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Videos: Atlas 5 rocket assembled to launch NASA’s TDRS-M bird … – Spaceflight Now

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Danzig

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket that will boost NASAs latest communications relay satellite into space is targeting an Aug. 20 liftoff at 7:56 a.m. EDT (1156 GMT).

The Tracking and Data Relay satellite-M, or TDRS-M, will be carried aloft from Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, reaching a customized high-perigee geosynchronous transfer orbit nearly two hours after launch.

The mission was delayed from Aug. 3 after a crane incident damaged the crafts Omni antenna in the cleanroom, requiring replacement.

The spacecraft will act like a relay station 22,300 miles above Earth to receive telemetry, voice, video and scientific data from lower orbiting platforms like the International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope and beam the signals to a central ground hub.

The satellite will become the 12th TDRS placed in space since 1983 and extend the constellation well into the 2020s, providing near continuous connectivity to spacecraft that would otherwise be in range of ground stations 15 percent of each orbit.

The two stages of the Atlas 5 rocket arrived by sea on June 26, sailing into Port Canaveral from the manufacturing plant in Decatur, Alabama, aboard the Delta Mariner cargo ship.

On Wednesday, July 12, United Launch Alliance workers began stacking the launch vehicle, designated AV-074, by erecting the first stage aboard the mobile launch platform parked inside the VIF.

The combined interstage, Centaur upper stage and boattail of the fairing, all pre-integrated together off-site, was hoisted atop the first stage on July 13.

The 191-foot-tall rocket will be wheeled to the pad on Aug. 18 at 9 a.m.

Video courtesy of NASA-KSC TV

Arrival

First stage

Centaur

Videos: Atlas 5 rocket assembled to launch NASA's TDRS-M bird ... - Spaceflight Now

Newly developed Nanotube Technology could revolutionize spaceflight – SpaceFlight Insider

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Danzig

Michael Cole

July 26th, 2017

A carbon nanotube Composite Overwrap Pressure Vessel (COPV) flew in May 2017 as part of the SubTec-7 mission using a 56-foot (17-meter) tall Black Brant IX rocket launched from NASAs Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Shown here is the SubTec7 payload undergoing final testing and evaluation at Wallops Flight Facility. Photo Credit: Berit Bland / NASA

A cold-gas thruster system, partially made from carbon nanotube material, was recently tested aboard a Black Brant IX suborbital sounding rocket, which was launchedon May 16, 2017, at 5:45 a.m. EDT (09:45 GMT) from NASAs Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Part of the thruster system was a Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel (COPV).

A Black Brant IX sounding rocket carrying SubTec-7 leaves the launch pad at NASAs Wallops Flight Facility. Photo Credit: Chris Perry / NASA

The COPV is an aluminum tank that is wrapped with a composite material to strengthen the tanks ability to hold a fluid or gas under pressure. In the recent test, the overwrap material was a newly developed carbon nanotube yarn that has 200 times the strength and five times the elasticity of steel.

We picked the COPV because the design properties require good tensile strength, Michael Meador, Program Element Manager for Lightweight Materials and Manufacturing at NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, told SpaceFlight Insider. But you could think about using these nanotube yarns in other structural components.

Meadors group did trade studies at NASAs Langley Research Center that looked at incorporating nanotube materials with lower structural densities into a cryotank for a notional launch vehicle.

Meador said: What we found out from those trade studies was that if you could reduce the density of the structural material by 25 percent or so, you could reduce the mass of the launch vehicle by 30 percent. So that is a real game-changer. We cant think about any other single technology that would have that much of an impact.

The nanotube fiber yarn used as the overwrap for the COPV in the test was manufactured by a company called Nanocomp Technologies, Inc., in Merrimack, New Hampshire. The company had developed it originally for use in lightweight data cables. Their initial emphasis was on the electrical properties of the yarn, so it was not very strong.

Since then, in collaboration with NASA, Nanocomp has modified their process for making this material. The yarn now has mechanical properties on a per weight basis that are comparable to or even a little bit better than carbon fiber.

Meador said: Our idea in this project was to work with Nanocomp to increase the tensile properties of the fiber, and [] develop techniques to incorporate this into composites.

Meadors project is part of the Game-Changing New Developments program at NASA. Developing a nanotube fiber that can reliably perform its function within the systems of a launch vehicle, while reducing the weight of that launch vehicle by 30 percent, is indeed a game-changer.

Game-changing program is all about maturing technologies and demonstrating them and their suitability for use in a NASA mission, Meador said. That usually involves making hardware, and it usually involves a flight test. We selected the COPV because the tensile properties of the fiber are particularly important for that component. And then we worked with Wallops to design an experiment where we could demonstrate the use of the COPV in a cold gas thruster system. We basically pressurized the COPV with argon and used it to make two maneuvers for the flight test. One was to wiggle the payload back and forth a little bit, and the second one was to spin the payload up prior to descent. They always do that to improve the aerodynamics.

The COPV on the sounding rocket test performed exactly as was expected. The payload was recovered, but Meador and his group have not received the COPV back yet. They intend to do some post-test analysis on it to see if the structural integrity has changed as a result of the flight test.

LEFT: A demonstration flight article is wound with carbon nanotube composites. RIGHT: COPV tank inside the sounding rocket. Photos Credit: NASA

This new carbon nanotube technology could potentially reduce the weight of a launch vehicle by 30 percent. But what, exactly, are carbon nanotubes?

First, one must understand that carbon nanotubes get their strength from the extremely strong bond between carbon atoms.

When you get down to a scale of 1 to 100 nanometers, conventional physics breaks down, and that gives rise to new phenomena, Meador explained. With carbon nanotubes, the aspect ratio, the length divided by the width of the tube, is quite large, and that means it makes a great reinforcement for things like plastics and other materials.

The nanotubes are made in a heated tube furnace by injecting a catalyst and a special mix of gases full of carbon atoms. What they generate is something that looks like black smoke. It is called a nanotube aerogel. That aerogel can be deposited onto a rotating drum to make a nonwoven fabric, or it can be grabbed and twisted and pulled onto a spindle to make a yarn out of it. The yarn is then further manipulated to make it into the material that was used to wrap around the pressure vessel in the recent test.

The nanotube yarn, then, is simply a million or so nanotubes with no binder between them. The yarn is all nanotube in the fiber. The only thing holding the fiber together are twists between the individual nanotubes interlocking between one another.

We got interested in this technology initially in 2000, Emilie Siochi, Research Materials Engineer at NASAs Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, told SpaceFlight Insider. The reason is we thought there were data showing that the mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes far exceed those that are typically used for structural applications in aerospace. Especially for space exploration, we care about mass reduction. The initial analysis of how much mass we could save in large structures like launch vehicles [was] based on what we knew about the properties of carbon nanotubes at that time.

LEFT: Shown here is a Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel, or COPV, in a test setup. The aluminum vessel was pressurized to test the overwrapped carbon nanotube yarns ability to strengthen or reinforce the vessel against the internal pressure forces. A number of these burst-tests were conducted to prepare the newly developed carbon nanotube yarn and the COPV for its launch test aboard a sounding rocket launched from NASA Wallops. Photo Credit: NASA Glenn Research Center. RIGHT: A spool of the newly developed carbon nanotube yarn developed in collaboration with NASA by Nanocomp Technologies, Inc. in Merrimack, New Hampshire.Photo Credit: Nanocomp Technologies, Inc.

Siochi and others at Langley did a series of analyses on how much the mechanical properties of the nanotubes would have to be improved in order to use them in spaceflight applications. The analysis told them the nanotube fibers would have to be doubled in strength.

We spent many years trying to work with carbon nanotubes in the form that was available, Siochi said. This changed in 2004 when Nanocomp started making carbon nanotubes not in powder form but in large sheets. These sheets are now in a form that is very similar to what we can use for carbon fiber composites. We started working with them around 2010 because we were evaluating their material for our applications.

The early versions of the carbon nanotube yarn, if looked at under a microscope, would show gaps between the individual nanotubes within the yarn.

They (Nanocomp) have changed the process, and modified the chemicals they use to make the yarn, Meador said. They also did some post-processing techniques on them. To look at a cross section of the current yarn under a microscope, it looks more like a fiber. It is very consolidated and the gaps arent there anymore.

Like any new technology, it takes time to gain acceptance of the technology as reliable for its designed tasks. Further development and testing on the carbon nanotube yarn will determine that acceptance.

There are more improvements that can be made to get the strength up, Meador said. Nanocomp is working on that, and we are continuing to collaborate with them.

Tagged: carbon nanotubes Nanocomp Technologies NASA The Range

Michael Cole is a life-long space flight enthusiast and author of some 36 educational books on space flight and astronomy for Enslow Publishers. He lives in Findlay, Ohio, not far from Neil Armstrongs birthplace of Wapakoneta. His interest in space, and his background in journalism and public relations suit him for his focus on research and development activities at NASA Glenn Research Center, and its Plum Brook Station testing facility, both in northeastern Ohio. Cole reached out to SpaceFlight Insider and asked to join SFI as the first member of the organizations Team Glenn.

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Newly developed Nanotube Technology could revolutionize spaceflight - SpaceFlight Insider

Roybal emotional during NM coaches Hall of Honor ceremony – Santa Fe New Mexican

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Danzig

Cindy Roybal couldnt help but shed a tear Wednesday morning.

The longtime head girls basketball coach watched through watery eyes during the tribute video during the New Mexico High School Coaches Association Hall of Honor ceremony at Albuquerques Crowne Plaza Hotel. Roybal was among three inductees into the hall, including longtime former Fort Sumner head girls basketball/track and field coach Rafael Roybal and recently retired Tularosa head football coach Louie Vaisa.

The video highlighted what Cindy Roybal has accomplished during her 40-year coaching career that spans the high school and college ranks, and she heard from a few assistant coaches and former players who vouched for her compassion, tenacity and influence on the players she coached and taught.

Dr. Fiel Trujillo, who coached under Cindy Roybal at New Mexico Highlands University, called it an honor to work with her from 1999-2002, then quoted lyrics from Andy Williams song The Impossible Dream to best capture Roybals essence.

We honor more than victories and banners, Trujillo said. We honor the sacredness of friendship and loyalty. We honor sacrifice and tenacity, and we say Thank you, coach Roybal, for helping us understand that trophies and rings are cherished mementos in time, but the values we learn in pursuing them, both in victory and in defeat, are timeless.

Roybal also was greeted before and after the ceremony by former players during her time at St. Catherine Indian School, both stints at Santa Fe Indian School and NMHU.

While Roybal was a part of the All-American Red Heads traveling squad that was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011 and recently was a finalist for the National High School Coaches Association in girls basketball last year, she considered this honor more rewarding.

I was recognized by my peers as being one of the best, Roybal said. It was a cumulation of everybody who has come through my doors. Nadine Jojola, she was on the first team I coached at St. Catherine, and she was here. So that was impressive. And there were a few others people didnt know about who were here as well.

It is unbelievable to see how many lives Ive touched over the years.

Roybal owns a 377-105 record at St. Catherine, the Institute of American Indian Arts, SFIS, Pojoaque Valley and Espaola Valley. She will begin her first year at Santa Fe High in November.

The New Mexico High School Coaches Association Coaches Clinic honored the achievement of coaches for the previous season as well as highlighted the career achievements of others. All head coaches who were a part of state championship teams received certificates for that accomplishment.

Northern coaches who were recognized for the first time included Moras Jacquelyn Sanchez (volleyball), Pecos Ira Harge (boys basketball). Pecos head cross-country coach Patrick Ortiz won the coach of the year award on the boys side, while former Pecos head coach Sal Gonzales won it for the girls. Former Santa Fe High head boys soccer coach A.J. Herrera won the boys soccer coach of the year for Albuquerque St. Pius X, and Las Vegas Robertsons Warren Fulgenzi was the tennis coach of the year.

