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Consider risks of unapproved stem cell treatment – Kamloops This … – Kamloops This Week

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Danzig

Editor:

Re: (Stem cells to stem the wait? June 27):

There is a reason Health Canada has not approved certain stem-cell treatments: they have not been shown to work yet and even ones own minimally manipulated cells can be considered risky.

There is a great deal of research happening in Canada and globally and clinical trials are underway to test and improve the quality, safety and effectiveness of stem-cell therapies because scientists and industry believe they hold great promise.

As the KTW article noted, the federal government committed $20 million to the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine in 2016, but it wasnt to establish a stem-cell therapy development facility in Toronto. Rather, the funding is to find better ways of manufacturing therapeutic cells, including stem cells, in the billions that are required for clinical use.

Not all stem cells are the same and it is crucial to ensure the purity of stem cells before they are injected into people.

There is a lot of support for stem-cell research and manufacturing in Canada and, if the public is patient, treatments will come.

For now, people seeking unapproved treatments should consider the risks (because they exist in the short-term and long-term) and be prepared to throw away their money if the treatment doesnt work.

Stacey Johnsondirector of communications and marketingCentre for Commercialization of Regenerative MedicineToronto

Consider risks of unapproved stem cell treatment - Kamloops This ... - Kamloops This Week

Five myths about hippies – Washington Post

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Danzig

By Joshua Clark Davis By Joshua Clark Davis July 7

Joshua Clark Davis is a professor of history at the University of Baltimore and the author of From Head Shops to Whole Foods: The Rise and Fall of Activist Entrepreneurs.

During a special summer 50 years ago, young people from all over America flooded into San Franciscos Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in hopes of joining the hippies, a new group of rebellious dreamers vowing to teach anyone who would listen how to find peace, love and happiness. It was the Summer of Love. Reporters and curious tourists came to San Francisco check out these strange kids for themselves. But the deluge of media attention launched a set of spurious myths about the hippies, many of which have been perpetuated by overly nostalgic idealists and unduly harsh critics. Here are five of the most persistent.

Myth No. 1

Hippies were a phenomenon of the 1960s.

When people in the early 2000s think about the 1960s, they might think first about the hippies, suggests the widely used online educational company Gale. Likewise, the Princeton Reviews SAT guidebook prompts students: Think about the 1960s. What comes to mind? Maybe its the Beatles, dancing hippies, and Vietnam. Hippies might be the most famous symbol of the 1960s; after all, they emerged in the middle of that decade.

But they didnt really hit their stride until the early 1970s, when their numbers and influence peaked. The hippies drug subculture in the 1960s became youth pop culture in the 70s; issues of the stoner magazine High Times, founded in 1974, sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Rock-and-roll, once seen as a frivolous hobby for teenagers, became a serious artform and publications such as Rolling Stone became national tastemakers. And a quick perusal of nearly any high school yearbook well into the late 70s shows that long hair became standard for teenage boys across the country. Even some of the male teachers had shaggy cuts. Google Books Ngram Viewer reveals the trajectory of Americas fascination with the counterculture: The frequency of the term hippies peaked in books in 1971 and stayed above 1967 levels until 1977.

Myth No. 2

Hippies lived only in coastal cities or rural communes.

Its easy to imagine hippies clustering in Californias Bay Area or among the Ivy League campuses of the Eastern Seaboard. In Scott MacFarlanes The Hippie Narrative , for example, the author points out that Norman Mailer distinguished between more visionary West Coast hippies and practical East Coast hippies, with not a thought given to those who might have resided somewhere in between. Likewise, The American Promise, a high school history textbook , states that hippie enclaves sprouted in low-rent districts of coastal cities and in rural communities.

But hippies lived all over the United States, even in small and mid-size cities in the South and Midwest. The earliest flowering of hippie culture took place in coastal cities such as San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, but head shops purveyors of psychedelic posters, black lightbulbs and rolling papers were popping up by 1967 in such cities as Atlanta, Cleveland and Omaha, as well as Austin, Ann Arbor and other college towns. Almost every city had a neighborhood or public place where hippies came together. Washingtons hippies hung out on Dupont Circle, while Baltimores gathered at that citys Washington Monument.

Meanwhile, countercultural newspapers were launched all over the country. To name just a few examples, Middle Earth appeared in Iowa City, Iowa; Chinook in Denver; Kudzu in Jackson, Miss.; and the improbably named Protean Radish in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Myth No. 3

Hippies were the ones protesting in the streets.

In the popular imagination, hippies with flowers in their hair were at the heart of the antiwar movement. The tumultuous political climate conjures images of spoiled hippies protesting the Vietnam War, as journalist Tom Jokinen put it in Hazlitt , or hippies protesting the war in Vietnam, as writer Robyn Price Pierre wrote in the Atlantic.

Its true that some countercultural groups, most notablythe Yippiesandthe White Panther Party, blended radical politics with the hippie lifestyle. But antiwar protesters and hippieswere usually two distinct groups . Hippies, often known as freaks, prioritized spiritual enlightenment, community building, and, of course, sex, drugs and rock-and-roll. Activists, often known as politicos, opted for more traditional forms of left-wing political organizing.

Many hippies were indifferent or even opposed to activists political organizing, public meetings and marching.Writer, LSD enthusiast and Merry Prankster Ken Kesey shocked the audience at an antiwar event at the University of California at Berkeley in 1965by declaring: Youre not going to stop this war with this rally, by marching. ... Theyve been having wars for 10,000 years, and youre not going to stop it this way.

Rather than marching or protesting, hippies hoped to change America by seceding from established political, social and cultural institutions, not by reforming them. No one expressed this sentiment more memorably than LSD guru Timothy Leary when he exhorted young Americans to Turn on, tune in, drop out meaning, in essence, to get high, disregard popular norms, quit bothering with mainstream society, and look inward for peace and wisdom.

Myth No. 4

Hippies were all about sexual liberation.

To many observers (and quite a few critics), hippies were synonymous with free love . In one incident during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, a Chicago police officer attacked a young woman who was protesting, saying: You hippies are all alike. All you want is free love. Free love? I can give you some free love. Indeed, in author Micah Lee Issitsguide to the counterculture,free love is described as the hippie sexual ideal.

While hippies were more sexually adventurous than mainstream Americans (one aspect of the counterculture that has had a lasting impact),they mostly stuck to heterosexual monogamy. As one aging hippie recounted decades later, that was more legend than fact . We had parties where people would smoke too much or drink too much and sleep with their friends, but there were emotional repercussions the next day. Free love is like a free lunch theres no such thing. ... Even nudity was rare.

Even within open relationships, hippie men often seized the freedom to sleep with multiple womenbut discouragedtheir girlfriends and wives from doing the same. Sadly, sexual relations in the counterculture werent always consensual. Women in hippie neighborhoods especially teenage girls who had run away from their parents were often vulnerable to sexual assault as they faced peer pressure to embrace drugs and abandon sexual restraint. Chester Anderson, a writer associated with San Franciscos legendary Diggers collective,painted a devastating pictureof sexual relations in the Summer of Love: Rape is as common as bulls--- on Haight Street.

Myth No. 5

The hippie fad eventually vanished.

