Health-care costs at end of life exceed total assets for 25 percent of Medicare population

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Public release date: 8-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Jeanne Bernard Jeanne.Bernard@mountsinai.org 212-241-9200 The Mount Sinai Hospital / Mount Sinai School of Medicine

As many as a quarter of Medicare recipients spend more than the total value of their assets on out-of-pocket health care expenses during the last five years of their lives, according to researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. They found that 43 percent of Medicare recipients spend more than their total assets minus the value of their primary residences. The findings appear online in the current issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

The amount of spending varied with the patient's illness. Those with dementia or Alzheimer's disease spent the most for health care, averaging $66,155, or more than twice that of patients with gastrointestinal disease or cancer, who spent an average of $31,069. Dementia patients often require special living arrangements, which accounts for the sizeable difference in cost.

"Medicare provides a significant amount of health care coverage to people over 65, but it does not cover co-payments, deductibles, homecare services, or non-rehabilitative nursing home care," said the study's lead author, Amy S. Kelley, MD, Assistant Professor of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. "I think a lot of people will be surprised by how high these out-of-pocket costs are in the last years of life."

The researchers based their findings on 2002-2008 data that was collected from the Health and Retirement Study, a biennial survey of 26,000 Americans over the age of 50, which is supported by the National Institute on Aging, and the Social Security Administration. They examined 3,209 Medicare recipients during their last five years of life, and compared their out-of-pocket health care expenditures with their total household assets. The study found that the average spending for all participants was $38,688, with more than 75 percent of households spending at least $10,000. The top quarter of participants spent an average of $101,791.

"There are a number of schools of thought on how to rein in Medicare costs, including requiring larger financial contributions from the elderly," said Dr. Kelley. "Prior to this study there was not a lot of data on the extent of out-of-pocket spending. This information can serve as an important tool to help individuals set realistic expectations for end-of-life health care costs, and for government officials to use in discussing Medicare policies."

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This study was funded by the National Institute on Aging. Dr. Kelley also receives funding from the Hartford Foundation. Researchers from University of California Los Angeles Department of Economics, Dartmouth College Department of Economics, and The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice also contributed to this study.

About The Mount Sinai Medical Center

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Health-care costs at end of life exceed total assets for 25 percent of Medicare population

What I'd like to see in the iPhone 5

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There are predictions, mock-ups, and rumors galore...but this is what the next iPhone could use most.

I've owned an iPhone every year since its 2007 debut. Every one. The reward for such reckless upgrading has been a sense of the iPhone's evolution over those years. What started as a device that had not many apps to speak of, but dripped futurism, has become an always-on, location-aware, frighteningly integral part of my nervous system.

While I've listed what we expect out of the next iPhone, I haven't told you what I want. So, here's my own personal list of what matters most...to me.

Battery life. Honestly, I can't stress this enough. The iPhone's become my all-in-one catch-all device, the one thing other than my keys and wallet that I need to take with me. It's a mission-critical device. I need that device to last at least a full day. The iPhone 4 was very good in this regard; the iPhone 4S, while faster and better in many important ways, needs a top-off around British teatime if I'm spending the night out and have been power-using my phone all day. Battery pack cases and portable charge packs aside, I really want the iPhone 5 (or "New iPhone," or whatever it's called) to meet or exceed the iPhone 4S in battery life. Based on its allegedly larger size, I think it can -- but maybe the larger screen will make it a wash.

Smoother Siri. I appreciate the idea behind Siri, and the iPhone is better for Siri existing than not. Still, I hardly use it. The occasional errors and odd miscommunications Siri and I have when chatting are usually enough to drive me to old-fashioned typing...which over five years I've become very adept at. However, I'm a city-dweller. I understand that hands-free use for drivers and others could be a big part of the next iOS 6 update, and I might own a car soon enough as I prepare to leave the city. I'm willing to give Siri a second chance.

