Big Contracts! NASA Picks Boeing and SpaceX to ‘Ferry Astronauts’ On Future Missions – Video

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Big Contracts! NASA Picks Boeing and SpaceX to #39;Ferry Astronauts #39; On Future Missions
http://www.undergroundworldnews.com CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) NASA is a giant step closer to launching Americans again from U.S. soil. On Tuesday, the space agency announced it has picked...

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Big Contracts! NASA Picks Boeing and SpaceX to 'Ferry Astronauts' On Future Missions - Video

NASA's Maven spacecraft reaches Mars this weekend

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Artist's concept of NASA's Maven spacecraft approaching Mars. NASA/GSFC

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Mars, get ready for another visitor or two.

This weekend, NASA's Maven spacecraft will reach the red planet following a 10-month journey spanning 442 million miles. If all goes well, the robotic explorer will hit the brakes and slip into Martian orbit Sunday night.

"I'm all on pins and needles. This is a critical event," NASA's director of planetary science, Jim Green, said Wednesday.

Maven is not designed to land; rather, it will study Mars' upper atmosphere from orbit.

Hot on Maven's heels is India's first interplanetary spacecraft, Mangalyaan, which is due to go into orbit around Mars two days after Maven.

Scientists want to learn how Mars went from a warm, wet world that may have harbored microbial life during its first billion years, to the cold, barren place of today. Maven should help explain the atmospheric changes that led to this radical climate change.

"Where did the water go? Where did the CO2 go from that early environment?" said chief investigator Bruce Jakosky of the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder.

These escaping gases likely went down into the Martian crust and up into the upper atmosphere and out into space. Jakosky and his team hope to ascertain whether the climatic about-face resulted from the sun's stripping away of the early atmospheric water and carbon dioxide.

"We measure these things today even though the processes we're interested in operated billions of years ago," he said.

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NASA's Maven spacecraft reaches Mars this weekend

NASA taps SpaceX and Boeing to ferry US astronauts into space

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American astronauts will soon have new homegrown rides into space.

After a four-year competition, NASA has tapped the commercial spaceflight companies SpaceX and Boeingto launch astronauts to the International Space Stationfrom U.S. soil by 2017, agency officials announced today (Sept. 16). If all goes according to plan, the two companies will reduce or end NASA's dependence on Russia for its orbital taxi service. Russia's Soyuz has been NASA's only crew access to space since the space shuttle fleet retired in 2011.

"Today's announcement sets the stage for what promises to be the most ambitious and exciting chapter in the history of NASA and human spaceflight," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told reporters today.

The choice reflects a melding of old and new; Boeing has been an aerospace mainstay for decades, while billionaire entrepreneurElon Muskfounded SpaceX just a dozen years ago, in 2002.

SpaceX and Boeing are splitting NASA's $6.8 billion Commercial Crew Transportation Capability award, or CCtCap, the latest in a series of contracts set up in 2010 to encourage the development of private American manned spaceships. SpaceX will get $2.6 billion and Boeing will receive $4.2 billion, officials said.

NASA is looking to the private sector to fill the crew-carrying shoes of thespace shuttle fleet, which was retired in 2011 after 30 years of orbital service. For the past three years, the agency has relied on Russian Soyuz capsules to fly its astronauts to and from space recently, at a cost of more than $70 million per seat.

NASA officials have said they want at least one American commercial vehicle to be up and running by late 2017. A domestic capability to and from low-Earth orbit could not only cut costs but also free the agency to work on getting people to more distant and difficult destinations such as Mars, Bolden said.

Four companies have been major players in NASA's ongoing commercial crew competition: SpaceX, Boeing, Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada. SpaceX and Boeing are building capsules called Dragon and the CST-100, respectively. Blue Origin has been developing a conical craft called the Space Vehicle, while Sierra Nevada's entry was a space plane called Dream Chaser.

Like SpaceX, Blue Origin is led by a billionaire in this case, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos.

Today's announcement apparently takes Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada out of the mix, but it doesn't eliminate competition from the commercial crew program. Under the CCtCap contracts, both Boeing and SpaceX will be required to go through a rigorous certification process, which will include at least one manned demonstration mission to the space station, NASA officials said.

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NASA taps SpaceX and Boeing to ferry US astronauts into space

NASA sets its sights back on deep space

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NASA is a step closer to launching astronauts from American soil again.

The space agency announced Tuesday that Boeing and Space-x will ferry crew members to the International Space Station starting in 2017.

Right now, the United States pays Russia $70 million per seat for the ride into orbit. The new agreement also helps NASA's other mission: returning to deep space, reports CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy.