We are the children of the 60s and 70s kids, who were trying to figure out life after the 60s hippies died out, writer Natalyn Chamberlain wrote in a lament for post-hippie culture in the online magazine Odyssey; a travel guide to oddball American locales similarly asserts that the hippies have faded away, while a Texas Monthly article by Peter Applebome reports that hippies died out sometime before 1982.

Yet its less the case that the hippies died out, disappeared or faded away, and more that all of us became hippies. Indeed, a number of countercultural practices that were once seen as fringe are now widely accepted parts of American life. Yoga, to name one example, was championed by hippies long before it became a mainstream phenomenon. The same goes for organic food and vegetarian, whole-grain diets. And hippies celebrated casual dress, especially blue jeans and androgynous styles, rejecting the conventional wisdom that clothing should be formal and gender-specific. Their fashion sense paved the way for our current era, when many Americans wear casual clothing for all occasions and fewer and fewer workplaces require employees to dress up. All of these things, once considered symbols of the hippie lifestyle, are now fully entrenched in American culture.

outlook@washpost.com

Five myths is a weekly feature challenging everything you think you know. You can check out previous myths, read more from Outlook or follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter.

Harry Dean Stanton Takes a Spiritual Journey in First Trailer for ‘Lucky’ – The Film Stage (blog)

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Danzig

After making a profound impression in Zodiac, The Invitation, Shutter Island, and more, John Carroll Lynch has stepped behind the camera as a director for the first time with Lucky. Led by Harry Dean Stanton, it follows his character on a spiritual journey towards enlightenment as he meets a whole host of othersalong the way. Following a SXSW premiere and ahead of a release this fall, the first trailer has now landed.

As one can seen in the screencap above, Lucky also reteams Stanton with David Lynch, who pops up in a supporting role. Reviews for the film have been mighty strong since it premiered earlier this year and we look forward to seeking it out this September. Also starring Ron Livingston, Ed Begley Jr., Tom Skerritt, and Beth Grant, check out the trailer below.

LUCKY follows the spiritual journey of a 90-year-old atheist and the quirky characters that inhabit his off the map desert town. Having out lived and out smoked all of his contemporaries, the fiercely independent Lucky finds himself at the precipice of life, thrust into a journey of self exploration, leading towards that which is so often unattainable: enlightenment. Acclaimed character actor John Carroll Lynchs directorial debut, Lucky, is at once a love letter to the life and career of Harry Dean Stanton as well as a meditation on mortality, loneliness, spirituality, and human connection.

Lucky opens on September 29.

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Harry Dean Stanton Takes a Spiritual Journey in First Trailer for 'Lucky' - The Film Stage (blog)

Tale of two ‘hippie’ cities – The Star Online

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Danzig

Penang has some things in common with San Francisco the island, too, is unconventional in many ways.

ITS summer time in San Francisco but it is no ordinary season. Yes, this is the 50th Summer of Love so branded because exactly 50 years ago, in 1967, this American city was the centre of a cultural revolution. This was where it all happened.

In those epic months, San Francisco embraced hippie culture the so-called flower children where young people joined forces in the name of love and peace to protest against the Vietnam War.

It was the age of The Beatles and their psychedelic experiment with Indian gurus, Scott McKenzie with his monstrous hit song San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair), Jimi Hendrix, Fleetwood Mac, Jethro Tull, and The Rolling Stones, among others.

As my pick-up van crossed the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, the music of that era automatically played in my head. Vivid memories suddenly flooded my mind not just about San Francisco but Penang, too.

It was a time when the phrase Make Love, Not War caught the imagination of the world, with young men sporting long hair and beards, and in Malaysia, it was Penang that probably experienced this counterculture movement more than other states or perhaps it was just the island state.

You see, Penang was part of what was called the Hippy Trail (along which Americans and many Australians and Europeans made a low budget hop overland to Asia) beginning with Istanbul and encompassing Katmandu, Goa, Bangkok, and other parts of Asia. Penang was one of the preferred choices. Unbelievably, many hitchhiked all the way there.

These young people claimed that they were searching for spiritual enlightenment (after all, all you need is love, say The Beatles in their Magical Mystery Tour album), standing up to rigid, conventional lifestyles and the Establishment. But really, was it just an excuse to smoke pot and have free sex?

I was in primary school when Penang was suddenly invaded by hippies (hygiene was surely not their priority!) in their colourful tie-dyed clothes, walking the streets of George Town, especially along Chulia Street and Rope Walk with its line of low budget hotels.

A new industry sprang up in Penang, as young locals who embraced hippie culture sold burgers and other Western food to cater to these Caucasian hippies.

Homes in the beach areas of Teluk Bahang and Batu Ferringhi were opened to these foreigners for US$1 a night and I suspect many illicit items were also sold by some locals.

For students in the islands St Xaviers Institution who had to walk past these streets and strange-behaving hippies, it was an eye opener but for most Penangites who were long exposed to foreign culture and visitors (Penang being a thriving port) it appeared to be just another phase of life and culture.

The smell of weed could always be detected in some cafes and the authorities began to frown on the free spirited behaviour of the hippies. After all, these were not exactly the kind of tourists that could contribute to the state coffers.

There were many complaints from locals about the topless some even nude hippies who flocked to the beaches and soon, the police acted. There were even reports of some hippies getting kicked out of Penang.

Innocent Boy Scouts like us, who were on camping trips in Batu Ferringhi, would go to the nearby Chin Farm to swim at the waterfalls where we would run into these hippies. But, of course, we didnt report our encounters to our Scout Master as we wanted to go back the next day!

But Penang in the late 1960s and early 1970s was an unusual place. As much as these hippies wanted to run away from the war and the Establishment, in Penang they ran into the many US Marines who stayed on the island as part of the American militarys rest and recuperation (R&R) programme.

The hippies hated these men in uniform but Penang was one of the few approved holiday destinations for the soldiers fighting in Vietnam.

All US military personnel serving in Vietnam were eligible for R&R during their tour of duty a minimum of 13 months for Marines, and 12 months for soldiers, sailors, and airmen and for many, on their first visit to Asia, this could also mean their last as the war took its toll on these young Americans.

The other approved destinations were Bangkok, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei and Tokyo.

Needless to say, Bangkok was the most popular choice as Penang was regarded as too mild for these GIs (a noun used to describe the soldiers of the United States).

Americans from Vietnam would be flown into the Royal Australian Air Force base in Butterworth on the mainland side of Penang before they took the ferry across the channel to Penang island.

It was an interesting cultural experience for me as a kid. Suddenly, there were many GIs at my Penang home as my aunt, who worked as a hotel receptionist, would invite some of them to visit a typical Malaysian home. Whenever she played tour guide, I was always asked to come along as the chaperone in case these Americans had naughty ideas.

So I was in the company of both hippies and soldiers as a boy growing up in Penang. Even in the 1970s, some of these hippies didnt leave Penang after developing a liking for the island, and they became long-term residents at the low budget hotels and homestays a term which was already in use in Penang in the 1960s.

Strangely, these colourful memories of a bygone era have never been recorded in school history books; perhaps they are regarded as inconsequential but they will be remembered as part of popular history.

Not many Malaysians are aware of the hippie era and the American GIs in Penang.

Fast forward to 2017. The hippies are gone. Mostly dead. The Summer of Love has been commercialised to get tourists to spend money on nostalgia.

Urbane, ambitious and trendy hipsters, busy with their mobile phones and note books in fashionable cafes, have taken over from the hippies.

