Astronaut aboard space station ‘visits’ Naperville school

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Article updated: 2/13/2013 8:43 AM

Orbiting about 250 miles above Earth, NASA astronaut Kevin Ford spends his days working with a crew studying potential cures for osteoporosis. But he's longing for a golf range and a meal that doesn't come in a ready-to-eat package.

Ford, currently the commander of the International Space Station's Expedition 34 six-person crew, spoke to several dozen St. Raphael Catholic School students Tuesday afternoon via a live video feed.

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During the half-hour chat, students were able to watch Ford float around a portion of the space station as he answered their questions. Ford was only able to hear the students.

"(Floating in zero gravity) is pretty crazy. We get used to it after a while so it becomes very second nature for us to fly around and use handrails to guide us easily inside the space station," Ford said as he performed a variety of zero-gravity gymnastics.

"I think if I had to choose, I would rather have gravity instead of zero gravity," he said. "It's fun for a while, but I'd rather live on Earth."

Ford joined the space station in late October and is scheduled to return to Earth in mid-March.

"I'm conditioned enough now that I can stay up here as long as they need me to," he said. "But I'm looking forward to coming home."

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Astronaut aboard space station ‘visits’ Naperville school

Robotic Refueling Mission – Satellites Can Be Refueled in Orbit | NASA GSFC Space Science HD – Video

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Robotic Refueling Mission - Satellites Can Be Refueled in Orbit | NASA GSFC Space Science HD
Visit my website at http://www.junglejoel.com - NASA #39;s Robotic Refueling Mission recently tried out new technologies and techniques for repairing and refueling satellites while in orbit. Please rate and comment, thanks! Credits NASA GSFC

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Robotic Refueling Mission - Satellites Can Be Refueled in Orbit | NASA GSFC Space Science HD - Video

Discussion between Daniel Duffy and William Putman (NASA): Challenges for global climate simulation – Video

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Discussion between Daniel Duffy and William Putman (NASA): Challenges for global climate simulation
Daniel Duffy (Lead System Architect) and William Putman (Research Meteorologist) of the NASA Center for Climate Simulation and the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center present the challenges facing global climate modeling today. In particular they discuss the requirements of high resolution modeling: the need for powerful computing resources and the creation of terabytes of data to be stored and analyzed. Today #39;s climate simulations use a resolution of 50 to 100 km globally, as fine as 25 km for global weather prediction. The goal is to increase the resolution to 1 km to reach global cloud resolving scales, which will in turn require nearly 10 million conventional Xeon compute cores. According to Daniel this will be possible only by adopting accelerator hardware like GPUs and Xeon Phis. For William what matters most is keeping a single codebase that can be understood by all scientists involved. A two year simulation with a resolution of 10 km currently produces about 400 TB of data. Daniel explains how the convergence of HPC and big data creates new challenges for the providers of computing services.

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Discussion between Daniel Duffy and William Putman (NASA): Challenges for global climate simulation - Video

LOVE YOURSELF- FEATURING SC SUPERGROUP NASA 6- NEXT 2RAW4TV -2-14-13 – Video

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LOVE YOURSELF- FEATURING SC SUPERGROUP NASA 6- NEXT 2RAW4TV -2-14-13
Join 2RAW4TV as we celebrate love in all its incarnations. Why is love important? What makes people love? Can love be dangerous? South Carolina super group NASA-6 talks about the highs and lows of the music industry, space travel, and what they are doing out at "Six in the morn"? You will never have a Valentine #39;s day like this again! blogtalkradio.com/2RAW4TV 2/14/13 @ 11PM EST CALL 323-410-0036 TO COMMENT OR ?

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LOVE YOURSELF- FEATURING SC SUPERGROUP NASA 6- NEXT 2RAW4TV -2-14-13 - Video

NASA's Mohawk Guy sported red and blue Mohawk at State of the Union address

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NASA's Mohawk Guy wore a red-and-blue-striped Mohawk to the State of the Union address.

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Updated Feb. 12, 2013 at 10:40 PM

Bobak Ferdowsi, NASA's flight director on the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity mission, sported another patriotic hairdo during tonight's State of the Union address.

Ferdowsi remained faithful to the hairstyle that made him famous - after all, he is known as NASA's Mohawk guy - but added a hint of color to the mix by painting bright red and blue stripes on the tips of his perfectly coiffed Mohawk.

