Monthly Archives: August 2017

Berkeley Lab Intern Focuses on Using Light for Spaceflight – Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

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Elliot Heywood (Credit: Marilyn Chung/Berkeley Lab)

Elliot Heywood had dreamed of landing an internship at the science lab in the hills not far from his school in Lafayette, California, but he never could have imagined this dream would take wing as a summerlong stint researching an ultrafast interplanetary propulsion system.

In May, after a friend and fellow high school senior at the Bentley School put him in touch with his father, a computer scientist at Berkeley Lab the U.S. Department of Energys Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Heywood received an unexpected email.

His friends father had reached out to Carl Pennypacker, an astrophysicist at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley, and Pennypacker had invited Heywood to the Lab.

Another way to get to Mars

Carl emailed me, saying, I want you to work on this Mars project, said Heywood, who is 18. Pennypacker is also a science educator who founded the Hands-On Universe program in the 1990s that connects students with astronomical observatories around the world.

Heywoods school requires seniors to participate in an internship before graduating, so the timing was perfect. His introduction to Berkeley Lab was a TED Talk by Mina Bissell, a cell biologist at the Lab whose work has benefited cancer research; ever since, hed wanted to experience for himself what it was like to work there.

I remember just being mesmerized and thinking, Theres no other place like this in the Bay Area so many people doing so many amazing things, he said. To be invited here, this was really an honor for me. He added, I knew that coming here was going to be invaluable in terms of the connections I was going to make with people and the work I would be doing.

During the month of May, Heywood traveled to the Lab five days a week to work on calculations for this project. After graduating from high school he stayed aboard at the Lab for a summer internship, ending his work there in early August.

Heywood was tasked with exploring what it would take to send one crew member and supplies in a spacecraft weighing just over 1 ton in total, or about 2,300 pounds, to Mars using finely focused laser light.

The laser-based system would greatly reduce the time it would take to make this journey, which would reduce the astronauts exposure to space radiation and also reduce the required payload and overall size of the spacecraft. It may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but there is solid scientific ground for this type of propulsion system.

Phil Lubin of UC Santa Barbara a former student of Berkeley Lab physicist and Nobel laureate George Smoot, and a colleague of Pennypackers is part of a team that is studying how to develop a light-based propulsion system to send tiny, unpiloted spacecraft dubbed nanocraft to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, on beams of light. Alpha Centauri is about 4.4 light-years away.

Artists rendering of a solar sail. (Credit: Adrian Mann, UC Santa Barbara)

This work builds upon successes such as the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agencys 2010 launch of a solar sail spacecraft, IKAROS, using sunlight for propulsion much like a sailboat uses wind. And the Planetary Society in May 2015 tested a CubeSat, or tiny satellite, dubbed LightSail, also propelled by a solar sail. Planning is underway for a successor LightSail mission.

Big challenges for big spacecraft

Light-based propulsion systems could conceivably cut the Earth-to-Mars travel time from 5-10 months down to weeks or days, though larger payloads would require much larger laser systems.

During his internship, Heywood attended a presentation by Jessica Lu, a UC Berkeley astronomer, and he also studied up on research by Lubin, who has been working on light-based propulsion systems for spaceflight and asteroid defense.

Heywood corresponded with Lubin, met with Nobel laureate Saul Perlmutter a Lab physicist who studies supernovae and dark energy and he also communicated with other Lab scientists during his internship. Just interacting with these scientists was a really gratifying and rewarding experience, Heywood said. I learned not to be afraid to ask questions, and to do independent research.

His work culminated in a 13-page paper that he hopes will be followed up with more research. The spacecraft envisioned in the paper would have a light sail measuring about 935 feet (285 meters) in diameter, and the spacecraft and sail would together weigh about 1,760 pounds.

The spacecraft could be launched with conventional propulsion into Earths orbit, where the sail would be deployed. Laser light would then be focused on the spacecraft with noise from Earths atmosphere corrected by an adaptive optics system via a ground-based telescope or telescopes.

Illustration of a light-driven solar sail (left), with Earth pictured at right. (Credit: Breakthrough Starshot)

Heywoods paper noted other challenges, including that the laser-propulsion source would require a huge power supply equivalent to the output of about 10-100 nuclear power plants, and that the light beam would need to be extremely focused over the length of the trip.

While it may sound like a wild idea, Heywood said that its still within the realm of possibility using current technology.

Maybe this is a seed that, decades from now, somebody will sow, he said. Maybe it sounds so naive and so optimistic but I think having maybe a little bit of naive optimism is so important to moving this off the drawing board and into space.

Looking back, and ahead

Heywood said he hopes to rejoin the Lab for future internships. Carl said Im welcome to come back pretty much every summer.

Later this month, Heywood will begin attending George Washington University, where he plans to study chemistry, with a possible minor in physics.

Im really interested in pharmaceuticals, and specifically drug design, he said. His parents both work in the medical field, and Heywood said he would like to help find ways to use synthetic organic chemistry to develop cancer-fighting drugs that are easier for the body to tolerate than current chemotherapy drugs.

The side effects (of these drugs) are often worse than what the cancer gives you, he said, adding that it would be great to find a way to improve quality of life for patients undergoing these treatments.

Heywoods advice for other students pursuing science internships: Dont stop contacting professors and researchers. Never stop. Always keep persevering, because eventually youre going to get lucky. He added, I never thought I would get an internship at Berkeley Lab, but it happened.

Also, when you do find an opportunity, always treat it with the professionalism that it deserves. These opportunities dont come along that often.

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Berkeley Lab Intern Focuses on Using Light for Spaceflight - Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Good news for redheads: a tanning drug for the pale-skinned

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Washington (AFP) - After 10 years of research, scientists have come up with a drug that could help people tan without exposure to the sun, potentially reducing the risk of skin cancer.

The drug stimulates cells that produce the pigment that absorbs ultra-violet light, the researchers said in the US journal Cell Reports published on Tuesday. They stressed that further tests are needed to safeguard against potential side-effects in humans.

Applied as a cream to the skin, the drug allowed red-haired mice to develop a deep tan. Like their pale-skinned human counterparts, the mice are particularly susceptible to the damaging effects of the sun's ultra-violet rays.

The original breakthrough in mice was announced more than a decade ago, in a study published in the British journal Nature in 2006. But it has taken scientists that much time to work out how to make much thicker human skin absorb the substance.

The initial report revealed that a substance called forskolin gave red-haired mice a deep tan without exposure to UV light. But because human skin is relatively hairless compared to animals', it has evolved to be much tougher in order to protect against heat, cold and other environmental factors, and the topical substance could not penetrate it effectively.

"Human skin is a very good barrier and is a formidable penetration challenge. Therefore, other topical approaches just did not work," said David Fisher, chief of dermatology at Massachusetts General Hospital, a professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School, and one of the authors of the study.

"But 10 years later, we have come up with a solution. It's a different class of compounds, that work by targeting a different enzyme that converges on the same pathway that leads to pigmentation," he said.

The scientists tested the substance on samples of human skin kept in laboratories and found that it darkened in proportion to the dosage applied. The tan lasted several days.

In animal tests, red-haired mice became "almost jet black in a day or two with a strong enough dose," the researchers observed. When the dosage was removed, normal skin regeneration meant the color faded within a week or so.

"We believe the potential importance of this work is towards a novel strategy for skin cancer prevention," Fisher said.

"Skin is the most common organ in our bodies to be afflicted with cancer, and the majority of cases are thought to be associated with UV radiation," he said.

The long-term aim would be to create a cream that develops a tan without exposure to sunlight but which also absorbs harmful UV rays like traditional sun screens.

