NASA astronaut eager for next chocolate delivery

Posted on by

NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg said she can't wait for this weekend's arrival of a new cargo ship and a fresh supply of chocolate. Dark or milk?

A Virginia company makes its debut this week as a space station delivery service. And the lone American aboard the orbiting lab is counting on a fresh stash of chocolate.

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition

In an interview Monday with The Associated Press, NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg said she can't wait for this weekend's arrival of a new cargo ship named Cygnus. She says it should be similar to other shipments at the International Space Station, even though it will be a first for Orbital Sciences Corp.

Nyberg is a mechanical engineer and a flight engineer on Expedition 36. On May 28, 2013, she arrived at the ISS. She's the 50th woman in space.

Orbital Sciences is scheduled to launch an unmanned Antares rocket containing Cygnus on Wednesday from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. It's where NASA launched a moon spacecraft 1 weeks ago.

NASA is paying Orbital Sciences and the California-based SpaceX company to keep the space station well stocked.

In December, NASA is expected to start growing lettuce at the ISS. "December will see six heads of lettuce in Kevlar pillow packs brought to life in 28 days under neon-pink LED lights on the ISS. A half-dozen bunches of leafy greens is obviously not enough to satiate the crew long-term, but a successful crop would be a major development in the quest to figure out how to sustain human life beyond our planet," reports Gizmodo.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Original post:

NASA astronaut eager for next chocolate delivery

Nasa Road-Signs Point One Way To The Moon – The Other To The International Space Station (PICTURES)

Posted on by

The Helix nebula

Feel like you are being watched? This infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Helix nebula, a cosmic starlet notable for its vivid colors and eerie resemblance to a giant eye.

A bubbling cauldron of star birth is highlighted in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Infrared light that we can't see with our eyes has been color-coded, such that the shortest wavelengths are shown in blue and the longest in red. The middle wavelength range is green. Massive stars have blown bubbles, or cavities, in the dust and gas--a violent process that triggers both the death and birth of stars. The brightest, yellow-white regions are warm centers of star formation. The green shows tendrils of dust, and red indicates other types of dust that may be cooler, in addition to ionized gas from nearby massive stars.

This enhanced-color image shows sand dunes trapped in an impact crater in Noachis Terra, Mars. Dunes and sand ripples of various shapes and sizes display the natural beauty created by physical processes. The area covered in the image is about six-tenths of a mile (1 kilometer) across. Sand dunes are among the most widespread wind-formed features on Mars. Their distribution and shapes are affected by changes in wind direction and wind strength. Patterns of dune erosion and deposition provide insight into the sedimentary history of the surrounding terrain.

This image obtained by the framing camera on NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows the south pole of the giant asteroid Vesta. Scientists are discussing whether the circular structure that covers most of this image originated by a collision with another asteroid, or by internal processes early in the asteroid's history. Images in higher resolution from Dawn's lowered orbit might help answer that question. The image was recorded with the framing camera aboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft from a distance of about 1,700 miles (2,700 kilometers). The image resolution is about 260 meters per pixel.

This undated photo shows a classic type 1a supernova remnant. Researchers Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess of the United States and US-Australian Brian Schmidt won the 2011 Nobel Physics Prize on October 4, 2011 for their research on supernovae.

A quartet of Saturn's moons, from tiny to huge, surround and are embedded within the planet's rings in this Cassini composition. Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is in the background of the image, and the moon's north polar hood is clearly visible. See PIA08137 to learn more about that feature on Titan (3,200 miles, or 5,150 kilometers across). Next, the wispy terrain on the trailing hemisphere of Dione (698 miles, or 1,123 kilometers across) can be seen on that moon which appears just above the rings at the center of the image. See PIA10560 and PIA06163 to learn more about Dione's wisps. Saturn's small moon Pandora (50 miles, or 81 kilometers across) orbits beyond the rings on the right of the image. Finally, Pan (17 miles, or 28 kilometers across) can be seen in the Encke Gap of the A ring on the left of the image. The image was taken in visible blue light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 17, 2011. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.3 million miles (2.1 million kilometers) from Dione and at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 27 degrees. Image scale is 8 miles (13 kilometers) per pixel on Dione.

Combining almost opposite ends of the electromagnetic spectrum, this composite image of the Herschel in far-infrared and XMM-Newton's X-ray images obtained January 20, 2012, shows how the hot young stars detected by the X-ray observations are sculpting and interacting with the surrounding ultra-cool gas and dust, which, at only a few degrees above absolute zero, is the critical material for star formation itself. Both wavelengths would be blocked by Earth's atmosphere, so are critical to our understanding of the lifecycle of stars . (AFP / Getty Images)

Resembling looming rain clouds on a stormy day, dark lanes of dust crisscross the giant elliptical galaxy Centaurus A. Hubble's panchromatic vision, stretching from ultraviolet through near-infrared wavelengths, reveals the vibrant glow of young, blue star clusters and a glimpse into regions normally obscured by the dust. (NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage)

This composite image shows the central region of the spiral galaxy NGC 4151. X-rays (blue) from the Chandra X-ray Observatory are combined with optical data (yellow) showing positively charged hydrogen (H II) from observations with the 1-meter Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope on La Palma. The red ring shows neutral hydrogen detected by radio observations with the NSF's Very Large Array. This neutral hydrogen is part of a structure near the center of NGC 4151 that has been distorted by gravitational interactions with the rest of the galaxy, and includes material falling towards the center of the galaxy. The yellow blobs around the red ellipse are regions where star formation has recently occurred. (NASA / CXC / CfA / J. Wang)

Here is the original post:

Nasa Road-Signs Point One Way To The Moon - The Other To The International Space Station (PICTURES)

TriLUG Meeting 12 September 2013 – Open Source: the Nanotechnology of the Cloud – Video

Posted on by


TriLUG Meeting 12 September 2013 - Open Source: the Nanotechnology of the Cloud
TriLUG Meeting 12 September 2013 - Open Source: the Nanotechnology of the Cloud Presenter: Michael Tiemann http://trilug.org/2013-09-12/cloud.

