Hi. I am new to GPS and have a basic question, so please bear with me. My purpose is to obtain speed and position data as and when I want it (for this I understand I need to use $PSRF103 to query for GGL/VTG). My question is, apart from this, what are the basics I have to take care of before even tr
James Cameron to Design a 3D Camera for Next-Gen Mars Rover | 80beats
After entertaining the entire planet with the movie Avatar, director James Cameron is now taking his expertise to space–specifically to Mars. He’s helping NASA build a 3D camera for its next rover, Curiosity.
The space agency announced that Cameron is working with Malin Space Science Systems Inc. of San Diego to develop the camera, which will be the rover’s “science-imaging workhorse.” The rover, which was previously known as the Mars Science Laboratory, is scheduled for launch in 2011.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory had recently scaled back plans to mount a 3D camera on the rover, as the project was consistently over-budget and behind schedule. But Cameron lobbied NASA administrator Charles Bolden for inclusion of the 3-D camera during a January meeting, saying a rover with a better set of eyes will help the public connect with the mission [Associated Press]. Cameron, whose 3D spectacle Avatar earned more than $2 billion at box offices worldwide, had developed a special 3D digital camera system for the film, and felt the space agency could benefit from his expertise.
Malin has already delivered two standard cameras to be installed on the rover’s main mast. These cameras, which are set up for high-definition color video, are designed to take images of the Martian surface surrounding Curiosity, as well as of distant objects [Computer World]. But these cameras cannot provide a wide field of view, and they also don’t have a zoom; the cameras Cameron is developing will include these features, and will allow researchers to take cinematic video sequences in 3D on the surface of the Mars. However, the 3D cameras aren’t guaranteed to be included in the mission. To make it on the new rover, the cameras will have to be designed, assembled and tested before NASA begins its final testing of the rover early next year [Computer World].
The SUV-sized rover won’t only be toting cameras. Curiosity will also carry instruments, environmental sensors, and radiation monitors to investigate the Red Planet’s surface. NASA hopes to find out if life ever existed on Mars and if the planet can support human life in the future. “It’s a very ambitious mission. It’s a very exciting mission,” Cameron said. “(The scientists are) going to answer a lot of really important questions about the previous and potential future habitability of Mars” [AFP].
Related Content:
80beats: Photo Gallery: The Best Views From Spirit’s 6 Years of Mars Roving
80beats: Dis-Spirit-ed: NASA Concedes Defeat Over Stuck Mars Rover
80beats: Next Mars Rover Won’t Take Off Towards Mars Until 2011
80beats: 3-D TV Will Kick Off With World Cup Match This Summer
Discoblog: Just Like Avatar: Scenes from India, Canada, China, and Hawaii
The Intersection: The Science of Avatar
Image: NASA
Tomorrow Night at Observatory! "Three Unique Medical Museums in Northern Italy," Lecture by Marie Dauenheimer
Just a quick reminder: tomorrow night at Observatory! Marie Dauenheimer--the curator of the "Anatomical Art: Dissection to Illustration" exhibition discussed in this recent post--will be on hand at Observatory to deliver an illustrated lecture that "will survey the collections of three unique and often over-looked anatomical museums in Northern Italy." You can read a full description here. Full event details follow; hope very much to see you there!
Three Unique Medical Museums in Northern Italy
An illustrated presentation by Marie Dauenheimer of the Vesalius Trust
Date: May 1, 2010
Time: 8:00 P.M.
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid AnatomyTonight’s visual presentation by Marie Dauenheimer will survey the collections of three unique and often over-looked anatomical museums in Northern Italy which Dauenheimer toured as part of last years Vesalius Trust “Art and Anatomy Tour.” First, the University of Florence Museum of Pathological Anatomy, famous for its collection of wax pathological models created in the 19th century, including an amazing life size leper; then The Museum of Human Anatomy in Bologna featuring the work of famed wax modeling team of Anna Morandi Manzolini and her husband Giovanni Manzolini, whose life size wax models inspired Clement Susini and the wax-modeling workshop in Florence (see image above); and lastly the fascinating University of Pavia Museum of Anatomy, which houses the beautiful 18th century frescoed dissection theater, where anatomist Antonio Scarpa. So join us tonight for wine, fellowship, and a virtual and very visual tour of some of the finest and most fascinating medical museums of Italy!