Silicon Valley, located in the southern San Francisco Bay Area, is home to many start ups and global technology companies including Apple, Facebook, and Google.

Its still very unconventional and very anti-establishment even if making money is on the agenda although these hipster CEOs, who prefer jeans to suits, see themselves as advocates of social causes. To be represented in a Pride Parade is also a commercial consideration in San Francisco.

But Washington DC and Donald Trump are hugely detested here, and that perhaps is something that hasnt changed in 50 years.

San Francisco is one of the most expensive cities in the world. Penang still has a relatively low cost of living but in terms of properties, its among the highest. But I love these two cities for their many unconventional ways and openness.

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Tale of two 'hippie' cities - The Star Online

Plant Life on the International Space Station is Blossoming – Newsweek

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Danzig

This article originally appeared on The Conversation.

Gravity is a constant for all organisms on Earth. It acts on every aspect of our physiology, behavior and developmentno matter what you are, you evolved in an environment where gravity roots us firmly to the ground.

But what happens if youre removed from that familiar environment and placed into a situation outside your evolutionary experience? Thats exactly the question we ask every day of the plants we growin our laboratory. They start out here in our earthbound lab, but theyre on their way to outer space. What could be a more novel environment for a plant than the zero-gravity conditions of spaceflight?

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By studying how plants react to life in space, we can learn more about how they adapt to environmental changes. Not only are plants crucial to almost every facet of life on Earth; plants will be critical to our explorations of the universe. As we look to a future of possible space colonization, its vital to understand how plants will fare off planet before we rely on them within space outposts to recycle our air and water and supplement our food.

So even while we stay right here on the ground,our research plantsblast off and head to theInternational Space Station(ISS). Already theyve given us some surprises about growing in zero gravityand shaken up some of our thinking about how plants grow on Earth.

A NASA image shows the International Space Station as it flew over Madagascar, with three of the five spacecraft docked to the station, in this photo taken on April 6, 2016. Tim Peake/ESA/NASA/Handout via Reuters

Learning from Stressed-Out Plants

Plants make especially great research subjects if youre interested in environmental stress. Because theyre stuck in one spotwhat we biologists call sessile organismsplants must cleverly deal in place with whatever their environment throws at them. Moving to a more favorable spot isnt an option, and they can do little to alter the environment around them.

But what they can do is alter their internal environmentand plants are masters of manipulating their metabolism to cope with perturbations of their surroundings. This characteristic is one of the reasons we use plants in our research; we can count on them to be sensitive reporters of environmental change, even in novel environments like spaceflight.

Folks have been curious about how plants respond to spaceflight from the very beginning of our ability to get there. We launchedour first spaceflight experimenton Space Shuttle Columbia back in 1999, and the things we learned then are still fueling new hypotheses about how plants deal with the absence of gravity.

Were in Florida, Our Research Plants Are in Space

Spaceflight requires specialized growth habitats, specialized tools for observation and sample collection, and of course specialized people to take care of the experiment on orbit.

A typical experiment begins on Earth in our lab with the planting of dormant Arabidopsis seeds in Petri plates containing a nutrient gel. This gel (unlike soil) stays put in zero gravity, and provides the water and nutrients the growing plants will need. The plates are then wrapped in dark cloth, taken to Kennedy Space Center, and eventually loaded into the Dragon Capsule on top of a Falcon 9 rocket to catch a ride to the ISS.

Once docked, an astronaut inserts the plates into the plant growth hardware. The light inside stimulates the seeds to sprout, cameras record the growth of the seedlings over time, and at the end of the experiment, the astronaut harvests the 12-day-old plants and save them in tubes of preservative.

Once returned to us on Earth, we can run more tests on the preserved samples to investigate the unique metabolic processes the plants engaged while on orbit.

Unraveling it Back in the Lab

One of the first things we found was that certain root growth strategies that everyone had assumed need gravity actually dont require it at all.

To seek out water and nutrients, plants need their roots to grow away from where they are planted. On Earth, gravity is the most important cue for the direction to grow, but plants also use touch (think of the root tip as a sensitive fingertip) to help navigate around obstacles.

Back in 1880, Charles Darwin showed that when you grow plants along a slanted surface, the roots dont grow straight away from the seed, but rather take a jog to one side. This root growth strategy is called skewing.Darwin hypothesizedthat a combination of gravity and the root touching its way across the surface was behind itand for 130 years, thats what everyone else thought too.

But in 2010, we saw that the roots of the plants we grew on the ISS marched across the surface of their Petri plate in aperfect example of root skewingno gravity required. It was quite a surprise. So whats really behind root-skewing on orbit, since its obviously not gravity?

Plants on the ISS do have a potentially second source of information from which they could get a directional cue: light. We hypothesized that in the absence of gravity to point roots away from the direction of the leaves, light plays a bigger role in root guidance.

What we found was that yes, light is important, but not just any light will dothere has to be a gradient of light intensity for it to act as a useful guide. Think of it in terms of a good smell: you can navigate to the kitchen with your eyes closed when cookies are just coming out of the oven, but if the whole house is flooded equally with the scent of chocolate chip cookies, you couldnt find your way.

Adjusting Their Metabolic Toolbox on the Fly

In the absence of gravity, plants cant use the tools theyre used to for navigation, so they had to craft together another solution. They can do that by regulating the way they express their genes. That way they can make more or less of specific proteins that are helpful or not in zero gravity. Various plant parts came up with their own gene regulation strategies.

We found a number of genes involved in making and remodeling cell walls areexpressed differentlyin space-grown plants. Other genes involved with light-sensingnormally expressed in leaves on Earthare expressed in roots on the ISS. In leaves, many genes associated with plant hormone signaling are repressed, and genes associated with insect defense are more active.These same trendsare also seen in the relative abundance of proteins involved in signaling, cell wall metabolism and defense.

These patterns of genes and proteins tell a storyin microgravity, plants respond by loosening their cell walls, along with creating new ways to sense their environment.

We track these gene expression changes in real time by labeling specific proteins with a fluorescent tag. Plants engineered withglowing fluorescent proteinscan then report how they are responding to their environment as it is happening. These engineered plants act as biological sensorsbiosensors for short. Specialized cameras and microscopes let us follow how the plant is utilizing those fluorescent proteins.

Insights from Space

This kind of research gives us new understanding of how plants sense and respond to external stimuli at a fundamental, molecular level. The more we can learn about how plants respond to novel and extreme environments, the more prepared we are for understanding how plants will deal with the changing environments theyre up against here on Earth.

And of course our research will inform collective efforts to take our biology off the planet. The observation that gravity isnt as vital to plants as we once thought is welcome news for the prospect of farming on other planets with low gravity, and even on spacecraft where there is no gravity. Humans are explorers, and when we leave earths orbit, you can bet well take plants with us!

Anna-Lisa Paul is a Research Professor, Graduate Faculty in Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Florida.

Robert Ferl is the Director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research, University of Florida.

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Plant Life on the International Space Station is Blossoming - Newsweek

Ghana enters the space race sending a satellite into orbit – Telegraph.co.uk

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Danzig

Ghana has become the first Sub-Saharan African country to send a satellite into orbit around the earth.

Ghanasat-1 was released from the International Space Station on Friday nearly a month after its launch from the Kennedy Space Centre on Elon Musk's SpaceX flight 11.