Complete cloud support. I use iCloud quite a bit: for Photo Streaming to my MacBook Air, iTunes Match to eliminate old-fashioned music syncing, and overnight backups (I restored my iPad from scratch via iCloud). iCloud is only halfway there. I want a complete, unchained iPhone life from my Mac. I'd like my HD videos and photos to be synced and even stored and archived in a secondary cloud location, automatically. I'd love better cloud syncing of stored app data and documents. This won't replace a local backup, but it sure will help.

A slightly bigger screen. I don't want a big, honking screen. That's what my iPad is for. I like a pocketable phone. My jeans pockets already bulge enough. Then again, the amount of screen space on the iPhone feels stale. The iPhone has tons of unused space around the screen, and the screen itself has maintained the exact same dimensions as the original 2007 model. I just want the screen to take up as much of that body size as possible.

4G...only if it doesn't chew up battery life or cost me an arm and a leg. See my above comments on battery life. I'm honestly okay with my "4G" HSDPA data on my AT&T iPhone 4S in New York, and I use Wi-Fi hot spots so frequently that I'm not sure I'd crave 4G LTE. I understand the use of 4G in an iPad for a frequent traveler. Sure, 4G on a phone would be a pleasant experience and make for zippier app use. I just don't want to pay a ton for it, and I certainly don't want my iPhone's battery life to dip down because of it. The third-gen iPad's excellent battery life on 4G is promising.

A tad less glass. The iPhone 4 and 4S are beautiful, but they make me feel like I need a case on all the time. The new iPhone looks like it's bringing back the metal, and I don't mind that one bit. Maybe it'll even encourage me to go caseless once in a while -- you know, live dangerously.

Come Wednesday, we'll found out what the iPhone holds.

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What I'd like to see in the iPhone 5

Freedom Misses Opportunity Against Little Chute

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It's Week 3 of Operation Football. In the Eastern Valley Conference, only two teams have won both of their games in conference play.

Little Chute was visiting Freedom and their new head coach, Clint Kriewaldt, the former Steelers linebacker and special teams ace.

The Mustangs were up 7-0 and added to it in the third. Mitchell Ciske goes up top to Jed Alberts for a 57-yard touchdown. That's 13-0 Little Chute.

Freedom tried to make a run. Nathaniel Peters hurdled a tackler.

That set up a one-yard touchdown play, 13-6.

Late in the fourth, the Irish were getting a little luck. The ball bounced off the hands of Chad Verhasselt and into the hands of Riley Garbe. Freedom's hopes were still alive.

But they couldn't capitalize. Mitchell Waters dropped back, scrambled, and was sacked.

Little Chute holds on to win, 13-6.

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Freedom Misses Opportunity Against Little Chute

Surge in number of men o'war being washed up on beaches

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"Last weekend a member of the public contacted Cornwall Council about a small number of what MCS identified as Portuguese man o'war washed up at Portheras Cove.

"We then had reports of similar sightings as Summerleaze and Widemouth beaches. Our most recent reports were from Portheras yesterday.

"With the earlier standings in Ireland, these recent sightings could herald the arrival of more of the creatures as they get blown in from the Atlantic."

Until recent years their normal habitats were the seas of the Florida Keys, the Atlantic Coast, the Gulf of Mexico as well as the Caribbean and the Pacific.

The man owar earned its name because its airbag resembles the sail of a 16th century Portuguese warship.

The airbag is about 12 inches long and five inches wide, beneath it are blue tentacles which can be more than 30 feet long and deliver an agonising and potentially lethal sting.

"Because a stranded Portuguese Man of War looks a bit like a deflating purple balloon with blue ribbons attached, it may attract the curiosity of children, Dr Richardson added.

"If you are visiting a Cornish beach this weekend it is well worth making sure you know what these animals look like and that no one picks them up.

Rebecca Kirk, from Cornwall Council's public health and protection service, added: "A sting fmay lead to an allergic reaction. There can also be serious effects, including fever and shock.

"Anyone who thinks they have been stung should seek medical attention immediately or contact NHS direct.

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Surge in number of men o'war being washed up on beaches

Who owns the beaches in Jackson County?

