NASA SWIFT catches mega flares from a mini star MultiLingual Closed Captioned – Video

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NASA SWIFT catches mega flares from a mini star MultiLingual Closed Captioned
On April 23, NASA #39;s Swift satellite detected the strongest, hottest, and longest-lasting sequence of stellar flares ever seen from a nearby red dwarf star. The initial blast from this record-settin...

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NASA SWIFT catches mega flares from a mini star MultiLingual Closed Captioned - Video

NASA satellite images show Aral Sea basin ‘completely dried’ – Video

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NASA satellite images show Aral Sea basin #39;completely dried #39;
An area of the Central Asian inland sea, once the fourth largest in the world, was left parched in August, according to Nasa photographs. The Aral Sea has been retreating over the last half-centu...

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NASA satellite images show Aral Sea basin 'completely dried' - Video

So Sierra Nevada protested NASA space-taxi contract, but what's next?

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Sierra Nevada Corporation's Space Systems' Dream Chaser spacecraft. (Sierra Nevada Corporation)

NASA has ordered Boeing Co. and SpaceX to stop work on crewed spacecraft that may someday ferry astronauts to the International Space Station while a bid protest filed by Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Louisville-based Space Systems is being investigated.

NASA spokeswoman Stephanie Martin confirmed the stop-work order, calling it a "typical process" with a bid protest, but declined to comment further.

Space Systems filed the formal protest with the U.S. Government Accountability Office on Sept. 26 over rejection of its bid for NASA's commercial crew contract to shuttle astronauts to the space station.

An artist's rendition of the Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 next to the International Space Station (ISS). (The Boeing Company )

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration on Sept. 16 announced the $6.8 billion total contract would be split between Chicago-based Boeing's CST 100 capsule and Elon Musk's SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.

No documents related to the protest have been made public. Space Systems, SpaceX and Boeing all declined to comment.

The GAO appeal process was created by Congress to give businesses the ability to protest without filing a full legal claim in federal court, said Ralph White, GAO's managing associate general counsel.

"A disappointed bidder can challenge the terms of solicitation or outcome of procurement, and in return we will hear those cases or provide an answer within 100 days," White said. "It's a nonpartisan and objective place for the review of contracts."

During the first 30 days, NASA will decide whether to request that the protest be dismissed or to defend its decision by submitting answers to each of Space Systems' claims. The response is due by Oct. 27.

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So Sierra Nevada protested NASA space-taxi contract, but what's next?

This company is fighting NASA to try to bring astronauts to space

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WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 (UPI) -- When NASA awarded SpaceX and Boeing the contract to start bringing astronauts to the International Space Station as early as 2017, the Sierra Nevada Corp. was not happy. They're planning to legally contest NASA's decision to choose those companies, instead of them, so they can one day be part of space missions run by a commercial company.

The Sierra Nevada Corp. filed a complaint to the U.S. Government Accountability Office on Sept. 26, alleging there were "serious questions and inconsistencies."

Now the company has announced its plan for getting astronauts into space: hitching its spacecraft to the Stratolaunch plane, said to be the largest ever.

The plane was designed by Stratolaunch Systems, a company started in 2011 by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Scaled Compositions founder Burt Rutan. The Dream Chaser-Stratolauncher system can transport three crew to low Earth orbit, or it can be tailored for unscrewed missions.

This is a different approach than SpaceX or Boeing, which plan to launch their spacecrafts with traditional rockets. The Dream Chaser was originally planned to be mounted on an Atlas V rocket, but they have since changed their plans.

The executive director of Stratolaunch Systems claims they can get astronauts from low Earth orbit to land within 24 hours.

2014 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

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This company is fighting NASA to try to bring astronauts to space

Sierra Nevada Corp. fighting NASA to try to bring astronauts to space

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WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 (UPI) -- When NASA awarded SpaceX and Boeing the contract to start bringing astronauts to the International Space Station as early as 2017, the Sierra Nevada Corp. was not happy. They're planning to legally contest NASA's decision to choose those companies, instead of them, so they can one day be part of space missions run by a commercial company.

The Sierra Nevada Corp. filed a complaint to the U.S. Government Accountability Office on Sept. 26, alleging there were "serious questions and inconsistencies."

Now the company has announced its plan for getting astronauts into space: hitching its spacecraft to the Stratolaunch plane, said to be the largest ever.