Around 400 people burst into applause at the All Nations University in Koforidua, when the satellite began its orbit.

Weighing 1,000 grammes, the Cubesat satellite represents the culmination of a two year project which has cost 40,000.

It is being used to monitor the country's coastline as well as helping Ghana enjoy the full benefits of satellite technology.

The satellite, which was built by students at the college is equipped with low and high-resolution cameras.

It is also fitted with a device which will make it possible to broadcast the country's national anthem and other independence songs from space.

Its progress is also being followed by the JAXA Tsukuba Space Centre in Japan.

Dr Richard Damoah, the product co-ordinator, said it marked a new beginning for the country. "It has opened the door for us to do a lot of activities from space," he told the BBC.

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Ghana enters the space race sending a satellite into orbit - Telegraph.co.uk

Occultation data raises questions about New Horizons’ target KBO … – SpaceFlight Insider

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Danzig

Laurel Kornfeld

July 8th, 2017

Occultation data will give scientists new insight of KBO 2014 MU69. The image is an artists impression of NASAs New Horizons spacecraft encountering the object. Image Credit: NASA / JHU-APL / SwRI / Steve Gribben

Data collected on NASAsNew Horizons spacecraftssecond flyby target, 2014 MU69, during its June 3 occultation of a star, may indicate that the Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) is smaller and brighter than previously thought.

Located approximately one billion miles beyond Pluto, which New Horizons flew by in July 2015, MU69 was discovered in June 2014 by scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to find a second flyby target for an extended mission.

One month after the Pluto flyby, the KBO was officially selected as the spacecrafts next target, to be visited on January 1, 2019.

MU69 passed in front of, or occulted, a star on June 3 and will occult two other stars this summer one on July 10, and the other on July 17.

More than 50 mission scientists and others assisting them observed the occultation via both fixed and portable ground-based telescopes placed strategically along the narrow path of the KBOs shadow in South Africa and Argentina.

Four members of the South African observation team scan the sky while waiting for the start of the 2014 MU69 occultation, early on the morning of June 3, 2017. The target field is in the Milky Way, seen here from their observation site in the Karoo desert near Vosburg, South Africa. They used portable telescopes to observe the event, as MU69, a small Kuiper Belt object and the next flyby target of NASAs New Horizons spacecraft, passed in front of a distant star. Photo & Caption Credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI / Henry Throop

Hubble and the European Space Agencys (ESA) Gaia space telescope viewed the event from space.

The shadow cast by MU69 during the occultation lasted just two seconds, yet all of the observing teams successfully collected data from the event, including more than 100,000 images of the occultation star.

Projected path of the 2014 MU69 occultation shadow, on July 10 (left) and July 17, 2017. Image Credit: Larry Wasserman / Lowell Observatory

Significantly, the KBO itself was not observed although the data collected is already providing mission scientists with crucial information about the objects environment.

New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado, said: These results are telling us something really interesting.

The fact that we accomplished the occultation observations from every planned observing site but didnt detect the object itself likely means that either MU69 is highly reflective and smaller than some expected, or it may be a binary or even a swarm of smaller bodies left from the time when the planets in our Solar System formed.

Less than one percent the size of Pluto, MU69 orbits in the same location where it formed about four billion years ago.

These data show that MU69 might not be as dark or as large as some expected, confirmed New Horizons science team member and occultation team leader Marc Buie, also of SwRI.

Mission scientists plan to observe MU69s next two stellar occultations, which will occur on July 10 and July 17.

The July 10 event will be studied using NASAs airborne Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), equipped with a 100-inch (2.5-meter telescope), which will search for debris near the KBO that could pose a potential hazard to the spacecraft.

On July 17, mission scientists will again set up a line of portable telescopes along the predicted path of the shadow MU69 will cast, located in southern Argentina.

Hubble will observe that occultation to aid the search for debris in the KBOs environment and possibly obtain an accurate estimate of its size.

Tagged: KBO 2014 MU69 NASA New Horizons The Range

Laurel Kornfeld is an amateur astronomer and freelance writer from Highland Park, NJ, who enjoys writing about astronomy and planetary science. She studied journalism at Douglass College, Rutgers University, and earned a Graduate Certificate of Science from Swinburne Universitys Astronomy Online program. Her writings have been published online in The Atlantic, Astronomy magazines guest blog section, the UK Space Conference, the 2009 IAU General Assembly newspaper, The Space Reporter, and newsletters of various astronomy clubs. She is a member of the Cranford, NJ-based Amateur Astronomers, Inc. Especially interested in the outer solar system, Laurel gave a brief presentation at the 2008 Great Planet Debate held at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, MD.

Here’s Mike Pence touching space flight hardware you’re clearly not supposed to touch – Mashable

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Danzig

Mashable

Here's Mike Pence touching space flight hardware you're clearly not supposed to touch
Mashable
Vice President Mike Pence visited NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Thursday where he toured the facilities, addressed employees, and touched "critical space flight hardware" despite clear instructions not to. Photos from Pence's tour of the facilities ...

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Here's Mike Pence touching space flight hardware you're clearly not supposed to touch - Mashable

Deep space flight may soon be rocketing forward – SYFY WIRE (blog)

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Danzig

Human Mars missions are still stuck in sci-fi for many reasons, one being that the right propulsion technology hasnt yet launched. Now deep space propulsion is about to take off.

The Space Subcommittee of the House Committee on Space, Science and Technology recently held a hearing with several experts who are also part of the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) taking a stand for advancing travel through the final frontier. Technological breakthroughs brought before Congress included ways to amp up speed, payloads and propulsion. There was one in particular that surprised even the cynics.

NASAs Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) program was all but extinct until leaders in the space industry highlighted the propulsion advances brought about by developments for the program meant to prepare astronauts for Mars by robotically redirecting an asteroid to orbit the Moon. They would then explore this asteroid and use it to test out tech prototypes as a precursor to putting boots on the Red Planet. Even with the current administrations planned funding cuts that threaten to be its last gasp, ARM is spawning another arm.

NextSTEP connects the public and private sector in space exploration by joining forces with NASA and using commercial developments (whose funding cant be blasted by the government) to probe new possibilities for extended missions to Mars and beyond. ARM had made some serious leaps forward in solar electric propulsion (SEP) aka ion propulsion. This is a more efficient alternative to the chemical rockets and thrusters on most spacecraft, which rely on heavy fuel. Solar panels use radiation to power the ionizingelectrically chargingof a gas, which creates enough thrust to propel the craft while minimizing weight.

SEP is the same type of technology that sustains the Dawn mission which has been exploring the asteroid belt for a decade, and thruster advancements intended for ARM have tripled its power, increased its efficiency by half and drastically reduced the amount of required propellant. It could someday send off payloads that will give rise to a human colony on Mars.

High power solar electric propulsion capabilities, scalable to handle power and thrust levels needed for deep space human exploration missions, are considered essential to efficiently and affordably perform human exploration missions to distant destinations such as Mars, stated Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Directorate, at the hearing.

