CEMMNT, The Centre of Excellence in Metrology for Micro and Nanotechnologies, is set to host a brand new motorsport event on the 21st September 2010 focusing on the application of nanotechnologies in high performance motorsport and automotive engineering.
Nanoparticles in ivy may hold the key to making sunscreen safer and more effective
Researchers have found that ivy nanoparticles may protect skin from UV radiation at least four times better than the metal-based sunblocks found on store shelves today.
Nanoscale imaging of cell walls aids in turning plants into biofuels
By imaging the cell walls of a zinnia leaf down to the nanometer scale, energy researchers have a better idea about how to turn plants into biofuels.
Polymer synthesis could aid future electronics
Tomorrow's television and computer screens could be brighter, clearer and more energy-efficient as a result of a process developed by a team of researchers from Canada and the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Team designs artificial cells that communicate and cooperate like biological cells
Researchers develop first models for producing polymer-based artificial cells capable of self-organizing, performing tasks, and transporting 'cargo', from chemicals to medicine.
Video Camera Will Show Mars Rover’s Touchdown
A downward-pointing camera on the front-left side of NASA's Curiosity rover will give adventure fans worldwide an unprecedented sense of riding a spacecraft to a landing on Mars.
The Mars Descent Imager, or MARDI, will start recording high-resolution video about two minutes before landing in August 2012. Initial frames will glimpse the heat shield falling away from beneath the rover, revealing a swath of Martian terrain below illuminated in afternoon sunlight. The first scenes will cover ground several kilometers (a few miles) across. Successive images will close in and cover a smaller area each second.
The full-color video will likely spin, then shake, as the Mars Science Laboratory mission's parachute, then its rocket-powered backpack, slow the rover's descent. The left-front wheel will pop into view when Curiosity extends its mobility and landing gear.
The spacecraft's own shadow, unnoticeable at first, will grow in size and slide westward across the ground. The shadow and rover will meet at a place that, in the final moments, becomes the only patch of ground visible, about the size of a bath towel and underneath the rover.
Dust kicked up by the rocket engines during landing may swirl as the video ends and Curiosity's surface mission can begin.
All of this, recorded at about four frames per second and close to 1,600 by 1,200 pixels per frame, will be stored safely into the Mars Descent Imager's own flash memory during the landing. But the camera's principal investigator, Michael Malin of Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, and everyone else will need to be patient. Curiosity will be about 250 million kilometers (about 150 million miles) from Earth at that point. It will send images and other data to Earth via relay by one or two Mars orbiters, so the daily data volume will be limited by the amount of time the orbiters are overhead each day.
"We will get it down in stages," said Malin. "First we'll have thumbnails of the descent images, with only a few frames at full scale."
Subsequent downlinks will deliver additional frames, selected based on what the thumbnail versions show. The early images will begin to fulfill this instrument's scientific functions. "I am really looking forward to seeing this movie. We have been preparing for it a long time," Malin said. The lower-resolution version from thumbnail images will be comparable to a YouTube video in image quality. The high-definition version will not be available until the full set of images can be transmitted to Earth, which could take weeks, or even months, sharing priority with data from other instruments."
The Mars Descent Imager will provide the Mars Science Laboratory team with information about the landing site and its surroundings. This will aid interpretation of the rover's ground-level views and planning of initial drives. Hundreds of the images taken by the camera will show features smaller than what can be discerned in images taken from orbit.
"Each of the 10 science instruments on the rover has a role in making the mission successful," said John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, chief scientist for the Mars Science Laboratory. "This one will give us a sense of the terrain around the landing site and may show us things we want to study. Information from these images will go into our initial decisions about where the rover will go."
The nested set of images from higher altitude to ground level will enable pinpointing Curiosity's location even before an orbiter can photograph the rover on the surface.
Malin said, "Within the first day or so, we'll know where we are and what's near us. MARDI doesn't do much for six-month planning -- we'll use orbital data for that -- but it will be important for six-day and 16-day planning."
In addition, combining information from the descent images with information from the spacecraft's motion sensors will enable calculating wind speeds affecting the spacecraft on its way down, an important atmospheric science measurement. The descent data will later serve in designing and testing future landing systems for Mars that could add more control for hazard avoidance.
