Q&A with astronaut Mike Hopkins

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Photo by: AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky

U.S. astronaut Michael Hopkins, a member of the next mission to the International Space Station, waves after a news conference in Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, on Sept. 24, 2013. The start of the new Soyuz mission was scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 26.

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Mike Hopkins' days as a human "guinea pig" aboard the International Space Station are over for now, but he hopes to wind up in space again someday.

After six months in space the NASA flight engineer is back home in Houston, reunited with his wife, Julie, and their two sons and working at the Johnson Space Center.

He's spent the last two months re-adapting to "life in a 1G environment" and undergoing tests by scientists who studied the astronauts while they were still in space. Scientists want to collect as much data as possible when the astronauts land to measure the effects of space travel, he said.

"We're guinea pigs while we're in orbit. We want to understand what happens to a human body in a microgravity environment," Hopkins said.

Hopkins, 45, also went through a debriefing about the space station with systems experts to discuss any problems and "ways we can make things easier for the next astronauts coming up."

In advance of this weekend's commencement activities, Hopkins talked with The News-Gazette about the future of space travel, the challenge of sleeping in orbit, phone reception on the space station and his favorite space food (and movie). He also reminisced about his harrowing first practice as an Illini football walk-on.

How long did it take you to adjust once you landed back home? Did anything surprise you?

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Q&A with astronaut Mike Hopkins

Red snapper season gets clipped again

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Another cut in the number of red snapper days has local fisherman scratching their heads.

On Wednesday, word came down from the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council that the red snapper recreational season in federal waters will be nine days starting June 1.

Just weeks ago, fishermen were advised that their season was being cut from 44 days to 11, now they're taking another hit.

"It's another typical move by the wacko environmentalist," said Capt. George Eller of the Checkmate II.

"It's absolutely crazy. I had trips scheduled for 40 days. Luckily I haven't had anything cancel yet, but we'll see," he said.

Eller said he's called a few folks and gave them a chance to back out. Thus far the response has been, "we're coming anyway and we're going fishing."

"When schools out we'll run everyday anyway," Eller said.

Capt. Dennis Kendrick of the Finest Kind says he hasn't been as lucky.

"Some of mine have already canceled," he said.

In April, the fishery management council requested an emergency rule to revise the recreational accountability measures for red snapper by applying a 20-percent buffer to the recreational quota, which results in a recreational annual catch target of 4.312 million pounds whole weight. This emergency rule will not affect the commercial harvest of red snapper in the reef fish fishery.

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Red snapper season gets clipped again

Wisconsin Red Cross Volunteer Heads to So. California Wildfire Area

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CREATED 9:54 AM

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- A Red Cross volunteer from Wisconsin is heading to Southern California where a series of major wildfires are scorching the region. Barbara Behling, Communications Officer for Northern and Southern Wisconsin leaves Today.

Nine fires have destroyed at least eight houses, an 18-unit condominium complex and two businesses since Tuesday. The hardest-hit areas were in San Marcos and Carlsbad, near San Diego.

In response to the multiple fires in California, American Red Cross disaster workers are continuing shelter operations, serving meals and providing emotional support to those affected by wildfires.

See how you can help below:

Since Tuesday, May 13, the Red Cross in San Diego has provided approximately:

HOW TO HELPThose who would like to help people affected by disasters like tornadoes, floods and other crises can make a donation to American Red Cross Disaster Relief. People can donate by visitingwww.redcross.org, calling 1-800-RED CROSS or texting the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation. These donations enable the Red Cross to prepare for, respond to and help people recover from disasters big and small.

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Wisconsin Red Cross Volunteer Heads to So. California Wildfire Area

RADIO/PODCAST: "Crazy Rhythm:" Red Nichols and His Five Pennies This Week on Riverwalk Jazz

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This week on Riverwalk Jazz the Jim Cullum Jazz Band tells the story of Red Nichols and his Five Pennies, illustrated with numerous historical recordings of Nichols and the ensembles he led.