The only con in the galaxy of pros SEP brings to space exploration is that such engines is that, unlike chemical rockets, they are unable to accelerate fast enough to defy Earths gravity and launch a spacecraft off the surface. That all changes once its shot into space. Outside our atmosphere, SEP can fire for years on end. Superpowered electric propulsion will operate at levels that start at hundreds of kilowatts, eventually switching out solar electric power for nuclear electric power the further away future missions take us from the sun. NASA foresees sending Earthlings to Mars by using SLS (Space Launch System), the shiny new rocket its currently developing, together with SEP to propel immense payloads towards the planet before the first human footsteps land in its red dust. But first, we actually have to blast something running on one of these engines into space.

A key goal is to demonstrate these new capabilities in the next few years and infuse them into human missions in the next decade, said Gerstenmaier. Watch out, Mars.

(via Seeker)

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Deep space flight may soon be rocketing forward - SYFY WIRE (blog)

Jetsons in reality soon? A city in Earth orbit may not be too far away in future – Financial Express

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Danzig

French Polynesia is expected to get the first floating city in a few years from now. (Reuters)

Many would remember the 1960s cartoon series, Jetsons, (with a later syndication in the late 1980s) featuring the eponymous family in a futuristic utopia called the Orbit City. The Jetsons lived in Skypad Apartments, a building that stood far above the surface of terra firma, supported by what looked like stilts. Such atmospheric dwelling may soon come to be in real life. Over 260,000 people have applied to live in Asgardia, a new city that is to come up some 400 km from the Earths surface. The plan is to send satellites along with space platforms that can interconnect to form a space city. Asgardia says that one of its main goals is to protect the Earth from space threats like solar flares, debris and that the ultimate goal is to build a protective shield around the planet, it is not clear how it will be able to achieve this. The first launch is due this September, with next two launches scheduled for 2018 and 2019. The first inhabitants are expected to settle in eight years. Residents, selected via a random draw, have already created their own charter, parliament and have even selected their first president. Dr Igor Ashurbeyli, who first conceptualised the idea of a space nation, is to be the first nominal head of Asgardia. Although Ashurbeyli is trying hard for UN membership for Asgardia, concerns remain on what laws Asgardians will abide by.

Irish casting company Movie Extras ‘urgently’ needs redheads for … – The Irish Sun

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Danzig

They want men and women aged 18 and over to get in touch

AN Irish casting company is looking for people with red hair for a new TV series.

Movie Extras made the urgent request on social media yesterday.

Getty Images

They wrote on Facebook: Redheads needed for new TV series shooting in Dublin and Wicklow.

We are urgently seeking redheads for an exciting new TV series shooting in Dublin and Wicklow.

They want men and women aged 18 and over to get in touch. Those selected will be paid for their time.

Filming will take place from Tuesday, July 11 to Friday, July 14.

The post adds: Important please let us know if you drive.

Not all of the locations will require own transport, but some of them will.

It will increase your eligibility for days on set if you have your own transport.

Please get in touch with us ASAP if you or someone you know fits the brief! Paid roles if cast.

To apply, please fill in an application form at http://www.bit.ly/ME_RedHead or see the NOTICES section on http://www.MovieExtras.ie.

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Irish casting company Movie Extras 'urgently' needs redheads for ... - The Irish Sun

Sheeran one of many red hot redheads – Toronto Sun

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Danzig

Toronto Sun

Sheeran one of many red hot redheads
Toronto Sun
It's been a while since a redhead has dominated pop culture quite the way 26-year-old British pop-folk singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran, currently touring Canada in July, has done. Here's a look at ten more gingers making their mark: Prince Harry The ...

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Sheeran one of many red hot redheads - Toronto Sun

Mike Pence ignores Nasa ‘do not touch’ sign – BBC News

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Danzig

BBC News

Mike Pence ignores Nasa 'do not touch' sign
BBC News
US Vice-President Mike Pence has made a tongue-in-cheek apology to Nasa after a photo of him touching a piece of space flight equipment went viral. Mr Pence was visiting the Kennedy Space Center in Florida when he placed his hand on a piece of ...
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NASA gives Pence a pass on touching the space equipment: 'We were going to clean it anyway'The Boston Globe
NBCNews.com -The Verge
all 279 news articles »

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Mike Pence ignores Nasa 'do not touch' sign - BBC News

This NASA analyst left a $200000 job to sell cigars – Washington Post

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Danzig

When I think of cigars, I think of endless tobacco fields and warehouses where the leaves dry. I think of open-air factories where dozens of rollers hand-make the cigars under the soft rotation of overhead fans while lectors readers help workers pass the time by reading aloud from newspapers and books.

I think of wood-paneled, clubby tobacco shops such as New Yorks Nat Sherman, W. Curtis Draper in the District and Georgetown Tobacco, lined with glass cases full of boxes packed with stogies. I think of walk-in humidors rich with the aroma of tobacco.

Omar de Frias has none of that.

What he does have is a successful cigar brand. His Springfield, Va.-based Fratello Cigars is on track this year to sell $2 million worth from Chicago to Amsterdam. That comes to almost 250,000 smokes and around $1 million in gross revenue.

The former NASA project analyst walked away from a $200,000 (benefits included) job last fall to pursue an enterprise whose biggest assets are his smarts and persistence.

I liked the culture, said de Frias, who was drawn to the tobacco businesss nostalgic vibe.

The 38-year-old businessman grew up next to a tobacco store in Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, where he was enthralled by the swaggering cigar smokers in their big cars and wavy brimmed hats. I have been smoking cigars for 20 years and have always been fascinated by the industry, he said. I liked how I would see my grandfather smoking a cigar. It was such a fine thing to do. It seemed classy.

[Is this the final burn for Floridas Cigar City?]

De Frias may be drawn by the romance, but his unsentimental approach to business is all about the bottom line.

I am a driven guy, said the 6-foot-9 former professional basketball player, who was on his way to his umpteenth cigar show when we chatted last week. Work ethic is everything. It drives our products, business practices and customer relations. I just wish there were more hours in a day.

The three-employee business which includes his office manager wife, Ivonne is run out of his head, out of his home and out of a small Springfield warehouse where he stores his three lines of Nicaraguan- and Dominican-made premium cigars. They fetch between $8 and $10 each.

Theres no secret to what is going on here. Just persistence. Hustle. Endless travel to cigar shows and Central American factories. Weekends on the road, cold-calling tobacco retail shops. The same drudgery that drives most small businesses. The same thing that took him from a $41,000-a-year NASA salary to several times that by the time he left.

The harder and smarter I would work at NASA, the more notice I would receive from senior management, he said. The harder I work at selling my cigars, the greater profit I generate. Its that simple. I get up in the morning trying to outsmart and outwork everybody else.

Like most things retail, its a tricky business. The key is keeping manufacturing costs low. The cost of making a cigar can range from 30 cents using low-quality tobacco to $5 with the best wrapper and superior rollers, the highly skilled people who hand-make them.

Cigars are like wine. Its all about age, quality, richness, alchemy. Those all go into the profit margin on each cigar, which de Frias declined to detail. The outside wrapper on each cigar is a key ingredient and the most expensive because it is what the customer sees.

[Youll soon be able to bring back more cigars and rum from Cuba]

Also like wine, tobacco is subject to the unpredictable nature of dealing with an agriculture product whose supply and demand have rocked his bottom line. Over the past five years, he said, tobacco prices have increased over 20 percent, eating into his profit.

Like most things sold at retail stores, the markup on cigars can run 75 to 100 percent. So a cigar that a consumer buys for $10 at a store is double the price the store paid the manufacturer.

