Monthly Archives: May 2010

Hubble Camera Arrives in Time for JPL Open House

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The Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2
The Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is delivered to JPL on May 11, 2010. The camera, on loan from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, was retrieved from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in 2009 by space-walking astronauts. During its 15 years on Hubble, the camera took many colorful, iconic and scientifically rich space images. › Larger image

The historic Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, developed and built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, has arrived at JPL in advance of this weekend's annual Open House. Known informally as "The Camera That Saved Hubble," the baby-grand-piano-sized camera is on temporary loan from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington.

"It was 17 years ago this month that this camera left JPL on its way to Earth orbit," said John Trauger of JPL, NASA's principal investigator for the camera. "It looks almost brand new - which is remarkable when you think it spent over 15 years orbiting 353 miles straight up."

The Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 was the workhorse camera on Hubble after being added to the observatory in December 1993 to correct an imaging problem created by the telescope's faulty primary mirror. During its tenure aboard Hubble, the camera produced most of the stunning deep space images ever released. Its high image resolution and quality are some of the reasons the camera became the space telescope's most requested instrument during its operational lifetime. Logging 15 years aboard the observatory, the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 was the Hubble Space Telescope's longest serving instrument.

Space-walking astronauts retrieved the camera during the final Hubble servicing mission in May 2009.

More information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/wfpc2. An image gallery contains some of the camera's historic photos.

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NASA Invites Public to Take Virtual Walk on Moon

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Screen capture of the Moon Zoo site.More than 37 years after humans last walked on the moon, planetary scientists are inviting members of the public to return to the lunar surface as “virtual astronauts” to help answer important scientific questions.

No spacesuit or rocket ship is required -- all visitors need to do is go to http://www.moonzoo.org and be among the first to see the lunar surface in unprecedented detail. New high-resolution images, taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC), offer exciting clues to unveil or reveal the history of the moon and our solar system.

“We need Web users around the world to help us interpret these stunning new images of the lunar surface,” said Chris Lintott of Oxford University and chair of the Citizen Science Alliance. “If you only spend five minutes on the site counting craters you’ll be making a valuable contribution to science and, who knows, you might run across a Russian spacecraft.”

Scientists are particularly interested in knowing how many craters appear in a particular region of the moon in order to determine the age and depth of the lunar surface (regolith). Fresh craters left by recent impacts provide clues about the potential risks from meteor strikes on the moon and on Earth.

“We hope to address key questions about the impact bombardment history of the moon and discover sites of geological interest that have never been seen before,” said Katherine Joy of the Lunar and Planetary Institute and a Moon Zoo science team member.

NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI) scientists are contributing to the Moon Zoo efforts by providing science expertise. NLSI is also providing educational content and supporting outreach goals of the project.

“The NASA Lunar Science Institute is very excited to be involved with Moon Zoo and support lunar citizen science,” said David Morrison, NLSI director. “Science and public outreach are cornerstones of our Institute; Moon Zoo will contribute to the accomplishment of important science, while being a major step forward in participatory exploration.”

The Moon Zoo Web site is a citizen science project developed by the Citizen Science Alliance, a group of research organizations and museums, and builds on the team's success with Galaxy Zoo, which has involved more than 250,000 people in astronomical research.

“The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Project Science Office is excited to see LRO data being used for citizen science projects,” said Rich Vondrak, LRO project scientist from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. “The Moon Zoo project provides an opportunity for everyone to participate in analysis of images from the LRO Camera and to make a significant contribution to scientific knowledge about the moon.”

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. and the LROC instruments are based out of Arizona State University in Tempe, Az. The NASA Lunar Science Institute is based out of NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.

Related Links:

› More about Moon Zoo
› More about the Citizen Science Alliance
› More about the NASA Lunar Science Institute
› More about LROC

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Ancient City of Galaxies Looks Surprisingly Modern

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Primitive cluster of galaxies
Astronomers are a bit like archeologists as they dig back through space and time searching for remnants of the early universe. In a recent deep excavation, courtesy of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers unearthed what may be the most distant, primitive cluster of galaxies ever found.

In a twist, however, this apparent ancestor to today's "big cities" of grouped galaxies looks shockingly modern. Called CLG J02182-05102, the ancient cluster is dominated by old, red and massive galaxies, typical of present-day clusters. For example, it is similar to a young version of the Coma Cluster of today, which has had billions of more years to develop.

"We are seeing something already aged and red like a younger version of the Coma Cluster from a distant, bygone era," said Casey Papovich, lead author of a new study and an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Texas A&M University in College Station.

Papovich added, "it is as though we dug an archeological site in Rome and found pieces of modern Rome in amongst the ruins."