NASA's new Orion spacecraft is located 65 miles out in the Pacific Ocean. It's designed to take American astronauts back into deep space.

Orion capsule

Radislav Sinyak

"It will be the first time in 40 years that this nation, the most powerful nation in the world, has ever designed and built a spacecraft intended to carry humans beyond low earth orbit, and that's a big, big deal," said Charles Boden, head of NASA.

Boden was on board the Navy ship to oversee a test run of recovering Orion after it comes back to Earth. And if it all sounds a bit familiar, it should; Orion is the distant relative of Apollo, which also touched down in the Pacific.

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NASA sets its sights back on deep space

NASA picks Boeing, SpaceX for 'space taxi' service

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Cape Canaveral/Washington NASA will partner with Boeing and SpaceX to build commercially owned and operated "space taxis" to fly astronauts to the International Space Station, ending U.S. dependence on Russia for rides, officials said on Tuesday.

The U.S. space agency also considered a bid by privately owned Sierra Nevada Corp, but opted to award long-time aerospace contractor Boeing and California's SpaceX with contracts valued at a combined $6.8 billion to develop, certify and fly their seven-person capsules.

Boeing was awarded $4.2 billion to SpaceX's $2.6 billion. SpaceX is run by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, also the chief executive officer of electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors.

"SpaceX is deeply honored by the trust NASA has placed in us," said Musk, a South Africa-born, Canadian American billionaire. "It is a vital step in a journey that will ultimately take us to the stars and make humanity a multi-planet species."

The awards position Boeing and SpaceX to be ready for commercial flight services in 2017, said Kathy Leuders, manager for NASA's Commercial Crew program. She said both contracts have the same requirements.

"The companies proposed the value within which they were able to do the work and the government accepted that," Leuders told reporters in a conference call.

The contract has taken on new urgency given rising tensions between the United States and Russia over its annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine and support for rebels in eastern Ukraine.

Boeing's CST-100 spaceship would launch aboard Atlas 5 rockets, built by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing. SpaceX, which already has a $1.3 billion NASA contract to fly cargo to the space station, intends to upgrade its Dragon freighter to carry astronauts.

NASA has said that in addition to test flights, the awards would include options for between two and six operational missions.

By flying astronauts commercially from the United States, NASA could end Russia's monopoly on space station crew transport. The agency pays $70 million per person for rides on Russian Soyuz capsules, the only flights available for astronauts since the retirement of the U.S. space shuttle fleet in 2011.

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NASA picks Boeing, SpaceX for 'space taxi' service

NASA picks Boeing, SpaceX for 'space taxi' service (+video)

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Cape Canaveral/Washington NASA will partner with Boeing and SpaceX to build commercially owned and operated "space taxis" to fly astronauts to the International Space Station, ending U.S. dependence on Russia for rides, officials said on Tuesday.

The U.S. space agency also considered a bid by privately owned Sierra Nevada Corp, but opted to award long-time aerospace contractor Boeing and California's SpaceX with contracts valued at a combined $6.8 billion to develop, certify and fly their seven-person capsules.

Boeing was awarded $4.2 billion to SpaceX's $2.6 billion. SpaceX is run by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, also the chief executive officer of electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors.

"SpaceX is deeply honored by the trust NASA has placed in us," said Musk, a South Africa-born, Canadian American billionaire. "It is a vital step in a journey that will ultimately take us to the stars and make humanity a multi-planet species."

The awards position Boeing and SpaceX to be ready for commercial flight services in 2017, said Kathy Leuders, manager for NASA's Commercial Crew program. She said both contracts have the same requirements.

"The companies proposed the value within which they were able to do the work and the government accepted that," Leuders told reporters in a conference call.

The contract has taken on new urgency given rising tensions between the United States and Russia over its annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine and support for rebels in eastern Ukraine.

Boeing's CST-100 spaceship would launch aboard Atlas 5 rockets, built by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing. SpaceX, which already has a $1.3 billion NASA contract to fly cargo to the space station, intends to upgrade its Dragon freighter to carry astronauts.

NASA has said that in addition to test flights, the awards would include options for between two and six operational missions.

By flying astronauts commercially from the United States, NASA could end Russia's monopoly on space station crew transport. The agency pays $70 million per person for rides on Russian Soyuz capsules, the only flights available for astronauts since the retirement of the U.S. space shuttle fleet in 2011.

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NASA picks Boeing, SpaceX for 'space taxi' service (+video)

NASA taps SpaceX and Boeing to ferry US astronauts into space (+video)

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American astronauts will soon have new homegrown rides into space.

