What Are Solar Flares and How is Their Strength Measured? | NASA Space Science – Video

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What Are Solar Flares and How is Their Strength Measured? | NASA Space Science
Visit my website at http://www.junglejoel.com - what causes a solar flare, and how do scientists categorize their strength? Please rate and comment, thanks! ...

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What Are Solar Flares and How is Their Strength Measured? | NASA Space Science - Video

NASA bets 3D-printed food can make you eat bugs

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NASA is betting the 3D tech now printing custom plastic tschotske could be turned towards building burritos, pizza, and other delicious meals from unexpected sources, but will you bite?

There is a small but growing 3D maker community right here in the greater Boston area (I reported on a meetup earlier this month), but the local focus is mainly on designers and high-end hobbyists who dont mind spending $75 in goop for a $3 chess set, in exchange for tweaking the pawns to their hearts desire.

But many are still looking for the killer app that moves 3D printing from the realm of professionals to desktops everywhere. And now the folks who gave us astronaut ice cream think they might have found another edible endeavor worth pursuing.

Quartz has reported on the contract between NASA and Systems & Materials Research Corporation to build a prototype universal food synthesizer. Its a relatively small contract, particularly by NASA standards: Just six months and $125,000.

But what comes next could be very interesting: Anjan Contractor, the founder of Systems & Materials Research Corporation, told Quartz that he is already working on a 3D pizza printer which builds upon his earlier work of a chocolate printer:

But by mixing software and the culinary arts, there are a lot of other potential benefits down the road: Recipes designed to fit your dietary needs while tasting delicious, for example, or meals made to make some uncommon ingredients a little more palatable for local tastes.

For example, Quartz took at some research from a Dutch think tank that hypothesized ground up and remixed elements from algae, duckweed, grass, lupine seeds, beet leafs, and insects. As a connoisseur of crickets, mealworms, burritos, and pizza, all I can say is this future is very exciting.

Heres a video from the Dutch think tank, TNOResearch, that shows how the process works in a little more detail:

What do you think? Bugs for lunch? Is Snackster the next Napster? Let us know on Twitter at @HiveBoston, via email at Hive@Boston.com, and follow me on Twitter at@Morisy.

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NASA bets 3D-printed food can make you eat bugs

NASA awards grant for 3-D food printer; could it end world hunger?

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Some 3-D printer food made from meal worms (TNO research)

Call it food for thought. Or perhaps thought for food: NASA has given a six-month grant to a company developing what could be the worlds first 3-D food printer. And the projects developer, reports Quartz, an online digital news site, believes the invention could be used to end world hunger.

Quartz explains that the printer is the brainchild of mechanical engineer Anjan Contractor. Being developed by Contractors company, Systems & Materials Research Corp., it will use proteins, carbohydrates and sugars to create edible food products.

Contractor says one of his primary motivations is a belief that food will become exponentially more expensive in the near future. The average consumer, he told Quartz, will need a more economically viable option.

Some alternative food source options that may be used with the printer include algae, duckweed, grass, lupine seeds, beet leaves and even insects, according to TNO Research, which is working with Contractor on the project.

I think, and many economists think, that current food systems cant supply 12 billion people sufficiently, said Contractor. So we eventually have to change our perception of what we see as food.

One of Contractors first prototypes will be a 3-D pizza printer, and he hopes to begin building it over the next couple of weeks. Contractor, reports Quartz, explained that it will print "a layer of dough, which is baked at the same time its printed, by a heated plate at the bottom of the printer. Then it lays down a tomato base, 'which is also stored in a powdered form, and then mixed with water and oil.'" Lastly comes the "protein layer."

Contractor also hopes that people will be able to share recipes via an open source coding system.

One of the major advantages of a 3-D printer is that it provides personalized nutrition, Contractor told Quartz. If youre male, female, someone is sickthey all have different dietary needs. If you can program your needs into a 3-D printer, it can print exactly the nutrients that person requires.

NASA is certainly a believer: The six-month grant comes to $125,000. The agency specifically interested in using the 3-D printer to feed astronauts on long space voyages.

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NASA awards grant for 3-D food printer; could it end world hunger?

NASA funds attempt at 3D food printer for pizza

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NASA throws some money at an engineer who is developing a 3D food printer. First challenge? Making a pizza.

This schematic shows how the 3D food printer would function.

"Star Trek" food replicators will always be the holy grail of space-snack technology, but we could be edging a step closer to the dream thanks to the work of mechanical engineer Anjan Contractor with Systems and Materials Research in Austin, Texas.

Systems and Materials Research recently received a $125,000 grant from NASA to make a pizza. OK, it's a little more complicated than that. Contractor already created a proof-of-concept printer that can print chocolate onto a cookie. His next goal is to print out dough and cook it while printing out sauce and toppings.

Contractor isn't just planning to use cartridges full of red sauce, but rather the building blocks of food products. Cartridges full of powders and oils could be combined to make different foods. These cartridges would have extremely long shelf lives, making them appropriate for feeding astronauts during long-distance space travel.