"I thought it would be a good time to celebrate our country, of course," he told Buzzfeed about the do. "I have U.S.A. on one side and Mars on the other, because that's, like, my other place. Just celebrating the events."

NASA's most hair-stylish engineer told Buzzfeed he was pleasantly surprised when he received the invitation to Tuesday's event.

"I found out less than a week ago, honestly, that I'd been invited to the State of the Union," he said. "I freaked out for a few minutes, just needed a moment to gather myself. It's really cool, I'm really excited, yet again, to represent NASA and JPL and all of the work that everybody here does. It's really amazing to me. Sometimes I feel unworthy in some ways to do all this. I think there's so many talented and fun and amazing people on the project that I worked on, but all across our place. I just feel very lucky to get to do stuff like this."

Ferdowsi rose to fame last August after he got a starry Mohawk to celebrate Curiosity's landing in Mars.

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NASA's Mohawk Guy sported red and blue Mohawk at State of the Union address

NASA's Curiosity Rover Finds Weird 'Hood Ornament' on Mars

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NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has photographed a shiny, metallic-looking object that bears a passing resemblance to a door handle or a hood ornament.

The Curiosity rover has not stumbled onto evidence of an ancient civilization that took the family van to Olympus Mons for vacation, however. The object is simply a rock that the wind has sculpted into an interesting shape, scientists said.

"The shiny surface suggests that this rock has a fine grain and is relatively hard," Curiosity scientists wrote Monday (Feb. 11) in an explainer blurb accompanying the image, which was taken on Jan. 30. "Hard, fine-grained rocks can be polished by the wind to form very smooth surfaces."

Similar "ventifacted" (wind-eroded) rocks can be found here on Earth, notably on the dry, gusty plains of Antarctica, they added.

The newfound rock is not the first shiny object Curiosity has photographed on the Red Planet.

In October, the car-size rover paused its first soil-scooping activities to investigate a bright sliver lying on the ground nearby. Scientists think the scrap is a piece of plastic debris that shook loose during the robot's dramatic sky-crane landing on the night of Aug. 5.

Later in October, Curiosity spotted bright flecks in one of the holes it dug out while scooping. That material appears to be some sort of native Martian mineral, as does the so-called "Mars flower," which garnered a lot of attention after Curiosity photographed it in December.

While such finds may be be interesting to laypeople and researchers alike, Curiosity has bigger fish to fry. The rover's main task is to determine whether its landing site a huge crater called Gale could ever have supported microbial life.

Curiosity carries 10 different scientific instruments and 17 cameras to aid in this quest, along with other tools such as a rock-boring drill. Curiosity used this drill to collect samples for the first time over the weekend, boring 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) into a Red Planet rock in a move that had never been done before on another planet.

Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwallor SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on FacebookandGoogle+.

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NASA's Curiosity Rover Finds Weird 'Hood Ornament' on Mars

Space Exploration Still US Priority, NASA Says

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PALO ALTO, Calif. Though NASA's share of the federal budget has dropped dramatically since the space-race heyday of the 1960s, the United States still regards space exploration as a key priority, NASA's deputy chief says.

The agency's allotted $17.7 billion budget represents less than 0.5 percent of federal spending for 2013. That's a nearly tenfold drop from the agency's peak share back in the mid-1960s, when the United States was racing to put an astronaut on the moonbefore the Soviet Union.

But $17.7 billion is far from chump change, especially considering how much other nations spend on their space programs, said NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver.

"We do in fact lead the world in space exploration today," Garver said Feb. 1 during a presentation here at a space-entrepreneurship forum organized by Stanford University's Institute for Economic Policy Research. [NASA's Budget: What Will It Buy? (Video)]

"If you total up every other space agency on the planet today Russia, China, Japan, all of Europe, Canada, South America they equal three-quarters of NASA's budget," Garver added. "So don't believe that America has turned its back on our civil space program."

Policymakers may still value space exploration, but their vision of where NASA and its astronauts should go has changed over time.

For example, the agency had been working on getting astronauts to the moon by 2020 as part of a program called Constellation, which began under President George W. Bush. But President Barack Obama cancelled Constellation in 2010, after an independent review panel found it to be significantly over budget and behind schedule.

