Stunning New Photo from the Space Station: The Moon Ushers in Dawn

Posted on by

by Nancy Atkinson on May 1, 2013

Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter

The Moon ushering in the dawn over the Southeastern United States. Credit: NASA/CSA via Chris Hadfield.

During his evening ritual of sharing images taken from the International Space Station, Commander Chris Hadfield posted this gem: a gorgeous night-time view of the southeastern United States, with the Moon hovering over Earths limb and the terminator separating night from day. Dawn is just beginning to break to the east, as the ISS flies overhead.

This image reflects the wistful feelings Hadfield is having as his time in space in coming to a close. He and his two crewmates Tom Marshburn and Roman Romanenko will head back to Earth on May 13. During a recent linkup with students, Hadfield said he is becoming wistful as he does tasks aboard the ISS, realizing he is doing some for the last time. He is trying to spending as much of his free time gazing out the window at Earth because of the magnificent rarity of it and my desire to absorb as much of it as I possibly can.

Hadfield said his emotions go between feelings of great responsibility and great honor to have been asked to command the space station, and he wants to do it right, making the most of his experience and communicating to as many people as possible on Earth.

You do feel the responsibility of it to try and do it right, to try and have one perfect day on the station where I dont make even one little mistake in any of the procedures, and I havent done it yet, Hadfield admitted. Ive been here 130 days and I have yet to have day where I havent made at least one little small mistake.

Some aspects of returning home are enticing: seeing family and friends, and eating things that arent dehydrated and come in a vacuum packed bag.

Im looking forward to fresh food and the crunch and the snap of food of all different varieties and the smell of rich coffee and the smell of fresh bread baking that type of thing, a more full assault of the senses when I get home, Hadfield said.

Tagged as: Chris Hadfield, Earth Observation, International Space Station (ISS)

Continued here:

Stunning New Photo from the Space Station: The Moon Ushers in Dawn

NASA says space station's batteries safer than 787's

Posted on by

NASA officials are confident lithium-ion batteries due to launch to the International Space Station in 2016 will not overheat like the batteries that grounded the Boeing 787 Dreamliner earlier this year.

File photo of the International Space Station. Credit: NASA The space station's existing nickel-hydrogen are up for replacement in a few years, and NASA managers selected more efficient lithium-ion batteries for the job.

Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne - NASA's space station battery contractor - tapped GS Yuasa Lithium Power Inc., a U.S.-based subsidiary of GS Yuasa Corp. of Japan, to supply the cells for the space station's next-generation lithium-ion batteries.

GS Yuasa is also the supplier for batteries used on the Boeing 787 airplane, which was grounded in January after batteries aboard two of the jumbo jets smoldered and caught fire.

No crew members or passengers were injured in the incidents, but one firefighter received minor injuries while responding to the fire on a Japan Airlines 787 on the ground in Boston.

Kirk Shireman, NASA's deputy space station program manager, said earlier this month that the space station batteries should not be affected by the problem.

Engineers working on the Dreamliner have devised ways Boeing says will prevent similar problems in the future, but investigators have not found the root cause of the battery overheating. The suspect batteries provide electricity to the Dreamliner's auxiliary power unit. The Dreamliner batteries include eight cells arranged in a four-by-two matrix.

Photo of the charred battery from a Japan Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner which caught fire at Boston Logan International Airport in January. Credit: NTSB Officials attributed the battery failures to "thermal runaway," where overheating in one cell can lead to the meltdown of other cells within a battery - a chain reaction which could ultimately spread beyond the battery and into other airplane systems if not extinguished.

Engineers at Boeing, GS Yuasa and Thales, one of the 787's electrical system subcontractors, redesigned the batteries to prevent overheating in one cell from cascading into other sections of the battery. The contractors beefed up the battery's casing to contain a fire.

The Dreamliner returned to commercial service Saturday with an Ethiopian Airlines flight, two days after the Federal Aviation Administration approved Boeing's battery fix. Other carriers will resume Dreamliner flights over the next couple of months as national regulatory agencies grant approvals following the installation of redesigned batteries.

Visit link:

NASA says space station's batteries safer than 787's

Space station skipper gives Canada's new $5 bill an out-of-this-world debut

Posted on by

Watch the unveiling of Canada's new $5 bill, featuring space station commander Chris Hadfield.

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

Canada's new printed-polymer $5 bill has received the country's highest sendoff, altitude-wise, from International Space Station commander Chris Hadfield. Tuesday's currency-unveiling ceremony in space was just the latest in a series of achievements that have drawn attention to Canada's best-known spaceflier.

Hadfield already has made his mark as a photographer, a musician and composer, and an explainer of outer-space phenomena ranging fromcryingto vomiting in zero-G. There's a reason why the Bank of Canada turned to him to introduce one of the last currency notes to be converted to counterfeit-resistant polymer: One side of the $5 bill celebrates Canada's contributions to space exploration, including the space station's Canadarm2 and DEXTRE robot.