Fratello, which is Italian for brother, sells three brands of cigars, from mild to full-bodied: Fratello Body Habano, Fratello Bianco, Fratello Oro. Later this year, hell introduce the Fratello Navetta.

De Frias was born in Puerto Rico and grew up in the Dominican Republic, where his father, now 69, is an electrical engineer.

I grew up seeing my dad work 12- to 14-hour days and telling me that the result of your work is only as good as your efforts, he said.

He earned degrees in business management from a joint program shared by a Dominican Republic university and the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2002. He later earned a masters in finance from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez in 2004.

De Frias was hired by NASA in 2004 and moved to the Washington area. He cultivated mentors who helped him prosper in the NASA bureaucracy.

Ten years later, he had advanced as far as he could and began looking for his next challenge.

A friend forwarded him a speech by Apple founder Steve Jobs: The only way to do great work is to love what you do.

With encouragement from his wife, de Frias explored cigars as a business, reading about the industry and visiting factories in Nicaragua, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.

As he put it: I wanted to identify the structure of the industry and where I would fit. Retail? Manufacturing? Branding? Management?

He decided on an asset-light approach of creating a brand, which would allow him to keep the security of his job at NASA while pursuing his project and keeping costs low.

I needed to be cognizant of the risk, de Frias said.

He borrowed $50,000 from his federal Thrift Savings Plan, the civil service version of the 401(k), and pulled twice that from savings to cover start-up costs. He invested more than $5,000 in branding and upfront marketing costs related to his band. It angles around the cigar, making the brand recognizable and unique.

[Is this the final burn for Floridas Cigar City?]

Developing the cigar blend and profile was more complicated. He scoured Central America for the right partners, making presentations to factory owners, meeting industry experts and delivering his business plan. He was searching for a medium-body cigar using tobaccos from various countries to differentiate himself from the competition.

He settled on Joya de Nicaragua in Esteli. Its the oldest cigar factory in Nicaragua.

Once he had his cigar recipe, he zeroed in on finding a manufacturer. It roughly goes like this: If you are interested in creating your own brand in the USA, you can go research which cigar factories in Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic could work with you to develop your ideal blend. They will take the recipe, put a band on it, box it and deliver it to you.

In July 2013, he took a chunk of his initial production of 50,000 cigars to the International Premium Cigar and Pipe Retailers trade show in Las Vegas, where he rented a booth for more than $10,000.

The show was a tipping point. De Frias caught the attention of three high-profile retailers: Drapers in the District, Old Virginia Tobacco with its seven stores across Virginia, and Nat Sherman, the cigar smokers mecca off Fifth Avenue in New York City.

His brand took off.

Within 18 months, de Frias had repaid his loan from his retirement account and had broken even from his initial investment. In the three-plus years since, he has worked 90-hour weeks growing his cigar business into a profitable enterprise that earns him and his wife comfortable incomes.

Comfortable enough that he was able to quit his government job in October. Hes now a full-time cigar mogul which pays more than those rocket scientists at NASA.

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This NASA analyst left a $200000 job to sell cigars - Washington Post

NASA Langley symposium looks at past, present and future – Daily Press

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Danzig

How to tell the story of 100 years in just three days? That is the challenge for the Langley Centennial Symposium this week at the Hampton Roads Convention Center.

And the answer, in part, is to focus on even more than 100 years by including a look into the future.

The symposium, which runs from Wednesday through Friday and is open to the public free of charge, is part of this summer's celebration of the centennial of NASA Langley Research Center, which was founded in 1917 under the heading of the National Advisory Commission for Aeronautics.

"We'd like to see people come away with a better understanding not only of what Langley has done, but what NASA as a whole has done over the last 100 years," Langley spokesman Michael Finneran said. "There are amazing achievements that made stuff possible like supersonic flight. We also hope they will have a better understanding of what NASA and Langley are doing now, and some sense of what the future might look like."

Langley Research Center, which was the epicenter of the early days of America's space program, has received a sudden burst of national attention in the past few years after the release of the best-selling book "Hidden Figures" and its Oscar-nominated film adaptation.

The book focused on the stories of Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan, three African-American women whose work at NASA Langley in mathematics and engineering was vital to the space program in an era when women and minorities were thought to have no major role in technical fields.

Finneran said the center routinely receives phone calls, emails and correspondence from people all around the country wanting information on those ladies, and hoping to contact Johnson, who lives in Newport News and will turn 99 years old next month. At the symposium, NASA historian Bill Barry will tell "The Story Behind the Story" of the book and the film.

"There are two things that I will largely focus on," Barry said. "First, 'what is a human computer and where the heck did they come from?' How did women start getting hired here, including the main characters, and how they fit in. Second, I'll talk about NASA's involvement with the movie and what we did to help make it as accurate as possible."

Barry said the response to the book and the film has been overwhelmingly positive for NASA, for Langley, and for the science and technological fields in general.

"When you talk about NASA, people think of astronauts and amazing scientists, but the people who do the day-to-day stuff don't get the attention, and they're amazing in their own right," Barry said. "NASA's big interest in collaborating with 20th Century Fox on the movie was that it was a way to get to a group of kids who otherwise might have never associated their future with NASA. Now they see, 'I can be a fill-in-the-blank and still work at NASA and do cool stuff.' Math and science come into a new focus."

In response to the demand, Langley and other NASA centers around the country have developed a "Modern Figures" program, with contemporary employees trained to give presentations to the public about the space program today and how it relates to the work described in "Hidden Figures."

The symposium will feature panel discussions, as well as keynote addresses by Jean-Yves Le Gall, the president of France's space program, and by former NASA deputy administrator Dava Newman.

Topics will include the history of human flight, international partnerships in space exploration, the future of NASA, and yes, the story behind the story of "Hidden Figures."

Finneran said one of the goals is for attendees to come away with a greater understanding of how NASA's work in space has affected our daily lives here on Earth.

"So much of what we do today has to do with Earth science and understanding more about our climate," he said. "Not only benefits for the long term, but also for right now working with agencies like (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) on making better predictions of weather, and of hurricane and storm forecasting.

"NASA is doing things that benefit people here on Earth, either deliberately or when we happen to see ways that technology we've developed can be used in different ways, such as medical applications. We always want the public to understand more about what we do."

Holtzclaw can be reached by phone at 757-928-6479.

Where: Hampton Roads Convention Center, adjacent to the Hampton Coliseum

When: Wednesday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.; Thursday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; and Friday, 8 a.m.-1 p.m.

Admission: Free

Wednesday: Welcome; keynote presentation by former NASA deputy administrator Dava Newman; panel discussion of Langley Center directors; "Hidden Figures: The Story Behind the Story"; Langley During World War II; panel discussion on the history of flight

Thursday: Keynote presentation by Jean-Yves Le Gall, president of France's space program; panel discussion on how NASA's work benefits society; science and technology scholars student presentations; panel discussion on the future of NASA; History of How the HL-20 Became the Dream Chaser; panel discussion on NASA Langley's contributions to technology and space exploration

Friday: Panel discussion on aeronautics research partnerships; panel discussion on applying existing technologies to challenges in space; The Next 100 Years; panel discussion on aerospace in the next 20-30 years; closing remarks

Information: http://www.nasa.gov/langley/100/events, or call 757-315-2200

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NASA Langley symposium looks at past, present and future - Daily Press

NASA is Bringing the Space Shuttle Engine Back to Launch the World’s Largest Rocket – Avgeekery (blog)

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Danzig

RS-25 Engine test fire on the A-1 test stand at NASA's Stennis Space Center. Photo: Aerojet Rocketdyne

The first reusable rocket engine in history, the RS-25, proved its worth during NASAs 30-year space shuttleera, helping power the orbiters uphill from 0 Mach 25in just 8 minutes, with a 100% success rate over the course of the program (the losses of Challenger and Columbia were not related to the main engines).