A pair of track and field coaches were recognized for career milestones. Pojoaque Valleys Bob Koski, who resigned this summer, earned his Level 1 certificate, while St. Michaels Joey Fernandez was recognized for his teams scoring 626 points during his career.

North, South boys basketball

The South built a 37-27 lead in the first half, and got it up to 74-61 in the third before the North cut the lead down to 77-74. The South regrouped and extended the lead to double digits in the final minute.

Escalante graduate Waylon Hinds had 12 points, while Questas T.J. Madrid had seven. Santiago Laumbach of Mora and Coronados Diego Jacquez each had six.

The South trailed 84-77 midway through the second half, but used a 24-9 run to put the game away. Capitals Jeremy Anaya had only a bucket in the first half, and played sparingly in the second. Santa Fe Highs David Marquez did not score, but saw significant playing time early in the second half.

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Roybal emotional during NM coaches Hall of Honor ceremony - Santa Fe New Mexican

NASA is building a prototype for a habitat in deep space by recycling an old cargo container – Washington Post

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Danzig

An aluminum cargo container, built more than 15 years ago to move large equipment to space, will be transformedinto a prototype of a space habitat where astronauts would live during long missions.

The project is a step toward NASA's next big human spaceflight project called theDeep Space Gateway, a spaceport in the moon's orbit where astronauts would live for up to a year. NASA's goal is to have it up and running by themid-2020s, and from there, the space agency hopes to gain some experience and develop capabilities needed to push farther into the solar system, specifically to Mars.

Colorado-based Lockheed Martin, a NASA contractor, announced last week that it will refurbish the cargo space container into a habitat prototype. It won't look like much on the outside just a massive cylindrical metal container, about 21 feet long and 15 feet in diameter. The interior will be turned into aliving quarter, with robotics work stations for astronauts, a place to exercise and storage spaces for food, water, toiletries all the things you need to live and be happy in space, said Bill Pratt, of Lockheed Martin.

[Mars Society founder blasts NASA for worst plan yet]

It is easy to take things for granted when you are living at home Something as simple as calling your family is completely different when you are outside of low Earth orbit, Pratt said in a news release. While building this habitat, we have to operate in a different mindset that's more akin to long trips to Mars to ensure we keep them safe, healthy and productive.

Named Donatello, the cargo container was one of three built by the Italian Space Agencyin the 1990s toserve as moving vans carrying equipment, experiments and supplies to and from the International Space Station, a large spacecraft orbiting the Earth and where astronauts have lived since 2000.

Donatello was delivered to NASA's Kennedy Space Centerfrom Italy in 2001. While the two other cargo containers, called Leonardo and Raffaello, flew on several shuttle missions to the International Space Station, Donatello was never used.

Lockheed Martin will refurbish Donatello at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The work would take about 18 months.

Although Donatello was originally built to be flown to space, the refurbished hardware won't make it there, Pratt said. Lockheed will turn over its prototype to NASA, which will then start looking at building the actual habitat, Pratt said.

[Stephen Hawking, Kris Jenner and other famous people with plans to send humans to Mars]

It's a steppingstone to the actual flight vehicle and pretty representative of the actual thing that flies, Pratt said.

The Deep Space Gateway habitat will be docked to a spacecraft called Orion, the exploration vehicle that will carry astronauts to space.

Pratt said it's still too early to say how much the prototype would cost.

Lockheed Martin is one of six U.S. companiesNASA contracted to buildhabitat prototypes for the spaceflight project. The Deep Space Gateway, which focuses onsending astronauts on extended missions in the moon's orbit, is a far more modest goal than reachingMars. But, as The Washington Post's Joel Achenbach wrote, it's more technologically doable in the near term under plausible budgets.

NASA said it hopes to send humans to Marsby the 2030s.

In March, President Trump signed a bill authorizing $19.5 billion to fund NASA programs, including Mars exploration.

Trump signs NASA bill aimed at sending people to Mars

NASA officials discuss Trumps push for first-term moon mission

Stephen Hawking calls for a return to the moon as Earths clock runs out

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NASA is building a prototype for a habitat in deep space by recycling an old cargo container - Washington Post

Cameras on NASA exoplanet spacecraft slightly out of focus – SpaceNews

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Danzig

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite will fly in a unique highly-elliptical orbit to search for exoplanets around the nearest and brightest stars. Credit: NASA

WASHINGTON Cameras recently installed on a NASA spacecraft designed to look for nearby exoplanets will be slightly out of focus once launched, but the agency said that will not affect the missions science.

NASA confirmed July 26 that the focus of the four cameras on the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) spacecraft will drift when the spacecraft cools to operating temperatures after launch next March. The problem was noticed in recent tests when the cameras were chilled to approximately 75 degrees Celsius.

Recent tests show the cameras on TESS are slightly out of focus when placed in the cold temperatures of space where it will be operating, NASA spokesperson Felicia Chou said in response to a SpaceNews inquiry. After a thorough engineering evaluation, NASA has concluded TESS can fully accomplish its science mission with the cameras as they are, and will proceed with current integration activities.

The problem with the TESS cameras came up during a July 24 meeting of the NASA Advisory Council science committee in Hampton, Virginia. Alan Boss, an astronomer with the Carnegie Institution, brought up the issue in a summary of a meeting last week of the Astrophysics Advisory Committee, of which he is a member.

That could have some big effects on the photometry, he said of the focus problem. This is certainly a concern for the folks who know a lot about photometry.

TESS will use those cameras to monitor the brightness of the nearest and brightest stars in the sky, an approach similar to that used by Kepler, a spacecraft developed originally to monitor one specific region of the sky. Both spacecraft are designed to look for minute, periodic dips in brightness of those stars as planets pass in front of, or transit, them.

Chou said that since TESS is designed to conduct photometry, measuring the brightness of the stars in its field of view, resolution is less important compared to imaging missions like Hubble. However, astronomers are concerned that there will be some loss of sensitivity because light from the stars will be spread out onto a slightly larger area of the detector.

The question is how much science degradation will there be in the results, Boss said. The TESS team thinks there will be a 10 percent cut in terms of the number of planets that they expect to be able to detect.

Despite the reduction, Boss said TESS scientists believe they will still be able to meet the missions primary science requirements, and thus there is no need to fix the cameras. The four cameras were attached this week to a plate that will later be installed on the spacecraft, which is being assembled by Orbital ATK.

There will be some loss of science, and we just want to know more about it, Boss said. That includes anything the project can do in software, or even mechanical fixes to the spacecraft, to compensate for the focus problem.

NASA has not disclosed the cause of the focus problem, but Boss said it may be due to crystallization of the glue used to bond the detector arrays in place. He said project engineers didnt expect the focus to continue to drift after the temperature stabilized.

Chou said the project will continue to monitor the problem. Should further testing reveal the cameras are unable to complete the mission, NASA will revisit the decision and determine the steps moving forward, she said.

TESS is scheduled to launch no earlier than March 2018 on a SpaceX Falcon 9. That launch was previously planned for late 2017 but postponed by delays in SpaceXs launch schedule and the NASA launch certification process.

TESS will operate in a unique orbit that takes it between 108,000 and 373,000 kilometers from the Earth. The orbit is particularly stable, thus minimizing the maneuvers the spacecraft has to perform to maintain it.

The spacecraft will have a two-year primary mission, and scientists expect it to detect thousands of exoplanets, including dozens the size of the Earth. Astronomers plan to follow up some of the most promising discoveries with the James Webb Space Telescope and the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope.

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Cameras on NASA exoplanet spacecraft slightly out of focus - SpaceNews

Senate restores funding for NASA Earth science and satellite servicing programs – SpaceNews

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Danzig

NASA's Restore-L mission would develop satellite servicing technology and refuel the Landsat 7 spacecraft. Credit: NASA

WASHINGTON An appropriations bill approved by a Senate committee July 27 would restore funding for several NASA Earth science missions slated for termination by the administration as well as a satellite servicing program.

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved a commerce, justice and science (CJS) appropriations bill, along with two other spending bills, during a markup session. The CJS bill, offering $19.529 billion for NASA overall, had cleared its subcommittee July 25.

The bill and accompanying report, released after the markup, reveal significant differences between the Senate and both their House counterparts as well as the original White House request in several areas, including science and space technology.

The Senate bill provides $1.921 billion for NASAs Earth science program, identical to what it received in fiscal year 2017. The White Houses proposal sought a cut of $167 million in the program, while the House deepened that cut by an additional $50 million.

The administrations proposal sought to cancel four missions under development or in operation: the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite, the Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) Pathfinder and the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) 3 instruments for the International Space Station, and Earth-viewing instruments on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR). All four are specifically funded in the Senate report.

The Senate also supported a fifth project slated for termination, the Radiation Budget Instrument (RBI), with conditions. The Senate report states that NASA must report on whether RBI can be ready for inclusion on the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) 2 spacecraft and stay within budget. If so, NASA can continue working on RBI using reprogrammed funding.

While Earth science received a large increase in the Senate bill, planetary science was cut: the Senate bill offers $1.612 billion, versus the administrations request of $1.93 billion and the House bills $2.12 billion.

The report includes $660 million for NASAs Mars exploration program, but unlike the House bill does not specify any funding for planning missions beyond the Mars 2020 rover. As in past years, the Senate bill also does not specify any funding for the Europa Clipper mission or a follow-on lander, which is explicitly mentioned in the House bill at levels higher that the original request.

There were few changes in NASAs astrophysics or heliophysics divisions, or for the James Webb Space Telescope. The Senate report allocated $150 million for the next flagship astrophysics mission, the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), about $25 million above the NASA request.

Another major difference between the Senate bill and both the original request and the House bill is in satellite servicing. The administration sought to restructure the Restore-L program, a mission that would refuel the Landsat 7 satellite, into a more generic satellite servicing program that would receive $45 million. The House bill provided a similar amount, but under the Restore-L name.

The Senate bill, by contrast, provides $130 million for Restore-L, the same amount as it received in 2017. While critics of Restore-L had argued it duplicated a DARPA project for geostationary orbit satellite servicing, the Senate rejected that claim. By focusing on low-Earth orbiting satellites, it avoids competing against industry and holds the potential to save money by allowing government satellites longer operational life, the report stated.

The Senate also, in the report, encouraged NASA to share expertise and lessons learned with DARPA and to accept any financial contributions from DARPA to its work.

In other areas, the Senate is more closely aligned with the House. They provide $2.15 billion for the Space Launch System and $1.35 billion for the Orion spacecraft, both above the administrations request. Both also reject the administrations proposal to close NASAs Office of Education, with the Senate offering $100 million, the same as 2017, and the House $90 million.

During the debate about the CJS bill by the appropriations committee, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the ranking member of the CJS subcommittee, introduced an amendment to add $6.51 billion to the overall $53.4 billion bill to address areas she felt needed additional funding. Among them, she said in her remarks, was to increase NASA science funding to its 2017 level, an increase of $193 million.

The committee rejected the amendment on a 1615 vote along party lines, with Republicans arguing the additional funding would have exceeded existing spending caps.

NOAA weather satellites and FAA commercial space

The CJS bill also funds weather satellite programs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Senate bill provides $518.5 million for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite R (GOES-R) program and $775.8 million for the JPSS program, matching the administrations request and the House bill.

The Senate, though, restores funding for the Polar Follow-On (PFO) program that supports development of the third and fourth JPSS satellites. The Senate provides $419 million for the program, compared to $150 million in the administrations request, which sought to restructure the program. The House, raising questions about that restructuring, offered only $50 million for Polar Follow-On.

Funding for PFO is critical for maintaining polar orbiting satellite data, which is already at risk for a potential gap due to program mismanagement and funding shortfalls in PFOs predecessor programs, the Senate report states. This cut, and the proposed but unspecified postponement of the JPSS-3 and JPSS-4 satellites, would introduce a weather forecasting risk that this Committee is unwilling to accept.

