Monthly Archives: February 2014

SpaceX on pace for mid-March launch to space station

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Juggling flight delays and busy skies with the skill of seasoned air traffic controllers, International Space Station managers have approved the launch date for SpaceX's next cargo resupply mission for March 16.

Photo of a previous Dragon spacecraft arriving at the International Space Station in March 2013. Photo credit: NASA Liftoff from Cape Canaveral's Complex 40 launch pad is set for 4:41 a.m. EST (0841 GMT), the time when Earth's rotation brings the space station's flight path over the Space Coast, NASA announced last week.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon cargo carrier will make the company's third commercial logistics delivery to the space station under a $1.6 billion contract with NASA. The deal calls for 12 missions through 2016.

The Dragon spacecraft will chase the space station for two days, with final approach set for March 18 under the guidance of high-tech laser mapping sensors.

The outpost's crew, scheduled to be three-strong at the time of the Dragon capsule's arrival, will grapple the free-flying spacecraft with the space station's Canadian-built robot arm. The crane-like appendage will move the food- and experiment-toting Dragon to a parking port on the lab's Harmony module for a one-month stay.

The astronauts will unpack the Dragon spacecraft's pressurized cabin, about the size of a large walk-in closet, of several tons of supplies, including government, commercial and student experiments. Then the crew will reload the spaceship with an array of cargo tagged for return to Earth, including biological samples, equipment requiring repair, and other unnecessary gear.

The robotic removal of a pair of payloads stowed inside the Dragon spacecraft's unpressurized trunk is also on tap during the vehicle's visit. A laser communications terminal developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory will be mounted to a payload platform on the space station's main truss, and a package of four commercial high-definition video cameras will begin filming from an attach point on the European Columbus module.

Dragon's departure from the space station is tentatively set for April 17, with splashdown several hours later in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Southern California.

Officials delayed the flight from a previous target launch date of Feb. 22, and poor weather prevented the Falcon 9 rocket's first stage from being delivered to Florida in time to be ready for a launch attempt in early March, according to a senior NASA space station official.

The Falcon 9's first and second stages, along with the Dragon spacecraft, are now at Cape Canaveral for launch processing, a SpaceX spokesperson said.

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SpaceX on pace for mid-March launch to space station

Hollande to get super-red carpet treatment on US state visit

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French president Franois Hollande: reportedly planning to voice concerns about data protection and the tax optimisation schemes of major internet companies such as Google during his US visit. Photograph: EPA/Mohamed Messara

America is expected to roll out the red carpet for Franois Hollande

today as the president becomes the first French leader to make a state visit for almost two decades.

The three-day visit, which includes a black-tie dinner at the White House and a trip in the presidential plane Air Force One, is seen as evidence of the close ties between the US and France.

As well as talks with Barack Obama, who has hosted only six state dinners since he took office in 2009, Hollande will visit Silicon Valley and have lunch with the heads of key technology and social networking companies.

He will also tour the Francophile president Thomas Jeffersons house in Charlottesville, Virginia. However, unusually, he will not address Congress. Both the White House and the lyse insist this is due to a lack of time.

Google In San Francisco, Hollande will meet Eric Schmidt, the head of Google, and Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, as well as representatives from Twitter and Mozilla.

Hollande is reportedly planning to voice concerns about data protection and the tax optimisation schemes of major internet companies such as Google. Last week Google was reportedly hit with a 1 billion bill in unpaid taxes by the French fiscal authorities.

Officials say, however, that relations between the two countries are excellent, despite revelations last year that American intelligence agencies had been snooping on the French and other Europeans.

And the criticism will not be all one way. Hollande is sure to face hard questions from Silicon Valley firms about Frances high taxes for companies and what are seen as business-unfriendly economic policies.

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Hollande to get super-red carpet treatment on US state visit

Zydex Nanotechnology for Pothole – Free India

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Zydex, an innovation-driven organization from Vadodara, Gujarat, has come up with a Nanotechnology that provides a complete solution to build moisture-resistant, long-lasting roads.