"I just want to tell you how proud I am to be able to see Canada's achievements in space highlighted on our money," Hadfield told Canadian officials via a space-to-Earth video link. Hadfield said the pictures played to Canada's strength in space robotics.

As Hadfield spoke, he plucked a bill from the wall of the station's Destiny laboratory and set it spinning in zero gravity in front of the camera. The other side of the bill has a less spacey theme: It features a portrait of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who was Canada's prime minister from 1896 to 1911.

Bank of Canada spokeswoman Julie Girard said the outer-space ceremony was "quite a few months in the making." The polymer note was flown up to the space station with Hadfield back in December, and held in reserve for Tuesday's ceremony. "We wanted to be the first to unveil a bank note in space," she told NBC News.

Bank of Canada

This rendition of the Canadian $5 bill shows Canadarm2 and DEXTRE in more detail. The bank note is to be issued in November.

Canada's new $10 note, which commemorates the country's rail system, was unveiled at the same time in Ottawa. The $5 and $10 bills will complete Canada's conversion to polymer-based currency, tricked up with transparent areas and hologram markings to make them harder to counterfeit. The Bank of Canada says these notes should last two to three times longer than the country's cotton-based paper bank notes and when they wear out, they can be traded in and recycled.

Continued here:

Space station skipper gives Canada's new $5 bill an out-of-this-world debut

Russia now charges NASA $70 million per seat to fly US astronauts

Posted on by

NASA officials encourage Congress to support its Commercial Crew Program to avoid renewing their multimillion dollar contract with Russia.

License photo

Reports claiming that Russia is charging NASA $70 million per seat to fly U.S. astronauts into space arose Wednesday prompting the agency's administrator to blame Congress for the expense.

Vibe reports that ever since the U.S. decided to end its Shuttle Program, Russia became the only means of transportation between earth and the space station.

Following the recent increase in price per seats in an interstellar flight -- from $65 million to $70 million -- NASA administrator Charles Bolden, is urging Congress to pass the bill that would enable the U.S. Shuttle Program.

If Congress does not support NASA's 2014 request for a Commercial Crew Program, the agency will be forced to renew their contract with Russia, which will result in fees of $424 million to send six astronauts into space.

See original here:

Russia now charges NASA $70 million per seat to fly US astronauts

NASA Extends Contract For Russian Transportation To Space

Posted on by

May 1, 2013

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

NASA signed another contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) to continue using its services for transporting crew to and from the International Space Station (ISS).

The move is a reminder of how the US still has no transportation to space from its own soil ever since retiring the space shuttle program back in 2011. The $424 million addition to the contract extends services for Russian transportation through June 2017.

NASA said it hopes its US commercial crew space transportation will be providing cost-effective access to and from the space station and low-Earth orbit beginning in 2017.

This modification to the Roscosmos contract will ensure continued US presence aboard the space station as NASA prepares for commercial crew providers to begin those transportation operations, NASA said in a statement. NASA is committed to launching US astronauts aboard domestic spacecraft as soon as possible. Full funding of the administrations Fiscal Year 2014 budget request is critical to making these domestic capabilities possible by 2017.

According to the space agency, the modification to the Russian contract covers comprehensive Soyuz support, including all necessary training and preparation for launch, flight operators, landing and rescue of six space station crewmembers on long-duration missions. The contract modifications also include additional launch site support.

NASA said the additional money would allow for a lead-time of about three years Roscosmos needs to build an additional Soyuz vehicle.

NASA is committed to launching our astronauts on American spacecraft from US soil as soon as possible. Since the end of our Space Shuttle Program in 2011, NASA has relied on the Russian Space Agency for the launch and safe return of astronauts to and from the International Space Station aboard its Soyuz spacecraft, said Administrator Charles Bolden. While our Russian counterparts have been good partners, it is unacceptable that we dont currently have an American capability to launch our own astronauts. Thats why the Obama Administration has placed such a high priority on correcting this situation.

He said because the funding for President Barack Obamas original plan has been significantly reduced, it is pushing back American launches to 2017.

Read more:

NASA Extends Contract For Russian Transportation To Space

NASA's Planet-Hunting Kepler Spacecraft Faces Serious Health Problems

Posted on by

Health issues are jeopardizing the planet-hunting work of NASA's prolific Kepler space telescope, which has identified more than 2,700 potential alien worlds to date.

One of Kepler's reaction wheels devices that maintain the observatory's position in space remains balky despite mitigation attempts. The mission team now regards the problem as unsolvable and is considering what the telescope can do after the wheel fails.