"The way we are working on it is, all the carbs, proteins and macro and micro nutrients are in powder form. We take moisture out, and in that form it will last maybe 30 years," Contractor told news site Quartz in an article posted Tuesday.

This doesn't sound like a sublime foodie experience, but it could be a practical way to keep people fed all the way to Mars. It could also offer a lot more variety than the usual freeze-dried fare. Five months into your trip to Mars, I bet a hot 3D-printed pizza with a mystery protein layer would taste pretty dang good.

Contractor is starting work on building the prototype pizza printer. In case you're hungry right now, you can check out his chocolate printer below.

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NASA funds attempt at 3D food printer for pizza

NASA releases satellite images of storm that spawned Oklahoma tornado

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NASA's Aqua satellite acquired this image of the storm at 2:40 p.m. local time. The red line depicts the tornado's track. Credit: NASA/Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA Goddard.

GREENBELT, Md., May 21 (UPI) -- NASA released a satellite photo that shows the system that generated severe weather and a tornado Monday afternoon that devastated Moore, Okla.

Satellites operated by NASA and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration photographed the storm system over the south-central United States, the space agency said Tuesday.

The tornado that struck Moore, spawned by the supercell thunderstorms in the satellite images, was an F-4 tornado on the enhanced Fujita scale, the National Weather Service determined, with winds between 166 and 200 mph.

Satellites provided imagery and data to forecasters before, during and after the tornado, NASA said, allowing them to issue a first warning almost an hour before the tornado touched down in Moore, where it caused dozens of deaths and widespread destruction.

This tornado was about twice as wide as the one that struck Moore on May 3, 1999.

Moore is 10 miles south of Oklahoma City.

NOAA's GOES-13 satellite provided forecasters with images of the storm system every 15 minutes, NASA said.

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NASA releases satellite images of storm that spawned Oklahoma tornado

NASA's Curiosity Rover Drills Into 2nd Mars Rock

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NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has broken out its trusty drill again, pulling samples from deep within a Red Planet rock for the second time ever.

The 1-ton Curiosity rover bored 2.6 inches (6.6 centimeters) into a rock dubbed "Cumberland" on Sunday (May 19), NASA officials said. The resulting powdered sample will be delivered to the robot's onboard science instruments in the coming days.

Curiosity first used its drill to collect samples back in February, boring into a nearby rock called "John Klein." That operation revealed that ancient Mars was likely capable of supporting microbial life a groundbreaking discovery that the mission team wants to confirm.

"The science team expects to use analysis of material from Cumberland to check findings from John Klein," NASA officials wrote in a mission update Monday (May 20).

Curiosity touched down inside Mars' huge Gale Crater last August, kicking off a two-year surface mission to investigate the Red Planet's past and present habitability. It has spent the time since then close to its landing site, putting just 2,300 feet (700 meters) on its odometer thus far.

But the six-wheeled robot will soon start making some serious tracks. Curiosity's ultimate destination is the base of Mount Sharp, a mysterious mountain that rises 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) into the Martian sky from Gale Crater's center.

Mount Sharp's foothills show signs of past exposure to liquid water. Further, mission scientists want Curiosity to read Mars' changing environmental history like a book as it climbs through the many layers comprising the mountain's lower reaches.

Curiosity will likely start heading to Mount Sharp's base after it finishes analyzing the Cumberland samples and wraps up a few other high-priority science operations in the area, NASA officials said. The 5-mile (8 km) journey is expected the take months, as Curiosity's top speed across hard, flat ground is about 0.09 mph (0.14 km/h).

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter@michaeldwallandGoogle+.Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebookor Google+. Originally published onSPACE.com.

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NASA's Curiosity Rover Drills Into 2nd Mars Rock

NASA to Lease Historic Launch Pad for Commercial Rocket Missions

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The historic NASA launch pad from where astronauts blasted off for the moon and space shuttles departed for Earth orbit is now in need of a new rocket to launch.

This week, NASA is expected to begin soliciting proposals for the commercial use of Launch Pad 39A at the space agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Use of the pad by private industry is hoped to maintain the historic launch complex and encourage commercial space activities along Florida's Space Coast.

"We remain committed to right-sizing our portfolio by reducing the number of facilities that are underused, duplicative, or not required to support the Space Launch System and Orion," Kennedy Center Director Bob Cabana said in a statement, referring to NASA's next-generation heavy-lift booster and its crewed spacecraft. [Photos: NASA's Giant Rocket for Deep Space Flights]

"Launch Complex 39A is not required to support our [planned] asteroid retrieval mission or our eventual missions to Mars," Cabana added. "It's in the agency's and our nation's best interest in meeting our commitment and direction to enable commercial space operations and allow the aerospace industry to operate and maintain the pad and related facilities."

Since the end of the space shuttle program in 2011, NASA has turned to commercial space companies to provide launch services. Two companies, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, were awarded contracts to bring cargo to the International Space Station, while SpaceX, Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corp. are developing crewed spacecraft in a bid to launch NASA astronauts to the orbiting laboratory.

SpaceX has said in the past that it has considered using NASA's launch facilities in place of, or in addition to, its current pad leased from the United States Air Force at Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Other companies, such as Alliant Techsystems (ATK), might benefit from the use of the legacy hardware given that its Liberty rocket shares a heritage with the space shuttle's boosters.