Related: 5 Ways to Get a Great Tan Safely

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Good news for redheads: a tanning drug for the pale-skinned

Red-headed woodpeckers in a mysterious decline – SW News Media

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Recently I had a wonderful opportunity to study and photograph a pair of red-headed woodpeckers nesting in an old tree and feeding their young.

All of this happened because a reader of this column gave me a shout to share the exciting news of this cool woodpecker.

The red-headed woodpecker (Melanerpes erythocephalus) was once a very common woodpecker. In the mid-1800s, John James Audubon stated that the red-headed woodpecker was the most common woodpecker in North America. He called them semi-domesticated because they werent afraid of people. He stated that they were camp robbers and also a pest.

According to the Audubon Societys Christmas Bird Count data, between the 1950s and the year 2010, the population of red-headed woodpeckers dropped dramatically. Over 80 percent of the population died out in just over 50 years.

Currently we continue to lose about 2 percent each year. That means within a couple decades we could see this bird become extinct if the trend continues.

The reason behind this decline is not understood. Many are quick to blame loss of habitat for their decline. While it is true that we have had a decline in mature tree habitat, no conclusive study indicates this to be the cause.

I would point to the fact that the population of red-bellied woodpeckers, with a similar size, shape and habitat requirement, is exploding across the country. If it were truly a habitat issue, it should affect both species equally since they both have the same habitat requirements.

Competition with European starlings for the nest cavity has also been implicated in the decline of the red-heads. While theres no doubt competition for the nest cavity with the starling will impact the red-heads, the population of the European starling is also dropping across the country at the same time. Also, if the starling usurps the red-head, the woodpecker can always excavate a new cavity.

It has been proposed that red-headed woodpeckers are habitat specialists and require a very unique habitat called the oak savanna. The argument goes that as oak savanna habitat is reduced, so goes the woodpecker.

I would maintain that the amount of oak savanna habitat was never very large and perhaps the reason why we find red-heads in this habitat now is because its the last holdout where the woodpeckers can still live. Ask anyone over the age of 50 who grew up on a farm and theyll remember red-headed woodpeckers, and they didnt have oak savanna habitat.

Over the past 30 years of studying and photographing red-headed woodpeckers, the vast majority have not been in oak savanna habitat. In fact the nest I was photographing recently was in a dead birch tree in a mixed deciduous forest.

There are over 200 species of woodpecker in the world and only four species cache food. Caching food is a process of storing nuts, such as acorns, in a cavity for later consumption. This might be a clue. For example the number of nut-bearing trees has declined dramatically over the past 100 years.

Both the number of oak trees, hickories and beech have declined and the American chestnut is completely gone. Whether or not this is the cause of the decline is not known.

Here are some interesting aspects of the red-headed woodpecker. In nearly all of the woodpeckers species, it is easy to see the difference between the male and female. Usually the male has some kind of marking on its head.

However the red-headed woodpecker male and female look exactly the same. Even if you have these birds in your hands and you can examine them, you wont be able to tell the difference between the male and the female. This is an interesting difference between the red-headed woodpeckers and the rest of the woodpeckers.

Red-headed woodpeckers are remarkable species and I always feel honored to be able to see and film this bird. If you have a nest in your yard, no matter how common the species, give me a shout. You never know, I might come visit.

Stan Tekiela is an author, Eden Prairie city naturalist and wildlife photographer who travels the United States to study and photograph wildlife. He can be followed on Facebook and Twitter. He can be contacted via his webpage at http://www.naturesmart.com.

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Red-headed woodpeckers in a mysterious decline - SW News Media

Yes, it really has taken NASA 11 years to develop a parachute – Ars Technica

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Enlarge / A test model of the Orion spacecraft, with its parachutes, is tested in Arizona.

NASA

Last week, NASAs acting chief technologist, Douglas Terrier, visited one of NASAs main contractors in the Houston area, Jacobs. Along with a handful of media members, he spent about an hour touring the companys engineering development facility, where the company supports NASA programs from the International Space Station to the Orion spacecraft.

At one stop during the tour, Terrier learned about a new distiller that might more efficiently recover water from urine during long-duration missions. At another, he learned about new debris sensors that will go to the station to record micrometeorite and orbital debris impacts. And at yet another, he heard about the parachute system that Jacobs has helped develop for the Orion spacecraft.

Terrier continued to nod pleasantly along and ask insightful questions. The tour went on. But inwardly, I was taken aback. Surely, it did not take 11 years (and counting) to develop and test parachutes for a spacecraft. After all, between 1961 and 1972, humans went from first taking flight with Yuri Gagarin, to flying Apollo missions to the Moon. And if it was true, what did it mean for where NASA was really going in terms of human exploration?

It was true. According to NASA spokeswoman Barbara Zelon, the contract for the development and certification of the Orion parachute system has been in place for 11 years. This included early concept and trade studies, numerous ground-based tests, and 17 full-scale development airdrop tests required to prove out a wide range of failure scenarios. Finally, Orion has completed three of the final eight human certification airdrop tests and plans to complete human certification in early 2019. So Jacobs is likely to have a parachute development contract forat least 13 years.

NASA

In some sense, this is what NASA does. It tests out new technologies on the frontier of exploration and then shares them with industry. For example, Zelon said, NASA has shared more than 300 artifacts, including the design, models, and test data, with the agencys commercial crew partnersBoeing and SpaceX. This has allowed them to leverage NASAs efforts and eliminate nearly all the development work and unique testing. This saves both NASA and the companies money in the long run.

But what does it say about an exploration program that requires 13 years to develop a parachute system? After all, NASAs Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo capsules all had parachute systems, too, and each wasdeveloped within a few years. NASA had a broad base of knowledge to draw on (Orion will probably only ever come back from the Moon, like the Apollo capsules, although it is larger). It seemed like a 13-year contract for parachute development may indicate that the agency really wasnt going anywhere fast.

After the Jacobs tour, I put this question to Terrier. He did not flinch. I think its a very fair question, he said. I think its a very fair debate to ask if we as a nation are serious about this, and making it a priority. What weve enjoyed is a very constant level of support, but its certainly not the Apollo or Manhattan-type project to crank this thing out in seven years.

That is not to say that NASA, or its large contractor base, isless able than it wasin the 1960s. Far from it, Terrier said. I think its important to realize that the team and the technology and manufacturing base is very capable of doing that, the moment someone flicks that switch. The speed at which were moving is not limited by the capability of NASA or the contractors; it is limited by the resources and, frankly, the political emphasis.

Here, Terrier has highlighted the biggest reason why the United States and NASA have not moved beyond the Moon since 1969, or indeed, even sent humans back. Once the Apollo program met its Cold War imperative, NASAs priority sank, and the funding dried up. NASA has been left with significantly less money, relative to the rest of the federal budget, since then. It then tried to cobble together a meaningful human-exploration program in low Earth orbit with the shuttle and space station.

Perhaps the new administration will change this. Vice President Mike Pence has spoken about a renewed human exploration planalong with a willingness to inject more low-cost, commercial space into the mix to push NASA further, faster. Certainly, the potential is there. But for now, at least, the switch has yet to be flicked on.

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Yes, it really has taken NASA 11 years to develop a parachute - Ars Technica

NASA’s Rocket to Nowhere Finally Has a Destination – WIRED

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On a Thursday afternoon in June, a 17-foot-tall rocket motorlooking like something a dedicated amateur might fire offstood fire-side-up on the salty desert of Promontory, Utah. Over the loudspeakers, an announcer counted down. And with the command to fire, quad cones of flame flew from the four inverted nozzles and grew toward the sky. As the smoke rose, it cast a four-leaf clover of shadow across the ground.