"While the wheel may still continue to operate for some time yet, the engineering team has now turned its attention to the development of contingency actions should the wheel fail sooner, rather than later," Kepler mission manager Roger Hunter, of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., wrote in an update Monday (April 29). [Gallery: A World of Kepler Planets]

Staring at stars

The $600 million Kepler observatory detects exoplanets by flagging the tiny brightness dips caused when they pass in front of their host stars from the instrument's perspective. Kepler's main goal is to determine how common Earth-like alien planets are throughout the Milky Way galaxy.

The spacecraft needs three functioning reaction wheels to stay locked onto its 150,000-odd target stars. Kepler had four wheels when it launched in March 2009 three for immediate use, and one spare. But one wheel (known as number two) failed in July 2012, giving Kepler no margin for error.

The currently glitchy wheel (known as number four) has acted up before, but its problems now seem more serious, mission officials said.

"The part that worries us is that the elevated friction that we're seeing in wheel number four now is very reminiscent of what we saw a year ago in wheel number two, which eventually failed," said Kepler deputy project manager Charlie Sobeck, also of NASA Ames.

"Wheel two had elevated friction for about six months, a little bit more than that, before it finally failed," Sobeck told SPACE.com. "Now we're going on four months of elevated friction here on wheel number four. So we're certainly concerned that we may be on the same kind of path here."

Engineers gave the wheel a 10-day rest in January, hoping the break would redistribute lubricant and bring friction back down to normal levels. But the fix appears not to have worked.

More:

NASA's Planet-Hunting Kepler Spacecraft Faces Serious Health Problems

9-Year-Old Names Asteroid 'Bennu' for NASA Mission

Posted on by

A near-Earth asteroid that will be visited by a NASA spacecraft in 2018 now has a more approachable name "Bennu" thanks to a North Carolina third-grader.

Nine-year-old Michael Puzio's suggestion beat out more than 8,000 other entries in an international student contest that sought to rename potentially dangerous asteroid (101955) 1999 RQ36, which is the target of NASA's Osiris-Rex sample-return mission.

"It's great!" Puzio said when told he won the contest. "I'm the first kid I know that named part of the solar system!"[NASA's Osiris-Rex Asteroid Mission in Pictures]

Bennu (pronounced ben-oo) is an Egyptian god usually depicted as a gray heron. Puzio nominated the name because he thought Osiris-Rex's Touch-and-Go Sample Mechanism arm (TAGSAM) and solar panels looked like Bennu's neck and wings, contest officials said.

"The name 'Bennu' struck a chord with many of us right away," Bruce Betts, director of projects for the nonprofit Planetary Society and a judge in the competition, said in a statement. "While there were many great entries, the similarity between the image of the heron and the TAGSAM arm of Osiris-Rex was a clever choice."

The $800 million Osiris-Rex mission whose name is short for Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer is slated to blast off in September 2016, rendezvous with the 1,840-foot-wide (560 meters) Bennu in 2018 and return pieces of the space rock to Earth in 2023.

Scientists are eager to study such samples for several reasons. Asteroids are composed of primitive material left over from the formation of the solar system more than 4.5 billion years ago, for example, and they may have helped life gain a foothold on Earth by delivering water and complex, carbon-rich molecules to our planet.

"The samples of Bennu returned by Osiris-Rex will allow scientists to peer into the origin of the solar system and gain insights into the origin of life, Jason Dworkin, an Osiris-Rex project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said in a statement.

Bennu is also a potentially hazardous asteroid that has a roughly 1-in-1,000 chance of hitting Earth in 2182, so a detailed study of the space rock could come in handy if humanity ever needs to deflect it or similar space rocks, researchers say.

The "Name that Asteroid!" competition launched last year. It was a partnership involving the University of Arizona, where Osiris-Rex principal investigator Dante Lauretta works; The Planetary Society; and the Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) survey at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory.

Read more:

9-Year-Old Names Asteroid 'Bennu' for NASA Mission

Russia charging NASA $70 million per rocket seat

Posted on by

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- NASA is paying $424 million more to Russia to get U.S. astronauts into space, and the agency's leader is blaming Congress for the extra expense.

NASA announced its latest contract with the Russian Space Agency on Tuesday. The $424 million represents flights to and from the International Space Station aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft, as well as training, for six astronauts in 2016 and the first half of 2017.

That's $70.6 million per seat well above the previous price tag of about $65 million.

Russia currently provides the only means of getting people to and from the space station, and its ticket prices have soared with each new contract.

Several U.S. companies are working on rockets and spacecraft to launch Americans from U.S. soil. But that's still a few years away. The ability to launch crews into orbit from America ended with NASA's shuttle program in 2011. Even before the shuttles retired, the U.S. had been relying on Russia to transport long-term residents to the space station.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said if Congress had approved the space agency's request for more funding for its commercial space effort, the latest contract would have been unnecessary. He is urging full funding of the Obama administration's 2014 budget request of $821 million in seed money for the commercial crew program.

"Because the funding for the President's plan has been significantly reduced, we now won't be able to support American launches until 2017," Bolden, a former shuttle commander, wrote in a NASA blog.

