjust to speech variation by recalibrating to the unique acoustic properties of each language."
  • Gonzales's research supports the first view—that bilinguals who learn two languages early in life learn two separate processing modes, or "sound systems
  • The study looked at 32 Spanish-English early bilinguals, who had learned their second language before age 8.
  • Participants were presented with a series of pseudo-words beginning with a 'pa' or a 'ba' sound and asked to identify which of the two sounds they heard
  • 'pa' and 'ba' sounds exist in both English and Spanish, how those sounds are produced and perceived in the two languages varies subtly
  • 'ba,' for example, English speakers typically begin to vibrate their vocal chords the moment they open their lips
  • Spanish speakers begin vocal chord vibration slightly before they open their lips and produce 'pa' in a manner similar to English 'ba.'
  • English-only speakers might, in some cases, confuse the 'ba' and 'pa' sounds they hear in Spanish
  • most people think about differences between languages
  • different words and they have different grammars
  • at their base languages use different sounds
  • One of the reasons it sounds different when you hear someone speaking a different language is because the actual sounds they use are different
  • someone might sound like they have an accent if they learn Spanish first is because their 'pa' is like an English 'ba,' so when they say a word with 'pa,' it will sound like a 'ba' to an English monolingual
  • For the study, the bilingual participants were divided into two groups. One group was told they would be hearing rare words in Spanish, while the other was told they would be hearing rare words in English
  • Both groups heard audio recordings of variations of the same two words—bafri and pafri—which are not real words in either language
  • Each group heard the same series of words, but for the group told they were hearing Spanish, the ends of the words were pronounced slightly differently, with the 'r' getting a Spanish pronunciation
  • Participants perceived 'ba' and 'pa' sounds differently depending on whether they were told they were hearing Spanish words, with the Spanish pronunciation of 'r,' or whether they were told they were hearing English words, with the English pronunciation of 'r.'
  • when you put people in English mode, they actually would act like English speakers, and then if you put them in Spanish mode, they would switch to acting like Spanish speakers
  • hearing the exact same 'ba's and 'pa's would label them differently depending on the context
  • When the study was repeated with 32 English monolinguals, participants did not show the same shift in perception; they labeled 'ba' and 'pa' sounds the same way regardless of which language they were told they were hearing
  • that lack of an effect
  • provided the strongest evidence for two sound systems in bilinguals
  • true primarily for those who learn two languages very young
  • If you learn a second language later in life, you usually have a dominant language and then you try to use that sounds system for the other language, which is why you end up having an accent
Mars Base

Gone perhaps, but Kepler won't soon be forgotten | Atom & Cosmos | Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/..._Kepler_wont_soon_be_forgotten

scibyte95 Kepler

shared by Mars Base on 25 May 13 - No Cached
  • When scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics scheduled a conference called “Exoplanets in the Post-Kepler Era,” they figured that era would still be several years away
  • . When
  • Kepler into space
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • astronomers knew that the galaxy contained at least 350 exoplanets, nearly all of them the size of Jupiter or larger
  • Kepler’s then spent four years
  • added nearly 3,000 planets
  • It will take at least several weeks before they beam commands up to the $600-million telescope, and they admit that a fix is a long shot.
  • Kepler engineers
  • strategizing about how to remotely repair one of two broken reaction wheels that precisely point the telescope
  • astronomers are convinced that the Milky Way contains hundreds of billions of planets, roughly one for every star, with at least 17 billion of them Earth-sized
  • NASA’s next exoplanet-hunting mission, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, which is scheduled for a 2017 launch
  • Whereas Kepler has fixed its gaze on distant stars, TESS will focus on bright, nearby stars so that powerful telescopes like the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope will be able to probe the atmospheres of planets that TESS discovers
  • s TESS
  • while less sensitive than Kepler, will nonetheless uncover plenty of planets in our neighborhood, including a handful of Earth-sized worlds
  • Astronomers
  • Other astronomers
  • are still optimistic. They have a year of data from the telescope left to analyze
  • quite possibly including an Earth-sized planet orbiting a sunlike star at a distance suitable for life
  • Astronomers hope to pair size measurements of planets observed by telescopes such as TESS with mass readings from ground-based scopes that look for subtle wobbles in stars’ motion caused by the gravitational pull of orbiting planets.
  • Several years ago
  • radial velocity, could pick out only hulking planets that delivered a hard yank to their stars
  • lately the technology has improved so drastically that in October 2012, the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher instrument
  • spotted what appears to be a planet only slightly heavier than Earth tightly orbiting Alpha Centauri B, a sunlike star a mere 4.4 light-years away
  • Kepler’s main goal was to determine the frequency of Earthlike planets in the galaxy
  • have enough data to make an intelligent extrapolation about what that number is, but
  • actually determining that number
Mars Base