By: Bill Farrow

Read the original:

TriLUG Meeting 12 September 2013 - Open Source: the Nanotechnology of the Cloud - Video

Prevent Running Injuries Sugar Land Houston Sports Medicine – Dr. J. Michael Bennett – Video

Posted on by


Prevent Running Injuries Sugar Land Houston Sports Medicine - Dr. J. Michael Bennett
Call 281-633-8600 for information and visit http://orthopedicsportsdoctor.com. In this video recorded at Plex in Richmond, TX, Dr. J. Michael Bennett gives t...

By: Dr. J. Michael Bennett

Read this article:

Prevent Running Injuries Sugar Land Houston Sports Medicine - Dr. J. Michael Bennett - Video

Doctoral candidate to talk on late 18th-century medicine Sept. 26

Posted on by

Posted September 16, 2013

The Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine is pleased to invite faculty, students, and the public to a talk by Monique Dufour, a doctoral candidate in science and technology studies at Virginia Tech.

This special program is held in conjunction with a traveling exhibit from the National Library of Medicine titled Every Necessary Care & Attention: George Washington & Medicine, which examines how George Washington focused considerable attention on the health and safety of his family, staff, slaves and troops at his home in Mount Vernon and during the Revolutionary War.

In this talk, we will explore the stories we have told about disease, medicine and health in the Colonial U.S., said Dufour. How did medical ideas circulate in words and images in the 18th century? What were their cultural meanings and political functions? What about in our own time? What stories does the NLM exhibit tell about the meaning of George Washington and medicine?

The event will be held on Sept. 26, at 5:30 p.m. at 2265 Kraft Drive in the main VCOM building. The exhibit is on display on the second floor of the same building, outside of the library, from now until Oct. 12.

For information, contact Elaine Powers at (540)-231-3763 or Laura Young at (540)-231-3926.

Submitted by Laura Young, Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine

No comments yet.

Read more:

Doctoral candidate to talk on late 18th-century medicine Sept. 26

Why personalised medicine is bad for us all

Posted on by

The growth of personalised medicine threatens the communal approach that has brought our biggest health gains

ADVOCATES of personalised medicine claim that healthcare isn't individualised enough.

Backed up by the glamour of new biotechnologies such as direct-to-consumer genetic testing, personalised medicine what I call "Me Medicine" appears to its advocates as the inevitable and desirable way to go. Barack Obama, when still a US senator, declared that "in no area of research is the promise greater than in personalised medicine".

This trend towards Me Medicine is led by the US, but it is growing across the developed world.

In contrast, "We Medicine" public-health programmes such as flu shots or childhood vaccination is increasingly distrusted and vulnerable to austerity cuts. Yet historically this approach has produced the biggest increase in lifespan. Even today, countries with more social provision of healthcare and less individualistic attitudes have better health outcomes across all social classes.

Contrary to the claims of its proponents, the personalised approach hasn't yet delivered a paradigm shift in medicine. A 2012 Harris poll of 2760 US patients and physicians found that doctors had recommended personal genetic tests for only 4 per cent of patients. The Center for Health Reform & Modernization, run by US healthcare company UnitedHealth, put the figure at just 2 per cent.

But money is still pouring into Me Medicine. In July, the UK government announced that it would offer private companies a subsidy from a 300 million fund to encourage investment in its personalised medicine initiative, Genomics England. Last year the US administration increased the National Institutes of Health budget for personalised medicine, while cutting the budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Office of Public Health Genomics by 90 per cent.

Of course it would be nice if we could afford both, but in reality there's a growing risk that "me" will edge out "we". If it does, it won't be because the science is better or the outcomes more beneficial. In some instances of Me Medicine, clinical outcomes are worse than the We equivalent. For example, according to the UK's Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, private umbilical cord blood banks, which ostensibly provide a personal "spare parts kit" for the baby, produce poorer outcomes than public cord blood banking.

It is true that in some areas of Me Medicine, such as genetically individualised drug regimes for cancer care (technically known as pharmacogenetics), there has been genuine progress. For example, vemurafenib, a drug for aggressive melanoma, was reported in a 2012 New England Journal of Medicine article to extend the lifespan of 1 in 4 patients by seven months if they carry a specific genetic mutation in their cancer.

But only about half of those with the "right" type of tumour responded, and the mutation in question only occurs in about half of such melanomas. What is more, pharmaceutical firms will probably charge more for such drugs than for mass-market ones. They will be expensive, may benefit only a subset of the population and could leave cash-strapped state healthcare systems facing difficult decisions about where to allocate resources.

Read the original post:

Why personalised medicine is bad for us all