The appropriations committee also approved a transportation and housing and urban development spending bill that includes funding for the Federal Aviation Administration. The bill provides the FAAs Office of Commercial Space Transportation $21.587 million, $1.76 million above what it received in 2017 and overriding a $1.9 million cut proposed by the administration. The House bill also offered $21.587 million for the office.

The Senate report, similar to the House report, directs the FAA to enhance its payload review process to provide companies planning lunar missions with the security and predictability necessary to support substantial investments. How such non-traditional commercial space activities, which are not clearly overseen by the FAA or other agencies today, should be regulated is a topic of ongoing debate.

The Senate bill also directs the FAA to provide the committee with a report into the June 2015 catastrophic launch failure by a commercial launch provider, a reference to the SpaceX Falcon 9 accident on a commercial cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. That report, which consolidates previous investigations by or for the federal government, would also include a summary for public release.

Senate leadership has not indicated when these or other appropriations bills will be take taken up by the full Senate. The House is expected to pass a minibus consolidating four appropriations bills, including defense, by July 28, but has not yet taken up the CJS or transportation spending bills.

The fiscal year 2018 appropriations process is unlikely to be completed until well after the fiscal year begins Oct. 1, requiring one or more short-term continuing resolutions to fund the government at 2017 levels.

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Senate restores funding for NASA Earth science and satellite servicing programs - SpaceNews

Where global warming gets real: inside Nasa’s mission to the north pole – The Guardian

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Danzig

From the window of a Nasa aircraft flying over the Arctic, looking down on the ice sheet that covers most of Greenland, its easy to see why it is so hard to describe climate change. The scale of polar ice, so dramatic and so clear from a plane flying at 450 metres (1,500ft) high enough to appreciate the scope of the ice and low enough to sense its mass is nearly impossible to fathom when you arent sitting at that particular vantage point.

But its different when you are there, cruising over the ice for hours, with Nasas monitors all over the cabin streaming data output, documenting in real time dramatising, in a sense the depth of the ice beneath. You get it, because you can see it all there in front of you, in three dimensions.

Imagine a thousand centuries of heavy snowfall, piled up and compacted into stone-like ice atop the bedrock of Greenland, an Arctic island almost a quarter the size of the US. Imagine all of modern human history, from the Neolithic revolution 12,000 years ago when humans moved from hunting and gathering to agriculture, and from there, eventually, to urban societies until today. All of the snow that fell on the Arctic during that entire history is gathered up in just the top layers of the ice sheet.

Imagine the dimensions of that ice: 1.71m sq km (656,000 sq miles), three times the size of Texas. At its belly from the top layer, yesterdays snowfall, to the bottom layer, which is made of snow that fell out of the sky 115,000-130,000 years ago it reaches 3,200 metres (10,500ft) thick, nearly four times taller than the worlds highest skyscraper.

Imagine the weight of this thing: at the centre of Greenland, the ice is so heavy that it warps the land itself, pushing bedrock 359 metres (1,180ft) below sea level. Under its own immense weight, the ice comes alive, folding and rolling in solid streams, in glaciers that slowly push outward. This is a head-spinningly dynamic system that we still dont fully understand and that we really ought to learn far more about, and quickly. In theory, if this massive thing were fully drained, and melted into the sea, the water contained in it would make the worlds oceans rise by 7 metres (23ft).

When you fly over entire mountain ranges whose tips barely peek out from under the ice and these are just the visible ones its possible to imagine what would happen if even a fraction of this quantity of pent-up freshwater were unleashed. You can plainly see how this thing would flood the coasts of the world, from Brooklyn to Bangladesh.

The crew of Nasas Operation IceBridge have seen this ice from every imaginable angle. IceBridge is an aerial survey of the polar regions that has been underway for nearly a decade the most ambitious of its kind to date. It has yielded a growing dataset that helps researchers document, among other things, how much, and at what rate, ice is disappearing from the poles, contributing to global sea-level rises, and to a variety of other phenomena related to climate change.

Alternating seasonally between the north and south poles, Operation Icebridge mounts months-long campaigns in which it operates eight- to 12-hour daily flights, as often as weather permits. This past spring season, when I joined them in the Arctic, they launched 40 flights, but had 63 detailed flight plans prepared. Operation IceBridge seeks to create a continuous data record of the constantly shifting ice by bridging hence the name data retrieved from a Nasa satellite that ended its service in 2009, called ICESat, and its successor, ICESat-2, which is due to launch next year. The Nasa dataset, which offers a broad overview of the state of polar ice, is publicly available to any researcher anywhere in the world.

In April, I travelled to Kangerlussuaq, in south-west Greenland, and joined the IceBridge field crew a group of about 30 laser, radar, digital mapping, IT and GPS engineers, glaciologists, pilots and mechanics. What I saw there were specialists who have, over the course of almost 10 years on this mission, mastered the art and science of polar data hunting while, at the same time, watching as the very concept of data, of fact-based discourse, has crumbled in their culture at home.

On each flight, I witnessed a remarkable tableau. Even as Arctic glaciers were losing mass right below the speeding plane, and even as raw data gleaned directly from those glaciers was pouring in on their monitors, the Nasa engineers sat next to their fact-recording instruments, sighing and wondering aloud if Americans had lost the eyes to see what they were seeing, to see the facts. What they told me revealed something about what it means to be a US federally funded climate researcher in 2017 and what they didnt, or couldnt, tell me revealed even more.

On my first morning in Greenland, I dropped in on a weather meeting with John Sonntag, mission scientist and de facto field captain for Nasas Operation IceBridge. I stood inside the cosy weather office at Kangerlussuaq airport, surrounded by old Danish-language topographical maps of Greenland, as Sonntag explained to me that the ice sheet, because of its shape, can generate unique weather patterns (the ice isnt flat, its curved, he said, making a little mound shape with his hands).

The fate of the polar ice has occupied the last decade of his life (Im away from home so much its probably why Im not married). But at pre-flight weather meetings, polar ice is mostly of concern to him for the quirky way it might affect that days weather. The figure in Sonntags mind this morning isnt metres of sea rise, but dollars in flight time. The estimated price tag for a flight on Operation IceBridge is about $100,000; a single hour of flight time is said to cost $10-15,000. If Sonntag misreads the weather and the plane has to turn back, he loses flight time, a lot of taxpayers money, and precious data.

I would come to view Sonntag as something of a Zen sage of atmospheric conditions. He checks the weather the moment he wakes in the morning, before he eats or even uses the bathroom. He told me that it wasnt simply about knowing what the weather is. With weather, there is no is. Whats needed is the ability to grasp constant dynamic change.

What Im doing, he said, is correcting my current reading against my previous one which he had made the last possible moment the night before, just before falling asleep. Basically, Im calibrating. The machine that he is calibrating, of course, is himself. This, as I would learn, was a pretty good summary of Sonntags modus operandi as a leader: constantly and carefully adjusting his readings in order to better navigate his expeditions shifting conditions.

Nevertheless, despite the metaphorical implications of his weather-watching, Sonntag was ever focused on the literal. At the weather meeting, I asked him about his concern over some low cloud cover that was developing a situation that could result in scrubbing the flight. Was his concern for the functionality of the aircrafts science equipment, its ice-penetrating radars, its lasers and cameras?

On that day, as it turned out, Sonntag was more worried about pilot visibility. You know, so we dont fly into a mountain, he explained, without taking his eyes off the blobs dancing across the monitors. That kind of thing.

A few weeks before I met Sonntag, a reporter had asked him: What makes this real to you? The question had startled him, and he was evidently still thinking about it. I honestly didnt know what to say, he told me.

Sonntag cuts a trim, understated figure in his olive green Nasa flight suit, fleece jacket and baseball cap, and his enthusiasms and mellow ironies tend to soften his slow-burn, man-on-a-literal-mission intensity. I could imagine how a reporter might miss the underlying zeal; but get to know Sonntag and youll learn why, even three weeks later, that question was still rattling around his head.

Im still kind of at a loss, to be honest, he told me. What makes it real? I mean, wow, where do I start?

It is indeed a strange question to ask someone who was once on a high-altitude flight when temperatures fell so low that the planes fuel turned solid, almost sending it straight down into Antarctica, directly on to the ice, in the middle of the darkest of nights. Each of the 63 flight plans for this season in the Arctic was the result of months of meticulous planning. A team of polar scientists from across the US sets the research priorities, in collaboration with flight crews, who make sure the routes are feasible; the mission is managed from Nasas Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

Sonntag is there at every phase, including at the construction and installation of the scientific instruments, and he is the person in the field responsible for executing the mission. He is supposed to have a plan for every contingency: if the plane goes down on the ice, hes got plans for that, too. He is responsible for making sure that his crew have adequately backed up and stored many terabytes of data, and that their own creature comforts are taken care of. On days off, he cooks gumbo for them.

The reporter probably had something else in mind. The melting of ice, the rising waters, and all the boring-seeming charts that document the connections between the two what makes that real? To Sonntag and his crew, it is as real as the data that they have personally helped fish out of the ice.

Sea levels, which were more or less constant for the past 2,000 years, have climbed at a rate of roughly 1.7mm a year in the past century; in the past 25 years, that rate has doubled to 3.4mm a year, already enough to create adverse effects in coastal areas. A conservative estimate holds that waters will rise roughly 0.9 metres (3ft) by the year 2100, which will place hundreds of millions of people in jeopardy.

Given the scale of sea- and ice-related questions, the vantage point that is needed is from the air and from space, and is best served through large, continuous, state-supported investments: hence Nasa. There is a lot we dont know and a lot that the ice itself, which is a frozen archive of past climate changes, can tell us. But we need the eyes to see it.

First built during the cold war to track Russian submarines, the P-3 Orion aircraft, a four-engine turboprop, is designed for long, low-flying surveillance missions. IceBridges P-3, based at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, is armed with a suite of instruments mounted under the plane and operated by engineers sitting at stations in the cabin. A laser altimetry system which bounces laser beams from the bottom of the aircraft to the top of the ice and back determines the height and topography of the uppermost layer of ice; a digital mapping system takes high-resolution photos of the ice, helping us see the patterns in which it is changing shape; and a radar system sends electromagnetic pulses through the ice, thousands of feet and a hundred thousand years to the land beneath.

This data shows us where the ice is growing and where it is shrinking, and helps researchers determine its current mass. The IceBridge data has also helped create a 3D map of an ice-locked land that no human eyes have ever seen: the territory of Greenland, its mountains, valleys, plains and canyons, and also a clear view of the layers of ice that have grown above it. Nasa repeats its IceBridge flights annually, to chart how the ice changes from year to year, and, by comparison with earlier satellite data, from decade to decade. For the integrity of the data, it is best to repeat the flights over exactly the same terrain. The path of each IceBridge flight must adhere to a line so narrow that they had to invent a new flight navigation system, which Sonntag cannot help but describe with boyish glee (We basically trick the plane into thinking its landing!).

In trying to grasp how the ice works, its necessary to know the shape of the underlying terrain: in places where the land slopes up, for instance, we know that ice will flow slower. IceBridge data helped discover and chart a canyon in northern Greenland the size of the Grand Canyon. In addition to being a wondrous discovery in its own right, this was useful in understanding where, and how, the ice is moving. One effect of this giant canyon system can be seen at the coast, where sea water can seep into cavities, potentially melting lower layers of ice. Other aerial data has shown how glacier fronts, which served as corks holding back the ice flow behind them, have diminished and unleashed the flow, causing more ice to flush into the sea at increasingly rapid paces.