After a four-year competition, NASA has tapped the commercial spaceflight companies SpaceX and Boeingto launch astronauts to the International Space Stationfrom U.S. soil by 2017, agency officials announced today (Sept. 16). If all goes according to plan, the two companies will reduce or end NASA's dependence on Russia for its orbital taxi service. Russia's Soyuz has been NASA's only crew access to space since the space shuttle fleet retired in 2011.

"Today's announcement sets the stage for what promises to be the most ambitious and exciting chapter in the history of NASA and human spaceflight," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told reporters today.

The choice reflects a melding of old and new; Boeing has been an aerospace mainstay for decades, while billionaire entrepreneurElon Muskfounded SpaceX just a dozen years ago, in 2002.

SpaceX and Boeing are splitting NASA's $6.8 billion Commercial Crew Transportation Capability award, or CCtCap, the latest in a series of contracts set up in 2010 to encourage the development of private American manned spaceships. SpaceX will get $2.6 billion and Boeing will receive $4.2 billion, officials said.

NASA is looking to the private sector to fill the crew-carrying shoes of thespace shuttle fleet, which was retired in 2011 after 30 years of orbital service. For the past three years, the agency has relied on Russian Soyuz capsules to fly its astronauts to and from space recently, at a cost of more than $70 million per seat.

NASA officials have said they want at least one American commercial vehicle to be up and running by late 2017. A domestic capability to and from low-Earth orbit could not only cut costs but also free the agency to work on getting people to more distant and difficult destinations such as Mars, Bolden said.

Four companies have been major players in NASA's ongoing commercial crew competition: SpaceX, Boeing, Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada. SpaceX and Boeing are building capsules called Dragon and the CST-100, respectively. Blue Origin has been developing a conical craft called the Space Vehicle, while Sierra Nevada's entry was a space plane called Dream Chaser.

Like SpaceX, Blue Origin is led by a billionaire in this case, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos.

Today's announcement apparently takes Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada out of the mix, but it doesn't eliminate competition from the commercial crew program. Under the CCtCap contracts, both Boeing and SpaceX will be required to go through a rigorous certification process, which will include at least one manned demonstration mission to the space station, NASA officials said.

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NASA taps SpaceX and Boeing to ferry US astronauts into space (+video)

Nanotech at ECC gets boost from state

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Erie Community Colleges efforts to launch a new degree program in nanotechnology received a major boost Tuesday with a state grant of $5.75 million.

The grant, announced by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in Syracuse, will allow the college to renovate a North Campus building and buy costly equipment used in nanotechnology training.

College officials hope to begin offering courses toward a new associates degree in nanotechnology in spring 2015.

Nanotechnology involves controlling and manipulating supersmall particles to create new products and processes in advanced manufacturing, according to the National Nanotechnology Initiative.

Working at the nanoscale one nanometer is a billionth of a meter manufacturers can take advantage of the unique physical, chemical, mechanical and optical properties of materials that naturally occur at that scale.

Nanotechnology, for example, is a key component in the creation of ever-faster computer chips.

College and state officials said the program would produce a trained workforce to take advantage of new opportunities at the RiverBend project and high-tech research and development positions at the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

College officials were still waiting for approval from the state Education Department about their proposal for the new degree program, which would enroll about 50 new students per year.

We anticipate that we should hear this fall, said Richard C. Washousky, executive vice president of academic affairs at ECC.

The State University of New York gave its approval about a month ago, he said.

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Device can quickly detect dreaded diseases

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In response to Islamic State, Mardi Gras society shelves Isis name In response to Islamic State, Mardi Gras society shelves Isis name

Updated: Thursday, September 18 2014 12:09 AM EDT2014-09-18 04:09:55 GMT

Updated: Wednesday, September 17 2014 12:21 AM EDT2014-09-17 04:21:43 GMT

Updated: Tuesday, September 16 2014 10:33 AM EDT2014-09-16 14:33:45 GMT

Updated: Tuesday, September 16 2014 2:19 AM EDT2014-09-16 06:19:02 GMT

Updated: Monday, September 15 2014 8:23 PM EDT2014-09-16 00:23:00 GMT

HOUSTON (KPRC/NBC) - A new mobile device that looks like an iPad uses a single drop of blood or saliva to diagnose some of the world's most devastating diseases.

Houston pediatrician Dr. Bas Nair is the Global Medical Advisor for the Nanobiosym board, the company behind the technology.