Opportunity Discovers Clays Favorable to Martian Biology and Sets Sail for Motherlode o... - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...il-for-motherlode-of-new-clues

scibyte95 opportunity

shared by Mars Base on 26 May 13 - No Cached
  • Opportunity,
  • has just discovered the strongest evidence to date for an environment favorable to ancient Martian biology
  • Opportunity’s analysis of a new rock target named “Esperance” confirmed that it is composed of a “clay that had been intensely altered by relatively neutral pH water – representing the most favorable conditions for biology that Opportunity has yet seen in the rock histories it has encountered
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Water that moved through fractures during this rock’s history would have provided more favorable conditions for biology than any other wet environment recorded in rocks Opportunity has seen
  • Opportunity accomplished the ground breaking new discovery by exposing the interior of Esperance with her still functioning Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) and examining a pristine patch using the microscopic camera and X-Ray spectrometer on the end of her 3 foot long robotic arm.
  • “Esperance was so important, we committed several weeks to getting this one measurement of it
  • Esperance stems from a time when the Red Planet was far warmer and wetter billions of years ago.
  • made the discovery at the conclusion of a 20 month long science expedition circling around a low ridge called “Cape York”
  • What’s so special about Esperance is that there was enough water not only for reactions that produced clay minerals, but also enough to flush out ions set loose by those reactions
  • Opportunity can clearly see the alteration
  • Esperance is unlike any rock previously investigated by Opportunity; containing far more aluminum and silica which is indicative of clay minerals and lower levels of calcium and iron.
  • Most, but not all of the rocks inspected to date by Opportunity were formed in an environment of highly acidic water
Mars Base

Mars Society Proposes A Year-Long Arctic Mission To Better Prepare for the Red Planet - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...ter-prepare-for-the-red-planet

scibyte95 MarsSociety

shared by Mars Base on 26 May 13 - No Cached
  • The proposed Mars Arctic 365 (MA365) mission on Canada’s Devon Island would take place at Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station
  • The Arctic’s a lot like Mars, according to the Mars Society. It’s cold, it’s isolated, and it’s kind of dangerous
  • The society is asking for $50,000 from supporters in the next 24 days before starting the first phase (basically retrofitting the station and adding equipment) in July
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • More information on MA365 — perhaps with information on crew selection — should come in August, when members of the Phase 1 crew issue a report at the 16th Annual International Mars Society Convention
Mars Base

Contest Challenges Students to Design Next Mars Rover | University Rover Challenge | Sp... - 0 views

www.space.com/niversity-rover-challenge.html

scibyte96 MarsSociety

shared by Mars Base on 28 May 13 - No Cached
  • The competition is hosted by the Mars Society, a non-profit research organization dedicated to promoting the exploration and eventual settlement of Mars
  • The competition site is located at the society's Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), a rocky barren landscape that's about as close to Martian terrain as you can get on Earth
  • Each team was allowed to spend up to $15,000 on their rovers, which can weigh no more than 50 kilograms — about 110 lbs.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • vehicles
  • compete in four challenges, designed to replicate the activities of NASA's rovers on Mars.
  • teams will guide their rovers to collect the subsurface soil samples most likely to contain photosynthetic bacteria, lichen and other bits of living material
  • specific tasks change each year, but the most difficult ones continue to be those that need rovers to do humanlike work
  • team members must guide their rovers via a remote connection, such as a computer in the back of a truck, as long as it's shielded so the team can't see their rovers
  • The URC is based on the assumption that the rovers are telerobots, which means they would be operated by astronauts on or orbiting Mars
  • In addition to collecting soil, the rovers will deliver a series of packages, such as emergency supplies to "astronauts" (URC staff) in the field, fix a dust-covered solar panel (without water, of course) and finally, navigate an obstacle course that will include climbing steep grades, getting over boulders and passing through PVC pipe gates, aimed to test each rover's maneuverability.
  • This year's teams represent universities and colleges in Canada, India, Poland and the United States
  • including two-time returning champions Toronto's York University (2012 and 2009) and Oregon State (2010 and 2008).
Mars Base