Zydex Nanotechnology is patented across the globe and is on its way to revolutionize the very way in which the roads are designed and built today - globally.

Zydex Nanotechnology was recognized and awarded by International Road Federation (IRF) in the form of their IRF Global Road Achievement Award (GRAA) for 2013, in the research category.

Dr Ajay Ranka, CEO, Zydex Industries was felicitated with an award at the IRF Global Conference recently held in Riyadh. Highway Agency Directors, dignitaries and top-notch road professionals from across the world were also present on the occasion.

Zydex Nanotechnology in a nutshell

Ingress of water in the rainy season weakens the road soil bases, de-bonds the Prime and Tack coats and destroys the bituminous layers causing undulations and potholes affecting ride-quality and motorability.

Moisture is the well-known enemy of roads. The present technology for road-making provides very limited protection against moisture and that is the reason most roads go bad during the monsoon.

The Zydex Nanotechnology is all about waterproofing soil bases, and chemical bonding of bitumen to aggregates, sand, clay etc, and eliminating moisture related damages.

Zydex Nanotechnology: Key Features

a. Zydex Nanotechnology additives allow moisture proofing of soil layers and reduce moisture permeability by 500 1000 times. They strengthen the soil by increasing the California Bearing Ratio (CBR) of soil, reduce expansiveness by 90% and eliminate undulations and cracking. b. Nanotechnology based additives make Bond Coats (Prime &Tack) 100% waterproofed, allowing 100% stress transfer and saving bitumen by achieving chemical bonding. c. The global award winning technology enables chemical bonding of bitumen with aggregates and eliminates moisture damage to bituminous layers. Benefits: - Zydex nanotechnologies are cost neutral at CAPEX and improve durability of the road to reduce life cycle cost by 50 % or more. This Nanotechnology is expected to revolutionize the urban and rural India, just as mobile telephony did.

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Zydex Nanotechnology for Pothole - Free India

UAB physician turned novelist: Creativity an important part of medicine

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BIRMINGHAM, AL -

Stephen Russell, M.D., strongly believes creativity is an important aspect of medicine, so much so that he teaches his students to use art to enhance their skills as physicians.

The associate professor in theUAB School of MedicineDivision of General Internal Medicine entered the study of medicine as a college student mostly from a liberal arts background. Russell's fascination with history and the impact people made on history gave him a deep appreciation for the arts, reading and writing.

"For me, writing has a lot of the same creativity that is required in medicine," said Russell, who practices internal medicine and pediatrics at UAB Health Center Moody. "It's finding new ways to deal with challenges around me. There's a connection between what I write, what I do from a teaching standpoint and what I do from a professional standpoint. Because I'm a physician, and wanted to write about a physician, and I wanted it to be realistic as well."

Russell has spent the past 10 years using writing as an outlet from the daily stresses that life brings, which has given him the opportunity to birth and explore the fates of many characters, including Cooper "Mackie" McKay. The reveals into McKay's life begin Feb. 12, when Blue Jay Media Group releases "Blood Money," the first of Russell's three novels scheduled to be published. The books follow the life of McKay, a retired orthopedic surgeon who often finds himself wrapped up in issues with international implications.

"Writing and journaling have helped me process a lot of difficult medical situations," Russell said. "Writing fiction has been a way for me to expand that and to think about possibilities. What would happen if the person did this in a medical situation? What would happen if this person had a certain patient interaction and had to respond to that? That's given me a lot more leeway to explore those possibilities without having to compromise patient privacy or my own thoughts about what I might do in a certain situation."

"Blood Money" shows McKay at his best and worst. He has recently lost his wife, and is somewhat estranged from his daughter. It is the beginning of a tough road for a character who is independent and strong but winds up involved in a situation that is not his choosing.

Russell relied heavily on his philosophy as a physician to create McKay, the characters around him and their stories.