"With this nanotechnology, the diagnosis is one hour or less, and that is an amazing game changer. This is going to change the world," he says.

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Device can quickly detect dreaded diseases

Tri-Valley briefs: Dublin schools, employees reach new deal

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Livermore

Lab names associate engineering director

Lawrence Livermore Laboratory on Sept. 12 announced the hiring of Anantha Krishnan as its new associate director for engineering, concluding a nationwide search.

In his new role, Krishnan will lead an organization of about 1,600 employees. Since arriving at the lab in 2005, Krishnan has held multiple scientific and management positions, specializing in areas such as additive manufacturing, biomedical engineering and advanced sensor devices and systems, according to a lab news release.

At Livermore, Krishnan has served as the deputy associate director of the lab's Engineering Directorate and as the program director for biosecurity, as well as the acting program director for counterterrorism. He also served as the director of research in the Center for Micro- and Nano-Technology and as director for the Office of Mission Innovation.

Before working for the lab, Krishnan was a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, where he was awarded the Medal for Exceptional Public Service by the Secretary of Defense in 2005. Krisnan replaces retiring lab Associate Director Monya Lane.

-- Jeremy Thomas, Staff

DUBLIN

School employees reach new deal with district

After a year of negotiations, the Dublin Unified School District and the California School Employees Association reached agreement on a new three-year contract, resulting in raises and benefit increases for the district's 287 classified employees.

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Tri-Valley briefs: Dublin schools, employees reach new deal

U.S. urges review of investment cases

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With thesupport of the Justice Department,two new cases on investment law are more likely to be reviewed by the Supreme Court: one on the right of investors to sue for false stock registration statements, and one on the duty of employee benefit plan managers to get rid of questionableitems in plan portfolios. Asked by the Court for the governments views, the Solicitor General urged the Court to rule on both.

The Courts docketindicates thatthe Justices will consider whether to grant thepetitions inMoores v. Hildes,the registration statement case, and Tibble v. Edison International,the benefit plan case, attheir September 29 Conference. The governments brief in Mooresis here, whileits brief in Tibble is here.

Both cases involve issues of timing: can an investor sue over a false stock registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, if hebought that stock even before the statement was on file and thereforecould not have relied upon it, and doesan employee benefit plan manager have a legal duty to get out ofdoubtful investments no matter how long they have been in the portfolio, even ifthere is a cut-off on being sued after six years have passed? The Solicitor General has urged the Court to grant review and answer yes to both.

The Moores case grows out of a merger plan through a stock swap between two software companies, Peregrine Systems, Inc., based in San Diego, and Harbinger Corp., an Atlanta firm, with Harbinger to become a subsidiary. In April 2000, the respondent in the case, Harbinger director David Hildes, gave Peregrine a proxy to vote his 1.4 million shares in favor of the merger, if it took place. The merger depended upon Securities and Exchange Commission approval of a registration statement on the deal. The merger would be offif not completed by October 31, 2000.

The statement was filed with the SEC in May of that year, and Hildes would later claim that it overstated the companys revenues by $120 million and understated its losses by more than $190 million. That, he later argued, would be the cause for a sharp drop in Peregrine stock, causing him major losses. The merger later was completed, but the SEC filed a complaint against the company for filingfalse financial reports for a seriesof years.

A group of Peregrine stockholders filed a class-action fraud lawsuit, whichwas settled. Hildes, however, chose to sue on his own,against Peregrine executives and that companys accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, under Section 11 of the Securities Act of 1933. A federal judge dismissed the case, finding that Hildes had made a binding commitment to swap his shares before the registration statement, so any loss he suffered could not be attributed tothat statement. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, however, ruled that Hildess lawsuit should be allowed to go forward, without any requirement that hehave relied on the registration statement. Peregrine directors are now challenging that rulingin their petition to the Supreme Court.

Responding to the Justices request for the federal governments views, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli argued that Section 11 does not require an investor to have relied upon a flawed registration statement, if such a statement was claimed to be the cause of that investors losses. Thus, althoughthe government agreed with the Ninth Circuits decision, it nonetheless urged the Court to grant review because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit had reached the opposite conclusion. Resolution of that split among the circuits, the government contended,isimportant to the enforcement of Section 11 by investor lawsuits.

The Tibble case involves a dispute over the choice of investments available to some 20,000 participants in a California defined-contribution plan created by Edison International, an electricity-generating company based in California. Employees make contributions into the plan, whichare invested in a portfolio by the plan manager. The employees are entitled to the value of their own investment accounts.