After landing, the Mars Descent Imager will offer the capability to obtain detailed images of ground beneath the rover, for precise tracking of its movements or for geologic mapping. The science team will decide whether or not to use that capability. Each day of operations on Mars will require choices about how to budget power, data and time.
Last month, spacecraft engineers and technicians re-installed the Mars Descent Imager onto Curiosity for what is expected to be the final time, as part of assembly and testing of the rover and other parts of the Mars Science Laboratory flight system at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Besides the rover itself, the flight system includes the cruise stage for operations between Earth and Mars, and the descent stage for getting the rover from the top of the Martian atmosphere safely to the ground.
Malin Space Science Systems delivered the Mars Descent Imager in 2008, when NASA was planning a 2009 launch for the mission. This camera shares many design features, including identical electronic detectors, with two other science instruments the same company is providing for Curiosity: the Mast Camera and the Mars Hand Lens Imager. The company also provided descent imagers for NASA's Mars Polar Lander, launched in 1999, and Phoenix Mars Lander, launched in 2007. However, the former craft was lost just before landing and the latter did not use its descent imager due to concern about the spacecraft's data-handling capabilities during crucial moments just before landing.
For More information visit http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-239
Full Draft Text of House NASA Authorization Legislation
NASA Authorization Act of 2010 - House of Representatives Draft
"(10) In an environment of constrained budgets, responsible stewardship of taxpayer-provided resources makes it imperative that NASA's exploration program be carried out in a manner that builds on the investments made to date in the Orion, Ares I, and heavy lift projects and other activities of the exploration program in existence prior to fiscal year 2011 rather than discarding them. A restructured exploration program should pursue the incremental development and demonstration of crewed and heavy-lift transportation systems in a manner that ensures that investments to provide assured access to low-Earth orbit also directly support the expeditious development of the heavy lift launch vehicle system, minimize the looming human space flight ''gap'', provide a very high level of crew safety, and enable challenging missions beyond low-Earth orbit in a timely manner."
Video: VSS Enterprise Makes First Crewed Flight
Video: Boeing CST-100 Crew Transport Docking With Bigelow Space Station
Did You Motorize Your Little Red Wagon?
Check out this old advertisement for a kit to attach an engine to a Radio Flyer, a little red wagon that kids usually pulled by hand. "With a small ELECTRIC motor, wagon makes enjoyable and never failing entertainment in the recreation room," the ad explains. Look, Mom, no hands!
Ultracapacitors for Medical Implants
Engineers from MIT report that they may have found a feasible way for ultracapacitors to be used in place of batteries. They have invented an energy-storing chip that could help ultracapacitors conquer one of the last technical obstacles, so that they can replace batteries in tiny electronics.
Flip Flopping at DoD Over Solid Rockets
Solid rocket industry needs consolidation-Pentagon, Reuter
"The U.S. solid rocket motor industry is "over capacity" and needs consolidation, the Pentagon's top official for industrial policy said. "It is over capacity right now," Brett Lambert said at the Farnborough Airshow on Monday, adding a consolidation was long overdue."
Keith's note: I'm confused. First DoD complains that cuts to solid rocket motor production capacity and procurement options resulting from Constellation cancellation would be a big problem. Now they say that the U.S. has to much solid rocket capacity. Well, which is it?
A Democrat and a Republican, both from Staten Island, join together to oppose proposed Tanning Ban
"Are we going to outlaw kids from going to the beach?"
From Eric Dondero:
Under consideration in the New York Legislature is a bill that would completely ban Teens under 18 from visiting a tanning salon.
Two Legislators both from Staten Island have come out strongly against the ban. Surprisingly, one is a Democrat and the other a Republican.
From SILive.com:
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- It's one thing for parents to try to enforce their kids' good behavior -- and quite another for state government to try to step in and do it for them.
So say Staten Island's two state senators, who are mostly of the same mind when it comes to pending legislation that would keep teens under 18 from visiting tanning salons...
Already on the books is a state law that requires parental consent before a young person between the ages of 14 and 18 can visit a tanning salon. Ms. Savino and Lanza think that's as far as it should go, and do not favor a bill that would ban teens under 18 altogether because of the potential cancer-causing health risks.