Mosses frozen in time come back to life | Life | Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...ozen_in_time_come_back_to_life

scibyte96 FrozenLife

shared by Mars Base on 28 May 13 - No Cached
  • After hundreds of years buried under ice, mosses can regrow
  • The revived plants come from Canada’s Ellesmere Island, where the Teardrop Glacier has retreated since the end of a cold period in 1550 to 1850 known as the Little Ice Age
  • On recently exposed ground
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • found clumps of mosses that looked dead. But among the brown tangles, the team noticed a few green sprigs
  • The team took brown moss samples back to the lab and used radiocarbon dating to determine that they had lived about 400 years ago
  • Based on the glacier’s retreat rate, the researchers estimated the plants had been uncovered for less than two years.
  • the team ground up some of the plants and gave them nutrients, water and light
  • From seven of 24 samples, a total of four moss species grew
  • The budding plants didn’t come from seeds or spores
  • In moss
  • any cell can be reset, almost like a stem cell, to grow a new plant
  • how long a moss cell can stay viable is “anyone’s guess,”
  • the findings suggest that the regenerated mosses may help repopulate ecosystems after glaciers retreat
Mars Base

Conductive paint lands in pens and pots for creatives - 0 views

phys.org/...13-05-pens-pots-creatives.html

scibyte96

shared by Mars Base on 28 May 13 - No Cached
  • The substance allows the painting of "liquid wiring" on any surface. Except for skin
  • Nontoxic and drying at room temperature, the product has caught on with educators, DIY makers and inventors
  • Radio Shack stocks their paint pen
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • they hope to appeal to a wide creative gamut of hobbyists, artists, and engineers for innovative ways to use their products
  • are Paint, they emphasized, is the first non-toxic electrically conductive paint available
  • the substance is child friendly, which opens the door to educational projects, including toys, and touch-sensitive paper drawings that play sounds
  • According to the company, Bare Paint has a surface resistivity of approximately 55 ohms/square at 50 microns layer thickness
  • The product is water-based but it is not waterproof
  • generally split applications into two simple classifications, signaling and powering
  • Signaling could include using the Paint as a potentiometer while interfacing with a micro-controller, as a conduit in a larger circuit or as a capacitive sensor
  • Powering a device would include lighting LED's or driving small speakers
Mars Base

Wooly mammoth blood recovered from frozen carcass, Russian scientists say | Fox News - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...carcass-russian-scientists-say

scibyte96

shared by Mars Base on 30 May 13 - No Cached
  • the temperature at the time of excavation was -7 to – 10 degrees Celsius [19.4 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit
  • It may be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryoprotective properties
  • The reason for such preservation is that the lower part of the body was underlying in pure ice, and the upper part was found in the middle of tundra
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Wooly mammoths are thought to have died out around 10,000 years ago
  • scientists think small groups of them lived longer in Alaska and on Russia's Wrangel Island off the Siberian coast.
  • Scientists already have deciphered much of the genetic code of the woolly mammoth from balls of mammoth hair found frozen in the Siberian permafrost
  • Those who succeed in recreating an extinct animal could claim a "Jurassic Park prize
  • the concept of which is being developed by the X Prize Foundation
Mars Base

Space Telescope Crowdfunding Project Raises $167,000 | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/e-telescope-raises-167000.html

scibyte96 CrowdSourcing

shared by Mars Base on 30 May 13 - No Cached
  • A commercial asteroid-mining company aiming to launch a crowdfunded space telescope raised more than $200,000 on the first day of its campaign
  • Planetary Resources, a private venture aiming to mine near-Earth space rocks
  • announced
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • May 29) that it would build and launch a space telescope for public use if it could raise at least $1 million in 33 days.
  • The telescope will be a twin copy of the Arkyd spacecraft the company is developing to detect, track and study asteroids in preparation for its mining mission
  • A test version of the spacecraft is set for its maiden trial flight in April 2014, while the crowdfunded model would launch in early 2015
  • public backers would use it to study celestial objects of their choice
  • also have the option of sponsoring research projects at schools, universities or museums that could use the instrument.
  • The telescope will also take
  • self portraits that show the telescope in orbit, with a user-submitted photo displayed on the instrument's screen
  • A camera mounted on the hull of the spacecraft will snap the photo.
  • Already more than 200 backers have ordered selfies for $25 and above.
  • But if the crowdfunding campaign fails to reach its $1 million goal by June 30, the company will receive none of the money it has raised
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