NASA Eyes Potential Landing Sites for 2020 Mars Rover Mission

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NASA is looking for a place to land its next car-size rover on Mars.

Expected to launch in 2020, the space agency asked scientists where they'd like to see the rover land on the Martian surface. Officials came away with more than 50 potential landing spots requested by the scientific community during a workshop held in May. Now, NASA officials working with the rover are going to start investigating those suggestions to see which will be the best fit for the spacecraft and its mission.

"I think we have 55-ish community proposals of [landing] sites," George Tahu, Mars 2020 roverprogram executive, said during a Planetary Science Subcommittee teleconference on Sept. 3. "We took the first crack at those. Nothing has been eliminated at this point. It's just the first cut at starting to look at them." [NASA's 2020 Mars Rover in Pictures]

There are some engineering constraints put on the landing site. For example, the target region can't be too rocky or high in altitude, so working within those parameters, scientists are trying to find the best spot on the planet for the 2020 rover to accomplish its scientific goals.

The rover is designed to seek out signs of past life on Mars, following up on the Curiosity rover's discovery that, Mars could have been habitable billions of years ago.

In order to search for possible signs of past life, the 2020 rover will drill into interesting rocks and cache them as samples, saving them for the day when the rocks can be sent back to Earth where scientists can examine them in person.

"[The] 2020 [Mars rover] has the overarching moniker of seeking the signs of life, so the focus of the science community is: Where would be the best place on Mars where evidence of life might have been preserved," Michael Meyer, NASA's lead scientist for the Mars program, said. "That kind of sets the overall tone."

NASA will use imagery collected by probes orbiting the Red Planet to get more detailed information about potential landing sites before making a decision about where to land. NASA officials are hoping to land the new rover somewhere with many different kinds of rock types, allowing the rover to potentially cache a wide variety of rocks.

Scientists working on the project hope that the final landing site will be chosen two years before launch, Meyer told Space.com.

A 'Curiosity' Quiz: How Well Do You Know NASA's New...

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NASA Eyes Potential Landing Sites for 2020 Mars Rover Mission

NASA Releases International Global Precipitation Measurement Mission Data

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The most accurate and comprehensive collection of rain, snowfall and other types of precipitation data ever assembled now is available to the public. This new resource for climate studies, weather forecasting, and other applications is based on observations by the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory, a joint mission of NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), with contributions from a constellation of international partner satellites.

The GPM Core Observatory, launched from Japan on Feb. 27, carries two advanced instruments to measure rainfall, snowfall, ice and other precipitation. The advanced and precise data from the GPM Core Observatory are used to unify and standardize precipitation observations from other constellation satellites to produce the GPM mission data. These data are freely available through NASA's Precipitation Processing System at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

"We are very pleased to make all these data available to scientists and other users within six months of launch," said Ramesh Kakar, GPM program scientist in the Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters, Washington.

In addition to NASA and JAXA, the GPM mission includes satellites from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, Indian Space Research Organisation, and France's Centre National dtudes Spatiales.

Instruments on the GPM Core Observatory and partner satellites measure energy naturally emitted by liquid and frozen precipitation. Scientists use computer programs to convert these data into estimates of rain and snowfall. The individual instruments on the partner satellites collect similar data, but the absolute numbers for precipitation observed over the same location may not be exactly the same. The GPM Core Observatory's data are used as a reference standard to smooth out the individual differences, like a principal violinist tuning the individual instruments in an orchestra. The result is data that are consistent with each other and can be meaningfully compared. With the higher sensitivity to different types of precipitation made possible by the GPM Core Observatory's Microwave Imager (GMI) and Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR), scientists can for the first time accurately measure the full range of precipitation from heavy rain to light rain and snow. The instruments are designed not only to detect rain and snow in the clouds, but to measure the size and distribution of the rain particles and snowflakes. This information gives scientists a better estimate of water content and a new perspective on winter storms, especially near the poles where the majority of precipitation is snowfall.

"With this GPM mission data, we can now see snow in a way we could not before," said Gail Skofronick-Jackson, GPM project scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center. "Cloud tops high in the atmosphere have ice in them. If the Earths surface is above freezing, it melts into rain as it falls. But in some parts of the world, it's cold enough that the ice and snow falls all the way to the ground."