Instead, Obama directed NASA to send humans to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, then on to the vicinity of Marsby the mid-2030s. The agency is developing a crew capsule called Orion and a huge rocket called the Space Launch System to make it all happen.

NASA will fund these deep-space missions in part with resources freed up by the retirement of the space shuttlefleet, which was grounded in 2011 after 30 years of orbital service and more than $200 billion of investment.

The agency is now grooming private American companies to take over the shuttle's role of ferrying cargo and crew to and from low-Earth orbit.

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Space Exploration Still US Priority, NASA Says

Meet the Editorial Board of Nanotechnology – Meyya Meyyappan – Video

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Meet the Editorial Board of Nanotechnology - Meyya Meyyappan
Electronics and Photonics Section Editor Meyya Meyyappan highlights the continued interest in graphene electronics and optoelectronics among the research community, as well as potential growing interest from industry in integrating sensors on devices such as smart phones.

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Molecular Medicine Awards 1st Annual Ross Prize to NYU Researcher

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MANHASSET, N.Y., Feb. 12, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research today announced that New York University (NYU) immunology researcher Dan R. Littman, MD, PhD, will be the recipient of the first annual Ross Prize in Molecular Medicine, issued via the Feinstein Institute's peer-reviewed, open-access journal, Molecular Medicine.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130212/DC58967)

Dr. Littman is the Helen L. and Martin S. Kimmel Professor of Molecular Immunology in the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine at NYU School of Medicine. He is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine.

The Ross award, which includes a $50,000 prize, will be formally presented to Dr. Littman on June 24 at the New York Academy of Science in Manhattan, followed by an academic lecture by Dr. Littman and several other preeminent researchers.

The Ross Prize is awarded annually by Molecular Medicine to mid-career scientists who have made a demonstrable impact in the understanding of human diseases pathogenesis and/or treatment, and who hold significant promise for making even greater contributions to the general field of molecular medicine.

"A renowned immunologist, Dr. Littman has made seminal contributions in a number of scientific fields that advance our understanding of the immune system, HIV infections and autoimmune disease," said Feinstein Institute President Kevin J. Tracey, MD, who also serves as editor-in-chief of Molecular Medicine. "Dr. Littman and his colleagues discovered that HIV enters the body through what he terms a 'Trojan horse,' a specific type of immune cell, called an immature dendritic cell, which it then hijacks to attack other key cells of the immune system. Dr. Littman and his team have more recently discovered a means to control inappropriate autoimmune responses to bacteria that live naturally in the human digestive system."

Dr. Littman was selected by an awards committee comprised of:

The Ross Prize was made possible by the generosity of Feinstein Institute board members Robin and Jack Ross of Upper Brookville, NY.

About Molecular Medicine

Molecular Medicine is an open access, international, peer-reviewed biomedical journal published by The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research. Molecular Medicine strives to understand normal body functioning and disease pathogenesis at the molecular level, which may allow researchers and physician-scientists to use that knowledge in the design of specific molecular tools for disease diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, and prevention. To learn more, go to: http://www.molmed.org

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Molecular Medicine Awards 1st Annual Ross Prize to NYU Researcher

Frontier Center at the CU School of Dental Medicine – Video

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Frontier Center at the CU School of Dental Medicine
With funding from Delta Dental of Colorado and the Delta Dental of Colorado Foundation, the CU School of Dental Medicine has developed an innovative interprofessional curriculum forging a link between dentistry and medicine for better patient care. CU School of Dental Medicine website: http://www.ucdenver.edu About the School of Dental Medicine: http://www.ucdenver.edu Frontier Center: http://www.ucdenver.edu Video provided by the University of Colorado Denver | Anschutz Medical Campus Visit our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com Subscribe to our channel: http://www.youtube.com Visit our website: http://www.ucdenver.edu Visit our newsroom http://www.ucdenver.edu

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Sleep Apnea Treatment Centers of America Offers Rescue to Sleep Medicine Doctors

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TAMPA, Fla., Feb. 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Sleep doctors around the country have awoken to news of shrinking reimbursement rates for the diagnosis and treatment of sleep related breathing disorders . Sleep Apnea Treatment Centers of America (SATCOA), the pioneer of an office-based, obstructive sleep apnea treatment, offers a business opportunity to help Pulmonologists, ENT's and other sleep medicine focused physicians regain their previously strong streams of revenue while offering a great alternative for treatment and a possible cure to their patients.