This was a test of the launch abort motor, a gadget built to carry NASA astronauts away from a rocket gone wrong. Made in Utah by a company called Orbital ATK, it's part of the Space Launch System : the agency's next generation space vehicle, meant to ferry humans and cargo into deep space . NASA has tasked Orbital ATK and other contractors like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Aerojet Rocketdynewith building SLS and its crew capsule for the kinds of missions NASA hasnt undertaken since the Apollo days. But for much of the program's six years, NASA didn't know exactly where SLS would go. The agency spent billions of dollars on what critics called a rocket to nowhere.

In June, hundreds of spectatorsrocket scientists, astronauts, locals who line the highway for every scheduled testcame to watch the fireworks of the launch abort motor test. Charley Bown, a program manager, had warned it would be very short, very powerful, and very loud. Despite his prep talk, the crowd jumped at "fire." During tests like this one, Bown actually turns from the rocketry and watches the watchers, taking pictures of their faces. Some people just smile, he says. Some have a look of amazement.

Bown has been to a lot of these shows in his decades here. And Orbital ATK has done other test fires, lighting up the boosters that will launch the SLS. But this one was different. Because back in late March, Bill Gerstenmaier, the associate administrator for NASAs Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate gave a flashy presentation detailing the agency's Deep Space Gateway and Transport Planwith proposed missions through the 2030s. Finally, the builders and testers could envision not just that their creations would go but that they would go to lunar orbit .

The tapestry of SLS's fate was always tangled. In 2010, before the shuttle was even in its grave , Congress told NASA to build the rocket using reappropriated shuttle parts. First, they thought the system might take astronauts to an asteroidyou know, practice for Mars. But maybe SLS could send a robot to tug an asteroid from its natural orbit and into the moon's orbit ? Also practice for Mars, of course.

With the 2016 transition of presidential power, NASA abandoned what little agenda it had. Which isn't unusual. The agencys mandates are always subject to the US's four-year flip-flop, despite the fact that decades-long mission plans require, believe it or not, decades. Since Trump took office, officials have debated whether to scrap missions to asteroids, whether to favor the moon over Mars, and whether to put humans aboard the very, very first mission, called EM-1 (it was a bad idea, and they won't).

Through all this, the contractors kept constructing and testing, keeping their focus simply on finishing . Until Gerstenmeier's March presentation. Finally, here was a roadmap. The first mission, according to this plan, will go to the moon's orbit in 2018.

Four years later, the rocket will launch a mission to Europa, that mystery moon on which moviemakers imagine oceanic aliens. Then, crews will shuttle to lunar orbit to build a deep-space habitat and staging area for longer-distance travel. Trips there will continue through 2029, building up the outer-space infrastructure. Four lucky people will spend a year hanging out in the ether around the moon, to see how they and the hab fare. And eventually, other astronauts will undock part of the space town and swivel it on a path toward Mars.

With those goalposts in place, NASA's contractors finally have somewhere to aim. Orbital ATK is currently proving that its hardware meets NASA's previously-established specs for safety and performance. And contractor Lockheed Martin continues to test the human capsule for NASA's deep-space forays: Orion.

As of late July, the Lockheed crew was in the throes of testing a full-size mockup of Orion . Off a road called Titan Loop in Colorado, Lockheed engineers test how the capsule fares in all kinds of weather, blasting it with sound waves to see how it handles vibration, shocking it to see if its components come out OK, putting pressure on it to see if its structure survives. It tests all the systems in various kinds of badness, says Christopher Aiken, an integration and test engineer.

The mockup isnt just a shell: Its electronics and controls are silicon copies of final product. When we fly this, it doesnt know its sitting on the ground, says Paul Sannes, manager of the test lab. The idea is that this model will feel and behave like the real thing under those same conditions, a voodoo doll of space travel. Last week, four Lockheed interns did an AMA on reddit. Getting to see a full mock-up of the capsule every day is pretty awesome, wrote Bailey Sikorski. Plus I get to touch it, which is even cooler.

Six hundred miles northwest, back at Orbital ATK, the biggest task is bureaucratic: a design certification review of the company's solid rocket boosters, which will power 80 percent of SLS's first few minutes of flight. Cast inside space-shuttle casings, the propellant's final form has the consistency of a pencil eraser. Technicians mix the solution in 600-gallon KitchenAids209 of them per boosterand pour that liquid into the five segments that make up each booster. Then they'll cure, trim, and X-ray them to make sure they're defect-free.

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The 12 Greatest Challenges for Space Exploration

When SLS goes up, it will eat through 1,385,000 pounds of that artisanal propellant in two minutes. And although the first flight wont happen till 2019, Orbital ATK has all the booster segments finished. The design certification will stretch through the end of this year. We provide to NASA all of the certification paperwork, all the drawings, all the test data, says Bown. And then? Assuming all's well? Ship, assemble, and fly, he says.

All that prep work means more now that SLS has real, concrete plans for launching astronauts to the moon's orbit. When the space shuttle Challenger broke apart in 1986, Bown worked at this Utah site. Engineers there, then as now, built NASAs rocket boosters. And it was a booster that failed, that cold Florida morning, 73 seconds after launch, when it was just higher than a commercial airliner. Seven astronauts died.

Bown kept working here, through decades and acquisitions and mergers and a whole lot of propellant work. I got to go from feeling horrible to feeling good about it again, he says.

Today, for major tests like that of the launch abort motor, NASA always sends at least one astronaut to observe. That presence means a lot: The astronauts get to meet the people theyve trusted to make the 177-foot-tall erasers that will fire them to space. And those engineers get to meet the people that propel their work.

The two types stand side by side at the testsboth jumping involuntarily, both perhaps in the frame of one of Bowns photos.

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NASA's Rocket to Nowhere Finally Has a Destination - WIRED

Nasa’s ambitious plan to save Earth from a supervolcano – BBC News

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Nasa's ambitious plan to save Earth from a supervolcano
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I was a member of the Nasa Advisory Council on Planetary Defense which studied ways for Nasa to defend the planet from asteroids and comets, explains Brian Wilcox of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at the California Institute of Technology.

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Nasa's ambitious plan to save Earth from a supervolcano - BBC News

From exoplanets to galaxies: NASA chooses 6 missions for further study – Fox News

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Six astrophysics programs selected for further study by NASA have science goals across the universe, ranging from exoplanets to galaxies.

This round of choices for NASA's Explorers Program, announced Aug. 9, includes three Explorer missions ($250 million each) and three missions of opportunity ($70 million each).

Each team has the chance to do a concept study. Scientific evaluations will be performed on each study, then NASA will select one Explorer mission and one mission of opportunity to fund in 2019. The expected launch dates would fall in 2022. [The Biggest Space Missions to Watch in 2017]

The three mission proposals (each receiving $2 million for the concept study), according to a NASA statement, are:

The three missions of opportunity (each receiving $500,000 for the concept study) are:

Explorers is NASA's longest-running program. Its first mission was Explorer 1 in 1958, which also was the first U.S. satellite. Explorer 1 discovered the Van Allen radiation belts surrounding Earth. More than 90 missions have run under the program, including the Uhuru and Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) missions that led to Nobel Prizes for their investigators.

"The Explorers Program brings out some of the most creative ideas for missions to help unravel the mysteries of the universe," Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA's science mission directorate, said in the statement. "The program has resulted in great missions that have returned transformational science, and these selections promise to continue that tradition."

Follow us @Spacedotcom , Facebook and Google+ . Original article on Space.com .