Fantastic 3D maps of the ice sheet created with IceBridge data have also helped researchers locate rare, invaluable Eemian ice, from more than 100,000 years ago. This was an era when the Earth was warm similar to today and in which the seas were many feet higher, which resembles the world to which we are headed. By drilling deep into the ice, glaciologists can excavate ice cores containing specks of materials such as volcanic ash, or frozen bubbles that preserve precious pockets of ancient air that hold chemical samples of long-departed climates. Because of IceBridge data, researchers know where to look for these data-rich ice layers.

These are among the reasons that John Sonntags head hurts, and why he doesnt know where to begin or what to think when people ask him what makes this real for him. Behind even well-meaning questions is a culture of ignorance, or self-interested indifference, that has made it easy for a Republican-led, corporation-owned US government to renege on the Paris climate agreement, to gut the Environmental Protection Agency, and to slash billions of dollars of climate change-related funds from the federal budget this year. When the White House recently proposed cuts to Nasas climate-change research divisions, the media helped them along by burying the story under speciously positive headlines: Trumps Nasa budget supports deep space travel, crowed CBS News. The worlds coasts are facing catastrophic sea rise, but at least Americans can look forward to watching their countrymen grill hot dogs on Mars.

The US built Kangerlussuaqs airfield in the early 1940s, and they still maintain a small airbase there. In 1951, America built a giant fortress on the ice, Thule Air Base, in north-west Greenland strategically equidistant from Russia and the US where it secretly kept armed nuclear weapons. In one of naval historys most ambitious armadas, the Americans cut through the ice, created a port, and effected a conquest second in scope only to the D-day invasion. And all they had to do was uproot an Inuit settlement.

The USs history in Greenland gives the lie to the notion that ice research is inherently peaceful, much less apolitical. Glaciology advanced as a field partly through the work of US scientists serving the needs of their countrys rapidly growing nuclear war machine in the 1960s, helping to build Camp Century, a fabled city under ice in northern Greenland and designing Project Iceworm, a top-secret system of under-ice tunnels nearby, which was intended as a launch site for hidden nuclear missiles. In 1968, at the height of the war in Vietnam, a nuclear-armed B-52 crashed near Thule. A fire, started when a crewman left a pillow over a heating vent, resulted in four atomic weapons hydrogen bombs plunging into the ice, and releasing plutonium into the environment.

When our flight landed in Kangerlussuaq, we passed quickly through passport control, but our bags were nowhere to be found. For 40 minutes we could see the one and only commercial plane at this airfields one and only gate just sitting on the tarmac, with our bags still in it. This wasnt a serious problem Kangerlussuaqs one hotel was just up a short flight of steps from the gate but it did seem odd that the bags hadnt come through customs. Another passenger, sensing my confusion, approached me.

Yankee? he asked.

Yankee, I replied.

Customs, the man told me, was actually just one guy, who had a tendency to mysteriously disappear.

By the way, he added conspiratorially. You know customs here has a special arrangement with the Americans. The customs guy, the stranger told me, turns a blind eye to liquor headed to the US Air Force bar on the other side of the airfield.

Kangerlussuaq (population 500), or as the Yanks prefer to call it, Kanger, still feels like a frontier station. Most locals work either at the airport or at the hotel. Next to the airfields main hangar, local people house the huskies that pull their sledges. The roads of Kangerlussuaq can be dicey; there are no sidewalks. Once you leave the tiny settlement, there arent roads at all; and if you go north or east, of course, theres only ice. Decommissioned US air force Jato bottles jet boosters that, to the untrained eye, resemble small warheads are ubiquitous around Kangerlussuaq, usually as receptacles for discarded cigarette butts. In the hotel cafeteria you can see American and European glaciologists, greeting each other with surprise and hugs, because the last time they met was a year or two ago, when they ran into each other at the other pole.

When I finally got my bag, I made my way down to the 664 barracks, where the crew was staying. But before I met the crew, I met the data itself. In a small, slouchy barracks bedroom, near the front door, I encountered two Nasa servers. IT engineers could, and often would, sit on the bed as they worked.

The window was cracked open, to cool the room and soothe the crackling servers, whose constant low hum, like a shamans chant, was accompanied by the pleasant aroma of gently baking wires one of the more visceral stages of the daily ritual of storing, transferring, copying and processing data captured on the most recent flight. After years of listening to Americans debate the existence of data demonstrating climate change, it was comforting to come in here and smell it.

When I first arrived, I found one of the IT crew, dressed in jeans, T-shirt and slippers, and with big, sad, sleepy, beagle eyes, reclining next to the server, his feet up on a desk, chowing on a Nutella snack pack. He explained the irony of his struggle to keep the servers happy in the far north. A week earlier, when IceBridge was operating its northern flights from Thule Air Base, they couldnt seem to find any way of getting the server rooms temperature down: Were in the Arctic, but our problem is finding cold air.

For a moment he paused to consider the sheer oddness of life, but then he shrugged, and polished off his Nutella snack. But we just chug on, you know? he said.

This attitude captured something essential about IceBridge: its scrappy. Its the kind of operation in which the engineers are expected to bring their own off-the-shelf hardware back-ups from home. (As one radar tech told me: if your keyboard breaks in the Arctic, you cant just go to Walmart and buy a new one.) More than one crew member described IceBridges major piece of hardware, its P-3 aircraft, as a hand-me-down. When the Nasa crew talked about their P-3 they sometimes sounded as though they were talking about a beloved, oversized, elderly pet dog, who can act dopey but, when pressed, is surprisingly agile. IceBridges P-3 is 50 years old, but as one of the navy pilots told me, they baby the hell out of it. It just got a new pair of wings. I got the strong sense that this climate data gathering operation was something of an underdog enterprise the moodier sibling of Nasas more celebrated deep-space projects.

But these unsung flights are not without their own brand of Nasa drama. The IceBridge crew would tell me, with dark humour, the story of the time a plane was in such dire straits that everyone aboard was panicking. One man was staring at a photo of his children on his phone, and in his other hand, was clutching a crucifix. Another man was pinned to the ceiling. Someone actually yelled Were gonna die!, like in the movies. John Sonntag, on the other hand, sat there, serenely assessing the situation.

During my time in Greenland in April this year, I didnt witness Sonntag manage a distressed aircraft, but I did watch him carefully navigate a Nasa crew through a turbulent political season. In the week I was there, the group was preparing for two anxiety-provoking scenarios, courtesy of Washington, DC. One was an imminent visit from several members of Congress. As one engineer put it to me, We just get nervous, honestly, because we dont know what these politicians agenda is: are they friend or foe?

The other was an impending shutdown of the entire US federal government: if Congress didnt make a decision about the budget by Friday that week, the government would close all operations indefinitely. (The sticking point was budgetary questions related to Trumps proposed border wall.) If the government shut down, Operation IceBridge was done for the season; the Nasa crew would be sent home that day.

This had happened before, in 2013, just as IceBridge was en route to Antarctica. Congressional Republicans shut down the government in their effort to thwart Obamas diabolical plot to offer medical care to millions of uninsured Americans. Much of the 2013 mission was cancelled, with millions of dollars, many hundreds of hours of preparation, and, most importantly, critical data, lost.

I still cant really talk about that without feeling those emotions again, Sonntag told me. It was kind of traumatic for us.

The crew of IceBridge was facing an absurd scenario: living in fear of a shutdown of their work by Congress one day and, shortly thereafter, having to smile and impress members of that same Congress.

Conditioned by the tribulations of modern commercial airline travel, I was unprepared for the casualness of my first Nasa launch. The feeling in the hangar before the flight, and as the crew prepared to launch, was of shift workers who are hyper-attentive to their particular tasks and not the least concerned with gratuitous formalities. The flights were long and the deployments were long; the key to not burning out was to pace oneself and to not linger over anything that wasnt essential. Everyone was a trusted pro and nobody was out to prove anything to anyone else.

Shortly before our 9am takeoff, I asked Sonntag what the plane should feel like when everything was going well what should I be looking for? He smiled sheepishly. To be honest, if you see people sleeping, thats a good sign.

On the eight-hour flights, seeing engineers asleep at their stations meant the instruments below their feet were happily collecting data. For some stretches, there wasnt even data to collect: hours were spent flying between data target sites. (Over the intercom, a pilot would occasionally ask, Hey, we sciencing now or just flying?) Flight crew, who attend to the plane but are not directly connected to the data operation, occupied the cabin like cats, curled up proprietarily, high up on fluffy, folded-up engine covers.

This pervasive somnolence the hypnotic hum of the propellers, the occasional scene of crewmen horsing around in their flight suits, which gave them the look of boys in pajamas coupled with the low-altitude sweeps through fantastic mountains of ice, gave the whole situation a dreamlike quality.

From the windows of the P-3, at 450 metres, you dont need to have read anything about glaciers to know what they are. At that low altitude, you can see the deep textures and the crevasses of the ice, and just how far the glacier extends across the land. The eye immediately grasps that the ice is a creature on the move, positively bursting ahead, while also not appearing to move at all, like a still photo of a rushing river.

Seeing the polar ice from above, you get a very different view from that seen by writers in past centuries, who saw this landscape, if at all, by boat or, more likely, from a drawing. But the vision, to them, was clear enough: it was the End, the annihilating whiteness of death and extinction. Herman Melville described this colour as the dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows a colorless all-color of atheism from which we shrink. This is where so many of those old stories terminated. The Arctic is where the monster in Frankenstein leaps off a ship on to the ice, never to be seen again. Polar settings spell doom for Poes sailors, and Captain Nemo, who are pulled into the icy maelstrom. And celebrated real-life travellers did, in fact, die gruesomely on the ice, in search of the Northwest Passage, or the north pole.

But, from the window of Nasas P-3, that old narrative seems inaccurate. Consider that whiteness, which so terrified Melville and Poe, who ends his Antarctic saga The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym with a horrifying italicised refrain on the word white. But polar snow and ice, precisely because it is white, with a quality known as high albedo, deflects solar energy back into space and helps keep earths climate cool; the loss of all this white material means more heat is absorbed and the earth warms faster. In a variety of other ways, including moderating weather patterns, the ice helps makes life on earth more livable. The extreme conditions of the poles, so useful for instilling fear in 19th-century readers, actually make the world more habitable.

Our bias against the poles can be detected even in that typical term of praise for this icy landscape, otherworldly. This description is exactly incorrect: the Arctic is intimately connected with every other part of the planet.

This, too, is something you can see. Flying over it, at a low altitude, I was struck by the familiarity of the thing, how much of Greenland was a visual echo of my northern homelands. In the muscular frozen ripples of its glaciers, created by an intensely pressured flow, I saw the same strong hand that deeply etched those giant scratches into the big boulders of Central Park in New York City. This isnt an analogy: those marks in Manhattan were made by shifting ice, the very same ice layers that still have a foothold in Greenland. I grew up, and have spent most of my life, in Ohio and New England, places that were carved out by that ice: ponds originally made of meltwater from the last great ice age, low hills smoothed over by retreating glaciers. That old ice gave shape and signature to almost every important place in my life, and in the lives of so many others. And, in the future, this ice will continue to shape the places were from, right before our eyes. It is only our ignorance that makes us call it otherworldly.

But even as we passed through this landscape, even as the lasers and radars took their deep gulps of data from the ice, I could hear expressions of anxiety from the data hunters. At the same time that were getting better at gathering this data, we seem to be losing the ability to communicate its importance to the public, one engineer told me four hours into a flight, during a transit between glaciers.

You can hear this anxiety surface in the humour floating around the crew. I heard one engineer joke that it might be easier to just rig up a data randomising machine, since many people out there seem to think thats what their data is anyway.

I mean, itd be much easier, and cheaper, to do maintenance on that, he pointed out.

In another conversation, about how to increase public awareness about climate change in the US, I asked one of the senior crew members whether they would welcome a writer from Breitbart aboard one of these flights.

Oh, absolutely, he said. Id love for them to see what were doing here. I think sitting on this plane, seeing the ice, and watching the data come in would be incredibly eye-opening for them.