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OCEAN SPRINGS, MS (WLOX) -

We have a follow up on the court battle that has left Isaac damaged Jackson County beaches a mess.

They are languishing because of a recent court ruling granting two East Beach property owners in Ocean Springs ownership of their portion of that beach. It's a ruling state and local officials plan to appeal to the Mississippi Supreme Court. And until Jackson County officials know the outcome of that appeal, they aren't cleaning the beaches.

The county has always maintained the beach, but not anymore, according to Supervisor John McKay.

"We as city and county officials will be held personally liable for expending tax dollars on private property and we can't take that chance," McKay explained. "I don't want to have to pay for the cleaning of the entire beach out of my pocket."

Buddy Gunn is one of the two East Beach property owners who won in court. He maintains the judge's ruling pertains to just the two properties in question, and nothing more. And he said his beach can be used by anyone.

"I have been here since 1989 and the beach has been wide open for everybody to use and enjoy all this time," Gunn said. "What we have done, because I knew that I was paying taxes to the water's edge, I have always cleaned up the property down there."

The city's mayor, Connie Moran, is caught in the middle, and just wants the beach cleaned. Having it declared a pubic health hazard could be the answer.

"It's rotting, it's stinking, it has rodents in it, people have seen snakes in this mess," Moran said. "Then the city can come in after getting a right of entry from the beachfront property owners and we can clean it up."

Meanwhile, private citizens concerned about the looks of Front Beach, concerned about this doorway into the city, have decided to take matters into their own hands by organizing their own clean-up.

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Who owns the beaches in Jackson County?

Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute awarded $1.3 million to study cardiac stem cells

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Public release date: 6-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Sally Stewart Sally.stewart@cshs.org 310-248-6566 Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

LOS ANGELES Sept. 6, 2012 A team of Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute stem cell researchers today was awarded a $1.3 million grant from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine to continue study of an experimental stem cell therapy that treats heart attack patients with heart-derived cells. Earlier this year, data from the first clinical trial of the stem cell treatment showed the therapy helped damaged hearts regrow healthy muscle.

To date, this cell therapy, developed by Eduardo Marbn, MD, PhD, director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and Mark S. Siegel Family Professor, is the only treatment shown to regenerate the injured human heart. In this therapy, human heart tissue is used to grow specialized heart stem cells, which then are injected back into the patient's heart. The new research will focus on understanding the cellular mechanisms that have produced favorable outcomes.

"We have seen encouraging results in patients with this treatment, and it has the potential to revolutionize how we treat heart attack patients," Marbn said. "This further study will allow us to better understand how it works, which we hope will lead us to even more stem-cell based treatments for the heart."

During a heart attack, clots form suddenly on top of cholesterol-laden plaques, which block the flow of blood to the heart muscle. This causes living heart tissue to die and be replaced by a scar. The larger the scar, the higher the chance of death or disability from the heart attack.

Conventional treatments aim to limit the initial injury by opening the clogged artery and prevent further harm with medications. Regenerative therapy aims to regrow healthy heart muscle and dissolve the heart tissue -- an approach that, according to a study by Marbn published in The Lancet, led to an average 50 percent reduction in scar size.

Early study by Cedars-Sinai researchers indicates that much of the benefit in the experimental therapy is due to an indirect effect of the transplanted cardiac-derived cells. These cells seem to stimulate proliferation of the surrounding undamaged heart cells -- a previously unrecognized means of cardiac regeneration in response to cell therapy.

"This is vital basic science work that we believe will ultimately open pathways to new treatments in the fight against heart disease, the leading cause of premature death and disability," Marbn said.

The process to grow the cardiac-derived stem cells involved in the study was developed by Marbn when he was on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University. The university has filed for a patent on that intellectual property, and has licensed it to a company in which Dr. Marbn has a financial interest.

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Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute awarded $1.3 million to study cardiac stem cells

The Church of Burning Man: Counterculture spirituality

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(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Flames engulf The Burning Man Saturday night, Sept. 1, 2012, during Burning Man 2012 in the Black Rock Desert, Nev.