In the past, physicians affiliated with sleep clinics were seeing hefty reimbursements from insurance carriers. Medicare spending alone on in clinic-sleep diagnostic studies increased 580% in just nine years' time, to $415 million in 2010, according to a report from the US Office of the Inspector General. This rapid increase proved to be unsustainable.

In the present, Medicare along with other private payers are pushing for less-expensive, at home sleep testing that allows patients to bypass a sleep clinic for their diagnostic studies. This is leaving many sleep doctors without a stream of revenue that was common in the field of sleep medicine. Consequently, New England based sleep clinic, Sleep HealthCenters, filed for bankruptcy and abruptly closed all of its 19 locations in January. This is one of many examples that we are seeing fall victim to this drastic change in reimbursement policy.

SATCOA brings balance back to the field of sleep medicine and allows its physicians to offer a curative, highly-reimbursable treatment option for those patients suffering with sleep apnea while replacing lost revenue from the at-home-sleep study movement. Founder and CEO of Sleep Apnea Treatment Centers of America, Dr. Jeffery Silveira has said, "Sleep physicians will have to hold back on their practice and lab expansion. This will result in a significant cut back on the number of labs across the country. Business as usual will simply not survive without innovation and substantive change."

About Sleep Apnea Treatment Centers of America:

Sleep Apnea Treatment Centers of America proudly serves the sufferers of sleep apnea by offering a curative solution for sleep apnea. By delivering a healthcare franchise model for expansion, we are able to deliver the highest quality healthcare, the most compassionate customer service representatives, and the most sophisticated business model for sleep physicians. Contact the Director of Business Development, David Williams: 855-863-4537 or visit http://www.CureMySleepApnea.com.

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Sleep Apnea Treatment Centers of America Offers Rescue to Sleep Medicine Doctors

India to have separate drug controller for traditional medicine

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New Delhi, Feb 13 (IANS) Keeping pace with global developments in drug control, the union health ministry is planning to set up a separate central drug controller for traditional systems of medicine and homeopathy.

"India has a pluralistic healthcare delivery system where the government provides opportunity to every recognised medical system to develop and practice, with a view to provide integrated and holistic healthcare services," Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said Wednesday inaugurating the International Conference on Traditional Medicine for South East Asian Countries here.

"The aim is to provide accessible, affordable, safe and quality healthcare to the people, he said.

Azad said all these medical systems are being utilised in the national healthcare delivery system, each to its potential and availability in different parts of the country.

The process of mainstreaming has been further augmented under the National Rural Health Mission, with co-location of traditional medicine and homeopathy facilities in the primary health network and capacity building of AYUSH practitioners in the national programmes of Reproductive and Child Health, Safe Child Birth, School Health, Anemia control and Malaria eradication, he said.

The minister said AYUSH doctors are now actively involved in national health programmes pertaining to reproductive and child health, school health, anaemia control and immunisation.

The government is planning to set up a separate central drug controller for traditional systems of medicine and homeopathy, senior officials said.

The decision was taken during an conference of traditional medicine in South East Asian countries.

The conference was attended by health ministers of Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal. The ministers of indigenous medicine, Sri Lanka and other south east Asian countries, were also present.

India signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Bangladesh to cooperate in traditional medicine in the areas of exchange of health professionals, development of human resources and research.

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India to have separate drug controller for traditional medicine

Shire Regenerative Medicine and HealTogether Partner with Celebrity Chef Charles Mattocks to Raise Awareness of …

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SAN DIEGO, Feb. 13, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --Shire plc (LSE: SHP, NASDAQ: SHPG), the company's Regenerative Medicine business, its community education program HealTogether, and celebrity chef Charles Mattocks announced today the launch of "The Diabetic You" Mobile Tour. The multi-city tour will stop in Tucson, AZ, Phoenix, AZ, San Diego, CA, Los Angeles and Santa Clara, CA, and feature an array of experts traveling in a brightly-colored recreational vehicle (RV) fully equipped for cooking demonstrations and information stations. "The Diabetic You" tour is designed to provide visitors with easy access to resources to help understand the complications of diabetes.