The menu of options open to the employees is chosen by the plans investment committee, supervised by the plan manager. The employee contributions are invested mainly in mutual funds. The portfolio managers opted to put plan assets into funds that charged higher fees, because the fees were split with the plan, reducing its administrative costs.

Workers covered by the plan sued, contending that lower-fee fund investments were available, and the managers should have chosen those for the portfolioand gotten rid of the higher-fee investmentsfrom the pool open to the workers choices.

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New Non-Invasive Technique Could Revolutionize the Imaging of Metastatic Cancer

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Newswise Bioluminescence, nanoparticles, gene manipulation these sound like the ideas of a science fiction writer, but, in fact, they are components of an exciting new approach to imaging local and metastatic tumors. In preclinical animal models of metastatic prostate cancer, scientists at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center, VCU Institute of Molecular Medicine and Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions have provided proof-of-principle of a new molecular imaging approach that could revolutionize doctors ability to see tumors that have metastasized to other sites in the body, including the bones.

Recently published in the OnlineFirst edition of the journal Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, this multiple institution study is the first to develop in vivo (in animal models) a systemically administered, non-invasive, molecular-genetic technique to image bone metastases resulting from prostate cancer. The new method relies on the detection of a gene known as AEG-1, which was originally discovered by the study's co-lead investigator Paul B. Fisher, M.Ph., Ph.D., and has been shown to be expressed in the majority of cancers but not in normal, healthy cells. In preclinical studies, the researchers were able to image bone metastases with greater accuracy than any clinically approved imaging method.

Currently, we do not have a sensitive and specific non-invasive technique to detect bone metastases, so we are very encouraged by the results of this study says Fisher, Thelma Newmeyer Corman Endowed Chair in Cancer Research and co-leader of the Cancer Molecular Genetics research program at VCU Massey Cancer Center, chairman of the Department of Human and Molecular Genetics at the VCU School of Medicine and director of the VCU Institute of Molecular Medicine. Additionally, because AEG-1 is expressed in the majority of cancers, this research could potentially lead to earlier detection and treatment of metastases originating from a variety of cancer types.

Imaging the expression of a gene in real time is not an easy task. To do it, the scientists used a promoter called AEG-Prom. A promoter is a set of chemical instructions coded in DNA that initiates activity in a gene. The team combined AEG-Prom with imaging agents consisting of a gene that produces firefly luciferase, the bioluminescent substance that makes fireflies glow, and a gene called HSV1tk, which initiates a chemical reaction when specific radioactive compounds are administered. The team then inserted the combination into tiny nanoparticles that are injected intravenously. When exposed to specific proteins that activate the AEG-Prom, including the c-MYC protein that is elevated in many cancer cells, the AEG-Prom initiates activity in the imaging agent, and the location of cancer cells expressing the imaging agent are made visible using sensitive imaging devices.

"The imaging agents and nanoparticle used in this study have already been tested in unrelated clinical trials. Moving this concept into the clinic to image metastasis in patients is the next logical step in the evolution of this research," says co-lead author Martin G. Pomper, M.D., Ph.D., William R. Brody Professor of Radiology at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. "My colleagues and I are working toward this goal, and we look forward to opening a study to deploy this technology as soon as possible."

Fisher and Pomper are pioneering the use of cancer-specific and cancer-selective gene promoters to image cancer. Previous studies in melanoma and breast cancer leveraged another gene originally discovered by Fisher called progression elevated gene-3 (PEG-3) using a promoter known as PEG-Prom. In addition to imaging, this approach could also be used to deliver therapeutic agents, such as targeted therapies, directly to local and distant tumors sites and allow physicians to monitor drug delivery in real time. Separate studies are currently under way to examine the therapeutic potential of this strategy.

Fisher and Pomper collaborated on this research with Siddik Sarkar, Ph.D., postdoctoral research scientist in the Department of Human and Molecular Genetics at the VCU School of Medicine, as well as Akrita Bhatnagar, Ph.D., Yuchuan Wang, Ph.D., Ronnie C. Mease, Ph.D., Matthew Gabrielson, M.D., Polina Sysa, M.D., lL Minn, Ph.D., Gilbert Green, Brian Simmons, Ph.D., and Kathleen Gabrielson, D.V.M., Ph.D., all from Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.

This study was supported by National Cancer Institute grant CA151838, the Prostate Cancer Foundation, the Patrick C. Walsh Foundation, the National Foundation for Cancer Research and, in part, by VCU Massey Cancer Centers NIH-NCI Cancer Center Support Grant P30 CA016059.

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New Non-Invasive Technique Could Revolutionize the Imaging of Metastatic Cancer