The plane was designed by Stratolaunch Systems, a company started in 2011 by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Scaled Compositions founder Burt Rutan. The Dream Chaser-Stratolauncher system can transport three crew to low Earth orbit, or it can be tailored for unscrewed missions.

This is a different approach than SpaceX or Boeing, which plan to launch their spacecrafts with traditional rockets. The Dream Chaser was originally planned to be mounted on an Atlas V rocket, but they have since changed their plans.

The executive director of Stratolaunch Systems claims they can get astronauts from low Earth orbit to land within 24 hours.

2014 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

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Sierra Nevada Corp. fighting NASA to try to bring astronauts to space

Nanotechnology: Fullerene spheres can be used to slide in the nanoworld

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"Nano-machines" (around one billionth of a metre in size) of the future will need tiny devices to reduce friction and make movement possible. The C60 molecule, also known as fullerene or buckyball, seemed to many an excellent candidate for nano-bearings. Unfortunately, the results so far have been conflicting, calling for further studies, like the one carried out by a theoretical team involving SISSA, ICTP, CNR and EMPA. Through a series of computer simulations the scientists uncovered the reason for the experimental discrepancies and shed light on the true potential of this material.

About 3500 years ago, man invented the wheel to make life easier. Then, thanks to Leonardo Da Vinci's genius, the wheel was made smaller to obtain ball bearings. And today? "Today we are trying to get even smaller: scientists are thinking about nano-bearings," comments Andrea Vanossi, of the CNR -- Democritos and the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste, among the authors of a study that has just been published in Nanoscale. "In the future we'll have many nano-machines capable of carrying out the most diverse tasks, for example transporting medicines inside the human body. In order to save energy, many of these vehicles will have to able to move efficiently, using as little energy as possible, and "nano"-sized ball bearings may help achieve this goal."

"Scientists thought they could use C60, a hollow carbon nanosphere, measuring one nanometre in diameter," explains Erio Tosatti, SISSA professor and another author of the study," but there's a problem: the experimental results are at complete variance with each other." C60 has a temperature (260 Kelvin) at which the molecules suddenly become free to rotate, which hopefully has a role in friction. The two most important experiments carried out to date, however, have yielded conflicting results: above this temperature, when the material was made to slide over a substrate, in one case there was no significant decrease in friction, whereas in the other the decrease was dramatic, a good 100%. "What's going on? If we assume that the measurements are correct and the experiments performed correctly (and we have no reason to believe otherwise) how do we explain this difference?," wonders Vanossi. "For this reason, we decided to verify."

The team (a collaboration between SISSA, the International Centre for Theoretical Physics "Abdus Salam" ICTP of Trieste, the Italian National Research Council CNR, and the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology) conducted a theoretical, simulation-based study.

"We simulated the tiny tip of an electron microscope bearing a C60 flake, which was dragged over a surface also made of C60," explains Vanossi. "We discovered that when the flake was attached in such a way that it couldn't rotate the friction did not decrease, even if we raised the temperature to above 260 K. It's as if the bearings making up the flake interlocked with the substrate, with no nano-bearing effect. However, when the flake was free to rotate there was a dramatic drop in friction and the flake could slide over the surface far more smoothly." But here the drop in friction is not due to the ball bearing effect, but to the change in contact geometry.

The two states therefore reproduce the results of the two experiments. "Our data faithfully reflect the empirical observations," concludes Tosatti. "This of course does not bode well for the future use of fullerite to reduce friction at the nanoscale, in that the nanobearing function is not confirmed, but it does finally shed light on the physics of this problem."

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEKowZOz3Ts

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The above story is based on materials provided by Sissa Medialab. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Nanotechnology: Fullerene spheres can be used to slide in the nanoworld

Unproven Ebola cures, preventives proliferate

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Amid alarm over the Ebola virus, a flurry of pitches has sprung up for products that claim to prevent and treat the deadly infection. Online -- and increasingly on social media sites -- these products are being hawked by paid consultants, supplement gurus and "wellness advocates," whose claims range from silly to pseudo-scientific.

In at least three cases to date, those pitches have drawn letters from the Food and Drug Administration, warning the companies involved to stop asserting that their products are safe and effective in treatment of Ebola or any other disease.

A late-September letter from the agency to the Utah-based company Young Living warns that its paid consultants have taken to the Internet, as well as to Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, to claim that several of the company's essential oils can treat and ward off Ebola infection (as well as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, asthma, autism and cancers of all sorts).