"Understanding a person's medical history is best understood by understanding their story, the narrative of their life, the narrative of how disease has affected them and that pathway that they're on," Russell said. "As a writer, I try to pull that into my characters to give them a narrative that is believable, not just a two-dimensional person who is trying to save the world, but a person who has his own struggles and challenges both with the immediate issue that's going on and in the world around him. We all have issues we try to work through and still try to do the job we have before us. That's been a fun challenge for me as a writer to take some of those universal themes and plug them into a fictional setting."

A release party for "Blood Money" is scheduled for Feb. 12 at Cantina Grill in Pepper Place, and a book-signing is scheduled Feb. 19 at Little Professor Book Center in Homewood. Preorders will be available at Barnes & Noble and in the iTunes bookstore. Paperback books will be available at Little Professor in Homewood and can be ordered from Amazon.com upon the book's release.

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UAB physician turned novelist: Creativity an important part of medicine

Einstein medical residents continue their quiz dynasty

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In April, they will head for Orlando, Fla., where they will compete for the hospital's third consecutive national championship in the Doctor's Dilemma, a Jeopardy!-style competition of medical wits hosted annually by the American College of Physicians.

No other hospital or medical school in the country has won the crown five times. Einstein doctors aced it in 1997, 1998, 2007, 2012, and 2013, beating dozens of teams each year with their buzzer-quick fingers, calculating betting, team collaboration, and dead-on answers.

"When we play, it's a bloodbath," said Guillermo Garrido, 31, an attending physician at Einstein's Elkins Park campus who coached last year's squad and played on the team in 2012.

Topics can include little-known diseases, treatments, diagnostic techniques, medical history - certainly not typical watercooler musings.

In "final jeopardy" last year, the team had to answer this question: "What is the imaging test of choice to diagnose hepatopulmonary syndrome?" (Or, for the layperson, liver and lung syndrome.)

The answer: a bubble study.

Garrido said one of the toughest categories was medical eponyms. The eponym for polycystic ovary syndrome, for example, is Stein-Leventhal syndrome.

Medical chiefs at Einstein attribute the team's success to recruitment of top-notch medical graduates, good teaching, and lots of practice against faculty and one another. The team also brings on one newcomer each year and keeps a previous team member as coach to provide continuity.

When a major competition nears, team members are given easier rotation schedules so they can rest and practice.

"We take Jeopardy seriously here," said Steven L. Sivak, a doctor and chairman of Einstein's department of medicine. "They practice all year round."

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Einstein medical residents continue their quiz dynasty

Bill would require doctors to complete more training to get license

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Doctors would have to complete two years of training after medical school, instead of one year, to qualify for a regular medical license in Wisconsin under a bill introduced last week.

The requirement would apply to graduates of U.S. and foreign medical schools. Many states require one year of post- graduate training for graduates of U.S. medical schools but two or three years for graduates of foreign schools.

Wisconsin, by currently requiring one year for both, has become a dumping ground for a lot of bad physicians who want to get their foot in the American medical system, Dr. Sheldon Wasserman, former chairman of the Wisconsin Medical Examining Board, told the State Journal last year.

Dr. Kenneth Simons, the medical boards current chairman, could not be reached for comment Sunday.

The bill, introduced Friday by Rep. Erik Severson, R-Star Prairie, and Sen. Leah Vukmir, R- Wauwatosa , would increase the training requirement for all doctors. Severson is a doctor and Vukmir is a nurse.

Graduates of U.S. medical schools would have to complete two years of training or complete one year and be enrolled in a program in which the director says the doctor is expected to complete the second year.

Graduates of foreign medical schools would have to complete two years of training, and the most recent year would have to be in a single program.

Exceptions could be granted in cases of hardship. Existing license holders would not be affected by the new requirements.

The bill would also replace a temporary educational permit with a resident educational license for doctors in post- graduate training programs.

In addition, the bill would change requirements for visiting physician licenses and create an administrative physician license for doctors not practicing medicine.

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Bill would require doctors to complete more training to get license