Burning Man Festival Spirituality exists amid the flames of the counterculture and harks back to early Christianity.

Thousands gathered on a northern Nevada plain last week to watch and cheer as a 70-foot-tall white neon man was burned into extinction, amid raucous music, dancing and fireworks.

The annual Burning Man festival ended the next day with another ritual blaze: the destruction of a temporary temple, filled with photos and written memories of loved ones, pets, failed relationships, troubled pasts, old ideas and profound emotions hastily scrawled on pieces of paper, wood, cloth and cardboard. Some expressed anguish with words like "my life sucks." A woman hung up her wedding dress.

Pagan Pride Day

Salt Lake Pagan Pride will hold its annual Pagan Pride Day at Murray Park Pavilions 1, 2 and 3 on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. There will be music and booths. For admission, bring a nonperishable food item to donate for The Road Home. Visit http://www.saltlakeppd.org for information.

Unlike the previous night, the Sunday temple fire was quiet and reverential for the more than 60,000 seated on the ground.

It wasnt just about letting go of cherished family and friends, says Kent Frogley, a Salt Lake City marketing consultant who calls himself an "emeritus Mormon," but about how death transforms relationships.

Why build something so beautiful each year and then torch it?

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The Church of Burning Man: Counterculture spirituality

Astronauts repair space station with help of toothbrush

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Spacewalking astronauts triumphed over a stubborn bolt and installed a critical power-switching box at the International Space Station this week, reviving electrical systems.

"Looks like you fixed the station," mission control at Nasa's Johnson Space Centre in Houston told the crew on the radio.

The problem had cut the amount of electrical power available to the orbiting lab and a variety of equipment had to be turned off.

Engineers on the ground and the astronauts in orbit scrambled over the weekend to devise makeshift tools to clean metal shavings from the socket of the troublesome bolt after last week's failed effort to plug in the new power-relay unit.

This time, NASA's Sunita Williams and Japan's Akihiko Hoshide, part of NASA's Expedition 32 mission to the ISS, were armed with a blue toothbrush, a wire brush and other jury-rigged tools.

The two applied grease to the sticky bolt as well as extra pressure and plain old jiggling. They also brushed and blew away most if not all the metal shavings, debris that was discovered during last Thursday's eight-hour repair session, one of the longest spacewalks on record.

Wednesday's outing lasted 6 1/2 hours.

Although the space station remained stable, NASA was in a hurry to get the problem fixed because of the impending departure of Joseph Acaba, the U.S. astronaut who operated the hefty robot arm from inside. Acaba is due to return to Earth in 1 1/2 weeks.

Altogether, the space station has four of these power-switching units, which relay electricity from the eight solar wings. Being down one unit meant the orbiting complex could draw power from only six of those wings.

The power store was further degraded over the weekend when, in an unrelated problem, a tripped circuit breaker prevented full access to yet another solar panel. That left the space station running on just five wings, a vulnerable situation.

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Astronauts repair space station with help of toothbrush

Confusing ITAR Compliance at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

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On 28-29 August 2012, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) held a Systems Engineering Review for a potential geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) servicing mission. Despite stating that "Interested parties must register in order to attend" a number of participants have told me that they did not register in advance and just showed up. According to attendees, during the meeting, participants were openly encouraged to use their cellphones to take pictures of the materials shown on the screen - some (but not all) of which were labeled "predecisional". None of the charts shown had any marking denoting that they were ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) sensitive in nature.

On 30 August 2012 I made a request to NASA GSFC PAO for a copy of a presentation titled "Systems Engineering Review of the RESTORE mission." that had been presented on 28 August. On 6 September 2012 I got the following response back from GSFC PAO with regard to my request:

"The Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office (SSCO) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center has received your request to provide a copy of the presentation package given on August 28-29, 2012 at the Systems Engineering Review (https://www.fbo.gov/?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=6fd53a246b22fd1777c01bd51cfd0901&_cview=0) for a potential geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) servicing mission.