Marie Dauenheimer is a Board Certified Medical Illustrator working in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area. She specializes in creating medical illustrations and animations for educational materials, including posters, brochures, books, websites and interactive media. Since 1997 Marie has organized and led numerous “Art and Anatomy Tours” throughout Europe for the Vesalius Trust. Past tours have explored anatomical museums, rare book collections and dissection theatres in Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Scotland and England. In addition to illustrating Marie teaches drawing, life drawing and human and animal anatomy at the Art Institute of Washington. Part of Marie’s anatomy class involves study and drawing from cadavers in the Anatomy Lab at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, DC (for more on that, see this recent post).
You can find out more about this presentation here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here. To learn more about Marie's "Anatomical Art: Dissection to Illustration" exhibition, click here. For more on the Vesalius Trust, click here.
Image: Self-portrait of wax modeller Anna Morandi Manzolini dissecting a human brain, Bologna, c. 1760; Via Scienza a Due Voci
Air Handling Unit – Cooling Coils Calculation
please can anybody send me the details of how the cooling coil selection for air handling units and rows of cooling coil if any calculation is there please send me the details
Fall Protection Requirements
I have decided to start an argument I know I am going to loose.
I need to replace some ridge vent flashing on a low-sloped roof (1:12), which measures approximately 300' x 400'. This flashing is only along the center-line of the roof. As I have said, it is Ridge Vent flashing, no edge wor
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We are having slurry (beach sand slurry)pumps .we are facing problem of slurry pump tripping due to gland seal water flow fail though gland seal water pump running and water pressure is o.k. we found flow switch also o.k could anybody suggest why gland seal water flow restricts by pump itself while
Equipotential Connection on Current Transformer
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McDonald's Happy Meals Banned in Santa Clara County, California
From TreeHugger:
Santa Clara County in California has just ushered in a sad day for Happy Meals -- by banning them, along with other such promotions for unhealthy kids' meals. But this sad day for McDonald's may lead to many happier ones for all those kids who might now have a
Chinese Military Shovels Put Swiss Army Knives To Shame
From Gizmodo:
When you first see this Chinese military shovel in action, you may be tempted to think you're just watching variations on digging. Impertinent fool! That "shovel" is about to chop down a tree. And row a boat. And saw. And...
Read the whole article
Gulf Oil Spill Reaches U.S. Coast; New Orleans Reeks of “Pungent Fuel Smell” | 80beats
The moment conservationists have been dreading since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill started—that oil making landfall—appears to be upon us. This morning the Coast Guard is flying over the Gulf Coast to check out reports the crude washed ashore overnight, and more reports of oil drifting ashore are coming out of Louisiana. Crews in boats were patrolling coastal marshes early Friday looking for areas where the oil has flowed in, the Coast Guard said. Storms loomed that could push tide waters higher than normal through the weekend, the National Weather Service warned [AP].
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano set up a second base of operations to deal with potential impacts on the Gulf Coast states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. Meanwhile, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has declared a state of emergency, and said: “Based on current projections, we expect the oil to reach land today at the Pass-A-Loutre Wildlife Management Area. By tomorrow, we expect oil to have reached the Chandeleur Islands and by Saturday, it is expected to reach the Breton Sound. These are important wildlife areas and these next few days are critical” [Nature]. The city of New Orleans already reeks of a”pungent fuel smell” believed to come from the oil spill, as the Times-Picayune newspaper puts it.
With this news, along with yesterday’s announcement that the spill could be five times worse than first believed, the Deepwater Horizon disaster is close to becoming historically bad. The oil slick could become the worst U.S. environmental disaster in decades, threatening to eclipse even the Exxon Valdez in scope. It imperils hundreds of species of fish, birds and other wildlife along the Gulf Coast, one of the world’s richest seafood grounds, teeming with shrimp, oysters and other marine life [CBS News]. To make matters worse, experts say that marshlands are far more difficult to clean than sandy beaches. Says David Kennedy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “It is of grave concern. I am frightened. This is a very, very big thing. And the efforts that are going to be required to do anything about it, especially if it continues on, are just mind-boggling” [AP].