One of the first storms observed by the GPM Core Observatory on March 17 in the eastern United States showed that full range of precipitation. Heavy rains fell over the North and South Carolina coasts. As the storm moved northward, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and Washington were covered with snow. The GMI observed an 547 mile-wide track of precipitation on the surface, while the DPR imaged every 820 feet vertically to get the three-dimensional structure of the rain and snowfall layer by layer inside the clouds.

"What's really clear in these images is the melting layer, the place in the atmosphere where ice turns into rain," said Skofronick-Jackson. "The melting layer is one part of the precipitation process that scientists dont know well because it is in such a narrow part of the cloud and changes quickly. Understanding the small scale details within the melting layer helps us better understand the precipitation process."

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NASA Hosts Media Briefing to Announce New Earth-Observing Role for International Space Station

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September 4, 2014

Image Credit: The first in a series of NASA Earth-observing instruments to be mounted on the exterior of the International Space Station is scheduled for launch this month. ISS-RapidScat will monitor ocean winds for climate research, weather predictions and hurricane monitoring. Credit: NASA

WASHINGTON, Sept. 4, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ NASA opens a new era this month in its exploration of our home planet with the launch of the first in a series of Earth science instruments to the International Space Station. A media briefing on this addition to NASAs Earth-observing program will air at 1 p.m. EDT Monday, Sept. 8, on NASA Television and the agencys website.

http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnvar/20081007/38461LOGO

The first Earth-observing instrument to be mounted on the exterior of the space station will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on the next SpaceX Commercial Resupply Services flight. ISS-RapidScat will monitor ocean winds for climate research, weather predictions and hurricane monitoring from the space stations unique vantage point.

The second instrument is the Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS), a laser instrument that will measure clouds and the location and distribution of pollution, dust, smoke, and other particulates in the atmosphere. CATS will follow ISS-RapidScat on the fifth SpaceX space station resupply flight.

The briefing will take place in the NASA TV studio at the agencys Headquarters, located at 300 E Street SW in Washington. The briefing panelists are:

Julie Robinson, ISS Program chief scientist, NASAs Johnson Space Center, Houston

Steve Volz, associate director for flight programs in the Earth Science Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington

Melanie Miller, lead SpaceX-4 robotics officer, Johnson

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NASA Hosts Media Briefing to Announce New Earth-Observing Role for International Space Station

Doped Graphene Nanoribbons with Potential

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Newswise Graphene possesses many outstanding properties: it conducts heat and electricity, it is transparent, harder than diamond and extremely strong. But in order to use it to construct electronic switches, a material must not only be an outstanding conductor, it should also be switchable between on and off states. This requires the presence of a so-called bandgap, which enables semiconductors to be in an insulating state. The problem, however, is that the bandgap in graphene is extremely small. Empa researchers from the nanotech@surfaces laboratory thus developed a method some time ago to synthesise a form of graphene with larger bandgaps by allowing ultra-narrow graphene nanoribbons to grow via molecular self-assembly.

Graphene nanoribbons made of differently doped segments The researchers, led by Roman Fasel, have now achieved a new milestone by allowing graphene nanoribbons consisting of differently doped subsegments to grow. Instead of always using the same pure carbon molecules, they used additionally doped molecules molecules provided with foreign atoms in precisely defined positions, in this case nitrogen. By stringing together normal segments with nitrogen-doped segments on a gold (Au (111)) surface, so-called heterojunctions are created between the individual segments. The researchers have shown that these display similar properties to those of a classic p-n-junction, i.e. a junction featuring both positive and negative charges across different regions of the semiconductor crystal, thereby creating the basic structure allowing the development of many components used in the semiconductor industry. A p-n junction causes current to flow in only one direction. Because of the sharp transition at the heterojunction interface, the new structure also allows electron/hole pairs to be efficiently separated when an external voltage is applied, as demonstrated theoretically by theorists at Empa and collaborators at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute The latter has a direct impact on the power yield of solar cells. The researchers describe the corresponding heterojunctions in segmented graphene nanoribbons in the recently published issue of Nature Nanotechnology.

Transferring graphene nanoribbons onto other substrates In addition, the scientists have solved another key issue for the integration of graphene nanotechnology into conventional semiconductor industry: how to transfer the ultra-narrow graphene ribbons onto another surface? As long as the graphene nanoribbons remain on a metal substrate (such as gold used here) they cannot be used as electronic switches. Gold conducts and thus creates a short-circuit that sabotages the appealing semiconducting properties of the graphene ribbon. Fasels team and colleagues at the Max-Planck-Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz have succeeded in showing that graphene nanoribbons can be transferred efficiently and intact using a relatively simple etching and cleaning process onto (virtually) any substrate, for example onto sapphire, calcium fluoride or silicon oxide.