A similar FDA letter went to DoTerra International, another Utah-based company selling essential oils.

In these cases, consultants and "wellness advocates" have touted the curative or preventive powers of melaleuca oil (also known as tea tree oil), cinnamon oil, oregano oil, and a blend of cinnamon, rosemary, clove, eucalyptus, and lemon oils marketed as "Thieves oil" for Ebola.

"If I were exposed to Ebola or had reason to believe I could be sick with it, I would use some of these oils every 10 minutes for a few hours, then cut back to every hour for the rest of the first day," wrote one consultant for Young Living on the website, under the heading, Essential Oils & More to Combat Ebola Virus.

"Then I would use them every 2 waking hours of the day for at least a week, or longer if it was known I was sick, the writer added.

Elsewhere on the same website, the health advisor wrote, "If Ebola was going around in my area . . . I would apply [Thieves oil] to my feet and armpits 2x/day or more and take it in capsules at least 2x/day for preventive purposes.

Essential oils have not shown any evidence of effectiveness against viruses, and certainly not against the Ebola virus, said Gerald Weissmann, editor-in-chief of the journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology and professor of medicine at New York University.

The low value of such oils in fighting infectious disease is evident in a simple comparison, said Weissman: While American diets are not, on the whole, rich in the use of essential oils, African diets are.

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Unproven Ebola cures, preventives proliferate

Glamorous Baby Arenas asks me who Im going to take a swipe at next

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And So It Is By George Sison |Philippine Daily Inquirer

Your mantra for the week:

My faith gives me power and I use it for good.

Faith is probably one of the most used words to describe ones belief in a deity. However, what is amazing is that a lot of people who claim they have faith do not live lives that are happy, content and harmonious.

They are usually chaotic and problematic, and only when they are in deep trouble do they call on their faith, which many times do not bring the results they desire.

Why does this happen?

To my mind, faith works when you realize it is also power; and that power is best tapped when one understands and accepts that the God I speak of is within each one.

This should be easy to accept, but this is not so, even if the Bible itself says the Kingdom of Heaven can be found within. It is only logical to assume that God is in His kingdom within. However, majority of people try to relate to a God up there, thus separating themselves from a God who is with us, which to me means a separation from our good.

Faith as power can be felt only through a personal relationship with that God, and what can be more personal than that which is within ourselves?

Seven reasons

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Glamorous Baby Arenas asks me who Im going to take a swipe at next

What Causes Our Bright Colors of Fall?

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Have you ever wondered what triggers leaves to change color in the fall? The most important regulator of fall color change is the lengthening of night. Longer, cooler nights and less intense sunlight during the day trigger leaves to prepare to fall from the tree. Chlorophyll production slows and eventually stops, and the veins that carry fluids into the leaf close off, trapping sugars in the leaf and promoting production of anthocyanin, a pigment that produces red colors. The green chlorophyll in the leaves is eventually destroyed, leaving behind the yellows, oranges and reds that signal fall.

Weather and climate conditions also impact when leaves begin to change color, how intense color is, and how long color lasts. A warm wet spring followed by typical summer weather and a fall with warm, sunny days and cool (but not freezing!) nights generally produce the best color. A late spring or severe summer drought can delay the onset of color, while a warm period during the fall season may dampen fall colors. Wind and rain storms can bring leaves down early, shortening the fall foliage season. Other environmental factors, like damage from insects or wildfire, can also impact tree foliage.

Enjoy what fall has to offer. Take a walk in your neighborhood, visit a local park, or hit the road on one of Americas National Scenic Byways, many of which were planned with fall color in mind. Use this illustration to identify some common trees and their fall foliage where you live and dont forget to upload your fall foliage photos to the Eyes on Central PA Mission!

Want to go a step further? Fall into Phenology with Project Budburst by observing plants in your community during September and October and sharing your observations to help scientists study trends in how plants change in the fall. Dont know much about plants or need help with identification? No problem. Project Budburst has tips for beginners and experts alike. Learn more.

(Sources: U.S. Forest Service Science of Fall Colors. http://www.fs.fed.us/fallcolors/2012/science.shtml; William Deedler, National Weather Service. Faster Fall Foliage? http://www.crh.noaa.gov/dtx/foliage.php Project BudBurst, http://www.budburst.org)

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What Causes Our Bright Colors of Fall?