It could take longer if Congress does not fully support the 2014 request, he said.

"Further delays in our Commercial Crew Program and its impact on our human spaceflight program are unacceptable," Bolden said.

The California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, already is making cargo shipments to the space station. Its founder and chief designer, billionaire Elon Musk, previously has said his company could be ferrying astronauts aboard beefed-up versions of its Dragon capsules by 2015.

View post:

Russia charging NASA $70 million per rocket seat

NASA: Russia charging U.S. $70M per astronaut seat

Posted on by

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. NASA is paying $424 million more to Russia to get U.S. astronauts into space, and the agency's leader is blaming Congress for the extra expense.

NASA announced its latest contract with the Russian Space Agency on Tuesday. The $424 million represents flights to and from the International Space Station aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft, as well as training, for six astronauts in 2016 and the first half of 2017.

That's $70.6 million per seat - well above the previous price tag of about $65 million.

Russia currently provides the only means of getting people to and from the space station, and its ticket prices have soared with each new contract.

Several U.S. companies are working on rockets and spacecraft to launch Americans from U.S. soil. But that's still a few years away. The ability to launch crews into orbit from America ended with NASA's shuttle program in 2011. Even before the shuttles retired, the U.S. had been relying on Russia to transport long-term residents to the space station.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said if Congress had approved the space agency's request for more funding for its commercial space effort, the latest contract would have been unnecessary. He is urging full funding of the Obama administration's 2014 budget request of $821 million for the commercial crew program.

"Because the funding for the President's plan has been significantly reduced, we now won't be able to support American launches until 2017," Bolden, a former shuttle commander, wrote in a NASA blog.

It could take longer if Congress does not fully support the 2014 request, he said.

"Further delays in our Commercial Crew Program and its impact on our human spaceflight program are unacceptable," Bolden said.

The California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, already is making cargo shipments to the space station. Its founder and chief designer, billionaire Elon Musk, previously has said his company could be ferrying astronauts aboard beefed-up versions of its Dragon capsules by 2015.

View original post here:

NASA: Russia charging U.S. $70M per astronaut seat

NASA lets poets / send haiku to Red Planet / on a MAVEN's wings

Posted on by

NASA / GSFC

The MAVEN orbiter, shown in this artist's conception, is to be launched toward Mars in November. NASA is taking names that will be digitized for inclusion on the spacecraft.

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

Poets, take note: NASA is looking for a few good haiku to send to the Red Planet aboard its MAVEN orbiter this fall.

If you're not the literary sort, don't worry: You can still submit your name to be included on a DVD that will be attached to the spacecraft. MAVEN is scheduled for launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida sometime after Nov. 18. In 2014, it'll go into Martian orbit to study changes in the planet's atmosphere over the course of at least one Earth year. Mission cost is $670 million. MAVEN is short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN.

Send-a-name opportunities come around at least once every year or so, and they tend to be quite popular with the general public. More than 1.2 million names were collected for the Mars Science Laboratory mission: Those names were etched onto two microchips, each the size of a dime, and then the chips were placed in a protected corner of the Curiosity rover.

This time around, you can submit names via the MAVEN mission's "Going to Mars" website. All the names will be digitized and encoded onto a DVD that will be put on the spacecraft. You can also submit a personal message in the form of a haiku a traditional form of three-line Japanese verse that has five syllables for the first line, seven syllables for the second line, and five syllables for the third line.

The deadline for submissions is July 1. An online public vote will be conducted beginning July 15 to select the top three haiku poems. Those three poems will be included on the spacecraft as well, and will be prominently displayed on the MAVEN website. Check the "Going to Mars" instructions to get the details and to register your name and message.

"The Going to Mars campaign offers people worldwide a way to make a personal connection to space, space exploration, and science in general, and share in our excitement about the MAVEN mission," Stephanie Renfrow, lead for the MAVEN Education and Public Outreach program at the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, said in a NASA news release announcing the campaign. To put it another way:

Space exploration blends science and poetry, blends heaven and earth.

Read more:

NASA lets poets / send haiku to Red Planet / on a MAVEN's wings

Russian Space Junk Almost Destroys NASA Telescope in Orbit

Posted on by

A high-tech NASA telescope in orbit escaped a potentially disastrous collision with a Soviet-era Russian spy satellite last year in a close call that highlights the growing threat of orbital debris around Earth.

NASA's $690 million Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope which studies the most powerful explosions in the universe narrowly avoided a direct hit with the defunct 1.5-ton Russian reconnaissance satellite Cosmos 1805 on April 3, 2012, space agency officials announced Tuesday (April 30). The potential space collision was avoided when engineers commanded Fermi to fire its thrusters in a critical dodging maneuver to move out of harm's way.