ClG J02182-05102 might have indeed been ahead of its time. Just as Rome was the world's biggest city more than 2,000 years ago with a population of about a million residents - a figure not again matched until the early 1800s in London - so too was this galactic grouping an advanced civilization for so early an era in the developing universe.

Galaxy clusters are the largest gravitationally bound structures in the universe and are thought to have formed piecemeal over cosmic time. For now, ClG J02182-05102 is the only known galactic grouping so far away in the past, and studying it will help researchers understand the overall history of how galaxies congregate and evolve.

A Cosmic Archeological Expedition

In their hunt for rare ancient cities in the early universe, Papovich and his team started with the largest extragalactic survey ever made. Called the Spitzer Wide-area InfraRed Extragalactic (SWIRE) survey, it observed a huge portion of the sky that could contain 250 full moons.

Because more light gathered means more information, the researchers looked at a cosmic region within this giant starscape that had also been studied by other instruments. These additional observations came from a survey combining light from Japan's Subaru telescope - housed atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii - and the European Space Agency's orbiting XMM-Newton telescope. The United Kingdom Infra-Red Telescope, also in Hawaii, provided infrared data along with another set of Spitzer observations called the Public Ultra Deep Sky survey.

When all these data were compiled, Spitzer's infrared observations made dozens of distant galaxies jump out. "We would not have found this object without Spitzer because there is very little optical light coming from this group of galaxies," said Papovich.

His team then obtained time on the Magellan telescope in Chile to study the faint light coming from ClG J02182-05102's least-dim galaxies. This light allowed the astronomers to archeologically date the candidate cluster to 9.6 billion years ago.

With these observations, Papovich and his team confirmed that seven of ClG J02182-05102's galaxies have nearly the same distance, suggesting they are part of a grouping of about 60 galaxies. Whether or not this association of galaxies fully qualifies as a gravitationally bound cluster will rely on further observations. Furthermore, the definition of a "cluster" itself remains unsettled, somewhat like the blurry distinctions between a city and a town, made trickier still given the limited light that makes it to our telescopes from these relics.

The Rise and Fall of CLG J02182-05102

For now, ClG J02182-05102 stands out as a greatly over-dense region of galaxies - a metropolis in a land of isolated villages. At its center regions loom red, monster galaxies containing about 10 times as many stars as our Milky Way galaxy. This puts them on par with the most mammoth galaxies in the nearby universe, which have grown fat through repeated mergers with other galaxies. These big galaxies are so uncharacteristic of those in the early universe that in some sense it is like finding modern skyscrapers in ancient Rome.

The Papovich et al paper was accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal on April 21, 2010. A subsequent study by Masayuki Tanaka of the Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe in Japan confirmed the discovery, and the work was the subject of a news release on May 10, 2010.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

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International Stem Cell and Absorption Systems Confirm Results Showing Stem Cell Derived Corneal Tissue as an Alternative to Animals for Drug Testing

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Other Tests Show Tissue's Ability to Focus Light, Pointing to Potential Therapeutic Applications

OCEANSIDE, Calif. – May 10, 2010 – International Stem Cell Corporation (OTCBB: ISCO), http://www.internationalstemcell.com/, the first company to perfect a method of creating human "parthenogenetic" stem cells from unfertilized eggs, announces the results of a second set of experiments confirming that its lab-grown corneal tissue closely mimics the drug absorption and drug metabolism characteristics found in normal corneal tissue. Other tests show that the stem cell derived corneal tissue refracts light, thus providing a further indication of its potential therapeutic value in treating corneal injury and disease.

Two sets of collaborative experiments between ISCO and Absorption Systems have now shown that corneal tissue cultured by ISCO exhibits topical drug absorption barrier properties and tissue-appropriate enzymatic activity, making it a promising model for studying human ocular drug absorption as an alternative to live animal testing. ISCO's human corneal tissue is created in the laboratories of its wholly owned subsidiary, Lifeline Cell Technology (Walkersville, MD).

In a second set of tests conducted by a third party expert, a beam of diverging light was projected through the corneal tissue from different distances, becoming more or less refracted with the changing distance, showing that the corneal tissue was clear and had optical properties that allow the focusing of light. Additional experiments will be conducted to better define these optical characteristics.

According to Jeffrey Janus, Senior VP of ISCO and CEO of Lifeline, "We are very excited to confirm our initial results showing drug absorption that correlates with animal models and add to these results the observation of enzymatic activity. This not only advances our plans to manufacture a product that can be used to reduce the need for tests that use living animals, but it also is one more step toward the potential therapeutic use of this tissue as a treatment for human corneal injury or disease. This has implications, not only in the US, but also in India and Asia, where millions of people suffer from corneal blindness that now goes untreated. The experiments showing light refraction are a tempting indication that this tissue will have therapeutic application."