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From exoplanets to galaxies: NASA chooses 6 missions for further study - Fox News

Likely NASA Administrator Has Big Space Ambitions But Trump May Hinder Them – Houston Press

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Thursday, August 17, 2017 at 10:54 a.m.

Illustration by Matt Griesmyer

An Oklahoma Congressman is President Donald Trumps choice to be the next NASA administrator, according to reports, but his plans for space may be pulled back to Earth by the man who hired him.

NASA Watch, a niche news organization that focuses on the space industry, reported Wednesday that Rep. Jim Bridenstine will be NASAs next leader. A Rice University graduate, Bridenstine is an aviator in the Navy Reserve and has served in Congress since 2012. He has not commented on speculation that hell soon join NASA.

In his five years in Congress, Bridenstine has shown an enthusiasm for space exploration, and said he wants the United States to reinvest in space and NASA, including more moon missions to explore the possibility of establishing a base there.

In 2016, the congressman sponsored the American Space Renaissance Act, which aims to project military strength through an American presence in space, spur commercial space innovation and provide clear goals and deadlines for NASA. In a website he created to promote the legislation, Bridenstine noted how often technology created for space travel has benefited the everyday lives of Americans and argued that the United States may cede influence over space by neglecting NASA.

Unfortunately, continued socioeconomic growth from space technology maturation and increased space access is no longer assured, Bridenstine wrote. Space is becoming more congested, contested, and competitive. We must establish responsible governance that will prevent mishaps, misperceptions, and mistrust, while assuring the use of space for all responsible parties. As a military pilot, I can attest that our national security and our very way of life require both military and commercial space capabilities.

The bill did not make it out of committee and received just a single co-sponsor, highlighting the struggle NASA has had finding the money it needs for its missions. Since the glory days of NASA, government investment in the space agency has dwindled. In 1966, in the middle of the Apollo Program, NASA spending accounted for 4.5 percent of the federal budget. Now, that figure is less than half a percent. Since the end of the shuttle program in 2011, American astronauts have had to hitch a ride with Russian cosmonauts to the International Space Station.

Despite his ambitions for NASA and the American space industry, Bridenstine may be hamstrung by the administration that hired him. President Trumps FY 2018 budget includes $19.1 billion for NASA, a $561 million decrease from present levels that CBS News reported would eliminate some Earth science missions and put the kibosh on NASAs plan to retrieve a piece of an asteroid, an exercise that would prepare astronauts for the challenges of flying to Mars.

Where the president himself stands on NASA remains a mystery. In 2012, he criticized the Obama administration for cutting NASAs budget and forcing astronauts to hitchhike from Kazakhstan but he has yet to offer an alternative travel arrangement.

Trump did not articulate a clear vision for NASA during his presidential campaign. During a call with astronauts aboard the International Space Station, Trump asked astronauts to reach Mars "during my first term or, at worst, during my second term," after those same astronauts told him this would not be possible until the 2030s. Plus, they'd need more money.

So Bridenstine may soon inherit a problem shared by leaders across the government: a president with grand plans unwilling to invest the time, expertise or investment to reaching them.

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Likely NASA Administrator Has Big Space Ambitions But Trump May Hinder Them - Houston Press

Nanotechnology Gives Green Energy a Green Color – I-Connect007

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Solar panels have tremendous potential to provide affordable renewable energy, but many people see traditional black and blue panels as an eyesore. Architects, homeowners and city planners may be more open to the technology if they could install green panels that melt into the landscape, red panels on rooftops and white ones camouflaged as walls.

A new study published this week in Applied Physics Letters ("Efficient colored silicon solar modules using integrated resonant dielectric nanoscatterers"), brings us one step closer to a future of colorful, efficient solar panels.

Researchers have developed a method for imprinting existing solar panels with silicon nanopatterns that scatter green light back toward an observer. The panels have a green appearance from most angles yet only show about a 10 percent power reduction due to the loss of absorbed green light.

Left: The nanopatterned module appears green, independent of the angle. Right: Schematic of silicon nanoscatterer arrays on top of a sapphire cover slide, integrated into a commonly used solar panel design. ( AIP)

"Some people say 'why would you make solar cells less efficient?' But we can make solar cells beautiful without losing too much efficiency," said Verena Neder, a researcher at AMOLF and lead author of the paper. "The new method to change the color of the panels is not only easy to apply but also attractive as an architectural design element and has the potential to widen their use."

Most research on solar cells has focused on increasing efficiency and reducing cost. Currently, the solar panels sold to consumers can ideally turn up to 22 percent of the sun's light into usable energy. Colored solar panels are already on the market, but the dyes and reflective coatings that give them their color greatly reduce efficiency.

Neder and colleagues created their efficient, green solar panels through soft-imprint lithography, which works somewhat like an optical rubber stamp to imprint a dense array of silicon nanocylinders onto the cell surfaces. Each nanocylinder is about 100 nanometers wide and exhibits an electromagnetic resonance that scatters a particular wavelength of light. The geometry of the nanocylinder determines which wavelength it scatters and can be fine-tuned to change the color of the solar cell. The imprint reduces the solar panel's efficiency by about 2 percent.

"In principle, this technique is easily scalable for fabrication technology," said Albert Polman, a scientific group leader at AMOLF and senior author on the paper. "You can use a rubber stamp the size of a solar panel that in one step, can print the whole panel full of these little, exactly defined nanoparticles."

Unlike existing colored solar panels, the nanopatterns give a consistent appearance from different angles. "The structure we made is not very sensitive to the angle of observation, so even if you look at it from a wide angle, it still appears green," Neder said.

The nanopatterns also could be useful in making tandem solar cells, which stack several layers, each designed to absorb certain parts of the spectrum, to achieve efficiencies of greater than 30 percent.

Next, the researchers are designing imprints to create red and blue solar cells. Once they master these three colors, the primary colors of light, they can create any color, potentially even white. "You have to combine different nanoparticles, and if they get very close to each other they can interact and that will affect the color," Polman said. "Going to white is a really big step."

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Nanotechnology Gives Green Energy a Green Color - I-Connect007

Growth in Nanomedicine market-2017 trends, forecasts, analysis – satPRnews (press release)

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The report firstly introduced the Nanomedicine basics: definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain overview; industry policies and plans; product specifications; manufacturing processes; cost structures and so on. Then it analyzed the worlds main region market conditions, including the product price, profit, capacity, production, capacity utilization, supply, demand and industry growth rate etc. In the end, the report introduced new project SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysis.

Download sample pages of this report: http://www.kminsights.com/request-sample-1892

Nanomedicine is a branch of medicine that applies the knowledge and tools of nanotechnology to the prevention and treatment of disease. Nanomedicine involves the use of nanoscale materials, such as biocompatible nanoparticles and nanorobots, for diagnosis, delivery, sensing or actuation purposes in a living organism.

The ongoing market trends of Nanomedicine market and the key factors impacting the growth prospects are elucidated. With increase in the trend, the factors affecting the trend are mentioned with perfect reasons. Top manufactures, price, revenue, market share are explained to give a depth of idea on the competitive side.

Each and every segment type and their sub types are well elaborated to give a better idea about this market during the forecast period of 2017respectively.

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About Us: Key Market Insights is a stand-alone organization with a solid history of advancing and exchanging market research reports and logical surveys delivered by our numerous transnational accomplices, which incorporate both huge multinationals and littler, more expert concerns.

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Growth in Nanomedicine market-2017 trends, forecasts, analysis - satPRnews (press release)

Tiny robot vehicles travel to your stomach to drive away infection – ZDNet

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The future of drug delivery may be placed in the hands of autonomous vehicles no wider than the width of a human hair.