NASA created a video of Fermi's near miss with space junk to illustrate how high the risk of a space collision really was. [Space Junk Photos & Cleanup Concepts]

Fermi mission scientists first learned of the space collision threat on March 29, 2012 when they received a notice that the space telescope and Cosmos 1805 would miss each other by just 700 feet (213.4 meters). The mission team monitored the situation over the next day and it became clear that the two spacecraft, traveling in different orbits, would zip through the same point in space within 30 milliseconds of one another, NASA officials said.

"My immediate reaction was, 'Whoa, this is different from anything we've seen before!'" NASA's Fermi project scientist Julie McEnery said in a statement.

The Russian space junk was travelling at a speed of 27,000 miles per hour (43,452 km/h) in relation to Fermi. If it had smashed into the space telescope the explosion of the two spacecraft would have released "as much energy as two and a half tons of explosives," NASA officials said

"It was clear we had to be ready to move Fermi out of the way, and that's when I alerted our Flight Dynamics Team that we were planning a maneuver," McEnery added.

After making those calculations, scientists started planning to fire Fermi's thrusters specifically designed to move the satellite out of the way if these situations arise.

"It's similar to forecasting rain at a specific time and place a week in advance," Eric Stoneking, the attitude control lead engineer for Fermi at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center said of predicting these kinds of impacts in a statement. "As the date approaches, uncertainties in the prediction decrease and the initial picture may change dramatically."

The two spacecraft ultimately missed each other by 6 miles (9 km) when they passed one another on April 3, 2012.

See more here:

Russian Space Junk Almost Destroys NASA Telescope in Orbit

Nano Labs and CIVIK to Begin Testing Nanotechnology Coatings With Commercial LED Lighting Systems

Posted on by

DETROIT, May 1, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nano Labs Corp. (CTLE) is pleased to announce today the Company has signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) with CIVIK of Mexico. The NDA will allow CIVIK to review and test 2 of Nano Labs' nanotechnologies, the nano insulate coatings and nano diamond applications, on CIVIK's proprietary LED light system.

The two nanotechnology applications being tested are as follows:

1. Employing Nano Labs' nano insulate coating, NC2012, which may allow the LED light to dissipate heat created in the LED housing thereby increasing the efficiency and life of the LED light, projected at over 55,000 hours, and:

2. Applying the nano diamond coating on the LED light glass face thereby benefiting the system by making the light brighter and protecting it against environmental damage.

Mr. Bernardo Chavarria, President of Nano Labs, states, "We are very excited to continue our work together with CIVIK. We believe the CIVIK LED system combined with our nanotechnology can produce an extremely competitive product in the commercial and government lighting marketplace. Our preliminary studies indicate a potential cost savings of 70% when compared to lights being sold by major competitors. Further to this -- and more important -- our studies indicate that the new LED light system could potentially increase energy saving up to 78% to the end user. The new LED lighting system will be smaller, emits the same light as the current lighting systems used by municipalities and shopping malls, but require much less energy and maintenance. This would represent a double win for municipalities which could then recover the cost of implementation through the energy cost savings."

The companies are working together to establish a Letter of Intent (LOI) which would outline the establishment of a strategic alliance and joint venture for the manufacturing and distribution of the technology.

The Company is pleased to report that the joint venture partnership is currently reviewing two (2) orders for 180,000 new LED Lights worth an estimated $54 million USD.

Mr. Chavarria concludes, "We are working quickly to complete the testing and make the necessary arrangements to commercialize the products should we be awarded these first orders."

About Nano Labs

Nano Labs Corp. (CTLE) is a nanotechnology research and development company which began during October 2012, but is able to access resources that encompass nearly 30 years of research and development in nanotechnology as well as hundreds of peer-reviewed and published research papers and other scholarly material. The Company's research and development team of scientists, designers, and engineers is focused on creating a portfolio of advanced products that could provide benefits to a variety of industries including: (i) consumer products, (ii) energy, (iii) materials, and (iv) healthcare. Through the use and integration of proprietary nano compounds, our goal is to evolve common products into new, revolutionary products in order to make the world a better place. Nano Labs shares are traded on the OTC Bulletin Board in the United States under the ticker CTLE. For more information, please visit http://www.NanoLabs.us.

Go here to see the original:

Nano Labs and CIVIK to Begin Testing Nanotechnology Coatings With Commercial LED Lighting Systems

Preventive medicine renovation joins services under two roofs

Posted on by

Bayne-Jones Army Community Hospital opened the doors of two new buildings designed to house its preventive medicine services April 18. Previously, preventive medicine services were scattered around the installation in different locations.

BJACH Commander, Col. David K. Dunning, said, For the past 10 months, at a cost of $1.4 million each, United Excel has constructed these new contemporary facilities that will keep our Soldiers and Department of the Army civilians healthy while providing a valuable service to the Fort Polk community.

According to Department of the Army pamphlet 40-11, Medical Services Preventive Medicine, Army preventive medicine supports the joint strategy for force health protection.