His optimism was inspiring and worrisome to me.

The mantra of the crew is no politics. I heard it said over and over again: just stick to the job, dont speak above your pay grade. But, of course, you dont need to have a no-politics policy unless your work is already steeped in politics.

Speaking with one of the scientific researchers mid-flight, I got a very revealing reply. When I asked this researcher about the anthropogenesis of climate change, the tone changed. What had been a comfortable chat became stilted and deliberate. There was a little eye-roll toward my audio recorder. Suddenly my interlocutor, a specialist in ice, got pedantic, telling me that there were others more qualified to speak about rising sea levels. I offered to turn off my recorder. As soon as it was off, the researcher spoke freely and with the confidence of a leading expert in the field. The off-the-record view expressed wasnt simply one of sober agreement with the scientific consensus, but of passionate outrage. Of course climate change is related to human activity! Weve all seen the graphs!

The tonal difference between this off-the-record answer and the taped answer that I should consult someone else told me all I needed to know. Or so I thought the researcher then asked me to turn my recorder back on: there was one addendum, for the record.

Richard Nixon, the researcher said, looking down at the red recording light. Nixon established some good climate policy. Theres a tradition in both parties of doing this work. And, I mean, if Nixon

The researcher laughed a bit, realising how this was sounding. Well, thats what Im hanging my hopes on, anyway.

Over the planes open intercom, there was suddenly, and uncharacteristically, talk of the days headlines. While we were in flight, people around the world were marking Earth Day by demonstrating in support of climate rationality and against the current US regime. On Twitter, #MarchForScience was trending at the exact moment Nasas P-3 was out flying for science. There was even a local protest: American and European scientists took to the street of Kangerlussuaq for a small but high-profile demonstration. While it was happening, one of the engineers piped up on the P-3s intercom.

Anyone else sorry to be missing the march?

But the earnest question was only met with silence and a few jokes. Among the Nasa crew, there had been some talk about trying to do a flyover of the Kangerlussuaq march, to take an aerial photo of it, but the plan was nixed for logistical reasons. The timing was off. The senior crew seemed relieved that it was out of the question.

Later that week, after my second and final flight making a total of 16 hours in the air with Nasa the crew retreated to the barracks for a quick science meeting, beers in hand, followed by a family-style dinner. We dont seem to get enough of each other here, one of the engineers told me, as he poured a glass of wine over ice that the crew had harvested from the front of a glacier the day before. One of the engineers asked a glaciologist about the age of this block of ice, and frowned at the disappointing reply: it probably wasnt more than a few hundred years old.

Well, thats still older than America, right? he said.

Outside, the sky wasnt dark, though it was past 10pm. In a couple of months, there would be sunlight all night. After dinner, one of the crews laser technicians lounged on a couch, playing an acoustic version of the song Angie over and over again, creating a pleasantly mesmerising effect. Two crew members talked of killer methane gas. But most sat around, drinking and telling stories. One of the pilots tried to convince someone he had seen a polar bear from the cockpit that day. These deployments are tiring, someone told me. Bullshitting is critical.

One of the crew spent his off-days on excursions with a camera-equipped drone, and had made spectacular videos of his explorations, which he edited and set to moody Bush tunes. I joined the crew as they gathered around his laptop to watch his latest. There was something moving in seeing these people who had spent all day, and indeed many months and years, flying over ice and obsessing over ice-related data now spending their free time relaxing by watching videos of yet more ice.

As usual, politics soon crept into the picture. The next video that popped up was footage recently shot at the Thule base. The video showed some of this same Nasa crew hiking through an abandoned concrete bunker, a former storage site for US Nike anti-aircraft missiles. Today its just an eerie, rusted, shadow-filled underground space, its floor covered in thick ice. When these images came on the screen, the crew fell quiet, watching themselves, only a week ago, putting on ice skates and doing figure-eights over the ruins of their countrys cold war weapons systems.

An engineer chipped a shard off the frozen block harvested the day before. Perhaps sensing my mood, he dropped it into a glass and poured me some whiskey over ice older than America and said: Well anyway, maybe thisll cheer you up.

Early the next morning, before the crew boarded the P-3 for another eight-hour flight over polar ice, a rare political debate broke out. Four of the crew were discussing the imminent Congressional visit, which prompted one of the veteran pilots to recite, once again, the mission mantra: Stick to science: no politics. But because that approach felt increasingly less plausible in 2017, one of the ice specialists, feeling frustrated, launched into a small speech about how Americans dont take data seriously, and how its going to kill us all. Nobody disagreed. Someone jokingly said: Maybe its best if you dont fly today. To which another added, Yeah, you should stay on the ground and just do push-ups all day.

Finally, John Sonntag who had been too busy reviewing flight plans to hear the chatter stood up and tapped his watch. OK guys, he said. Lets go. Its time to fly.

Main image: Nasa/Joe MacGregor

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Where global warming gets real: inside Nasa's mission to the north pole - The Guardian

NASA casts an infrared eye on Tropical Storm Irwin – Phys.Org

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Danzig

July 27, 2017 This infrared image of Tropical Storm Irwin was taken July 27 at 6:11 a.m. EDT (10:11 UTC) by the AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite. The purple areas indicate the coldest cloud tops and strongest storms. Credit: NASA JPL, Ed Olsen

Infrared imagery from NASA looked at cloud top temperatures in Tropical Storm Irwin and found the strongest storms in the system were west of its low-level center.

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite looked at Tropical Storm Irwin in the Eastern Pacific Ocean in infrared light. Infrared light provides data on temperatures. The higher the cloud tops, the colder and the stronger they are. So, infrared light as that gathered by the AIRS instrument can identify the strongest sides of a tropical cyclone. Of course, infrared data can also tell if temperatures have warmed, meaning that the uplift has weakened in the system. Weaker uplift means less creation of the thunderstorms that make up a tropical cyclone.

The AIRS data were taken on 6:11 a.m. EDT (10:11 UTC) on July 27 and showed strongest storms were west of the center. Cloud top temperatures west of center were as cold as minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 53 degrees Celsius). NASA research has shown the storms with cloud tops that cold have the potential to generate heavy rainfall. The infrared data was false-colored at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, where AIRS data is managed.

National Hurricane Center forecaster Lixion Avila noted that the low-level center appears to be located on the eastern edge of the deep convection due to the shear caused by Hilary's outflow.

At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC) on July 27 the center of Tropical Storm Irwin was located near 15.0 degrees north latitude and 124.2 degrees west longitude. That's about 1,080 miles (1,740 km) west-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California, Mexico. Irwin was moving toward the west near 2 mph (4 kph), and little motion is anticipated during the next day or two. The estimated minimum central pressure is 1000 millibars. Maximum sustained winds are near 60 mph (95 kph) with higher gusts. Little change in strength is forecast during the next 48 hours.

NHC said that two of the models show that Irwin will likely be absorbed by nearby Hurricane Hilary within 5 days.

Explore further: NASA looks at Hurricane Irwin in infrared light

If climate change is not curbed, increased precipitation could substantially overload U.S. waterways with excess nitrogen, according to a new study from Carnegie's Eva Sinha and Anna Michalak and Princeton University's Venkatramani ...

Biochar from recycled waste may both enhance crop growth and save health costs by helping clear the air of pollutants, according to Rice University researchers.

Britain said Wednesday it will outlaw the sale of new diesel and petrol cars and vans from 2040 in a bid to cut air pollution but environmental groups said the proposals did not go far enough.

A new study projects that if climate change continues unabated, heat-related deaths will rise dramatically in 10 major U.S. metropolitan areas compared to if the predicted increase in global warming is substantially curbed ...

Hydrogen at elevated temperature creates high electrical conductivity in the Earth's mantle.

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NASA casts an infrared eye on Tropical Storm Irwin - Phys.Org

Nanomedicine and Extracellular Vesicles Lab – Kokomo Perspective

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Danzig

BOURBONNAIS, Ill. What is the biggest difference in the 2017 Chicago Bears since we left them at 3-13 last January?

Over the last six months, it has become crystal clear to anyone paying close attention the Chicago Bears are now general manager Ryan Paces team, while head coach John Fox just works there.

In the past two-and-a-half years, we can count on one hand the number of times Pace has spoken publicly without Fox by his side, and until last January it was always Fox who dominated those occasions, at times feeling the need to add to Paces comments and even finish answers for him.

Meeting with Pace and Fox Wednesday at the opening of the Bears' 2017 training camp, it was clearly Ryan Paces show, completing the turnaround in control hes been asserting this offseason.

For anyone keeping score, after each gave a brief opening statement, the first 12 questions were all directed at Pace with Fox only weighing in on two of them because Pace asked him to, and many of them were about how Pace was handling the quarterback position, playing time and other decisions often left to the head coach.

Asked how he will measure the progress of this years Bears, Pace replied, I know that the culture and the vibe of the locker room is really good right now.

When we talk about playing with toughness and intelligence and passion and all those traits we strive for, I feel like weve got a team that embodies those traits.

Asked about the pressure on Fox to perform well enough to keep his job entering the third year of his four-year deal, Pace was careful to accept some of the pressure to win on himself while acknowledging it is time to win more, and he also offered a second measuring stick through which Fox will be evaluated.

I hear theres pressure on this theres pressure on all of us. Theres a lot of pressure on me, and we all know what we signed up for," he said. "I think the focus now is winning games, but if theres one thing I can stress with John and things I appreciate every day its look, its very difficult to change a culture.

John is doing that and he has done that while also getting younger as a team. And doing that together has been difficult, and I appreciate that with him.

Asked how Fox is changing the culture, Pace explained, I think you guys know when you can feel a team that has come together, you can feel the locker room.

"Guys, this is just the very beginning, but you just feel a lot of good teammates. A lot of unselfish, team-first type of players, which I think is really important.

I think weve all seen good teams ascend, and I think it starts with the quality of the character in the locker room, and I think we have good character in our locker room.

How much pressure is on Fox to win now ultimately remains unclear, but Pace did acknowledge the ultimate judgments come from the McCaskeys ownership perch and he did talk about what he believes they expect.

That conversation is always ongoing. I just think they want to see continued improvement," he said. "I think they know theres no quick fix. We talked about that. Its about building this team the right way, with the right kind of guys. And weve just got to show progress.

I think as we go forward, our fans are going to see a tough, blue collar, grind-it-out kind of team thats on the ascension and its something they can be part of.

I suspect Pace is right about how he will be evaluated and that he remains very safe in the eyes of the McCaskeys.

But while the culture may be improving, 2016 was a regression from six wins to three rather than progress, and whether Fox can expect that same leeway as Pace remains a serious question as practices begin Thursday.

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Nanomedicine and Extracellular Vesicles Lab - Kokomo Perspective

Heavy Metals in Water Meet Their Match – Texas Medical Center (press release)

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Danzig

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Heavy Metals in Water Meet Their Match - Texas Medical Center (press release)

Introducing the First Biocompatible Ion Current Battery – ENGINEERING.com

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Danzig

Diagram of the inverted battery. (Image courtesy of the University of Maryland.)

In our bodies, flowing ions (sodium, potassium and other electrolytes) are the electrical signals that power the brain and control the rhythm of the heart, the movement of muscles and much more.

The new UMD battery moves electrons around in the device to deliver energy in the form of a flow of ions. This is the first time that an ionic current-generating battery has been invented.

"My intention is for ionic systems to interface with human systems," said Liangbing Hu, the head of the group that developed that battery. Hu is a professor of materials science at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is also a a principal investigator of the Nanostructures for Electrical Energy Storage Energy Frontier Research Center, sponsored by the Department of Energy, which funded the study.