Often referred to as the Ferrari of rocket engines, the liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen fueled RS-25 is one of the most tested large rocket engines ever made, with more than 3,000 starts and over one million seconds (nearly 280 hours) of total ground test and flight firing time over the course of 135 shuttle missions.

Now, with the shuttle fleet retired several years ago, and a new heavy-lift rocket to launch deep-space crews in development, the engines thatproved their worth time and time againare being called upon to serve the United States one more time forNASAs colossal Space Launch System (or SLS).

Just like shuttle, two tall solid rocket boosters will provide most of the thrust during launch and ascent to reach space (we will have a story on those later). But the main engines are just as critical, andAerojet Rocketdyne (the manufacturer) currently has 16 flight engines in inventory; 14 are veterans of numerousshuttle missions and 2 are brand new, plus there are 2 development test engines as well.

But differences between the SLS and space shuttle require that the RS-25s now undergo severalmodifications to adapt to the new environment they will encounter with SLS, to meet the giant 320-foot-tall rockets enormous thrust requirements.

Locked down on the A1 test stand atthe agencys Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis,Miss., the RS-25s have been undergoing hot fire tests now since early 2015,providing engineers with critical data on the engines new state-of-the-art controller unit, or the brain of the engine, whichallows communication between the vehicle and the engine itself, relaying commands to the engine and transmitting data back to the vehicle.

The new controller also provides closed-loop management of the engine by regulating the thrust and fuel mixture ratio while monitoring the engines health and status, thanks to updated hardware and software configured to operate with the new SLS avionics architecture.

Higher inlet pressure conditions, thanks to the engines upgrades, are alsoevaluated.

Weve made modifications to the RS-25 to meet SLS specifications and will analyze and test a variety of conditions during the hot fire series, saidSteve Wofford, engines manager at NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, where the SLS Program is managed for the agency.

The engines for SLS will encounter colder liquid oxygen temperatures than shuttle; greater inlet pressure due to the taller core stage liquid oxygen tank and higher vehicle acceleration; and more nozzle heating due to the four-engine configuration and their position in-plane with theSLS boosterexhaust nozzles.

For shuttle flights the engines pushed 491,000pounds of thrust during launcheachand shuttle required three to fly, but for SLS the powerlevel must increaseto 512,000 pounds of thrust per engine (more than 12 million horsepower). The SLS will require four to help launch the massive rocket and its payloads with a70-metric-ton (77-ton) lift capacity that the initial SLS configuration promises (later variants will be even bigger and more powerful).

The RS-25 canhandle temperatures as low as minus 400 degrees (where the propellants enter the engine) and as high as 6,000 degrees as the exhaust exits the combustion chamber where the propellants are burned.

There is nothing in the world that compares to this engine, said Jim Paulsen, vice president, Program Execution, Advanced Space & Launch Programs at Aerojet Rocketdyne. It is great that we are able to adapt this advanced engine for what will be the worlds most powerful rocket to usher in a new space age.

The engines currently in stock are already assigned their spots to fly the first four SLS missions, but unlike their former lives as reusable engines, these will be their final launches. The SLS is being made as an expendable launcher designed from heritage hardware and ideas; theRS-25 is now one-time use.

NASA awardedAerojet Rocketdynea $1.16 billion, nine-year contract to restart production of an expendable version of the RS-25 for SLS in late 2015.

Meanwhile, development of the rocket itself is well underway across the country. NASA is hoping to launch the first mission with an un-crewed Orion capsule to the moon and back on a shakedown flight in 2019, before launching the first crewed Orion mission sometime between 2021 and 2023.

Once the engines are finished testing individually, they will be integrated with an SLS first stage and mounted atop another test stand, totest fire the engines for a full-duration launch. Engineers need to make the engines THINK the rocket is really flying a launch ascent profile, in order to verify everything will operate as expected on launch day.

That test is expected to occur in 2018.

For now, heres a little preview; some incredible video from NASA test firing the Saturn V first stage, whose five F-1 engines launched men to the moon on the Apollo missions:

And just think, when the SLS stage test fires, it will do so for 500 seconds

As the rocket evolves over the 2020s and 2030s, it will become the largest and most powerful rocket ever made, but the initial SLS missions will only have half the lifting powerof the Apollo Saturn V moon rockets.

The elephant in the room is whether the SLS program will keep getting the funding and political support it needs to put people on Mars in the next 20 years.

Meanwhile, SpaceX is developing the Falcon Heavy rocket, and plans to launch two paying customers to circle the moon and back before 2020, with hopes of Mars missions by 2030. . Follow Mike Killian on Instagram and Facebook, @MikeKillianPhotography .

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NASA is Bringing the Space Shuttle Engine Back to Launch the World's Largest Rocket - Avgeekery (blog)

NASA is Moving Forward With Its Plan to Deflect an Asteroid From Earth – Futurism

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Danzig

In Brief NASA just approved the first-ever mission to test the possibility of deflecting or redirecting an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Dubbed the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) the project is moving into its preliminary design phase after receiving approval on June 23. A Plan for Asteroids

Both science and science fiction have made us familiar with what could happen if a large enough asteroid were to hit the Earth. Just look at the fate of dinosaurs and youd glean the prospective outcome would not be a pleasant one. Not wanting us to go the way of the dinosaurs, NASA asks: how do we defend the planet from such a threat?

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) would be the first-ever mission to test the possibility of deflecting or redirecting an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. The plan is being designed by the The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, who would also manage DART. The projectreceived approval from NASA on June 23, and is now moving from concept development to the preliminary design phase.

DART would be NASAs first mission to demonstrate whats known as the kinetic impactor technique striking the asteroid to shift its orbit to defend against a potential future asteroid impact, Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in press release. This approval step advances the project toward an historic test with a non-threatening small asteroid.

In order to figure out if such defense system could work, NASA aims use DART to target a twin asteroid called Didymos. Its expected to have adistant approach to Earth in 2022, and again in 2024. This binary asteroid system includesa larger component(Didymos A, about 780 meters in size) and a smaller one orbiting it (Didymos B, roughly 160 meters).

Using an on-board targeting system, DART would aim atDidymos B after launch. The goal is to shift the asteroids trajectory using kinetic impact; changing its speed by a small fraction of its overall velocity. If the DART mission works, scientists would be able to predict just how much of a nudge a threatening asteroid needs to avoid hitting Earth.

DART is a critical step in demonstrating we can protect our planet from a future asteroid impact, DART investigation co-lead Andy Cheng said in the press release. Since we dont know that much about their internal structure or composition, we need to perform this experiment on a real asteroid. With DART, we can show how to protect Earth from an asteroid strike with a kinetic impactor by knocking the hazardous object into a different flight path that would not threaten the planet.