As reported by New Scientist, micromotors -- tiny, autonomous vehicles -- have been used in trials with mice to deliver drugs to clear bacterial infections in the stomach.

The research, conducted at the University of California San Diego by nanoengineer and professor Joseph Wang together with professor Liangfang Zhang from the Department of Nanoengineering at the Moores Cancer Center, utilized tiny robots consisting of a magnesium core which reacts with gastric acid once swallowed.

When this reaction occurs, usually after a maximum of 20 minutes, the vehicles release a stream of hydrogen bubbles which propel the micromotor forwards to where it needs to go to deliver drugs effectively.

Published in the journal Nature Communications, the engineers say that once the hydrogen is produced, the level of acidity in the stomach diminishes, and at this point, the antibiotics are released.

The team designed the autonomous robots to release the drugs at this stage due to the possibility of high stomach acid levels reducing the effectiveness of the medicine.

The trial used Helicobacter pylori bacteria and clarithromycin as a model antibiotic. Over a period of five days, the robots were used to administer drugs, resulting in a noticeable reduction in the levels of bacteria in the stomach, without any side-effects which impacted stomach function.

According to the team, after 24 hours, normal stomach PH level was restored.

The robots are also biodegradable, and so there is no need for extraction or removal after they have completed their tasks.

"The propulsion of the drug-loaded Mg-based micromotors in gastric fluid along with their outer chitosan layer are shown to greatly enhance the binding and retention of the drug-loaded motors on the stomach wall," the engineers say. "As these micromotors are propelled in the gastric fluid, their Mg cores are dissolved, leading to self-destruction of these motors without harmful residues."

The duo believes that the results of the mice trial are promising for the future treatment of bacterial infections and disease. It is also possible that with the development of biocompatible fuels or fuel-free propellants, the autonomous robots could also be controlled to move around different parts of the body and treat other conditions.

"There is still a long way to go, but we are on a fantastic voyage," Wang said.

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Tiny robot vehicles travel to your stomach to drive away infection - ZDNet

Fiber Optics to Prevent Accidents in Mines and Power Plants – New Kerala

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MOSCOW, August 17, 2017 : NUST MISIS scientists have suggested a technology for the creation of high-precision sensors based on doped fiber optics for accident prevention in the nuclear, space, and mining industries.

The created fiber optics is doped with rare-earth and transition metals: erbium, holmium, bismuth, etc., in addition to nanoparticles of silver and silicon. The composition and ratio of ligands (chemical additives) in quartz-based fibers are unique, as they provide unique properties in obtained fibers. The study's results have been published in the journal LaserPhysicsLetters.

The high sensitivity of the resulting fibers to temperature changes, tension, chemical composition, and an environment's background radiation, as well as their stability in inhospitable environments and their high resistance to electromagnetic disturbances allows the fibers to carry out high-precision monitoring of large-scale facilities (pipelines, drillings, power plants, bridges) on a number of parameters. The length of fiber optics also gives the chance to measure large size objects (up to hundreds of meters). In near-earth orbit, sensors based on these obtained fibers can measure the conditions of background radiation in spacecrafts.

Sensors based on these fiber optics effectively register various types of radiation emissions in a wide range of doses, and can do so with high-precision in ultra-high (up to 1700) temperatures, harsh chemical compositions, and powerful electromagnetic fields. The length of fiber optics allows the technology to carry out remote measurements; for example, it can provide full-scale monitoring of deep oil wells, mines, and pipeline assemblies for nuclear plants. Due to its unique characteristics, devices based on this technology will be in high demand in a plethora of fields, including construction and geotechnical engineering, the aerospace and oil & gas industries, and high-current energy engineering, including nuclear engineering.

"A fiber optic sensor is either a small-sized ("pointed") device (which, in turn, can be a part of a multi-component detecting network, or an interrogator), or a " spatially-distributed circuit" which is able to collect information about detected parameters at great distances - due to fiber's property as a fundamentally "long" environment. In the former case, the sensitive elements of sensors can be Bragg gratings (spectrally-selective filters), written in fiber. Their parameters, i.e. reflection and transmission spectrums, greatly depend on the state of the environment (pressure, temperature, deformation, etc.), and respectively serve as the basis of detection. The entire length of a used fiber is the sensitive element in "long sensor" format. It is used either in "passive" mode (in this case, for example, the changes in absorption and transmission spectrum of doped fiber optics are detected parameters), or "active" mode, when it is a component of a laser (in this case, for example, relaxation frequency, optical spectrum, or laser oscillation mode are detected parameters).

"Our research, within this project's framework, is aimed at the creation, comprehensive research, and application of fiber sensors of the second type with the use of specially developed doped fibers, obtained, in particular, by the method of nano-engineering. Such fibers can become a reliable solution while working in an aggressive environment, when the device based on them is in extreme conditions - for example, when thermo-monitoring oil wells or performing dosimetry at power plants," told Alexander Kir'yanov, the head of the project.

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Fiber Optics to Prevent Accidents in Mines and Power Plants - New Kerala

Church over state – Vox

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MONTGOMERY, Alabama Stationed outside the entrance to Judge Roy Moores victory party Tuesday night stood two tablets embossed with the Ten Commandments, mounted on an easel and draped in white cloth.

Christian choir music played inside. A video came on in which Moore declared, God is raising up generals all over this great nation. When the early voting returns began rolling in, Moore came out and told the crowd he had run the best campaign of his career before catching himself in the boast.

"But remember," he quickly added, "all glory goes to God.

On Tuesday night, Moore proved the clear winner in a divisive and fantastically expensive Alabama Republican primary to fill the Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Moore coasted to a first-place finish in a 10-person field, beating out two candidates incumbent Sen. Luther Strange and Tea Party favorite Rep. Mo Brooks with much more money and institutional support. Moore and Strange will now compete in a runoff to conclude the GOP primary on September 26; the general election will follow in December. Moore is in the drivers seat.

Its a remarkable rise for someone once consigned to the far-right fringes of politics, even in Alabama. Over three decades in public life, Moore has defied federal court orders, addressed a white supremacist group, penned invectives against Perez Hilton over same-sex marriage, and argued that Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) should not be seated as a Congress member because he is Muslim.

All of those actions flowed from a conviction about religions role in policy that, by his own accounting, puts Moore far afield from almost all elected Republicans. His ambition isnt merely for the government to carve out a space for free religious exercise, as many conservatives demand; instead, he argues that Christian principles or, more accurately, Moores interpretation of Christian principles should provide the foundation for, and even supersede, the laws of men.

Moores ideology is an express belief that Gods law and his interpretation of Gods law stand on top of mans law, said David Dinielli, deputy director of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Its an ideology that would allow those who think they know the unknowable and the mystic to impose their beliefs on everyone else.

Moores public presentation is that of a private citizen forced against his will to enter into service of his country. He likes to cite the apocryphal tale of Cincinnatus, the Roman general who chooses to turn down vast political powers to return to his farm, and of Thomas Paine at Valley Forge comparing the summer soldier" and "sunshine patriot" to soldiers willing to tough out long Revolutionary winters. A fan of evoking colonial imagery and rhetoric, Moore even rode his brown mare named Sassy, an aide said to the polling station on election day.

Im not a politician. I dont like politicians, Moore told a gun rights group gathered at Mr. Fang's Chinese restaurant in Homewood on Monday night.

About 15 seconds later, he felt the need to press the point, and returned to it: I am not a politician," he said. "I do not like politics."