Graphene is thus increasingly emerging as an interesting semiconductor material and a welcome addition to the omnipresent silicon. The semiconducting graphene nanoribbons are particularly attractive as they allow smaller and thus more energy efficient and faster electronic components than silicon. However, the generalized use of graphene nanoribbons in the electronics sector is not anticipated in the near future, due in part to scaling issues and in part to the difficulty of replacing well-established conventional silicon-based electronics. Fasel estimates that it may still take about 10 to 15 years before the first electronic switch made of graphene nanoribbons can be used in a product.

Graphene nanoribbons for photovoltaic components Photovoltaic components could also one day be based on graphene. In a second paper published in Nature Communications, Pascal Ruffieux also from the Empa nanotech@surfaces laboratory and his colleagues describe a possible use of graphene strips, for instance in solar cells. Ruffieux and his team have noticed that particularly narrow graphene nanoribbons absorb visible light exceptionally well and are therefore highly suitable for use as the absorber layer in organic solar cells. Compared to normal graphene, which absorbs light equally at all wavelengths, the light absorption in graphene nanoribbons can be increased enormously in a controlled way, whereby researchers set the width of the graphene nanoribbons with atomic precision.

Support This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, by the European Science Foundation (ESF), by the European Research Council (ERC) and by the Office of Naval Research.

Graphene possesses many outstanding properties: it conducts heat and electricity, it is transparent, harder than diamond and extremely strong. But in order to use it to construct electronic switches, a material must not only be an outstanding conductor, it should also be switchable between on and off states. This requires the presence of a so-called bandgap, which enables semiconductors to be in an insulating state. The problem, however, is that the bandgap in graphene is extremely small. Empa researchers from the nanotech@surfaces laboratory thus developed a method some time ago to synthesise a form of graphene with larger bandgaps by allowing ultra-narrow graphene nanoribbons to grow via molecular self-assembly.

Graphene nanoribbons made of differently doped segments The researchers, led by Roman Fasel, have now achieved a new milestone by allowing graphene nanoribbons consisting of differently doped subsegments to grow. Instead of always using the same pure carbon molecules, they used additionally doped molecules molecules provided with foreign atoms in precisely defined positions, in this case nitrogen. By stringing together normal segments with nitrogen-doped segments on a gold (Au (111)) surface, so-called heterojunctions are created between the individual segments. The researchers have shown that these display similar properties to those of a classic p-n-junction, i.e. a junction featuring both positive and negative charges across different regions of the semiconductor crystal, thereby creating the basic structure allowing the development of many components used in the semiconductor industry. A p-n junction causes current to flow in only one direction. Because of the sharp transition at the heterojunction interface, the new structure also allows electron/hole pairs to be efficiently separated when an external voltage is applied, as demonstrated theoretically by theorists at Empa and collaborators at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute The latter has a direct impact on the power yield of solar cells. The researchers describe the corresponding heterojunctions in segmented graphene nanoribbons in the recently published issue of Nature Nanotechnology.

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Doped Graphene Nanoribbons with Potential

New knowledge of cannabis paves the way for drug development

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8-Sep-2014

Contact: Rikke Byesen rb@nano.ku.dk 452-875-0413 Faculty of Science - University of Copenhagen

Revolutionary nanotechnology method could help improve the development of new medicine and reduce costs. Researchers from the Nano-Science Center and the Department of Chemistry at the University of Copenhagen have developed a new screening method that makes it possible to study cell membrane proteins that bind drugs, such as cannabis and adrenaline, while reducing the consumption of precious samples by a billion times.

About 40% of all medicines used today work through the so-called "G protein-coupled receptors". These receptors react to changes in the cell environment, for example, to increased amounts of chemicals like cannabis, adrenaline or the medications we take and are therefore of paramount importance to the pharmaceutical industry.

"There is a lot of attention on research into "G protein-coupled receptors", because they have a key roll in recognizing and binding different substances. Our new method is of interest to the industry because it can contribute to faster and cheaper drug development", explains Professor Dimitrios Stamou, who heads the Nanomedicine research group at the Nano-Science Center, where the method has been developed. The new method is described in a publication at the esteemed scientific journal Nature Methods.