The program is distributed in the US by Public Radio International. You can also drop in on a continuous stream of shows at the Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound.

1920s New York was full of young jazz musicians whod rolled in from somewhere else. Ernest Loring Nichols, a redheaded kid from Utah fell into partnership with a studious-looking trombone player from nearby Long Island named Miff Mole

By 1925 Red Nichols was the man to see if you were a musician in New York and needed a job. He was equally connected to record labels needing talent and top-flight musicians looking for work. A well-schooled musician, tutored by his bandmaster father, Red could pick up a violin, sit down at the piano, or play the cornet. His cornet style has been praised for its ringing tone and springy, punchy, rhythmic drive.

When George and Ira Gershwin

Red Nichols was a skilled talent scout. His studio sessions were a magnet and proving ground for top young white jazz players. Many would go on to become star bandleaders of the Swing Era. In the late summer of 1927, Jack Teagarden had finished a gig in a society dance band at San Antonios Gunther Hotel. Impulsively, the 25-year-old trombonist hit the road for New York in a Cadillac. One warm August evening they landed in Times Square. Dropped off at a phone booth in mid-townwith his bags and instrument casethe first person Jack called was Red Nichols. Always on the lookout for something new to offer the record-buying public, Red was quick to capture Jack Teagardens soulful, blues-driven sound and playful vocals on disc.

Pint-sized with flame-red hair, Red Nichols was a go-getter with a good head for business. And he was clean and precise in his playing, a modernistalways exploring new territory. But Nichols popular success drew criticism from some who called him an entertainer rather than an artist. Critics saw his success as selling out or somehow inauthentic, not true to the spirit of hot jazz as it was played by Jazz Age cornet hero, Bix Beiderbecke

Richard Sudhalter

Saxophonist Bud Freeman

In spite of the controversy surrounding his work, Red Nichols was the most recorded and successful musician-bandleader in New York in the 1920s. He led enormously popular bandsfeaturing some of the most creative white jazz players of that time under names such as The Five Pennies, The Red Heads, and Miff Mole and His Little Molers. This voluminous output of recorded workRed appeared on about 4,000 recordings in the 1920sis recognized today as a major expansion and refinement of the harmonic and compositional possibilities in jazz.

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RADIO/PODCAST: "Crazy Rhythm:" Red Nichols and His Five Pennies This Week on Riverwalk Jazz

Greatest NASA Secret Exposed – Gale Crater is a City! remastered 2014 – Video

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Greatest NASA Secret Exposed - Gale Crater is a City! remastered 2014
Dear friends and enemies, This is a much improved version of Mars TV Channel #39;s Gale Crater 2-D video of November 2011, which was the first 2-D digital flight simulation ever to cover Gale...

By: MARS TV CHANNEL

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Greatest NASA Secret Exposed - Gale Crater is a City! remastered 2014 - Video

Congress Asks NASA About Rifts in US-Russia Spaceflight Partnership – Video

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Congress Asks NASA About Rifts in US-Russia Spaceflight Partnership
Congress is concerned that a serious rift may be developing in the longstanding spaceflight partnership between Russia and the United States. Today (May 15), three high-ranking members of...

By: prg_y | Technology Science

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Congress Asks NASA About Rifts in US-Russia Spaceflight Partnership - Video

NASA shares great image, bad facts about San Diego wildfires

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NASA knows the importance of getting every detail right. That's why it was so surprising to see them pass along bad information about the San Diego County wildfires in a post that shared a stunning satellite image of smoke from this week's firestorm.

The text below the amazing photo (all that smoke! visible from space!) begins like so:

What's wrong? It's not accurate, at least yet, to say arson is suspected as the origin of these fires because it is merely one of many possibilities that investigators are pursuing. Also, those teens? Police arrested them for allegedly trying to start two brushfires Thursday but have not connected them to the major wildfires ravaging the county.

We've alerted NASA on Twitter and will see if they respond or change a blog post likely to be seen by thousands of people. A NASA tweet containing the image and a link to its post was retweeted 373 times and favorited 188 times in an hour.