Healthy and fit personnel are more resistant to disease, less prone to injury and the influence of stress and better able to quickly recover should illness or injury occur. The process of creating a healthy and fit force begins at entry to service and continues throughout an individuals time in service.

Preventive medicine works to thwart illness through education, training and outreach services. The preventive medicine department ensures the Joint-Readiness Training Center and Fort Polk Soldiers, civilians, Family members and retirees have access to vital health information and services, said Dunning.

Nestled behind the Red Roof Inn along Georgia Avenue, bldg 3515 is comprised of Army public health nursing, occupational health and the sexually transmitted disease and human immunodeficiency virus programs. Health promotion, environmental health and industrial hygiene services are rendered in bldg 3516.

The components of preventive medicine housed in the two buildings include:

-Working to prevent and alleviate illness and injury, Army public health nursing staff provides community health services. Through consultation and educational facilitation, the Army public health nursing department supports Child, Youth and School Services and Family child care homes, oversees tuberculosis surveillance and runs the HIV/STD program.

-BJACHs Occupational Health team safeguards fitness levels of Soldiers and civilians by conducting weekly schools of standards for in-processing Soldiers, performing annual physicals for civilians and administering immunizations and vaccinations. They also oversee Soldier Readiness Processing, the Civilian Resource Conservation Program and conduct occupational worksite visits to stay abreast of operations and prevent potential hazards.

-Delivering a healthy and fit force falls under the auspices of BJACHs health promotion section. Elements within this program include in-processing periodic health assessment; tobacco cessation; wellness screenings, counseling and referrals; and health education, awareness campaigns and unit-level training. Health promotions also conduct monthly over-the-counter medications and infant-mother classes, instruct parents in proper car safety seat installation and set up bimonthly healthy lifestyle booths at the Main Post Exchange and BJACH.

Continued here:

Preventive medicine renovation joins services under two roofs

GNS Healthcare Licenses REFS™ Big Data Analytics Platform to Harvard Medical School

Posted on by

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 1, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --GNS Healthcare, Inc. announced today that Harvard Medical School has licensed its REFS (Reverse Engineering and Forward Simulation) Big Data analytics platform. Under the five-year license, Harvard researchers will use REFS to characterize and understand signaling and transcriptional events in biological systems. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121112/NE10632LOGO)

"Reverse engineering is a key challenge for systems biology," said Marc Kirschner, Professor and Chair of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. "Achieving a synergy between the design of experiments andreverse engineering methodswill be defining for how we understand biological mechanism in the next century."

The focus of the research at Harvard will be the mechanisms and pathways of cell differentiation and control in embryonic development and on how drug treatment affects these mechanisms. Harvard researchers will generate huge amounts of data using whole genome sequencing, RNA sequencing, and high-throughput protein measurements, collected at different points in time, in the presence and absence of different drugs. This data will then be analyzed using REFS to build computational models of cell differentiation pathways, how they are controlled, and how they are affected by drug treatment.

"We are very excited to gain access to the Big Data analytics capabilities of the GNS platform," said Leon Peshkin, Principal Investigator and Senior Research Scientist in the Harvard Medical School Department of Systems Biology. "The platform will allow us to build computational models directly from large biological data sets in an automated, hypothesis-free way, revealing cause-and-effect relationships and furthering our understanding of the fundamental aspects of biological systems."

This research is part of the larger Initiative in Systems Pharmacology at Harvard, which brings together biologists, chemists, computer scientists, physicists, and mathematicians to study how drugs work in the body and how to use this information design better therapies. The project aims to understand diseases as biological systems and to understand how drugs work in these systems to treat the diseases.

Computational models of cell differentiation built using REFS could allow researchers to better understand how cancers develop and how to treat them. "Cancer is ultimately a problem of cell identity. Something goes wrong in the signals a cell receives, causing the cells to grow out of control and form a tumor," said Kirschner. "If we can figure out how to regulate the mechanisms by which cells send signals and coordinate growth throughout the body, we can create better treatments for cancer."

"Licensing the REFS platform to Harvard complements the Big Data analytics work we are doing with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, health plans and hospitals," said Colin Hill, CEO of GNS Healthcare. "Harvard researchers will use the platform to make fundamental discoveries in biology, which will drive healthcare innovation in the private sector. Harvard is an ideal partner for bringing this kind of innovation to life."

About REFS

REFS (Reverse Engineering and Forward Simulation) is GNS Healthcare's scalable, supercomputer-enabled framework for discovering new knowledge directly from data. REFS automates the discovery and extraction of causal network models from observational data and uses high-throughput simulations to generate new knowledge.

Link:

GNS Healthcare Licenses REFS™ Big Data Analytics Platform to Harvard Medical School

Softball: Liberty ready to embrace 'unsung' role as playoffs near

Posted on by

Jeff Smith, The Oregonian, April 30, 2013 7:38 p.m.