The package was not handed to the participants at the review because it contains ITAR-restricted data and material relevant to a potential competitive solicitation. We are in the process of preparing the package for distribution. Attendees whose citizenship was previously confirmed will be sent the version of the package with all ITAR data clearly labeled as such. A non-ITAR package will be posted on our public website.

We welcome your interest in this Review and SSCO's activities to advance robotic satellite-servicing technologies. Our team encourages you to visit our website (http://ssco.gsfc.nasa.gov/) for information about SSCO's technology development campaign. We'd be happy to give you a tour of the Satellite Servicing Center located at Goddard Space Flight Center at your convenience."

This is a little odd. Aren't things with ITAR sensitivity supposed to marked that way to begin with - certainly before they are discussed or referenced in a public forum? If I read this right, ITAR labeling is only being applied to materials - after the fact - materials that were already discussed at this meeting. The original meeting notice says "Due to the content of the presentations and facility security requirements, only U.S. citizens may attend. All attendees will be required to present government issued photo identification upon entry to the event".

If only American citizens were allowed in this meeting, then they would all have shown proof of their citizenship, right? Or were some attendees not American citizens? If the material had been labeled in advance as being ITAR sensitive - and everyone in attendance was a U.S. citizen - then couldn't copies have been given to all attendees at the meeting? And if this material is also competition sensitive (in addition to ITAR sensitive), why were all attendees openly encouraged to use their cellphones to record copies of these materials? This meeting was held in a large auditorium and no one was checking to see who walked in.

Update: NASA GSFC PAO provided this response on 7 September 2012:

"In response to your query, the citizenship of all of the participants at the Review was verified prior to their admittance into the event. Each slide was clearly labeled at the bottom that "Use or disclosure of this data is subject to the restriction on the title page of this document." The title page had the detailed ITAR language. Further, periodically throughout the two-day event, ITAR reminders were given verbally to the participants. Ultimately it is the legal responsibility of each U.S. person that attended the Review to not further distribute ITAR-controlled material to non-U.S. persons."

This begs the question: Why were attendees openly encouraged to take pictures of these slides with their cellphones? Witnesses tell me that this was done. That sounds contrary to the notion that this information is not to be shared. Was every page of the ITAR-sensitive documents tagged with an ITAR notice? Documents get distributed in pieces all the time. My understanding is that every page needs an ITAR warning. Is that what NASA is adding to these documents now? Also, why was the word "predecisional" used when refering to ITAR-sensitive information?

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Confusing ITAR Compliance at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Red Heads are pioneers again with spot in Hall

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Red Heads are pioneers again with spot in Hall

NASA Picks Revolutionary Space Tech Proposals for Development

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September 7, 2012 - NASA's Space Technology Program has selected 5 technologies that could revolutionize America's space capabilities. The following proposals were selected for funding: Representing and Exploiting Cumulative Experience with Objects for Autonomous Manipulation; Lightweight High Performance Acoustic Suppression Technology Development; Fast Light Optical Gyroscopes for Precision Inertial Navigation; EHD-Based Variable Conductance Thermal Interface Material; and Membrane Enabled Reverse Lung. NASA NASA Ames Reseach Center Moffett Field, CA, 94035 USA Press release date: August 17, 2012

WASHINGTON, -- NASA's Space Technology Program has selected five technologies that could revolutionize America's space capabilities.

In March, NASA issued a call for proposal focused on sudden and unexpected innovations that hold a potential for providing a "game-changing" impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of the agency's space capabilities.

NASA has selected the following proposals for funding:

--"Representing and Exploiting Cumulative Experience with Objects for Autonomous Manipulation," University of Massachusetts, Amherst. This technology could improve autonomous robotic operations using artificial intelligence during deep space missions.

--"Lightweight High Performance Acoustic Suppression Technology Development," NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. This technology could suppress acoustic environments during launch. By reducing vibrations by acoustic suppression during launch, the amount of prelaunch vibration stress testing for onboard instruments also could be reduced.