"There is a large commercial need for a predictive and reproducible non-animal method for testing the safety of ophthalmic drugs and consumer products," said Patrick M. Dentinger, President and CEO of Absorption Systems. "The combined knowledge and expertise of ISCO and Absorption Systems have allowed us to take a step forward toward addressing an unmet need in the field of ophthalmology by creating a unique in vitro model to study human ocular drug absorption without using animals. Our collaboration with ISCO underscores our commitment to helping bring safe drugs to market."

The collaboration between Absorption Systems and ISCO uses Absorption Systems' know-how in creating and characterizing assay systems to develop superior preclinical methods of testing drugs. Such methods can also reduce the use of laboratory animals currently necessary for other tests, including safety testing of consumer products.

ABOUT INTERNATIONAL STEM CELL CORPORATION (ISCO.OB):

International Stem Cell Corporation is a California-based biotechnology company focused on therapeutic and research products. ISCO's core technology, parthenogenesis, results in creation of pluripotent human stem cells from unfertilized oocytes (eggs). hpSCs avoid ethical issues associated with the use or destruction of viable human embryos. ISCO scientists have created the first parthenogenic, homozygous stem cell line that can be a source of therapeutic cells with minimal immune rejection after transplantation into hundreds of millions of individuals of differing sexes, ages and racial groups. This offers the potential to create the first true stem cell bank, UniStemCell™, while avoiding the ethical issue of using fertilized eggs. ISCO also produces and markets specialized cells and growth media for therapeutic research worldwide through its subsidiary Lifeline Cell Technology. More information is available at ISCO's website, http://www.internationalstemcell.com/.

ABOUT ABSORPTION SYSTEMS:

Absorption Systems, founded in 1996, assists pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies in identifying and overcoming ADMET (Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion and Toxicity) barriers in the development of drugs, biologics and medical devices. The company's mission is to continually develop innovative research tools that can be used to accurately predict human outcomes or to explain unanticipated human outcomes when they occur. The CellPort Technologies® platform, a suite of human cell-based tests systems for drug transporter characterization, exemplifies Absorption Systems' commitment to innovation. Absorption Systems has facilities near Philadelphia, PA, and in San Diego, CA, and serves customers throughout the world. For information on the company's comprehensive contract services and applied research programs, please visit http://www.absorption.com/.

To subscribe to receive ongoing corporate communications please click on the following link: http://www.b2i.us/irpass.asp?BzID=1468&to=ea&s=0.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Statements pertaining to anticipated technological developments and therapeutic applications, and other opportunities for the company and its subsidiary, along with other statements about the future expectations, beliefs, goals, plans, or prospects expressed by management constitute forward-looking statements. Any statements that are not historical fact (including, but not limited to statements that contain words such as "will," "believes," "plans," "anticipates," "expects," "estimates,") should also be considered to be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, including, without limitation, risks inherent in the development and/or commercialization of potential products, uncertainty in the results of clinical trials or regulatory approvals, need and ability to obtain future capital, application of capital resources among competing uses, and maintenance of intellectual property rights. Actual results may differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements and as such should be evaluated together with the many uncertainties that affect the company's business, particularly those mentioned in the cautionary statements found in the company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings. The company disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

Key Words: Stem Cells, Biotechnology, Parthenogenesis

CONTACTS:
International Stem Cell Corporation
Kenneth C. Aldrich, Chairman
760-940-6383
kaldrich@intlstemcell.com
Or
Brian Lundstrom, President
760-640-6383
bl@intlstemcell.com

17% of food-related asphyxiations were caused by hot dogs – "the perfect plug for a child’s airway"

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From Consumer Reports health blog:

Small toys and foods that are choking hazards should carry warning labels - and some hot dog brands already do.

About 17% of food-related asphyxiations were caused by hot dogs. In total, 41% were caused by food items including:

- hot dogs
- grapes
- carrots
- hard candy

Food manufacturers should design new foods and redesign existing foods to avoid shapes, sizes, textures and other characteristics that increase choking risk to children, to the extent possible.

"If you were to take the best engineers in the world and try to design the perfect plug for a child's airway, it would be a hot dog," says statement author Gary Smith. "I'm a pediatric emergency doctor, and to try to get them out once they're wedged in, it's almost impossible."
References:
Image source: Wikipedia, GNU Free Documentation License.

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Joseph Barbaccia

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These body and product sculptures come from the unique mind of Joseph Barbaccia.  The cheese grater sort of made me vomit, but it’s still pretty striking to look at.  But you havvvve to check out some of the others which weren’t posted here…

Protect Your Baby’s Smile

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(HealthDay News) -- The best way to give your children's teeth a healthy start is to begin dental care early in life, and the American Dental Association has tips for keeping kids' teeth in tip-top shape:

• Visit the dentist for regular checkups. Set up an appointment within six months of the eruption of a child's first tooth, but no later than the first birthday. Routine exams, cleanings and fluoride treatments can catch problems early before they get worse and require significant care.