Liberty senior first baseman Sierra LaMotte connects for a single in the Falcons' game against St. Helens on Friday. - (Jeff Smith/The Oregonian)

In three games last week, the Liberty softball team outscored two opponents 29-1 in consecutive victories and then lost 4-0.

Guess which game Falcons coach Nolan Meeuwsen enjoyed the most?

"I'd rather play in 4-0 games on either end of it than play in a 17-0 game," Meeuwsen said. "The 17-0 games dont do much for us. But this was a well-played game on both sides."

Meeuwsen was speaking after the Falcons 4-0 loss to St. Helens on Friday in a Northwest Oregon Conference softball game at Liberty High School.

Earlier in the week, Liberty (11-9, 5-4 NWOC) rolled eighth-place Milwaukie 17-0 in five innings and beat seventh-place Parkrose 12-1. But Meeuwsen said his team improved more by experiencing a competitive game Friday against the second-place Lions (14-4, 7-2).

Liberty and St. Helens were tied 0-0 after four crisp innings before the Lions got a run in the fifth to take the lead.

It was a back-and-forth battle, Meeuwsen said. We had runners in scoring position several times tonight and couldnt get the right hit at the right time. We just couldnt capitalize when we needed to.

But I do think this game is going to help us become a better team for the next five games in league and in the play-in game and then in the playoffs.

Link:

Softball: Liberty ready to embrace 'unsung' role as playoffs near

Homeland Insecurity: After Boston, The Struggle Between Liberty and Security

Posted on by

Photo-Illustration by Ji Lee for TIME. Statue of Liberty: Tetra Images / Getty Images, Cameras: iStockphoto, Background: Martin Llad

The contest between liberty and security has been with America since its founding. It has been fought on the public stage by every President from George Washington to Barack Obama. Each generation, from those facing rebellion in the 1860s to those pushing back against government intrusions a century later, has debated where to strike a balance. But in the dark world of 21stcentury law enforcement, where terrorist threats can hide behind our most cherished freedoms, the battle sometimes takes place in government documents so obscure that they escape public notice.

Take the case of the FBIs Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide. In October 2011, Obamas Justice Department, mindful of increasing signs of homegrown terrorism, quietly granted FBI agents new powers that disturbed civil libertarians. Federal agents could now data-mine vast stores of information about individuals without making a reviewable record of their actions. They could conduct extensive physical surveillance of suspects without firm evidence of criminal or terrorist activity. They could interview people under false pretenses. They even had wider freedom to rummage through the trash of potential sources.

(MORE:A Dead Militant in Dagestan: Did This Slain Jihadi Meet Tamerlan Tsarnaev?)

But the new guidelines also featured added restrictions on an especially sensitive area of FBI counterterrorism work: mosques. Under the new rules, agents could no longer enter a religious organization without special new approvalin some cases directly from FBI headquarters. Moreover, according to still-classified sections of the new rules made available to Time, any plan to go undercover in a place of worshipa tactic employed by the bureau after Sept.11, 2001, that drew protests from Muslim Americans and at least one lawsuit from a California mosquewould now need special approval from a newly established oversight body at Department of Justice headquarters called the Sensitive Operations Review Committee, or SORC.

On January 18, 15 months after those guidelines were issued and just a few days before Martin Luther King Jr.s birthday, a young immigrant from the Russian region of Dagestan, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, stood up in his mosque in Cambridge, Mass., and confronted his imam when the religious leader extolled Kings greatness. Tamerlan yelled that the preacher was a nonbeliever and was contaminating his followers minds. The congregation shouted Tamerlan down and hounded him out the door. The FBI didnt learn about the episode, or the fact that Tamerlan had been posting radical Islamic videos on his YouTube page, until after three people were dead on Boylston Street.

Theres no telling whether closer monitoring of Tamerlans mosque might have stopped him. But the Tsarnaev case raises, once again, hard questions about how we want to apply the Bill of Rights and the postCivil War guarantees of equal protection in our time. Where is the limit to what Washington should do in the name of our security? Do Americans want undercover agents spying on their prayers? What aspect of privacy might we give up in the interest of better security? Perhaps the FBI agents who were alerted to Tamerlans radical turn by Russian intelligence in 2011 should have monitored his Internet activity long enough to spot his terrorist sympathies. Should Americans let the government sniff through their communications? According to a new Time/CNN/ORC International poll, nearly twice as many Americans are concerned about a loss of civil liberties as are worried about a weakening of anti-terror policies.

(MORE: Exclusive: Imam of Mosque Visited by Bombing Suspect Speaks to TIME)

It is still unclear whether Tamerlan Tsarnaev, whose body is being released to his relatives, and his younger brother Dzhokhar, now in custody, were self-radicalized and acted independentlyor whether they acted at the behest of an ideological mentor or foreign organization. Congress and U.S. intelligence agencies are now studying whether warning signs were tragically missed. But it seems increasingly clear that the activities of the Tsarnaev brothers and many other would-be homegrown terrorists can be detected not through travel records and financial transactions but only through the more opaque realm of online activities and religious attitudes.