Responders keep trying to stem the flow, but all the Coast Guard’s containment boom and controlled fires, and all of BP’s undersea robots, haven’t been able to stop the oil leak deep undersea. Underscoring how acute the situation has become, BP is soliciting ideas and techniques from four other major oil companies — Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell and Anadarko [The New York Times]. The military is trying to help BP, who’d leased the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, reach it emergency shutoff valves. “To be frank, the offer of help from all quarters is welcome,” said David Nicholas, a BP spokesman [The New York Times].
Facing a far-reaching catastrophe, today President Obama’s administration announced that the plan announced a month ago to expand offshore drilling is going on hiatus, at least until people figure out what went wrong in the Gulf. Meanwhile, the Interior Department says it will commence an immediate safety review of all the rigs and drilling platforms in the area.
Our previous posts on the Gulf Oil Spill:
80beats: Uh-Oh: Gulf Oil Spill May Be 5 Times Worse Than Previously Thought
80beats: Coast Guard’s New Plan To Contain Gulf Oil Spill: Light It on Fire
80beats: Sunken Oil Rig Now Leaking Crude; Robots Head to the Rescue
80beats: Ships Race To Contain the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
Image: NOAA
Foam Agent Effect
How does a foam agent modifies the mole structure of a plastic resin?
We are about to initiate an extrusion process for PP film and we know the resin must be added with a foaming agent to obtain the film characteristics. is the foaming agent going to increase the volume of the product witho
Plastic from Algae: The First Step Toward a Fish-Friendly Gyre?
From PopularMechanics.com Science - RSS Feed:
By year's end, an Indiana company says it will be making plastic from algae, substituting up to half of the material normally derived from fossil fuels with biomass from the aquatic plants, and selling the product to manufacturers.
Kitchen Renovations, Part 1
Planning an Attack
They say updating kitchens and bathrooms can increase the value of your home the most. While this is likely true, its not why I re did my kitchen. For me, the main reason was that it was out of date; it had been styled to look like the 50s, but since had fallen apart in many
DIY Mustang Body Kit
In this episode, MOTORZ shows you how to install a Boy Racer body kit from 3dCarbon on a 2008 Ford Mustang GT (S197). With an aggressively sculpted front bumper that flows into larger fender flares, the Boy Racer kit makes this Mustang look like its moving even when it's not. All of the
Solidworks 2006 Video Card
I am purchasing a new computer and will be running Solidworks 2006. This computer will have a 1GB NVIDA GeForce GT220 video card. I looked at a list of known good cards on a Solidworks site but they only go back to Solidworks 2008, and this card does not appear. Can anyone offer an opinion as to whe
Aphids got their colours by stealing genes from fungi | Not Exactly Rocket Science
Aphids, those sap-sucking foes of gardeners, come in a variety of colours. We usually think of them as green, but pea aphids sometimes wear a fetching red ensemble. That may not strike you as anything special; after all, lots of animals are red. But the aphid’s colour is unique in a couple of extraordinary ways.
The colour comes from pigments called carotenoids. Animals use them for all sorts of purposes; they act as antioxidants, and they contribute to red, orange and yellow colours. But the pea aphid is one of only a few known species (all aphids) that manufacture their own carotenoids; everyone else gets theirs from their food. But it’s the source of the pea aphid’s ability that’s truly remarkable – it stole the skill from fungi. By integrating fungal genes into its own genomes, it gained a superpower that almost all other animals lack.
These sorts of “horizontal gene transfers” go on all the time in bacteria, but they’re supposedly a rarity among more complex creatures like animals and plants. And yet, scientists have recently documented several examples of such transfers. Rotifers smuggle genes from fungi, bacteria and plants. “Space Invader” genes have jumped across animals as diverse as lizards and bushbabies. One bacterium, Wolbachia, has even inserted its entire genome into that of a fruit fly. And parasites can transfer their genes to humans.