Moore was 35 when he first ran for, and lost, a judicial post in Etowah County in 1982. "I had decided to run for political office in order to do what I could to preserve our moral heritage," he writes in his autobiography, So Help Me God: The Ten Commandments, Judicial Tyranny, and the Battle for Religious Freedom. Among those threats, as Moore lists them: a 1985 court case eliminating prayer in the courthouse and a 1963 Supreme Court ruling eliminating Bible studies in public schools.

That loss proved so bitter that afterward he took up karate and became a black belt; moved to Cairns, Australia, where he worked as a kitchen hand; and then herded cattle in the Australian Outback, building stockyards and carrying rocks six days a week.

But Moore has clung to the campaign trail on and off since he returned. He ran for district attorney in 1986 (losing again); for chief justice of Alabama's Supreme Court in 1999 (he won, though he was forced to step down in 2003); was floated for a run for president with the Constitution Party in 2004; ran for governor of Alabama in 2006 (losing in the GOP primary); ran for governor again in 2010 (and lost again); and then formed an exploratory committee for the 2012 presidential elections before dropping out.

At the gun rights event in Homewood, Moore lowered his head as the leader of the gun rights group ticked through the judges accomplishments on the bench. Moore then took the mic.

"When I hear you say what Ive done, I think to myself, its really not what Ive done; its what God has done through me by putting me in a position to stand for what I believe," Moore said. "Im not running for this position. Im running to serve God and his will.

The core of Moores ideology is that he denies the legitimacy of state law when it conflicts with his perception of Christian precepts. To Moore, thats because the state derives its legitimacy from God so if law passed by men contradicts that which he perceives as the law of God, the former should have no power over him or his countrymen.

This conviction resulted in the two high-profile national stories that gave Moore the name recognition now powering his Senate run. The first was his decision to install a monument to the Ten Commandments at his courthouse. Despite direct orders from a federal judge, Moore then refused to remove the monument or to cease holding a prayer session in his courtroom.

The Judeo-Christian God reigned over both the church and the state in this country, and that both owed allegiance to that God, he told the Atlantic at the time.

Moores defense in the Ten Commandments case is instructive. One conservative defense of the tablets could be that local courts should have the freedom to erect whatever monuments they want. This was not Moores argument. Instead, he said that the Ten Commandments should stay because they really are divine, and therefore more important than human law.

"The Ten Commandments are not only a sacred text in the Jewish and Christian faiths, as the Supreme Court stated in Stone v Graham," he writes. "They are God's revealed, divine law and the basis on which our morality depends."

Moore was suspended again in 2015 after refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Moore has ... encouraged lawlessness by attempting to assemble a virtual army of state officials and judges to oppose the federal judiciary and its tyranny, the SPLC wrote at the time.

Its worth paying attention to exactly why Moore wrote in a 2006 LifeNet column that Rep. Keith Ellison, a Muslim, could not be seated by Congress. Moore argued that the Constitution is founded on specifically Christian principles; anyone whose beliefs fall outside Christian principles, by definition, falls outside that of the Constitution as well.

The Islamic faith rejects our God and believes that the state must mandate the worship of its own god, Allah, he writes. Islamic law is simply incompatible with our law.

When I asked Moore where he believes religions involvement in public life should end, Moore said that the state should not force citizens to follow a certain faith.

You cant force people to worship God in any matter, he said.

But that restriction itself, he added, stems from Christian principles. He defended the First Amendments protection of the free exercise of conscience not on the grounds that the state has a vested interest in pluralism, but because Jesus himself believed in it.

You see, the First Amendment was established on Christian principles, because it was Jesus that said this: Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and render unto God the things that are God's, Moore told me.

Islamic people practicing under Sharia law, Moore said, didnt have First Amendment protections because First Amendment protections are inescapably Christian.

Thats a Christian concept, he said of the ability to worship according to ones conscience. Its not a Muslim concept. Go to Saudi Arabia. Go to Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, and be a Muslim, and see if you can exit that faith without consequences. You cant do it. You understand? Understand that its a Christian concept.

Moores fundamentalism has helped him advance politically and build a base of support in Alabama. But it has scared those in the state who believe it puts them on the other side of Moores interpretation of Gods intentions.

Moore has made an already difficult life for gay Alabamans even harder, said Alex Smith of Equality Alabama, an LGBTQ rights organization.

We are very concerned about Moore becoming a senator, Smith told me. Its been incredibly terrifying for LGBT folks in the state to watch.

Smith gave one example: Eight judges in Alabama are still not issuing marriage licenses to couples of either sex, following the guidelines of Moores order intended to prevent gay couples from wedding in the state.

New anti-LGBTQ legislation is on its way. In May, Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed the Child Placing Inclusion Act into law. It allows some agencies to deny LGBTQ couples the ability to adopt children; Moores nonprofit, the Foundation for Moral Law, was instrumental in its passage, according to Smith.

"Being gay in the South isn't the easiest thing," said Russell Howard, director of Druid City Pride. "But it's a whole lot harder when you have someone with Mr. Moore's positions in power."

Hezekiah Jackson, president of Birmingham's NAACP chapter, argued it would be a mistake to view God as behind Moores politics. Instead, he said that Moores religiosity represented a clever front to appeal to identity groups Christians, white men, heterosexuals.

"His thing is simple: He's a proponent of his own people, Jackson said. That's it. It's just obvious."

In Washington, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell already faces an insurrectionist caucus on his right flank Sens. Rand Paul (KY), Mike Lee (UT), Ted Cruz (TX) that believes the Republican establishment is too eager to compromise with Democrats.

Moore would go further than any of them. If he makes it to Capitol Hill, hed bring a new conservative rebelliousness to the Senate chamber informed by an eye toward God.

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Church over state - Vox

Spotlight Innovation Enters into Sponsored Research Agreement with Indiana University to Develop New Therapies for … – Markets Insider

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URBANDALE, Iowa, Aug. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --Spotlight Innovation Inc. (OTCQB: STLT) today announced that the Company has entered into a Sponsored Research Agreement with Indiana University to support research directed by Elliot Androphy, M.D., aimed at developing safe and effective drugs to treat patients with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). Dr. Androphy is a member of Spotlight Innovation's Scientific Advisory Board and a co-inventor of STL-182, the Company's lead product candidate for SMA.

Geoffrey Laff, Ph.D., Spotlight Innovation's Senior Vice President of Business Development, commented, "Dr. Androphy is a prolific researcher and highly-respected thought leader. We are privileged to work with him to develop novel therapies for SMA."

Dr. Androphy is the Chair of the Department of Dermatology of Indiana University School of Medicine and has published widely in high-impact journals including Science, Nature, EMBO Molecular Medicine, Human Molecular Genetics, Journal of Virology, and Molecular Cell. He served as Vice Chair for Research of the Department of Medicine and Director of the M.D./Ph.D. Program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School where his lab characterized the disease-causing mechanism of alternative splicing of the SMN2 gene. At Indiana University School of Medicine, Dr. Androphy has used a novel, cell-based high throughput screen for compounds that increase levels of the SMN protein. This work has led to the identification of pre-clinical drug candidates for SMA.

About Spotlight Innovation Inc.