About the picture? NASA reports its Aqua satellite collected the "natural-color" image with a Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer Thursday. Actively burning areas, detected by MODISs thermal bands, are outlined in red.

It credits Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC, with the image and Lynn Jenner with writing the caption, based on information from CNN.com, San Diego CBS affliate Channel 8, and San Diego ABC affliate Channel 10.

Your photo's great, NASA. But you're too big an agency to post incorrect information that can get recirculated so widely.

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NASA shares great image, bad facts about San Diego wildfires

USDA and NNI partner for Nanocellulose Commercialization Workshop

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

16-May-2014

Contact: Marlowe Newman mnewman@nnco.nano.gov 703-350-9569 National Nanotechnology Coordination Office

The National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO) is pleased to announce the National Nanotechnology Initiative's (NNI) partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service to host Cellulose Nanomaterials A Path Towards Commercialization.

The primary goal of the workshop is to identify the critical information gaps and technical barriers in the commercialization of cellulose nanomaterials with expert input from user communities. Speakers will include Deputy Director for Technology and Innovation at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Tom Kalil, as well as senior officials from USDA. The workshop also supports the announcement last December by USDA Secretary Thomas Vilsack regarding the formation of P3Nano, a public-private partnership between the USDA Forest Service and the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities to rapidly advance the commercialization of cellulose nanomaterials. In addition, the workshop supports the goals of the NNI Sustainable Nanomanufacturing Signature Initiative.

This workshop is being organized by USDA in collaboration with and co-sponsored by the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). It will bring together high-level executives from government and multiple industrial sectors to identify pathways for the commercialization of cellulose nanomaterials and will facilitate communication across industry sectors to determine common challenges.

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Workshop details:

When: Tuesday and Wednesday, May 20-21, 2014

Where: USDA Patriot Plaza Conference Center, 355 E Street SW, Washington, DC

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USDA and NNI partner for Nanocellulose Commercialization Workshop

Silicon dioxide nano-anodes extend life of Li-ion batteries

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16 May 2014

Researchers say they have developed a new way to make lithium-ion batteries that will last three times longer between charges compared to the current industry standard.

The team from the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering created silicon dioxide (SiO2) nanotube anodes for lithium-ion batteries and found they had over three times as much energy storage capacity as the carbon-based anodes currently being used.

We are taking the same material used in kids toys and medical devices and even fast food and using it to create next generation battery materials, said Zachary Favors, the lead author of a published paper on the research.

The paper, Stable Cycling of SiO2 Nanotubes as High-Performance Anodes for Lithium-Ion Batteries, was published online in Nature Scientific Reports.

It was co-authored by Cengiz S. Ozkan, a mechanical engineering professor, Mihrimah Ozkan, an electrical engineering professor, and current and former graduate students Wei Wang, Hamed Hosseinni Bay, Aaron George and Favors.

According to UC Riverside, the team originally focused on silicon dioxide because it is an extremely abundant compound, environmentally friendly, non-toxic, and found in many other products.

Silicon dioxide has previously been used as an anode material in lithium ion batteries, but the ability to synthesise the material into highly uniform exotic nanostructures with high energy density and long cycle life has been limited.

Their key finding was that the silicon dioxide nanotubes are extremely stable in batteries, thereby enabling a longer lifespan. Specifically, SiO2 nanotube anodes were cycled 100 times without any loss in energy storage capability and the authors are confident that they could be cycled hundreds more times.

The researchers are now focused on developed methods to scale up production of the SiO2 nanotubes in hopes they could become a commercially viable product.

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Silicon dioxide nano-anodes extend life of Li-ion batteries

LogiTag's Active RTLS Solution Selected by Hebrew University Nano Labs to Safeguards and …

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The unique system, installed by Orot Electronic Security, includes panic buttons and tracking capabilities to monitor every person entering the laboratory given the delicate working environment and enable a quick rescue during emergency situations.