--"Fast Light Optical Gyroscopes for Precision Inertial Navigation," NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. This technology could enhance navigation capabilities for spacecraft by improving the performance of existing gyroscopes by a factor of 1,000.

--"EHD-Based Variable Conductance Thermal Interface Material," The Boeing Company, El Segundo, Calif. The development of this thermal material could provide better heat management for spacecraft.

--"Membrane Enabled Reverse Lung," Oceaneering Space Systems, Houston. This technology could reduce the number of life support systems needed for astronauts.

"NASA's Space Technology Program is enabling our future in space by investing in revolutionary and game-changing technologies that could open new doors for how we live, work and investigate space," said Michael Gazarik, director of the program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We are confident these selected technologies, with their highly qualified research teams, will enable great new opportunities for the next chapter in NASA's innovation story."

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NASA Picks Revolutionary Space Tech Proposals for Development

NASA Satellite Captures First Glimpse of Curiosity's Tracks from Martian Orbit

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The little rover is on the go, and NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was there to document it.

NASA's Curiosity rover has been sending back awesome images of the Martian surface since it landed on the red planet in early August. But to see the rover itself, you need the work of another NASA craft, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been circling the planet since 2006. Earlier this week, it was able to capture the above picture of the rover, in which you can clearly see the tracks it has left in the Martian dust. (NASA notes the color in the image has been enhanced to show detail, hence the bluish tinge.)

NASA additionally released a video chronicling the rover's progress so far and previewing the weeks ahead.

Two additional pictures from the Orbiter, mentioned and described in the above video, are below.

More From The Atlantic

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NASA Satellite Captures First Glimpse of Curiosity's Tracks from Martian Orbit

NASA's Newest Autonomous Lander Passes Flight Test

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A prototype NASA lander completed a successful free flight on Sept. 5, helping to bring a new generation of landing vehicles closer to reality.

The Mighty Eagle flew up to 100 feet, identified an on-the-ground target with its onboard cameras, and then autonomously landed itself at the chosen spot. The successful flight is part of a series of incremental tests to mature this technology.

The prototype brings to mind earlier Apollo-era test crafts such as the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle, which nearly killed astronaut Neil Armstrong during a training maneuver in 1968.

The cute three-legged lander stands at 4 feet high and 8 feet in diameter, so its not designed to carry astronauts. Instead, NASA engineers are hoping that such a vehicle could one day autonomously land cargo and scientific instruments on the moon, an asteroid, or other airless body in the solar system.

It stands in contrast to NASAs Morpheus Lander, a larger craft capable of bringing about 1,000 pounds to the lunar surface, which might include a robotic humanoid, small rover, or scientific laboratory. During its first untethered test on Aug. 9, Morpheus suffered an inglorious explosion after it flipped over shortly after liftoff.

The video below shows the Mighty Eagle in action during an earlier test on Aug. 8, when the vehicle flew 30 feet in the air.

Image: NASA/MSFC/Dennis Olive

Video: NASA Marshall TV

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NASA's Newest Autonomous Lander Passes Flight Test

NASA's Global Hawk mission begins with flight to Hurricane Leslie

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ScienceDaily (Sep. 7, 2012) NASA has begun its latest hurricane science field campaign by flying an unmanned Global Hawk aircraft over Hurricane Leslie in the Atlantic Ocean during a day-long flight from California to Virginia. With the Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) mission, NASA for the first time will be flying Global Hawks from the U.S. East Coast.

The Global Hawk took off from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., Thursday and landed at the agency's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va., today at 11:37 a.m. EDT after spending 10 hours collecting data on Hurricane Leslie. The month-long HS3 mission will help researchers and forecasters uncover information about how hurricanes and tropical storms form and intensify.