Spotlight Innovation Inc. (OTCQB: STLT) identifies and acquires rights to innovative, proprietary technologies designed to address unmet medical needs, with an emphasis on rare, emerging and neglected diseases. To find and evaluate unique opportunities, we leverage our extensive relationships with leading scientists, academic institutions and other sources. We provide value-added development capability to accelerate development progress. Whenscientifically significantbenchmarkshave been achieved, we will endeavor to partner with proven market leaders via sale, out-license or strategic alliance. For more information, visit http://www.spotlightinnovation.com or follow us on http://www.twitter.com/spotlightinno.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements herein include statements regarding Spotlight Innovation's efforts to develop and commercialize various product candidates, including STL-182, and to achieve its stated benchmarks. Actual outcomes and actual results could differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include risks and uncertainties, such as: the inability to finance the planned development of STL-182; the inability to hire appropriate staff to develop STL-182; unforeseen technical difficulties in developing STL-182; the inability to obtain regulatory approval for human use; competitors' therapies proving to be more effective, cheaper or otherwise more preferable; or, the inability to market a product. All of which could, among other things, delay or prevent product release, as well as other factors expressed from time to time in Spotlight Innovation's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). As a result, this press release should be read in conjunction with Spotlight Innovation's periodic filings with the SEC. The forward-looking statements contained herein are made only as of the date of this press release and Spotlight Innovation undertakes no obligation to publicly update such forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

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A new method of 3D printing living tissues – 3D Printing Progress

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Scientists at the University of Oxford have developed a new method to 3D-print laboratory-grown cells to form living structures. The approach could revolutionise regenerative medicine, enabling the production of complex tissues and cartilage that would potentially support, repair or augment diseased and damaged areas of the body.

Printing high-resolution living tissues is hard to do, as the cells often move within printed structures and can collapse on themselves. But, led by Professor Hagan Bayley, Professor of Chemical Biology in Oxford's Department of Chemistry, the team devised a way to produce tissues in self-contained cells that support the structures to keep their shape.

The cells were contained within protective nanolitre droplets wrapped in a lipid coating that could be assembled, layer-by-layer, into living structures. Producing printed tissues in this way improves the survival rate of the individual cells, and allowed the team to improve on current techniques by building each tissue one drop at a time to a more favourable resolution.

To be useful, artificial tissues need to be able to mimic the behaviours and functions of the human body. The method enables the fabrication of patterned cellular constructs, which, once fully grown, mimic or potentially enhance natural tissues.

Dr Alexander Graham, lead author and 3D Bioprinting Scientist at OxSyBio (Oxford Synthetic Biology), said: "We were aiming to fabricate three-dimensional living tissues that could display the basic behaviours and physiology found in natural organisms. To date, there are limited examples of printed tissues, which have the complex cellular architecture of native tissues. Hence, we focused on designing a high-resolution cell printing platform, from relatively inexpensive components, that could be used to reproducibly produce artificial tissues with appropriate complexity from a range of cells including stem cells".

The researchers hope that, with further development, the materials could have a wide impact on healthcare worldwide. Potential applications include shaping reproducible human tissue models that could take away the need for clinical animal testing.

Over the coming months they will work to develop new complementary printing techniques, that allow the use of a wider range of living and hybrid materials, to produce tissues at industrial scale. Dr Sam Olof, Chief Technology Officer at OxSyBio, said: "There are many potential applications for bioprinting and we believe it will be possible to create personalised treatments by using cells sourced from patients to mimic or enhance natural tissue function. In the future, 3D bio-printed tissues maybe also be used for diagnostic applications - for example, for drug or toxin screening."

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Transmit 5 Review – MacStories

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If youve used a Mac for a while, youve likely come across Panics file transfer app Transmit. Not long ago, I would have probably still described it as an FTP app even though its handled things like Amazon S3 file transfers for a while. However, with the recent release of version 5, Transmit for macOS has become much more than an FTP client adding support for ten cloud services. Moreover, Panic has taken the opportunity to rewrite its file transfer engine so that its faster, tweak virtually every feature, and update and streamline the apps design. The result is an all-new Transmit that is both familiar and more capable than ever before.

Despite adding support for ten cloud services, Transmit remains just as easy to use as ever. Local files are on the left and servers are on the right. Drag a file from the left to the right to initiate an upload. It couldnt be simpler.

Its Transmits ease of use that has always appealed to me the most. My day-to-day needs for an app like Transmit have been fairly light, so I appreciate that its simple and fast to set up a server and transfer files. That said, the addition of support for services like Backblaze B2, Rackspace, Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, and One Drive has opened up some interesting new possibilities that I expect will greatly expand my use of the app.

For instance, images on MacStories are hosted on Rackspace. I typically use a custom web app to upload images that are compressed with Kraken.io and then uploaded to Rackspace, but Ive already found Transmit to be a much faster way to upload images. Transmit has the added benefit that I can upload several screenshots at a time and then quickly copy the URLs and drop them into an article. The next step is to automate the process so that dropping a screenshot in a folder sends it to Kraken for compression, uploads the new image to Rackspace, and places the URL on my Macs clipboard.

The possibilities with services like Dropbox, Box, or Google Drive are interesting too. Say you have multiple Dropbox accounts like one for work and the other for home use. With Transmit, you can be logged into both simultaneously and access both sets of files. Plus, if you have a Mac that doesnt have much storage, you can selectively sync Dropbox your Mac, but still, access all the files through Transmit.

The expansion of Transmits support for cloud services will have the greatest day-to-day impact for most users because of the flexibility and convenience it adds, but there is much more in version 5. Panic rewrote its file transfer engine from the ground up to make it faster. I havent tested the update side-by-side with the last version, and keep in mind that I dont typically transfer more than a handful of files at a time, but transfers do feel faster than before.

Transmit also includes Panics custom sync service. With Panic Sync, servers you set up on one Mac or in Transmit on an iOS device are copied to all of your other devices that are signed into the service saving you the trouble of setting up the same server multiple times. One side effect of Panic Sync is that I can see my new Rackspace and Dropbox setups in the iOS app, but neither is supported by the iOS version, which is too bad. Hopefully, support for all of the new cloud services is in the works for Transmits iOS app too.

With File Sync, you can also designate local folders to sync to servers and vice versa. Im using File Sync as an extra layer of backup protection for my most important MacStories project folders, which are now in at least five places, only two of which are in the same physical location.

The refinements to Transmit dont stop there though. Nearly every aspect of the app has been tweaked in some way or another. The hundreds of little changes make it hard to point to any one thing that makes a big difference, but together they give Transmit a fresh look and feel that is a pleasure to use. I particularly appreciate all the little design adjustments. There is less chrome and more information at your fingertips with things like the file information inspector panel, which makes the app easier to use than ever.

Users file transfer needs have expanded with the growth of cloud services. Its no longer enough to simply support FTP and SFTP transfers. By adapting Transmit to accommodate more cloud services and reevaluating and improving scores of existing features, Panic has laid a strong foundation for the app to remain a premier file transfer utility for many years to come.

Transmit is available directly from Panics website.

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Transmit 5 Review - MacStories

It turns out muscle cramps look just as painful as they feel – Starts at 60

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While some people unfortunately get them more often and more severely than others, most of us at some point have suffered the indescribable pain of a muscle cramp.

But if youve ever wondered what a cramping muscle actually looks like under the skin, wonder no more, because Facebook user Angel Bermudez has been kind enough to upload a video of what looks like the most agonising cramp in his calf muscle.

The video, taken after a workout in the gym, shows Bermudezs leg propped up on the dashboard of his car, while the muscle in his calf twists and cramps as though it has a mind of its own.

If its possible to feel physical pain from just watching a video, this one will probably do it! Just a caution before you watch, theres a bit of language involved but we think he probably had every right to drop some swear words in this moment!

Muscle cramps are strong, painful contractions or tightenings of the muscles, often in the legs, and can happen often following exercise and while youre sleeping. They have various causes, but sometimes dehydration, potassium deficiency, and certain medications can play a part in causing them.

You can relieve them by stretching and massaging the muscle, using a heat pack or taking a warm bath or shower, or over-the-counter pain killers.