LogiTag Systems, a leading provider of RFID solutions and high-value inventory management systems, announced today the successful installation of LogiTrack RTLS solution at the Unit for Nano Fabrication at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The clean room laboratory contains state-of-the-art tools, and equipment to enable the Nanotechnology research and application into all fields including cancer research, agriculture, and high-tech. The carefully monitored environment can also present a safety concern to over 100 students and researchers given the various lethal chemicals and gasses being used most of which only require an extremely small amount to create substantial life threatening situation, where each minute counts. This led the university to seek the most advanced panic alert combined with an online RTLS solution LogiTrack. LogiTrack provides the facility a method to accurately monitor, locate, and trigger events based on location and status, which is vital in time-critical situations.

"The solution is built to provide three main functions," Said Nahum Greenman, CEO of Orot Electronic Security. "The first is the real time location of each person inside the lab. The second are the panic buttons, for use in case of emergency. The third is connectivity to the billing system, informing the university who used the lab and for how long. We turned to LogiTag given their advanced capabilities, looking to integrate LogiTag's solution with the existing systems, and create a seamless system. Both the university and I now have peace of mind, knowing all safety measurements have been taken."

The way the solution works: 1. A pre-authorized person enters the first and intermediate section of the lab with an ID card, wears the clean suit with LogiTag's advanced Active RFID Tags, and register into the system. 2. The person enters the clean room, while their location is accurately displayed on a large screen at the building's entrance and accessible online in addition to the surveillance cameras spread throughout. 3. Alerts and notifications are sent if the person remains inside the lab over a specific period of time, or presses the panic button. Other 'business rules' can be applied.

The Hebrew University Nanotechnology center is based on two units: The Unit for Nanocharacterization and the Unit for Nanofabrication. Both have been essential in supporting the unique discoveries of nanotechnology during recent years including cancer research, agricultural, and the high-tech fields.

Professor Shlomo Magadasi is one example of the type of researchers working at the University's Nanotechnology lab. His invention includes a permanent glass printing method, anticipated to impact the entire future of permanent in-glass printing.

Professor Oded Shoseyov is another researcher from The Robert H. Smith Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, using the center to research anti-angiogenic proapoptotic protein. Topics like Modification of plant cell-wall and fiber engineering in transgenic plants help him discover how to insert medicine within the protein of the plant a practical study that has impacted the entire agriculture practice.

"We were seeking a solution to ensure our people's safety, so they can go about their important research" said Dr. Shimon Eliav, head of The Unit for Nanofabrication. "The panic buttons previously installed were not reliable as we had hoped, and didn't give us a complete solution. We take many precautions and provide extensive training to students using the lab, but we still needed to find an even safer solution. We can now save valuable search time in a situation where a student hits the panic button we know who pressed it, where they are, and therefore send the dedicated personnel there. In addition, this information is available from any location, even at home during late hours of the night. This solution is ideal for any nanotechnology laboratory or facilities looking to safeguard their users".

LogiTrack is a Real-Time Location System (RTLS) that give facilities a method to accurately monitor, locate, and trigger events based on location and status. It can be used to manage assets, monitor patients, locate staff, call nurses, or monitor temperatures or humidity. Depending on the conditions, LogiTrack may activate alarms or close doors. It sends alerts (text messages, e-mails, and alarm) for informed, real-time decision making.

"We were extremely pleased to have been selected by the Hebrew University for this project," said Shlomo Matityaho. "It enabled us to prove once again our unique technological capabilities specifically under such harsh environmental conditions as in the Nanofabrication lab. In order to maintain a clean-room environment, and eliminate RFI (Radio Frequency Interference), the lab walls are made of aluminum. The metallic walls are highly effective for the clean room, but present an obstacle when it comes to RF in general and RFID in particular. Given our extensive experience at dozens of locations and varied types of facilities (i.e. food conglomerates, high-technology organizations, hospitalsetc.), we were able to successfully overcome these challenges. I look forward to securing the safety of many more organizations."

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LogiTag's Active RTLS Solution Selected by Hebrew University Nano Labs to Safeguards and ...