With al-Qaeda weakened abroad but self-taught, wi-fi-empowered jihadis increasingly a threat at home, balancing freedom and security is an old problem well have to get used to once again.

Read the original here:

Homeland Insecurity: After Boston, The Struggle Between Liberty and Security

Liberty Creek(R) Vineyards Donates to Operation Gratitude, Brings Power of Country Music to Troops Overseas

Posted on by

MODESTO, CA--(Marketwired - May 01, 2013) - Liberty Creek Vineyards is bringing country music and a reminder of the comforts of home to US military members serving overseas through "Tunes for Troops," a program run in conjunction with Operation Gratitude. A donation from Liberty Creek will enable Operation Gratitude to include country music compilation CDs in their care packages. Liberty Creek kicks off this patriotic program May 1st, and it will run through July 31st, 2013.

Consumers can show their support by visiting LibertyCreekWine.com and entering the unique code found on specially tagged bottles of Liberty Creek Wine. Liberty Creek will express its appreciation by donating $1.00 per code to Operation Gratitude, up to $10,000. Operation Gratitude will use this donation to provide the special country music compilation CDs for our troops.

"At Liberty Creek Vineyards, we are very proud of our American roots, and we are privileged to be able to honor the troops who are out there defending our country," says Michael Shastid, Brand Marketing Specialist, Liberty Creek Vineyards. "Operation Gratitude's unending support for US troops over the years has been remarkable, and this partnership has provided the perfect opportunity for us to express our thanks."

Operation Gratitude sends care packages and letters personally addressed to U.S. Service Members and wounded warriors, and believes music makes the packages even more meaningful.

"Music can be a powerful motivator, and we have seen first-hand how it can boost morale and lift the spirits of our service men and women," says Carolyn Blashek, Founder of Operation Gratitude. "We are grateful for Liberty Creek's support of "Tunes for Troops" as we seek to provide some degree of comfort to those troops who are far from home."

For more information about Liberty Creek Wine and their program to support Operation Gratitude, please visit http://www.LibertyCreekWine.com.

About Liberty Creek Wine

The heritage of Liberty Creek Vineyards is rooted in the rich soils of California, where our grapes are carefully selected for their quality and authentic varietal character. Liberty Creek offers nine great-tasting and affordable wines in a vibrant, fruit-forward portfolio: Chardonnay, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, White Zinfandel, Sweet Red, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Noir, and New Moscato and Pink Moscato. We support those who find value in tradition, yet stay true to themselves!

For more information about Liberty Creek, please visit http://www.LibertyCreekWine.com.

About Operation Gratitude

Link:

Liberty Creek(R) Vineyards Donates to Operation Gratitude, Brings Power of Country Music to Troops Overseas

[155] Gary Johnson’s Libertarianism, WHCD: Journalism in Decline, Classified US History – Video

Posted on by


[155] Gary Johnson #39;s Libertarianism, WHCD: Journalism in Decline, Classified US History
Abby Martin Breaks the Set on Libertarianism with Gov. Gary Johnson, US #39; Classified History, and the Decline of Journalism LIKE Breaking the Set @ http://fb....

By: breakingtheset

See the article here:

[155] Gary Johnson's Libertarianism, WHCD: Journalism in Decline, Classified US History - Video

Libertarian Party opposes Lake income tax

Posted on by

ST. JOHN | The Lake County Libertarian Party is opposed to a county option income tax.

Beth Duensing, party chairwoman, issued a statement Tuesday calling on the public to push the Lake County Council to reject a 1.5 percent assessment on the income of all county residents and workers.

Duensing rejects the arguments of county officials the tax is needed to satisfy unfunded mandates by state and federal authorities to increase spending on the county jail as well as other public safety initiatives.

"It's all too much. We are a prison county and we homeowners are paying for it. It is imperative that the county reduce spending and learn to live within their budget, just like each of us do in our own homes," she writes.

The Libertarian Party fielded candidates last year for president and an Indiana seat on the U.S. Senate. They attracted about 4,100 voters in Lake.

There are no elected officials in county government associated with the Libertarian Party, including the County Council, which voted 4-3 April 9 to pass an income tax.

A number of Republican Party activists have joined Lake County Commissioner Gerry Scheub, D-Crown Point, in opposing the income tax.

Duensing asks the public to attend the next council meeting, at 4:30 p.m. Monday in the Syd Garner Auditorium of the Lake County Government Center, 2293 N. Main St., Crown Point, whereit could pass the tax on second and final reading.

Duensing writes, "The vote of the council members is close. Hearing from the residents and workers in person could turn this vote around."

Read the rest here:

Libertarian Party opposes Lake income tax