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It turns out muscle cramps look just as painful as they feel - Starts at 60

Chris Selley: NY wants to soak the rich to build transit. Even Ontario’s NDP won’t support that for Toronto – National Post

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Public transit in New York City is an amazing mess right now. Hurricane Sandy did roughly US$5 billion in damage; five years later, much of it remains unfixed or patched over. In 2019 theyre shutting down the L train for 15 months to fix tunnel damage. Its going to screw an estimated 225,000 commuters, and not just by a little bit. This year alone, three trains have jumped the tracks at Penn Station. And everyone agrees there needs to be a new tunnel under the Hudson River before things can really be called adequate. The current estimated price tag is a fairly staggering US$13 billion.

Naturally there is constant bickering between City Hall and Albany on who should pay and how. To fund the citys contribution, Mayor Bill de Blasio is currently proposing an income tax hike, from 3.9 to 4.4 per cent, on the citys wealthiest residents. Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has been cool on approving millionaire taxes in the past and in any event has a Republican-controlled Senate to deal with returned de Blasios serve with some musings about congestion pricing.

This is all very similar to the dynamic between Toronto City Hall and Queens Park, with two fairly major differences: New York actually has a massive transit network to break down in the first place; and while de Blasio needs Albanys approval to hike the income tax, New York City does actually tax income. Indeed, it has all kinds of taxes that Toronto doesnt: on sales (4.5 per cent), on hotel rooms ($3.50 per day plus 14.75 per cent) on parking in Manhattan (8 per cent) and, of course, on driving into the city ($15 via the Holland Tunnel).

You might think thats too much or not enough, but to look at New York City, it surely seems reasonable that it has the tools. Its New York, for Gods sake the greatest city in the world, if you ask me. Why would Albany be pulling any strings in the first place?

Meanwhile, the City of Toronto Act explicitly prohibits a sales tax. Only in this years budget did the province propose allowing a hotel tax. The act allows road tolls subject to provincial approval, which Premier Kathleen Wynne recently provided to Mayor John Tory, and then withdrew when her 905 caucus pitched a fit. The city can implement a parking tax, but staff have claimed its quite complicated.

Not to say that Toronto lacks means to raise money for its giant wish list of capital projects property taxes, notably, are lower than in surrounding municipalities, and the money they bring in is as good as any other money. But there is no obvious reason it should have fewer powers than New York. And its remarkable how little disagreement this situation generates in the provincial legislature especially since it happens to be in Toronto.

There is no obvious reason Toronto should have fewer powers than New York

The Association of Municipalities Ontario (AMO) held its annual conference in Ottawa this week, where it reiterated its call for a one-per-cent sales-tax hike to fund infrastructure and transit projects in the jurisdictions where its raised. A Nanos Research poll presented at the AMO conference suggests a small majority of Ontarians, 71 per cent in the GTA and 74 per cent in the City of Toronto, might support the idea. But all three parties shot it down, one after the other.

That makes perfect sense for the Tories, who absolutely believe they can never be seen supporting a new tax (and may never again get the chance to implement one). And it makes some sense for the Liberals, who have an existing infrastructure plan to which they can point. But New Democrat leader Andrea Horwath continues to promise to help cities, and Toronto specifically uploading services, restoring the TTCs operating subsidy, more money for child care without specifying where the money is going to come from. She even conceded this week it would cost the provincial treasury quite a lot.

She objects to the HST hike because people out there are struggling. (Struggling people tend to get rebates, but never mind.) She doesnt support road tolls because theyre supposedly inegalitarian. So what, then? A municipal income tax would be quite spectacularly unpopular, the Nanos poll suggests but I wonder if de Blasios millionaire tax might be rather less so. If thats not in the NDPs wheelhouse, I dont know what the NDP is anymore.

Im not saying its a good idea, mind you. But even just proposing to allow cities the option to use more revenue tools would spice up Ontarios policy stew considerably. And it might help turn the upcoming election between a premier hanging on for dear life and a leader of the opposition trying to make as little noise as possible into something more like a legitimate contest of ideas.

National Post

Email: cselley@nationalpost.com | Twitter:

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Chris Selley: NY wants to soak the rich to build transit. Even Ontario's NDP won't support that for Toronto - National Post

Nebraska Medicine to close inpatient burn unit – KETV Omaha

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OMAHA, Neb.

Nebraska Medicine announced Thursday morning that it will be closing its inpatient burn unit in Omaha.

Patients with serious burns will now be sent to the verified burn center located at CHI Health St. Elizabeth in Lincoln, officials said in a news release.

St. Elizabeth is one of 66 burn centers in the U.S. verified by the American College of Surgeons and the American Burn Association. Every year, the 16-bed unit helps roughly 500 burn patients from six different states.

Nebraska Medicine will continue to care for burn patients at its outpatient clinic, 24/7 trauma center and its medical surgical unit for patients with burns covering less than 10 percent or less of their body.

This decision was made after much careful research and discussion, said Nebraska Medicine Chief Medical Officer Dr. Harris Frankel, in the release. As we transition away from inpatient burn treatment, residents of the Omaha Metro can be assured that our emergency and trauma response for burn patients will be as strong as ever, as will our outpatient clinic care.

The move shows how CHI Health and Nebraska Medicine are working together to eliminate duplication of the specialized service.

Currently, Nebraska Medicine treats about 100 burn patients a year in its unit.

The burn unit is scheduled to close on Sept. 4.

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Nebraska Medicine to close inpatient burn unit - KETV Omaha

Penn Medicine CIO weighs in on precision medicine – MedCity News

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As the precision medicine movement gains speed in healthcare, Philadelphia-based Penn Medicine is looking to take advantage of all it has to offer.

Its efforts have undoubtedly been noteworthy. In January 2016, it founded the Penn Center for Precision Medicine, which focuses on precision medicine development and implementation efforts. The center has its own PCPM Accelerator Fund, which supports projects that test unique approaches to how precision medicine impacts patient care.

In a phone interview, Penn Medicine senior vice president and CIO Michael Restuccia discussed the health systems approach to the topic. One key issue, he said, is getting the proper structure in place.

I think most academic medical centers that focus on precision medicine are challenged with their overall organizational structure, Restuccia said. Penn Medicine avoided that pitfall by centralizing the leadership of its medical school and health system.

Another crucial step involves moving to a shared system, which makes it easier to centrally manage information.

Getting the entire institution to move to a common platform allows you to facilitate and share data in a more appropriate manner, aggregate that data more effectively and secure that data in a more efficient way, Restuccia noted.

Indeed, installing technology can be highly advantageous to organizations looking at precision medicine efforts. Because such initiatives involve working with a high number of data sets, tech is the answer to a smoother process.

Technology accelerates data management and data analysis. It also accelerates data integration from the research side back into the electronic record, he said. If you had to do it by hand, it would take decades.

But can IT ever hinder precision medicine advancements? Not really, according to Restuccia. The only downside to tech is from an expectation perspective. Rollouts can take a lengthy amount of time and can be costly from a financial perspective.

Restuccia believes Penn Medicine is already well-positioned to succeed in its precision medicine endeavors. The systems research data warehouse, PennOmics, holds everything from registry data to clinical trials data. Additionally, it is now deployed on a common EMR system called PennChart across the inpatient, ambulatory and home care settings. The data in PennChart can be shared with caregivers from any Penn Medicine location.

Ultimately, thats what we mean when we talk about precision medicine, Restuccia said. Its finding those lessons learned in research and being more proactive in the care provided to each patient.

Photo: StationaryTraveller, Getty Images

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Penn Medicine CIO weighs in on precision medicine - MedCity News