"Are we going to outlaw kids going to the beach?" asked Ms. Savino (D-North Shore/Brooklyn).
"Some things are harmful to your health and some things you need your parents' permission for," said state Sen. Diane Savino, "but where do we cross the line between having a nanny state and passing laws to protect kids? Are we, as lawmakers, trying to substitute our judgment for the judgment of parents?"
"As a lawmaker there is a tendency to want to help," said state Sen. Andrew Lanza. "But government goes too far when it tells people how to live, what to do and how to do it. We become a nanny state."
Savino is a very outspoken socially liberal Democrat, who is often highly confrontational with Republicans. Though oddly, she has been spotted at Republican fundraisers. (Source SILive).
Feed This Machine Rice And It’ll Spit Out A Fresh Loaf Of Bread [Nomnom]
If you want to make delicious bread out of rice, you normally have to get rice flour and work from there. But with the Sanyo Gopan rice bread machine, all you have to do is pour in handfuls of rice. More »
The Ribbons Of Life Lamp Draws Inspiration From The Source [Lamp]
The DNA inspired double helical design would look especially great in any mad scientist's lair, or geneticist's dining room. Tough to believe this popped out of a 3D printer. More »
Blue Collar (GOP) Libertarian Paul LePage way out ahead for Maine Gov.
From Eric Dondero:
Republican Liberty Caucus, and Tea Party-backed GOPer for Governor of Maine Paul LePage has taken a commanding lead over his Democrat and Independent rivals. Rasmussen now has LePage out ahead with 39%.
From Rasmussen:
The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Voters shows Republican candidate Paul LePage receiving 39% of the vote, while Democrat Libby Mitchell picks up 31%. Democrat-turned-independent Eliot Cutler now earns 15% support. Three percent (3%) favor some other candidate, and 12% are undecided at this point.
LePage is the longtime Mayor of the working class coastal town of Waterville.
How To Hide a Cell Tower [Cellular]
While older cell towers were topped with those those unsightly satellite-looking antenna fixtures, newer ones can be contained entirely in sleek, featureless polls and thus disguised as trees. Nice for us, not so much for woodpeckers. [YouTube Thanks Manny] More »
Sarah Palin’s Midas Touch at work in the Deep South
First Nikki Haley in South Carolina, now Karen Handel in neighboring Georgia
From Josh Painter:
With a little help from her friend Sarah Palin, former Secretary of State Karen Handel is now the front runner in the GOP governor's race, according to the results of a new statewide poll released Saturday. Atlanta radio station WSB reports:
Bolstered by an endorsement from conservative superstar Sarah Palin, former Secretary of State Karen Handel appears to have surged into the lead of the Republican race for governor, according to a new statewide poll conducted for the Georgia Newspaper Partnership.
The poll of 400 likely Republican primary voters taken Thursday and Friday put Handel in first place with 29 percent of Georgians polled saying she would get their vote. That's up 6 percentage points from an earlier poll that was partially taken before Palin's endorsement on Monday.
Handel is the former Secretary of State and a former Chair of the Fulton County Commissioners. From her website:
[In 2003] Running against two former commissioners and another candidate, Karen campaigned against high property taxes and for ethics reform. She won with nearly 60% of the vote in this heavily Democratic county.
During her tenure leading the most populous county in Georgia, she inherited a budget shortfall of nearly $100 million and was told there was no way to balance the budget without raising taxes. Karen said, “Bring it on.” She made the strategic cuts needed and balanced the county budget three times without raising taxes.
Georgians will go to the polls Tuesday to vote in the primaries of the two major political parties.
Josh is a longtime contributor to LR, and blogger for Texas for Palin.
iPad Projector Renders 3D Objects for the Naked Eye [3D]
Experimental design team Aircord Labs has released a proof of concept video demonstrating an iPad with 3D capabilities visible to the naked eye. The effect is achieved with a specially designed projector that beams images into a pyramid shaped screen. More »
A Detailed State of the Apps Report [Apps]
There's a lot written about the Apple App Store and Android Market, but they're hardly the only games in town. Here's your comprehensive look at the entire app ecosystem. Spoiler: it's huge. More »
