Red algae returning to Lee Co. beaches

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LEE COUNTY, FL -

It may not be the most romantic beach setting to look forward to--current weather conditions are expected to push more unsightly red drift algae onto Lee County beaches now through the weekend.

Many seasonal residents say they're prepared to deal with it.

Seasonal resident Diane Vedmore says has she little to complain about.

"Even though it's windy, there's always something to do. On the beach we're finding these gorgeous shells!" Vedmore said.

But it's an activity that could be short-lived.

Scientists expect the combination of looming storm systems and winds pushing toward the coastline to push more red drift algae onto beach shores

"I expect there to be more stranding events and the frequency of those stranding events is probably once every two weeks," Dr. Eric Mildbrandt, SCCF Marine Lab Director.

Researchers at the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation are studying the growth and believe the algae is tied to the Lake O fresh water releases from last summer.

"It's a very patchy phenomena so most times you'll find it washed up on one beach but if you just go down the road a mile there may not be any," Milbrandt said.

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Red algae returning to Lee Co. beaches

NASA Space Research – LOW THRUST PROPULSION system for space travel – NASA New Project – Video

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NASA Space Research - LOW THRUST PROPULSION system for space travel - NASA New Project
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NASA Space Research - LOW THRUST PROPULSION system for space travel - NASA New Project - Video

Ancient Aliens On Mars, Paracas Face Of Statue Caught By Curiosity NASA, Feb 2014 – Video

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Ancient Aliens On Mars, Paracas Face Of Statue Caught By Curiosity NASA, Feb 2014
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NASA's robotic lander Morpheus soars in test flight

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NASA's Morpheus lander lifts off on Feb. 10, 2014 at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility in Florida. YouTube/NASA

NASA's next robotic moon lander Morpheus successfully completed its fifth free-flight test this week.

Video of the Morpheus test flightshows the SUV-sized prototype taking off vertically on Feb. 10, 2014 at NASA Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility in Florida.

The 74-secondtrialrun took theMorpheus lander prototype467 feet (142 meters) above the ground, soaring more than 160 feet (48 meters) higher than its last test, according to NASA. The experimental lander then flew forward 637 feet (194 m) in 30 seconds before descending and landing on target.

"Thevehicleflew its pre-planned trajectory flawlessly, reaching a max ascent velocity of 13 m/s [42 feet/s], and landing with no appreciable deviation from its intended target," NASA officials said in a video description of the test posted online.

TheMorpheus lander uses liquid oxygen and methane, or so-called green propellants. NASA officials say these fuelsare safer and cheaper to use than traditional rocket propellantsand can be stored in space for longer periods.

Morpheus could deliver about a 1,100-lb. (500 kilograms) payload tothe moon, NASA officials say. Modifications to its landing system could even be used to help a spacecraft deliver cargo to other planetary bodies, such as an asteroid in deep space.

NASA officials said there is one more test flight planned for Morpheus before the automated landing and hazard avoidancetechnology(ALHAT)is installed on the vehicle. ALHAT will use lasers to scan the surface of a potential landing site for hazards, such as a dangerous boulder or crater.

Space.com. All rights reserved.

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NASA solves 'donut' mystery

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It was a complete unknown -- it was a rolling stone.

A mystery rock that appeared before NASA's Opportunity rover in late January -- and bore a strange resemblance to a jelly donut -- is no more than a common piece of stone that bounced in front of the cameras, NASA said Friday.

The strange rock was first spied on Jan. 8, in a spot where nothing had sat a mere two weeks earlier. Dubbed "Pinnacle Island" by NASA scientists, it was only about 1.5 inches wide. But the rock's odd appearance -- white-rimmed and red-centered, not unlike a jelly donut -- made many sit up and take notice.

- Opportunity Deputy Principal Investigator Ray Arvidson

Now researchers with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology have finally cleared up the mystery.

Yep. It's a rock.

"Once we moved Opportunity a short distance, after inspecting Pinnacle Island, we could see directly uphill an overturned rock that has the same unusual appearance," said Opportunity Deputy Principal Investigator Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis. "We drove over it. We can see the track. That's where Pinnacle Island came from."

Examination of Pinnacle Island revealed high levels of elements such as manganese and sulfur, suggesting these water-soluble ingredients were concentrated in the rock by the action of water.

"This may have happened just beneath the surface relatively recently," Arvidson said, "or it may have happened deeper below ground longer ago and then, by serendipity, erosion stripped away material above it and made it accessible to our wheels."

Now that the rover is finished inspecting this rock, the team plans to drive Opportunity south and uphill to investigate exposed rock layers on the slope.

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University institutes are shaping future of research

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

15-Feb-2014

Contact: Megan Fellman fellman@northwestern.edu 847-491-3115 Northwestern University

In an age of specialization, building networks of outstanding scientists, engineers and clinicians is helping the development of creative solutions to complex societal needs. But how do you successfully surmount the barriers between disparate disciplines?

Northwestern University professor Chad Mirkin is no stranger to the challenges of building diverse teams. He is the founding director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology (IIN), a flourishing institute that brings together more than 190 faculty researchers from 25 different disciplines.