Cheaper to test and develop medicine

The new method will reduce dramatically the use of precious membrane protein samples. Traditionally, you test a medicinal substance by using small drops of a sample containing the protein that the medicine binds to. If you look closely enough however, each drop is composed of thousands of billions of small nano-containers containing the isolated proteins. Until now, it has been assumed that all of these nano-containers are identical. But it turns out this is not the case and that is why researchers can use a billion times smaller samples for testing drug candidates than hitherto.

"We have discovered that each one of the countless nano-containers is unique. Our method allows us to collect information about each individual nano-container. We can use this information to construct high-throughput screens, where you can, for example, test how medicinal drugs bind G protein-coupled receptors", explains Signe Mathiasen, who is first author of the paper describing the screening method in Nature Methods. Signe Mathiasen has worked on developing a screening method over the last four years at the University of Copenhagen, where she wrote her PhD thesis research project under the supervision of Professor Stamou.

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New knowledge of cannabis paves the way for drug development

Stand Up: Young Less Likely To Support Tories

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Sky News' Stand Up Be Counted: How It Works

Updated: 8:50am UK, Monday 01 September 2014

By Afua Hirsch, Social Affairs and Education Editor

There is a group of people in this country who are invisible. They have little ability to influence politics, their voices are rarely heard in the news, and their opinions are largely ignored.

:: Click here to visit the Stand Up Be Counted site

This may sound like the predicament of a small and hard to reach minority, but it has been the reality for more than half of young people in the UK.

Many 18 to 24 year olds don't vote. At the last election, only 44% of that age group voted. That means more than half not influencing who gets into power.

It means politicians can comfortably ignore a whole demographic, confident in the knowledge that they have no influence at the ballot box.

It means disengaging from the process which governs everyone's lives.

From today, Sky News is doing something different, to create a change. We are launching Stand Up Be Counted - to help give young people a voice.

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Stand Up: Young Less Likely To Support Tories

(Gameboy) God Medicine – Hukkoku Ban Part 14 – Kawada Village – Video

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(Gameboy) God Medicine - Hukkoku Ban Part 14 - Kawada Village
After returning back to the real world, let #39;s head south to our next area: Kawada Village where we hear about that some children are missing. After talking to everyone in town, going to a playgroun...

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(Gameboy) God Medicine - Hukkoku Ban Part 14 - Kawada Village - Video

Anant Nischal – Quantum University Graduate – Doctorate and PhD in Integrative Medicine – Video

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Anant Nischal - Quantum University Graduate - Doctorate and PhD in Integrative Medicine
Learn more about Quantum University at http://www.iquim.org "How did I get here? I come from the alopathic world like Dr. Paul. Have been practicing medicine for 18 years, and decided that it wasn #39;t...

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Anant Nischal - Quantum University Graduate - Doctorate and PhD in Integrative Medicine - Video

Emergency medicine department celebrates 10 years

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Emergency medicine department celebrates 10 years

BY MICHAEL KADRIE | SEPTEMBER 08, 2014 5:00 AM

The state of Iowas only emergency-medicine residency is celebrating its 10th anniversary. Residents in the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics program hone their skills in the stabilization, management, diagnosis, and disposition of individuals with acute illness and injury.

A large part of the programs mission is to help staff and support more rural areas, especially in Iowa.

Before [the emergency-medicine residency program], we were an academic program without an academic mission, said UIHC Emergency Medicine Chairman Andrew Nugent.

Emergency medicine is a relatively recent addition to the list of medical specialties officially recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties. It arrived on the scene in 1979, and the first certification exam was conducted in 1980.

Residents help certified staff manage more than 60,000 patient visits a year, admitting approximately 15,000 patients annually.

About two-thirds of the graduates are either working in Iowa or the states immediately surrounding it, Nugent said.

The ambitious programs success was not always certain.

In the beginning, faculty and students had to deal with smaller work areas that made it difficult to see as many patients, he said.

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Emergency medicine department celebrates 10 years

Medical School Admissions: How To Write a Good Personal Statement – Video

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Medical School Admissions: How To Write a Good Personal Statement
The Pulse is Kaplan #39;s monthly series for pre-meds. In this video, our experts give tips on how to write a good personal statement for your medical school application. On the June episode,...

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