"So I came up with the reverse design of a battery," Hu said. "In a typical battery, electrons flow through wires to interface electronics, and ions flow through the battery separator. In our reverse design, a traditional battery is electronically shorted. Then ions have to flow through the outside ionic cables. In this case, the ions in the ionic cablehere, grass fiberscan interface with living systems."

The work of Hu and his colleagues was published inNature Communications.

"Potential applications might include the development of the next generation of devices to micro-manipulate neuronal activities and interactions that can prevent and/or treat such medical problems as Alzheimer's disease and depression," said group member Jianhua Zhang, PhD, a staff scientist at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).

"The battery could be used to develop medical devices for the disabled, or for more efficient drug and gene delivery tools in both research and clinical settings, as a way to more precisely treat cancers and other medical diseases, said Zhang, who performed biological experiments to test that the new battery successfully transmitted current to living cells..

"Looking far ahead on the scientific horizon, one hopes also that this invention may help to establish the possibility of direct machine and human communication," he said.

Because living cells work on ionic current and existing batteries provide an electronic current, scientists have previously tried to figure out how to create biocompatibility between these two by patching an electronic current into an ionic current.

The problem with this approach is that electronic current needs to reach a certain voltage to jump the gap between electronic systems and ionic systems. However, in living systems ionic currents flow at a very low voltage.

Thus, with an electronic-to-ionic patch the induced current would be too high to run, say, a brain or a muscle. This problem could be eliminated by using ionic current batteries, which could be run at any voltage.

The new UMD battery also has another unusual feature: it uses grass to store its energy. To make the battery, the team soaked blades of Kentucky bluegrass in lithium salt solution. The channels that once moved nutrients up and down the grass blade were ideal conduits to hold the solution.

The demonstration battery the research team created looks like two glass tubes with a blade of grass inside, each connected by a thin metal wire at the top. The wire is where the electrons flow through to move from one end of the battery to the other as the stored energy slowly discharges. At the other end of each glass tube is a metal tip through which the ionic current flows.

The researchers proved that the ionic current is flowing by touching the ends of the battery to either end of a lithium-soaked cotton string, with a dot of blue-dyed copper ions in the middle. Caught up in the ionic current, the copper moved along the string toward the negatively charged pole, just as the researchers predicted.

Grass microchannels inside the inverted battery. (Image courtesy of University of Maryland.)

However, the team plans to diversify the types of ionic current electron batteries they can produce. "We are developing multiple ionic conductors with cellulose, hydrogels and polymers," said Wang.

This is not the first time UMD scientists have tested natural materials in new uses. Hu and his team previously have been studying cellulose and plant materials for electronic batteries, creating a battery and a supercapacitor out of wood and a battery from a leaf. They also have created transparent wood as a potentially more energy-efficient replacement for glass windows.

Ping Liu, an associate professor in nanoengineering at the University of California, San Diego, who was not involved with the study, said: "The work is very creative and its main value is in delivering ionic flow to bio systems without posing other dangers to them. Eventually, the impact of the work really resides in whether smaller and more biocompatible junction materials can be found that then interface with cells and organisms more directly and efficiently."

For more battery news, check out this article on Super Batteries Made from Recycled Glass.

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Introducing the First Biocompatible Ion Current Battery - ENGINEERING.com

Engineering a solution to dirty water – Phys.Org

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Danzig

July 27, 2017 by Allie Nicodemo Jianfeng Sun and Ran Ran, both PhD'17, work on a new water filtration model inside the Nano & Micro Biomechanical Characterization and Testing Laboratory in the Forsyth Building at Northeastern University on July 25, 2017. Credit: Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University

More than 844 million people around the globe lack access to clean water. One of the challenges is that bacteria from rivers can flow into groundwater sources, polluting what may have been potable drinking water. Building new infrastructure to reroute clean water is expensive, especially for regions that already struggle with extreme poverty. Instead, communities often rely on water filtration systems.

Current methods of testing water safety can be expensive and time consuming. Researchers must first take samples at the water source and bring them back to the lab. Then they have to test the samples to determine which types of bacteria are present.

"It usually takes hours or days, and to process the data and get results takes another few hours," says Jianfeng Sun, a doctoral student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Northeastern University. Working with fellow doctoral student Ran Ran and undergraduate student Derek Tran, Sun is developing a new method that's faster, easier to use, and portable.

The group presented the research at the 2017 Society of Engineering Conference, hosted at Northeastern this month. Researchers and students at the conference hail from disciplines across the engineering and science spectrum. "Their work addresses a wide range of issues including energy for sustainability, sensing and control for security, and bio-nanotechnology for healthcare," said Hanchen Huang, Donald W. Smith Professor and chair of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering.

Traditionally, in order for scientists to measure what types of bacteria are present in water, they push the water sample through a column of soil or sand that's native to the riverbed where the sample came from. As the water goes through the column, some bacteria gets pushed through as well, but some gets left behind. That "sticky" bacteria adhere to the surface of sand or soil particles.

That means that some types of bacteria in rivers aren't a concern. They won't pollute groundwater because they won't ever reach it, instead getting stuck in the sand or soil of the riverbed.

However, researchers find that some bacteria will squeeze through the soil column and make it to the other side. That non-sticky stuff can be problematic. Since it's not adhering to the soil or sand, it may hitch a ride on the river current all the way into a town's source of drinking water and make people sick.

While the traditional strategy for measuring bacteria works, Sun knew he could make it more efficient. Instead of using a soil column to push water samples through, his method uses a microchannel.

If you imagine scraping a tiny ditch down the middle of a glass microscope slide, this is the microchannel where water from a sample flows. The flow is very gentle, allowing sticky bacteria to adhere to the edge of the channel. The slide is positioned over a microscope that counts individual bacteria to see which become trapped and which get flushed through.

To make this system portable, Sun knew he wanted the microscope to be able to connect with a cellphone. But there weren't any good options available. Instead of trying to retrofit his system with an existing device, he and Ran built a new microscope from scratch.

Eventually, Sun wants to develop a mobile application that will count and analyze bacteria the microscope sees. That way, researchers could bring the device into the field and test samples on the fly, cutting down on the time it takes to process data in the lab. This translates to more efficient water filtration, which has the potential to save lives all over the world.

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The lack of clean water in many areas around the world is a persistent, major public health problem. One day, tiny robots could help address this issue by zooming around contaminated water and cleaning up disease-causing ...

A University of British Columbia-developed system that uses bacteria to turn non-potable water into drinking water will be tested next week in West Vancouver prior to being installed in remote communities in Canada and beyond.

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What can the forests of Scandinavia possibly offer to migrants in faraway refugee camps? Clean water may be one thing.

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Biochar from recycled waste may both enhance crop growth and save health costs by helping clear the air of pollutants, according to Rice University researchers.

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Hydrogen at elevated temperature creates high electrical conductivity in the Earth's mantle.

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Engineering a solution to dirty water - Phys.Org

How the TSA Is Fighting a Tech War With Terrorists – Fortune

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Danzig

A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officer checks a traveler's bag at a screening location at Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S., on Friday, Dec. 23, 2016. George Frey Bloomberg via Getty Images

The Transportation Security Administrations (TSA) new security regulations , requiring all electronics larger than a cell phone to be placed in bins for x-ray screening in standard passenger lanes, is the latest move in the technology war against terrorists.

The American public may balk at longer lines at airport security when traveling due to the inconvenience of unpacking tablets, laptops, e-readers, and other electronics from carryon bags. This is possibly the first of many tighter regulations from the TSAand travelers should brace for that.

The heart of the issue is technologys maxim of Moores law , a 50-year-old prediction about the doubling of computer power every year (then every few years). Today, Moores law can be applied to faster, more sophisticated technology being packed into smaller electronic footprintsfor example, smaller, thinner, and lighter laptop computers.

What benefits consumers (no more lugging around an eight-pound laptop) has been a challenge to terrorist groups that have to find ways to put explosives into smaller devices . But many terrorist groups are on the cutting edge of technology, using next-generation explosives that are smaller and more powerfuland potentially less detectable , which is a critical concern for the airlines and TSA.

The U.S. government has a more methodical pace than terrorist groups to respond to these technological capabilities that could put the traveling public at greater risk.

TSAs own technology allows for screening of electronics, which must be placed flat on bins (nothing on top or below them), by comparing the image of what is inside (like a CT scan does for the human body) to what the typical iPad or Kindle reader should look like. While screening lines will no doubt be longer and slower, as people unpack electronics from hand baggage and then pack them up again, its far more efficient than having to power on all devices to prove they are legitimate.

In addition, TSA is also testing new luggage-scanning technology to look through luggage for bombs or weapons. The technology also creates 3-D images of contents to allow screeners to get a full and rotatable view of objects. The capability of screening luggage for electronics may become even more crucial as travelers, in an attempt to keep from hauling out several electronic devices at security, check them in their luggage instead.

By deploying more technology, TSA is trying to keep ahead of terrorists in their capabilities to turn benign-looking electronics into weapons. This is good news for the public for the obvious reasons that more efficient and thorough screening and detection makes traveling safer. In my conversations with airline executives, I expect that technology upgrades will continuehopefully at a faster pace than terrorists capabilities. Just as large corporations are learning how agility is critical to their survival, I would not be surprised if TSA policies also remain fluid and subject to sudden change, such as in reaction to a credible threat or a terrorist incident somewhere in the world. One such reaction might be to withdraw some privileges from TSA Pre passengers who are not required to remove laptops or other electronics from their carryon bags, which speeds their screening at airports.

Travelers who remember the former days of going to the airport at the last minute and speeding through light security might bemoan the added layers of what feel like inconvenience. But the fact is, the U.S. is comparatively more passenger-friendly when it comes to airport securityperhaps to its own potential detriment. Israel is known to have some of the toughest airport security and one of the best track records on travel safety.

The U.S. has been tightening security to target specific potential risks; for example, greater screening for inbound flights from 280 airports into the U.S. These new rules affect about 2,000 daily flights carrying 325,000 passengers, and reportedly are in response to terrorists developing new ways to hide bombs and infiltrate airport staff.

While tightening defenses at the international gateways and larger, busier airports makes sense, in any war, the most vulnerable point is the weakest link. Here the nations smaller, regional airports could be vulnerable to either attack or as an entry point for terrorists trying to enter the air travel system. For TSA, this could be an opportunity to further tighten security.

TSA security changes may be as disconcerting for travelers as longer check-in lines are infuriating. But in the current tech war being waged by airlines and security on one side and terrorists groups on the other, passengers will need to be more agile, accommodating, and flexible than ever.

Dean DeBiase is adjunct lecturer of innovation and entrepreneurship at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a co-author of the best-selling book The Big Moo.

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How the TSA Is Fighting a Tech War With Terrorists - Fortune

Throw out the fax machines: The cancer world needs to modernize molecular test reporting – MedCity News

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Danzig

Imagine youre an oncologist faced with a difficult treatment decision for a patient. At your computer, you sift through all the data in their electronic health recordtheir demographics, cancer diagnosis, and clinical history. But one critical component is missing: the patients molecular profile, which is the key to personalized treatments. Then you hear the screech of the fax machine.

Most oncologists dont have to imagine this. Its standard practice for molecular test results to be faxed, or downloaded as a PDF then printed in a wide range of layouts that vary by testing provider. This makes it nearly impossible for oncologists to take full advantage of this crucial data, and deprives patients of the best care.

Molecular testing labs use some of the most advanced software-connected machine and analytics on earth, yet have managed to turn structured digital genomic data into paper!

At MedCitys CONVERGE conferenceJuly 31-August 1 in Philadelphia next week, Im speaking on this issue and other challenges that are holding back precision medicine.

Precision medicine already works, and health systems are using it successfully today to deliver better treatments to patients. But to truly scale precision medicine to providers across the country and fight cancer today, we need to modernize how molecular test results are structured, transferred, and shared. This would give providers, payers, and policymakers the real-world evidence needed to shift rapidly toward precision medicine.