Launch Pad 39A was one of two large launch complexes built in the 1960s to support the Apollo program's Saturn V rocket launches to the moon and Saturn IB flights to the Skylab space station. Both pads were later modified for the space shuttle launches to deploy and service satellites and build the International Space Station.

Pad 39A's twin, Pad 39B, was stripped of its iconic launch support towers in 2011 to enable its use for possible future commercial and government launch vehicles. Launch Pad 39A, which supported 92 launches since November 1967 12 Saturn V rockets and 80 shuttles was initially set to support the new Space Launch System.

Budget constraints however, caused NASA to consolidate its future launch pad needs at Pad 39B, leaving Pad 39A without a purpose. And without the funding to modify or maintain it, Cabana said earlier this year that the agency has no choice but to abandon Pad 39A in place unless a commercial user could be identified.

According to the space agency's own assessments, Pad 39A could still serve as a platform for a private company's launch activities. However, this would require the company to take over financial and technical responsibility of the complex's operations and management.

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NASA to Lease Historic Launch Pad for Commercial Rocket Missions

NASA Funds 3D Pizza Printer

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NASA has doled out a research grant to develop a prototype 3D printer for food, so astronauts may one day enjoy 3D-printed pizza on Mars.

Anjan Contractor, a senior mechanical engineer at Systems and Materials Research Corporation (SMRC), based in Austin, Texas, received a $125,000 grant from the space agency to build a prototype of his food synthesizer, as was first reported by Quartz.

NASA hopes the technology may one day be used to feed astronauts on longer space missions, such as the roughly 520 days required for a manned flight to Mars. Manned missions to destinations deeper in the solar system would require food that can last an even longer amount of time.

"Long distance space travel requires 15-plus years of shelf life," Contractor told Quartz. "The way we are working on it is, all the carbs, proteins and macro and micro nutrients are in powder form. We take moisture out, and in that form it will last maybe 30 years."

Dividing the various components of food in powder cartridges would theoretically enable users to mix them together, like the ingredients in normal recipes, to create a diverse array of nutritious meals.

To prove his idea works, Contractor printed chocolate. Now, he's aiming to build a more advanced prototype to print a pizza, according to Quartz.

The system will start by "printing" a sheet of dough, followed by a layer of tomato "sauce," which will consist of the powder mixed with water and oil. Instead of traditional toppings, the 3D-printed pizza will be finished off with a layer of protein, which can be derived from animals, milk or plants, Contractor told Quartz.

While NASA sees applications for 3D printers on future manned space missions, Contractor said his food synthesizer could also be an effective way of addressing the problem of food shortages from rapid population growth.

"I think, and many economists think, that current food systems can't supply 12 billion people sufficiently," Contractor told Quartz. "So we eventually have to change our perception of what we see as food."

Follow Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Follow us@Spacedotcom,FacebookorGoogle+. Originally published on SPACE.com.

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NASA Funds 3D Pizza Printer

NASA to lease historic Launch Pad 39A for private missions

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NASA

An artist's concept showing a possible layout of a commercial rocket and spacecraft positioned at Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

By Robert Z. Pearlman Space.com

The historic NASA launch pad from where astronauts blasted off for the moon and space shuttles departed for Earth orbit is now in need of a new rocket to launch.

This week, NASA is expected to begin soliciting proposals for the commercial use of Launch Pad 39A at the space agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Use of the pad by private industry is hoped to maintain the historic launch complex and encourage commercial space activities along Florida's Space Coast.

"We remain committed to right-sizing our portfolio by reducing the number of facilities that are underused, duplicative or not required to support the Space Launch System and Orion," Kennedy Center Director Bob Cabana said in a statement, referring to NASA's next-generation heavy-lift booster and its crewed spacecraft. [Photos: NASA's Giant Rocket for Deep Space Flights]

"Launch Complex 39A is not required to support our (planned) asteroid retrieval mission or our eventual missions to Mars," Cabana added. "It's in the agency's and our nation's best interest in meeting our commitment and direction to enable commercial space operations and allow the aerospace industry to operate and maintain the pad and related facilities."

Since the end of the space shuttleprogram in 2011, NASA has turned to commercial space companies to provide launch services. Two companies, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, were awarded contracts to bring cargo to the International Space Station, while SpaceX, the Boeing Co. and Sierra Nevada Corp. are developing crewed spacecraft in a bid to launch NASA astronauts to the orbiting laboratory.

NASA

An aerial view of the existing Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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NASA to lease historic Launch Pad 39A for private missions

Medicine for Members – Presentation on Bariatrics by Mr Guy Slater, Consultant Surgeon, WSHT – Video

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Medicine for Members - Presentation on Bariatrics by Mr Guy Slater, Consultant Surgeon, WSHT
At our recent Medicine for Members event, Mr Guy Slater gave a presentation on obesity and bariatric surgery.

By: Western Sussex Hospitals NHS

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Medicine for Members - Presentation on Bariatrics by Mr Guy Slater, Consultant Surgeon, WSHT - Video