In most of these cases, it’s unclear whether the imported genes are actually doing anything useful. But the story of the pea aphid, told by Nancy Moran and Tyler Jarvik, is very different. The colour of a pea aphid determines the predators that target it. Ladybirds (one of their major enemies) prefer to attack red aphids on green plants but parasitic wasps are more likely to lay their eggs in green aphids, to fatal effect. Colour clearly matters to an aphid, so here is a clear example of a transferred gene shaping an obvious trait in its new host and in doing so, shaping its evolution.
Moran and Jarvik knew that both red and green pea aphids have carotenoids, but their source was a mystery. These pigments dissolve easily in fat but not water, and they’re unlikely to be found in the plant sap that the aphids suck. Aphids carry beneficial bacteria but none of their genomes carry any traces of the genes required for creating carotenoids. And aphids that are cured of their hitchhikers don’t lose their colour. So where do the carotenoids come from?
Fortunately, Moran and Jarvik knew what to look for, since all organisms that make carotenoids, including plants, fungi and bacteria, do so with a common set of genes and enzymes. They also knew where to look, for the genome of the pea aphid had been recently sequenced. Their search yielded seven genes that are clearly involved in producing carotenoids. But to their surprise, none of this septet matched any gene in any other animal genome. Instead, their closest relatives are found in fungi.
Moran and Jarvik think that the original donor was a species of fungus that either infected the ancestors of today’s pea aphids, or formed an alliance with them. Either way, we know that this mystery donor transferred at least two genes to the insects, which have since duplicated into the current seven. And we know that the relocation happened before the pea aphid diverged from the related peach-potato aphid, which has the same genes.
Today, the genes explain the two hues of the pea aphid. The green aphids have carotenoids that are yellow in colour. The red ones do too, but their palette is bolstered by two bright red carotenoids that the green aphids lack. The greens can’t make these extra pigments because one of their seven fungal genes is missing a small sizeable chunk. This broken gene means that the green aphids can’t complete a chemical reaction that converts one of the yellow carotenoids into the two red ones.
The pea aphid’s story tells us that genetic swaps between complex species like fungi and animals are possible, although probably still rare. Before now, scientists did actually try to search the pea aphid genome before for genes transferred from other species. But they only looked for genes of bacterial origin; no one considered that the donors might be fungi, so the carotenoid-making genes were never found.
When Moran and Jarvik searched for other fungal genes, they didn’t find any, demonstrating that such swaps are the exception rather than the rule. But what fascinating exceptions – and the growing number of full animal genomes will surely help us to discover more.
Reference: Science http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1187113
Image: by Charles Hedgcock
More on aphids:
- Virus and bacteria team up to save aphid from parasitic wasp
- Aphids defend themselves with chemical bombs
- Are red autumn leaves a warning sign to insects?
- The suicide plasterers – aphids that repair their homes with their own bodily fluids
- Aphids hide from parasitic wasps among the corpses of their peers
More on horizontal gene transfer:
- Gut bacteria in Japanese people borrowed sushi-digesting genes from ocean bacteria
- Dormant viruses can hide in our DNA and be passed from parent to child
- Attack of the killer tomato fungus driven by mobile weapons package
- Genes from Chagas parasite can transfer to humans and be passed on to children
Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
What would your solution be to cap the open oil well head in the gulf of Mexico?
8-bit Guitar Trades Chords for Combos
From technabob:
In the past few years, artists have started to use video game-like sounds to make music. Some have even recreated music using the sound chips from old computers and consoles in a musical genre known as "chiptunes." For his senior project, Mike Davenport created his
How to Handle Volcanic Ash?
Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano brought air transport to a halt in much of Europe for nearly a week. And now there are questions over whether the European air ministries over-reacted. What do you think? If you were a passenger needing to fly, would you want the authorities permitting flights or e
Are We All on the Same Wavelength?
Technology is rapidly changing healthcare delivery. Connected patients are being empowered to take a more active role in their health and fitness. Remote patient monitoring can lower the cost of patient care while ensuring that a patient is never really out of range of medical care. Device interoper