Molecular tests, which give critical insights into the genomic makeup of a patients condition, are the foundation of precision medicine. But theyre newer and more complex than other lab tests, and the result data are not standardized, portable, consistent, or structured like common blood tests and almost all other routine lab results.

Standardizing this data will enable multiple health systems to communicate and exchange information. This improves the quality of care by helping physicians uncover new insights and saving them time that they can dedicate to more critical tasks.

Oncologists need to be able to easily access molecular data in the same system as the patients clinical datanot as PDF attachments or faxesso that patients can get the personalized care they deserve. They can then make more effective treatment decisions, and more accurately and quickly match patients to the right drugs or right clinical trials at the right time. Precision medicine is already changing how health systems treat certain forms of cancer, and standardizing molecular data will accelerate this.

Standardizing molecular data has broader implications, too.

One of the biggest questions around precision medicine is the economics. Can you deliver it cost-effectively? The answer is yes, and many case studies demonstrate the value to patients, providers, and payers. But for payers to buy in, they need real-world evidence on a much larger scale. Standardizing molecular data would help address this.

It would also facilitate better data sharing among providers. In the past year, health systems have rapidly moved toward sharing de-identified cancer data, largely spurred by former Vice President Bidens Cancer Moonshot initiative. But you cant share data at any meaningful scale when that data is faxed from department to department.

We now know that precision medicine not only works but can lead to better outcomes and quality of life. These benefits will expand exponentially as more providers adopt precision medicine, as they will have a much larger pool of real-world data to inform their insights. Now we need to make it easiernot harderfor organizations to access and share the real-world data that will enable this shift.

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Throw out the fax machines: The cancer world needs to modernize molecular test reporting - MedCity News

Yale Scientist Aiming To Reverse Spinal Cord Injuries – Hartford Courant

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Danzig

NEW HAVEN A Yale neurology and neuroscience professor who hopes to regrow neurons in patients with spinal cord injuries has secured enough funding for a human clinical trial.

Stephen Strittmatters New Haven-based company, ReNetX, also has a new CEO, Erika Smith, who joined the biomedical venture in June after leaving her post as director of Yale Universitys $10-million Blavatnik Fund for Innovation.

The company has raised about $20 million from the National Institutes of Health and other sources to carry out the first stages of a trial involving people with tetraplegia, paralysis of all four limbs and the torso.

Strittmatter said his approach works like a double negative. He identified a receptor that inhibits the growth of nerve fibers and then created a decoy to block it. That leaves the neurons free to grow or regrow, in this case naturally, as they do in early development.

We have this huge hospital and medical complex, Strittmatter said last week at his office in the Boyer Center for Molecular Medicine, 2 miles from the Yale New Haven Hospital Spine Center. We dont have a single drug that promotes neuroconnection. So if we get it to a trial and if the trials successful, it opens up a huge number of doors to all kinds of additional therapies and multiple diseases.

Yale

Erika Smith, CEO of ReNetX and former director of the Yale Blavatnik Fund for Innovation.

Erika Smith, CEO of ReNetX and former director of the Yale Blavatnik Fund for Innovation. (Yale)

ReNetX, formerly known as Axerion Therapeutics, went public with its new name, its funding progress and Smiths hire on Monday, though she joined the company June 30.

Sitting outside a New Haven coffee shop the next week, she recalled how people have told her the new logo looks retro, a bit 90s, with its teal and blue, space-age lettering.

I said, I like that. Its kind of Star Treky like this brave new world and thats kind of how we think about the company, too, Smith said.

Strittmatter the companys founder and science adviser is certainly exploring one of the final frontiers in medicine. No treatments available today can regenerate nerve cells in the adult brain and spinal cord, where neuron regrowth is extremely limited.

Spinal cord injury is one of the most significant unmet medical needs with an annual cost of more than $5 billion per year, Smith said. A treatment that could mitigate even only a part of the condition could improve quality of life of these patients.

ReNetXs treatment would be delivered as an injection into the spinal column, similar to an epidural.

The trial, which is pending regulatory approval, could begin in as little as 15 months and, if successful, the treatment could begin to restore some sensation and control to patients limbs within six months to a year. From there, the company would seek to apply the therapy to glaucoma and then stroke damage.

I wish things could move faster but on the other hand, its very encouraging to see the progress we do have, Strittmatter said, adding that he and others have spent 20 years trying to solve the problem of nerve fiber disconnection.

Its really sort of the culmination of probably hundreds of peoples work, hundreds of man-hours, woman-hours, he said. But thats what it takes to actually make a difference.

The fact that Smith has joined the company as CEO is further evidence that Strittmatters work is one step closer to leaving the lab for the marketplace.

Rebecca Lurye

Stephen Strittmatter, a neuroscience and neurology professor at Yale University and founder of ReNetX, works in his New Haven laboratory on Friday, July 21.

Stephen Strittmatter, a neuroscience and neurology professor at Yale University and founder of ReNetX, works in his New Haven laboratory on Friday, July 21. (Rebecca Lurye)

The two met when Strittmatter was applying for a grant from the fund that she directed, which seeks to bridge the gap between breakthrough research and commercialization. As Smith says, the fund tries to prevent an innovation from existing as just a paper.

Let it be something thats life changing, she said.

Strittmatter won the grant in May, $300,000 toward another of his areas of interest, Alzheimers disease. Soon after, Smith learned there was an opening for the top job at his company.

Shed spent more than 25 years as an investor and entrepreneur in life sciences, both at Yale and as senior director of investments with the Center for Innovative Technologies.

But no company tempted her away from her behind-the-scenes roles until ReNetX.

Theres amazing companies I had a chance to engage with, but this was just the right one at the right time with the right team, she said. It was just serendipity.

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Yale Scientist Aiming To Reverse Spinal Cord Injuries - Hartford Courant

AHA recognizes Penn Medicine cardiology researchers – Cardiovascular Business

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Danzig

The American Heart Association (AHA) has awarded Benjamin L. Prosser, PhD, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, its Outstanding Early Career Investigator Award.

The AHA gave him the award to recognize his work on how to improve cardiac function in heart failure patients, according to a July 26 press release. He presented it earlier this month at the Councils 2017 Basic Cardiovascular Sciences meeting in Portland, Oregon.

His research demonstrated that by softening the internal cytoskeleton of heart cells in patients with heart failure, they could make their heart beats stronger.

In other research published last by Prosser, he found that in a study on rodents, microtubules provide sufficient, but not excessive resistance in health heart muscle. The findings were published in Science.

Prosser earned his bachelors degree in health and exercise from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and his PhD in molecular medicine from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in College Park.

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Scientists block evolution’s molecular nerve pruning in rodents – Medical Xpress

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Danzig

July 27, 2017 This cross section image of the coronal brain region of a genetically mutant PlexA1 mouse shows evidence cortico motor-neuron cells eight days after researchers injected an altered rabies virus tracer into the animal's forelimbs. These connections are eliminated in normal wide mice as they mature. Scientists studying motor disabilities report in Science they blocked nerve pruning in the developing mutant mice, maintained these connections to adulthood. Credit: Cincinnati Children's

Researchers investigating why some people suffer from motor disabilities report they may have dialed back evolution's clock a few ticks by blocking molecular pruning of sophisticated brain-to-limb nerve connections in maturing mice. The result was mice with enhanced manual dexterity that grab and eat food much faster than regular wild-type mice, according to a study published July 28 in the journal Science.

Scientists at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center who led the study stress they aren't trying to create a genetically superior species of rodents. They are testing the formation of nervous system connections during early development in genetically bred mouse models. Their goal is to understand how sophisticated nerve connections start to form in wild baby mice, disappear as the animals mature, and whether this information might one day help patients.

Their study points to a class of proteins called semaphorins, which control the formation of long thread-like nerves called axons and motor neuron connections in the mammalian corticospinal (CS) system. In particular the scientists identify a protein called PlexA1, a major receptor molecule that attracts semaphorins. Semaphorins prevent axons from forming in inappropriate regions of the nervous system.

In the case of micewhich spend most of their time on four paws - signaling between a semaphore protein called Sema6 and PlexA1 activates in young mice. This eliminates critical synaptic links between nerve cells to stop the formation of sophisticated CS neural connections and fine motor skills.

"We may have found a pivotal point in the evolution of the mammalian corticospinal (CS) system that leads to greater fine motor control in higher primates and people," said Yutaka Yoshida, PhD, lead study investigator in the Division of Developmental Biology at Cincinnati Children's. "Although we still need to explore this, it's possible that some patients with motor disabilities have upregulated expression of PlexA1 or activated PlexA1 signaling that diminish cortico-motor-neuron connections and fine motor skills. Inhibition of PlexA1 signaling during childhood might be a way to restore these skills."

Key collaborators on the study includes John H. Martin, PhD, Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Biomedical Sciences, City University of New York School of Medicine, N.Y., and Nenad Sestan, MD, PhD, Kavli Institute for Neuroscience, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn., and first author Zirong Gu, a graduate student in the Yoshida laboratory.

Building a Better Mouse

After learning the PlexA1 protein eliminates sophisticated motor neuron connections in maturing mice, the researchers bred mice that don't express the gene regulating it (gene designation PlexA1). As PlexA1 mutant mice mature into adulthood, they lack the elimination of CS synaptic and motor neuron connections.

In feeding tests involving both short narrow strands of pasta and food pellets, mutant PlexA1 mice were significantly more skilled and faster than normal mice at grabbing and eating food.

When researchers tested mutant PlexA1 mice in skilled walking tests (conducted on balance grid), mutant mice did not perform significantly better than normal wild-type mice, according to the authors.

To understand differences in PlexA1 levels in mice and humans, study authors compared genetic and molecular regulation of CS neural connections in the mouse and human motor cortex of the brain. This region controls voluntary movements and other critical tasks. Human tests of the motor cortex were performed with donated human brain tissue.

The scientists determined differing PlexA1 expression is caused by what are called cis-regulatory elements. These are regions of non-coding DNA that help regulate nearby genes. A transcription factor (genes that tell other genes what do to) called FEZF2 interacts with cis-regulatory elements and directs formation of neural transmitter connections in CS neurons.

These FEZF2-controlled cis-regulatory elements are found in human brain tissues and in those of other higher primates, according to the authors. They are not found in mice. These regulatory elements are also responsible for suppressing PlexA1 in the developing human CS connections, which prevents sophisticated motor neuron connections from being disrupted as infants mature over the years into adults.

Moving Forward

Yoshida and his colleagues emphasize that extensive additional research is needed before knowing whether these findings might eventually apply to clinical practice. But they add that data from the study provides a number of clues the scientists want to explore in their future work. This includes trying to determine whether people with various types of motor disabilities have mutations in the Sema6 -PlexA1 molecular signaling pathway.

Explore further: Study suggests genetic reason for impaired skilled movements

More information: Z. Gu el al., "Control of species-dependent cortico-motoneuronal connections underlying manual dexterity," Science (2017). science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi 1126/science.aan3721

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How Felix & Paul Are Pushing VR Storytelling Further With Miyubi – UploadVR

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Danzig

Become a toy robot and enter the future of sitcoms in Felix & Paul Studios Miyubi the industrys first ever live action long-form VR comedy, now available free on the Oculus Store for both Rift and Gear VR. In Miyubi, the viewer is a robot who is gifted to a quirky familys brilliant young son, in 1982.

Not only did I find Miyubi laugh-out-loud funny, but it feels like a masterclass on how to push the limits with story length and genre in cinematic VR. Its proof that comedy has a definite place in VR storytelling, and, at 42 minutes, that long-form content works with the right techniques.