"Being aware of the complications related to diabetes may help prevent or delay serious issues down the road," said Matthew Pauls, Senior Vice President of Global Commercial Operations for Shire Regenerative Medicine, Inc. "By partnering with Charles Mattocks, we are bringing information and access to experts directly to the people who need it most. Our goal is to increase awareness about the management and treatment of these issues."

Pauls continued, "With the right medical care and healthy life choices, people with diabetes and those touched by diabetes can continue to enjoy life to the fullest."

An avid advocate for patients with diabetes, Mattocks began creating 'The Diabetic You,' a documentary and movement focused on educating and inspiring people around the world. Also known as "The Poor Chef", Mattocks is the author of Eat Cheap but Eat Well and is a frequent speaker on the topic of diabetes.

"After I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, I made it a personal mission to help educate the public about living healthier lives -- starting with healthy eating," said Mattocks. "Together with Shire Regenerative Medicine, I hope to increase awareness not only about the management of diabetes, but stop the ravages of the deadly disease."

"The Diabetic You" Mobile Tour will include a day-long event in each city with fun and interactive activities related to the management and treatment of complications of diabetes, including cooking demonstrations by Mattocks. Leading experts on diabetes will also be onsite to answer questions about potential warning signs for common problems such as high blood pressure, stroke, retinopathy and neuropathy. Additionally, "The Diabetic You" Mobile Tour will be offering visitors a free year-long subscription to Diabetic Living, one of the largest publications in diabetes health.

"The Diabetic You" Mobile Tour's schedule is as follows:

About Charles Mattocks

Since his 2011 diagnosis with type 2 diabetes, "The Poor Chef" Charles Mattocks has become an international advocate for diabetic testing, health, and nutrition. Following early inspiration from his late uncle, Bob Marley, Charles initially pursued an acting career culminating in an Emmy nomination for his performance in "The Summer of Ben Tyler." Following acclaimed acting success, Charles became a regular fixture as a chef on The Today Show, Good Morning America, Martha Stewart, CNN, Dr. Oz, and became the best-selling author of Eat Cheap but Eat Well. Determined to learn, educate, and help others, Charles has since been able to use his celebrity chef status to work with the American Diabetes Association, developing the newest ADA diabetic cookbook and has recently been given the honor of being named a Hero and Blue Circle Champion for the International Diabetes Federation. Ever the champion for diabetic health and education, Charles's passion gave birth to The Diabetic You, a documentary unveiling the influences that have left over 300 Million people worldwide with diabetes.

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Shire Regenerative Medicine and HealTogether Partner with Celebrity Chef Charles Mattocks to Raise Awareness of ...

Foundation Medicine to Present New Data on FoundationOne™, a Comprehensive Cancer Genomic Assay, at the 14th Annual …

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Foundation Medicine, Inc., a molecular information company that brings comprehensive cancer genomic diagnostic testing and analysis to routine clinical care, today announced that new data on the clinical validation and application of FoundationOne will be presented at the 14th Annual Advances in Genome Biology and Technology (AGBT) Meeting taking place February 20-23, 2013 in Marco Island, Fla.

Phil Stephens, Ph.D., vice president, cancer genomics at Foundation Medicine, has been selected to give the closing address of the conference. In his remarks, Dr. Stephens will present details on the clinical experience derived from the genomic profiling of more than 1,000 tumor samples using FoundationOne.

The schedule for Foundation Medicines presentations is as follows:

Date & Time: Thursday, February 21, 2013 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. EST

Title: Validation of a Million Base-pair Cancer Profiling Assay for Clinical Use

Session: Poster Session

Location: Poster No. 159, Collier Hall

Presenter: Doron Lipson, Ph.D., Foundation Medicine

Date & Time: Friday, February 22, 2013 at 7:50 p.m. EST

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Foundation Medicine to Present New Data on FoundationOne™, a Comprehensive Cancer Genomic Assay, at the 14th Annual ...

Mnemonics for medical school – Video

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Mnemonics for medical school
I go through 7 different types of mnemonics that you can use for medical school. The last one is an Image mnemonic. These will help you study and I hope you think of new ways to memorize. Let me know in the comments. BIG DOCUMENT OF MNEMONICS: http://www.medicalmnemonics.com Type of mnemonics: http://www.learningassistance.com Picmonics: picmonic.com

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Mnemonics for medical school - Video