NASA will fly two Global Hawks from Wallops during the HS3 mission. The planes, which can stay in the air for as long as 28 hours and fly over hurricanes at altitudes greater than 60,000 feet, will be operated by pilots in ground control stations at Wallops and Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

The mission targets the processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensity change. The aircraft help scientists decipher the relative roles of the large-scale environment and internal storm processes that shape these systems. Studying hurricanes is a challenge for a field campaign like HS3 because of the small sample of storms available for study and the great variety of scenarios under which they form and evolve. HS3 flights will continue into early October of this year and be repeated from Wallops during the 2013 and 2014 hurricane seasons.

The first Global Hawk arrived Sept. 7 at Wallops carrying a payload of three instruments that will sample the environment around hurricanes. A second Global Hawk, scheduled to arrive in two weeks, will look inside hurricanes and developing storms with a different set of instruments. The pair will measure winds, temperature, water vapor, precipitation and aerosols from the surface to the lower stratosphere.

"The primary objective of the environmental Global Hawk is to describe the interaction of tropical disturbances and cyclones with the hot, dry and dusty air that moves westward off the Saharan desert and appears to affect the ability of storms to form and intensify," said Scott Braun, HS3 mission principal investigator and research meteorologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

This Global Hawk will carry a laser system called the Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL), the Scanning High-resolution Interferometer Sounder (S-HIS), and the Advanced Vertical Atmospheric Profiling System (AVAPS).

The CPL will measure cloud structure and aerosols such as dust, sea salt and smoke particles. The S-HIS can remotely sense the temperature and water vapor vertical profile along with the sea surface temperature and cloud properties. The AVAPS dropsonde system will eject small sensors tied to parachutes that drift down through the storm, measuring winds, temperature and humidity.

"Instruments on the 'over-storm' Global Hawk will examine the role of deep thunderstorm systems in hurricane intensity change, particularly to detect changes in low-level wind fields in the vicinity of these thunderstorms," said Braun.

These instruments will measure eyewall and rainband winds and precipitation using a Doppler radar and other microwave sensors called the High-altitude Imaging Wind and Rain Airborne Profiler (HIWRAP), High-Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR) and Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD).

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NASA's Global Hawk mission begins with flight to Hurricane Leslie

NASA Releases Stunning Shot of Curiosity From Orbit

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NASA's Curiosity is the largest and most advanced robotic rover to ever explore the surface of Mars. The pictures being produced by the mission are also some of the most stunning ever sent back to Earth by a planetary probe.

Take the most recent image distributed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory that's making the roundsa shot of Curiosity on the surface of the Red Planet taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter from space. The picture shows the rover itself and the tracks it laid down on the surface during one of its first treks away from its landing site.

We've collected that image and others in the accompanying slideshow to highlight the best photos from the Curiosity mission to date. Many have had their color enhanced to bring out details on the Martian surface.

Curiosity landed on Mars in the wee hours of the morning on Aug. 6, 2012 (Eastern time) after a risky descent that had the Mission Control team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. and viewers around the worldon the edge of their seats.

Just minutes after landing was confirmed, Curiosity's orbiting partner transmitted the first dusty thumbnail images the rover had taken with her rear hazmat cameras. Two hours later, during the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's second flyover, high-resolution images came down showing rocks and the rim of Gale Crater, where the rover landed at a site named after the late science fiction writer Ray Bradbury.

There would be many more images from Curiosity in the weeks that followed, including a large batch taken by the rover and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that were released by NASA several weeks ago.

High-resolution shots of Curiosity's thrilling descent, meanwhile, were recently assembled by visual effects editor Daniel Fitch to create a composite video of the rover's harrowing landing on Mars.

Photographer Andrew Bodrov also stitched together many of the Mars images to create a stunning, 360-degree panorama and a new video was released this week showing an animated demonstration of Curiosity's instrument arm in action (below).

For more, check out the recent "Ask Me Anything" chat that Team Curiosity had on Reddit. PCMag's Meredith Popolo was also at the JPL in California covering the Curiosity rover's arrival on Mars. For more, see her tour of JPL. Also check out 7 Minutes of Terror: Landing the Mars Curiosity Rover and How to Hack NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover.

For more from Damon, follow him on Twitter @dpoeter.

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NASA Releases Stunning Shot of Curiosity From Orbit