I sat down with visionaries Flix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphal to discover their secrets behind creating their clever long-form comedy in VR, in collaboration with Funny or Die. This is what I learned:

Lajeunesse explained one thing that really made us laugh was when we started to visualize if we put the viewer inside of the mind and body of a two-foot-high plastic robot, how that is going to make you feel, not only about yourself, but about the world itselfthe concept itself is inherently comedic change the viewers relation to the world. Raphal furthered the point that the low angle perspective really gives everything a caricature quality that facilitated a lot of the comedy that was going on.

When building a story for VR, Lajeunesse and Raphals first step is always defining the role of the viewer in the story. In Miyubi, that was the core concept. We wanted the viewer to be this sort of gradually abandoned toy robot in 1982, and to experience love, and to experience obsolescence, and being abandoned, and being loved again.

Miyubi interacts with its world in a limited way, which is not only natural for this toy character, but also a fit with the current limitations of interactivity with 360 content. As an exciting first for Felix & Paul experiences, Miyubi has some subtle interactive components that align with the robot character, so that they enhance, instead of break, the illusion of presence. Raphal explained that making [Miyubi] an obsolete device that cant really do much, was really leaning into the state of VR today. Im not saying that every fictional experience is going to have to be that way, but our process has always been to lean into the strengths and away from the weaknesses of what VR is today.

And I found the interactive elements in the story to be brilliant. Learn more about them below.

Raphal explained that more often, comedy is a social thing. People enjoy sharing laughs together. What switches in VR [storytelling] is youre alone and isolated, but the crew of people youre with are actually the people that are in the experience. When a character in the experience makes a joke, youre laughing with them, in a shared space like together at the family dinner, instead of watching that character make a joke on screen. Miyubi is filled with moments that reinforce your presence with its fun family, having you laughing alongside them.

Lajeunesse encourages content producers to throw out what they know about building a comedy, because presence is the most important contributor to humor in VR.

If I am immersed in a sitcom and there is no meaning for being in the sitcom[its] not good enough, he said.

Presence must be used as the main driver for storytelling. Think about who the viewer is and their relation to the other characters, the space, the world and the story, and how all of that resonates.

Then, grow the story from there.

When Lajeunesse and Raphal decided to create a long-form VR story for the first time, they also decided to make their first VR comedy at the same time. Raphal shared that they felt more comfortable making a comedic piece over another genre, since comedy opens up the content to being less scrutinized because youre not recreating an exact replica of reality. Theres this stylizationyou know the characters are a little over the top. This, combined with the fact it allows us to do silly things, like put you in the body of a Japanese toy robot, are ways of not having to all of a sudden create a life-like replica of the world in fiction, in VR, and expect it to work.

Once they landed first on the concept, who the viewer would be, and the overall dimensions to implement in the story, they began collaboration with Funny or Die to write the screenplay. Lajeunesse explains that they avoided adding any camera language in the Miyubi screenplay. Raphal recalls that it was only a week or so before shooting that they actually started to block out character movements, once everyone was in the same space together for rehearsals.

You want to feel that at any given moment, that if you look at something youre not missing out, youre actually gaining, Raphal said.

And watching the characters interact also inspired various re-writes, as new opportunities were realized. In fact, the actors were encouraged to go off-script with their dialogue to create a sense of surprise and destabilization for their fellow cast members, to uncover these opportunities.

Miyubi has a few clever interactive elements that help to enhance the feeling of being present as a toy robot. In fact, theyre so subtle, its up to the viewer to discover them on their own by exploring the story as the scenes unfold, avoiding any interruption to the experience. Lajeunesse explained that the notion of the viewer as this Japanese toy robot also opened up the notion of the interactive features because you have a robotic brain. There are things that get implemented by your creator (played by Jeff Goldblum) before he shipped you out of the toy shop, so as the story evolves with the family, you might, or not depending on how you get through the story, realize some of those features are implemented inside of your brain and you can unlock them.

In the story, youll find two interactive elements triggered by movement. Spoiler Alert: The first is uncovering that as an 80s robot, you can also play an appropriately 8-bit styled game to find all three secret items to unlock the features mentioned by Lajeunesse, that are special scenes. The second interactive element is a reveal of what you look like as Miyubi, where youre able to catch your moving reflection in the TV. As a robot, your reflection moves just as it should without any uncanny valley challenges that a human face currently needs to overcome in VR.

But dont mistake the interactivity with layering in a game to the VR story.

Theres a distinction to be made between games and story, said Raphal. Youre in a very different mindset when youre playing a game with a defined rule setyoure constantly rubbing against the limitations of the game, because thats what the game is its about those limitations.

But he explained that in a story, and in real life, anything can happensocial situations are what impose those limitations, not code or a game designers rules. In VR you dont need to avoid interaction, but to maintain the feeling of an authentic story unfolding, you do need to avoid falling into integrating a game. The timing of when the interactivity happens is based on what makes sense for the story, and Lajeunesse also highlights that its nice to spread the interaction out especially with long-form content. For example, the ability to see yourself as Miyubi was purposely placed mid point in the experience, to have a shocking effect to help reboot viewer engagement with exploring the 360 scenes.

Lajeunesse stressed the importance of reinforcing the viewers character in the experience any chance that we had. The viewers low angle perspective, how other characters interacted with the camera at all times, the ability to see Miyubis reflection, messages seen on screen, and more, all play important roles in building the viewers awareness of who they are. With the viewers character anchoring the comedy of the story, its no surprise that that reinforcement is so important.

Lajeunesse and Raphal created an added layer of comedy outside of the live action content itself. Its a sort of introspective comedic layer because, as Miyubi, you see things that your virtual family may not. For example, there are various reports and alerts that you see on your own status, that also act as natural transitions between scenes.

And, before you even get into the experience, the navigation options playfully look, sound and are named as if the viewer is navigating in the app as an 80s robot. This includes the Memories section that allows viewers to jump to any scene, except the locked ones, in case their preference is to watch the piece in segments instead the full 42 minutes in one sitting.

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10 Awesome Gadgets for Work and Play – HuffPost

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Danzig

In the tech world, its hard to stay on top of upcoming trends when theres a new product announcement every day. Happily, finding the right gadget to keep you entertainment, or keep you productive, doesnt have to be as hard as it seems, with so many compelling new options to pick from. Looking to check out the latest the consumer electronics world has to offer? Following are 10 gadgets to keep on your radar, whether you consider yourself a technology enthusiast, or just want to give your life a slight high-tech upgrade.

Fender Play - Dust off that electric guitar sitting in the corner and brush up your guitar-playing skills from the comfort of home with this engaging online service. You can learn songs you want to play from its database from top guitar instructors who use step-by-step, up-close multi-camera angles to help you figure out how to strike the right chord.

Nintendo Switch - Nintendos Switch can transform from a home console to a portable gaming system in seconds. Its designed with both kids and adults in mind, and small enough to take with you during a commute or on a long road trip. Some titles even allow you to play with your friends, so you can have a seemingly never-ending game from home or on the road.

Google WiFi - The days of internet connectivity issues are winding down thanks to Google WiFi. This device which can help ensure reliable high-speed Internet connectivity is available across an entire home connects to your modem and works with your Internet service provider to offer you faster networking speeds and a more dependable online connection.

Xbox One X - Thanks to the Xbox One X, video games should look great even on lower resolution screens. The new console has 40 percent more power than any other device, and offers a high-end 4K ultra-high-definition play experience for enthusiasts as well. Put simply, the One X will let you load games quicker, and display characters and scenes at strikingly sharp resolutions. Its available in stores November 7.

Micro Pocket Projector - Brookstone has created a sleek projector that can fit into your pocket. The Micro Pocket Projector connects to most smartphones, tablets, computers, game consoles, media streaming devices, and more to let you watch movies or play video games on a 50-inch display when visuals are beamed against any wall.

Prynt Pocket - The Prynt Pocket turns your iPhone into an instant portable camera. You can point, shoot, edit, and then upload to your social media accounts or print pictures directly from your phone. Prynt paper is ink-free as well, so you shouldnt have to deal with issues like smudging, fading, or even ripping.

Zuta Mini Printer - This robotic printer connects to PCs and smartphones and has the ability to print on any size paper. Rechargeable batteries further give you a full hour of printing. Connect to any device via WiFi to watch the magic happen.

Here One - Background noise is a thing of the past once you put on a pair of these wireless earbuds. Here One essentially allows users to tailor the audio around them by manipulating sound systems via the app. Turn down background music to hear your friends talking in a loud space or just boost their voices. You can make crystal-clear phone calls, and talk to Alexa and Siri, via Here One as well.

Moleskine Smart Writing Set - Use the special writing tool to write and sketch whatever notes you want inside an actual notebook, then watch it transform into a notepad on your smartphone. It keeps your original handwriting and drawings intact, and downloads creations to your Google Drive, Evernote and Adobe Creative Cloud account to store or share.

Sharper Image Waterproof Action Camera and Music Player - With this device from Sharper Image, you can access music from your smartphone without taking it with you. When you connect this Music Player to WiFi, you can download songs (up to 4,000) from your phone onto the speaker. Its waterproof and floats, so its great take with you to the beach, pool, and lake, as well as to take action photos from the water.

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Furry Friday: Pet faces for the win – Stuff.co.nz

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Danzig

NICK BARNETT

Last updated08:28, July 28 2017

Squiggle is on top of things - most literally, on top of the clothes airer.

One of life's pleasures is winning. Not the vanquishment/supremacy kind of winning that presidents and generals dream of, but the feeling of being ahead of things, getting a tail wind or a lucky break, sensing that you'rea step ahead of where you were yesterday.

That feeling which can make you say, not with a shout but with calm satisfaction and intent,"Today, I'm winning."

I hope you can say that to yourself todayand notice how it makes you feel betterto say it. To help you gain a sense of winningness this Friday, I've gathered some photos that capture a pet in that mood of calm satisfaction.

And these pets are winning in another sense - they'll charm you and lift your spirits. So it's definitely win-win.Scroll and enjoy.

READ MORE: *Furry Friday: Look who's looking *Furry Friday: Soaking in winter sun *Furry Friday: The pet-human wavelength

Thanks to all for sharing pictures. Pleaseemail meyour own pet photos, or go to theFour Legs Good Facebook pageand use the Upload Photo button. Help keep Furry Friday free of embarrassing mistakes by remembering to include your pet's name, and its sex if it's not obvious!Follow the daily photos of#connorandphoebeon Instagram.

Take a swim in Barney's eyes. He won't mind.

Acer strides into life the way we all should - with chin up and eyes taking everything in.

Dodo got tired of holding up that heavy toy.

Green, blue, pink and white in their purest form: Moby.

Incey Coe (left) and Anooshka do their hanging-vampire act.

Small faces, huge hearts: Izzy (left) and Douglas.

Tia is thrilled and amazed at having scaled the arm of the couch.

Tuxedo junction: Nessie (left) and Stanley always meet the most formal dress code.

Gorgeous from head to toe: Chloe (left) and Indie.

Daisy's sense of quiet victory is drawn from the fact that she's basking on the kennel roof.

Kisa rests in the lap of luxury, though the luxury does have the tiniest hole in it.

Texas takes time out from grooming to pose you a question: 'Well?'

A sweet sight in the morning, or at any time: Liza.

Ed unfurls a healthy-looking tongue.

Jack and Nicky make a strong case, in stereo.

Nothing shall escape the ears of Reginald (left) and Ville. However, one or two things might elude Ville's gaze.

Pride of the pack: Krystal, Izzy and Neeko.

Colour-coordinated snugglers: Simon, Theodore and Alvin (left) are adopted strays; Molly and Tess are twins.

Feline finery: Lily (left), Amadeus and Milly.

Luca (left) recovers handsomely; Worf looks magnificent, seven years on since his first Furry Friday appearance.

Finally, Max (left) and Pebble might not rate themselves as winners at this moment - one has an empty bowl to lament, the other a bunch of inedibles. Someone rectify this sad state of affairs!

-Stuff

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