Mirkin will discuss the IIN from inception to realization in a presentation titled "University Convergence Institutes" at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Chicago. His presentation is part of the symposium "Convergence Science: A Revolution for Health Solutions" to be held from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. CST Saturday, Feb. 15, in the Comiskey Room of the Hyatt Regency Chicago.

"The IIN provides the essential framework to overcome traditional divisions between university departments and schools," Mirkin said. "It has enabled us to attract researchers with deep expertise in their fields, support and enable creative synergy, enhance translational capabilities and build one of the largest and most productive nanotechnology institutes in the world."

Mirkin is the George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Professor of Medicine.

Established in 2000, the IIN is home to the first federally funded nanotechnology facility in the nation. It currently represents and unites more than $600 million in nanotechnology research, education and infrastructure and has positioned Northwestern as a world leader in the field.

One nanometer is one billionth of a meter. To put that extremely small size in another context: A nanometer is to a meter what a marble is to the Earth. Materials with nano-sized particles have always existed, but it wasn't until relatively recently -- thanks to advances in scientific instrumentation -- that scientists could observe nanoparticles and manipulate them.

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Cooperation among diverse scientific disciplines urged for results

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CHICAGO, Feb. 15 (UPI) -- Cross-pollination of ideas among scientific disciplines is key to creative solutions, a U.S. nanotechnology pioneer says.

Building networks of outstanding scientists, engineers and clinicians will promote development of creative solutions to complex societal needs in an age of specialization, Northwestern University Professor Chad Mirkin says.

Mirkin is the founding director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology, an institute that brings together more than 190 faculty researchers from 25 different disciplines.

Mirkin discussed the IIN from inception to realization in a presentation titled "University Convergence Institutes" at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Chicago.

"The IIN provides the essential framework to overcome traditional divisions between university departments and schools," Mirkin said in a Northwestern release Saturday.

The IIN is an umbrella organization for interdisciplinary research into transformative nanotechnologies including nanomedicine, nanomaterials and devices, nanotechnology for energy, the environment, security and defense, and nanotechnology solutions for food and water.

"It has enabled us to attract researchers with deep expertise in their fields, support and enable creative synergy, enhance translational capabilities and build one of the largest and most productive nanotechnology institutes in the world," Mirkin said.

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Nanotechnology Helps 3-D TV Make a Comeback Without Glasses

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At this years Consumer Electronics Show (CES), it became clear that the much-ballyhooed age of 3-D TV was coming to a quiet and uncelebrated end.One of the suggested causes of its demise was the cost of the 3D glasses. If you wanted to invite a group over to watch the big sporting event, you had better have a lot of extra pairs on hand, which might cost you a small fortune.

Eliminating the glasses from the experience has been proposed from the first moment 3-D TVs were introduced to the marketplace. In 2010, Toshiba and Nintendo shared their plans to bring glasses-free 3-D to portable devices.

There have been a number of approaches proposed for accomplishing the feat. Now researchers at the University of Central Florida (UCF) are leveraging nanomanufacturing techniques to do the job.

Jayan Thomas, an assistant professor at UCFs NanoScience Technology Center, has received a US $400 000 grant from the National Science Foundation to pursue the use of nanoprinting techniques for turning polymers into displays whose images appear in 3-D to the naked eye. The kind of 3-D displays Thomas envisions conjure images of the holograms used to display messages in the Star Wars movies.

The TV screen should be like a table top, Thomas said. People would sit around and watch the TV from all angles, like sitting around a table. Therefore, the images should be like real-world objects. If you watch a football game on this 3-D TV, you would feel like it is happening right in front of you. A holographic 3-D TV is a feasible direction to accomplish this without the need of glasses.

The nanomanufacturing techniques Thomas uses are similar to the printing process he developed for creating nanomaterials to be used in supercapacitorsa process that we covered last year. That technique involved printing polymer nanostructures on a substrate that served as a scaffold upon which electrode material made of manganese dioxide is deposited. That technique is a variation on the simple spin-on nanoprinting (SNAP) technique.

With these nanomanufacturing techniques, Thomas has developed a polymer composite that improves the process of making the 3-D images in the first place. When you are watching 3-D television, what you are really seeing is two perspectives of an image, so it is actually not very close to a real world object. The 3-D glasses help to provide a 3-D appearance of the image.

"Our technology uses multiple cameras positioned above and around an object to photograph it from multiple perspectives," explains Thomas. "We are then doing a couple of new things; we need to make the recording process so fast that the human eye will not see the images refreshing from the multiple perspectives. This requires new materials optionsa new plastic type display on which to play what are ultimately holographic images."

Whether this technique proves to be any more successful than those offered by MIT and other research groups, remains to be seen. In any case, we may not yet have seen the end of 3D TV, as long as it doesn't require glasses.

Illustration: Randi Klett; Photos: iStockphotos

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EzW2Correction Software Supports W-2C Data Upload Feature To Ensure Customer Satisfaction

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Atlanta, GA (PRWEB) February 15, 2014

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EzW2Correction Software Supports W-2C Data Upload Feature To Ensure Customer Satisfaction