• Guard against tooth decay by clearing your baby's mouth within a few days of birth and wiping your baby's gums with a damp washcloth or gauze pad after every feeding. This will help remove plaque.

• Don't allow your child to breast-feed for long periods of time. Tooth decay can develop if you allow your baby to nap or sleep at night with a bottle of milk, formula, sugar water or fruit juice.

• Encourage your child to drink from a cup by age 1.

• Discourage frequent use of a training cup.

• For older kids who play sports or even those who ride a scooter or bicycle, mouth protectors can provide important protection. Your dentist may be able to make a better-fitting mouth protector than those supplied in stores. Read more...

Radiancio - Radiate Beauty from the Inside Out

ROFFS Website Monitors Gulf Water Current Effects on BP Oil Spill

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This model by Roffer’s Ocean Fishing Forecasting Service, in cooperation with the University of South Florida gives an excellent picture of the position and extent of the oil spill and its movement relative to the nearby Gulf of Mexico water currents. Based on current analysis, it appears likely that at some point at least a [...]

North winds blow

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A scarce visitor - a drake Garganey on Brownsman pond

Monday 10th May comments:
It’s been a frustrating few days as the northerly winds continued which prevented boats from sailing – not good for visitors or the wardens! However the breeding seabirds got on with business as usual, despite the low temperature (there was snow on the Cheviot Hills which you can see from the islands – it’s that cold!). We’re crossing our fingers that the weather will improve and temperatures will rise – after all it is mid-May!
On the bird migration front, a drake Garganey graced Brownsman pond for twenty minutes on Saturday whilst the first Arctic Skua moved north alongside a handful of Manx Shearwaters. Other than that, it’s been quiet although that Wagtail is provoking plenty of debate – we’re edging towards a possible Spanish Wagtail (or hybrid) but with no clear majority – so we’ll just have to keep digesting the information we have - I'll keep you all posted!

On the islands, more Sandwich Terns have settled whilst Common Terns are scraping in traditional areas and yes, those Arctic Terns are back - in huge numbers. Not long before the head pecking will begin...

Day 5 Lake Tekapo

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I headed out for Lake Tekapo some time in the morning. I was sad to leave since the hospitality at the Big Tree lodge was so amazing. Lee said Sad to see you go mate in his thick NZ accent. I forgot to take a picture of the lodge I also forgot my 12 bottles of beer I had bought. Lee called me about 10 minutes out to tell me I left the beer I told him it was all his. The ride towards Lake

Day 4 Methven

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I woke up this morning with no hangover I was completely surprised I thought for sure I would be out. After breakfast Yella Lee and myself headed downtown to Big Al's. Big Al's is a ski shop and they were having a sale on ski equipment. Big Al was there with his suit and clip on tie which he clearly did not even attempt to put on correctly. It was almost sideways and you could see it was

Day 3 Lyttelton Methven

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Just some things I forgot to mention earlier. I met a woman at the CHCH airport when I arrived she was from California. Her son lived in Royal Oak right near main street. I can now fully accept the fact that it is a small world. Also I forgot to talk about the roads to Akaroa when I went. They were very narrow and constantly winding. The speed limit was 62mph. The scary part was that peo

Quer durch das Outback nach Kununurra

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Nach 2 Wochen erfolgloser Jobsuche entschlossen wir uns Broome zu verlassen und unser Glck in Kununurra zu suchen. Da das ber 1.000 km Fahrt bedeutet entschlossen wir uns den Trip in 2 Hlften zu teilen. Also erstmal nur 400 km nach Fitzroy Crossing. Nach einigen Stunden Fahrt durch die sehr monotone Landschaft immer nur die gleichen Bume kamen wir gegen 5 Uhr in Fitzroy Crossing an. Da es

Answering Your Questions Spain

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Dear Jean and CopehellipQ1 Whatrsquos the name of your ship so we can follow it on the internet A Cruise1 is the Crown Princess out of Ft. Lauderdale Florida May 1 arriving Civitavecchia Italy Rome on May 15.Cruise 2 the Crown Princess out of Civitavecchia Italy Rome on May 15th arriving in Venice May 27.Q2 One of my friends loves to travel and wants to follow your blog c

Back to comfort

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Brekkie was at 715 and we left Monkey Island at 815. Small boat to Cat Ba then bus to docks then another small boat back to our cruise boat. Weather was dry so we stood on the deck for a couple of hours chatting to the London lads and getting in our last views of the islands. We then got on the bus back to Hanoi via a restaurant for lunch and another bloomin handicraft centre. Tour guide tried t