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NASA is Moving Forward With Its Plan to Deflect an Asteroid From Earth - Futurism

NASA Pluto Probe’s Next Target May Actually Be ‘Swarm’ of Objects – Space.com

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Danzig

Four members of the New Horizons South African observation team scan the sky while waiting for the start of the 2014 MU69 occultation, early on the morning of June 3, 2017.

The frigid, faraway body that NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will zoom by 18 months from now may actually be a cluster of small objects, new observations suggest.

New Horizons which performed the first-ever flyby of Pluto in July 2015 will have another close encounter on Jan. 1, 2019, this time with a little-studied object called 2014 MU69.

Mission scientists recently had a chance to learn more about 2014 MU69, which lies about 1 billion miles (1.6 billion kilometers) beyond the orbit of Pluto and is thought to be 12 to 25 miles (20 to 40 km) wide. On the night of June 2, MU69 crossed in front of a distant star in a 2-second "occultation" visible from a narrow band of land and sea that stretched from the Indian Ocean through South Africa to southern Argentina and Chile. [Destination Pluto: NASA's New Horizons Mission in Pictures]

So New Horizons team members set up shop in various spots along the occultation path and pointed their telescopes skyward. They ended up taking more than 100,000 images of the occulted star, none of which captured 2014 MU69 itself, NASA officials said.

"These results are telling us something really interesting," New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, said in a statement.

"The fact that we accomplished the occultation observations from every planned observing site but didnt detect the object itself likely means that either MU69 is highly reflective and smaller than some expected, or it may be a binary or even a swarm of smaller bodies left from the time when the planets in our solar system formed," Stern added.

The team may be able to narrow down these possibilities soon. MU69 will make two more stellar occultations this month: one on July 10 and the other on July 17.

New Horizons scientists plan to use NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy a 747 jet equipped with a 100-inch (2.5 m) telescope to observe the July 10 event. The main goal is to hunt for debris around 2014 MU69 that could pose a danger to New Horizons during the upcoming flyby, agency officials said.

New Horizons team members will observe the July 17 occultation from southern Argentina, gathering data that could help nail down 2014 MU69's size. Scientists will also use NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to watch that event, searching for hazardous debris.

The $700 million New Horizons mission launched in January 2006. More than nine years later, on July 14, 2015, the probe gave humanity its first up-close looks at Pluto, revealing a startlingly complex and diverse world with vast nitrogen-ice plains and towering mountains of water ice.

The upcoming flyby of 2014 MU69 is the centerpiece of New Horizons' extended mission, which NASA officially approved last year.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

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NASA Pluto Probe's Next Target May Actually Be 'Swarm' of Objects - Space.com

Nanotechnology Now – ECHA Announces Two Decisions on … – Nanotechnology News

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Danzig

Home > Nanotechnology Columns > Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. > ECHA Announces Two Decisions on Appeals Related to Nanomaterials

Abstract: On June 30, 2017, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) Board of Appeal published two decisions related to nanomaterials.

July 6th, 2017

On June 30, 2017, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) Board of Appeal published two decisions related to nanomaterials. In the July 5, 2017, issue of ECHA Weekly, ECHA states that the Board of Appeal "largely upheld the appeals and annulled most of the requests for information." See https://echa.europa.eu/view-article/-/journal_content/title/echa-weekly-5-july-2017 In Cases A-014-2015 and A-015-2015, registrants appealed the same 2015 ECHA decision requesting information on synthetic amorphous silica (SAS) following a substance evaluation by the Netherlands Competent Authority. See https://echa.europa.eu/web/guest/about-us/who-we-are/board-of-appeal/announcements/-/view-announcement/301/search/true and https://echa.europa.eu/web/guest/about-us/who-we-are/board-of-appeal/announcements/-/view-announcement/302/search/true ECHA requested information on the physicochemical properties and uses of different types of SAS and surface-treated SAS. According to ECHA, the Board of Appeal annulled these requests "as it was not clear how the information would be used to clarify the potential concerns which in any case had not been sufficiently demonstrated." ECHA notes that the Board of Appeal upheld one request in the contested decision -- for information on the inhalation toxicity of one type of SAS, following repeat exposure.

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Nanotechnology Now - ECHA Announces Two Decisions on ... - Nanotechnology News

Converging on cancer at the nanoscale – The MIT Tech

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Danzig

This summer, the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT marks the first anniversary of the launch of the Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine, established through a generous gift from Kathy and Curt Marble 63.

Bringing together leading Koch Institute faculty members and their teams, the Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine focuses on grand challenges in cancer detection, treatment, and monitoring that can benefit from the emerging biology and physics of the nanoscale.

These challenges include detecting cancer earlier than existing methods allow, harnessing the immune system to fight cancer even as it evolves, using therapeutic insights from cancer biology to design therapies for previously undruggable targets, combining existing drugs for synergistic action, and creating tools for more accurate diagnosis and better surgical intervention.

Koch Institute member Sangeeta N. Bhatia, the John J. and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, serves as the inaugural director for the center.

A major goal for research at the Marble Center is to leverage the collaborative culture at the Koch Institute to use nanotechnology to improve cancer diagnosis and care in patients around the world, Bhatia says.

Transforming nanomedicine

The Marble Center joins MITs broader efforts at the forefront of discovery and innovation to solve the urgent global challenge that is cancer. The concept of convergence the blending of the life and physical sciences with engineering is a hallmark of MIT, the founding principle of the Koch Institute, and at the heart of the Marble Centers mission.

The center galvanizes the MIT cancer research community in efforts to use nanomedicine as a translational platform for cancer care, says Tyler Jacks, director of the Koch Institute and a David H. Koch Professor of Biology. Its transformative by applying these emerging technologies to push the boundaries of cancer detection, treatment, and monitoring and translational by promoting their development and application in the clinic.

The centers faculty six prominent MIT professors and Koch Institute members are committed to fighting cancer with nanomedicine through research, education, and collaboration. They are:

Sangeeta Bhatia (director), the John J. and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science;

Daniel G. Anderson, the Samuel A. Goldblith Professor of Applied Biology in the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science;

Angela M. Belcher, the James Mason Crafts Professor in the departments of Biological Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering;

Paula T. Hammond, the David H. Koch Professor of Engineering and head of the Department of Chemical Engineering;

Darrell J. Irvine, professor in the departments of Biological Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering; and

Robert S. Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor.

Extending their collaboration within the walls of the Institute, Marble Center members benefit greatly from the support of the Peterson (1957) Nanotechnology Materials Core Facility in the Koch Institutes Robert A. Swanson (1969) Biotechnology Center. The Peterson Facilitys array of technological resources and expertise is unmatched in the United States, and gives members of the center, and of the Koch Institute, a distinct advantage in the development and application of nanoscale materials and technologies.

Looking ahead

The Marble Center has wasted no time getting up to speed in its first year, and has provided support for innovative research projects including theranostic nanoparticles that can both detect and treat cancers, real-time imaging of interactions between cancer and immune cells to better understand response to cancer immunotherapies, and delivery technologies for several powerful RNA-based therapeutics able to engage specific cancer targets with precision.

As part of its efforts to help foster a multifaceted science and engineering research force, the center has provided fellowship support for trainees as well as valuable opportunities for mentorship, scientific exchange, and professional development.

Promotingbroader engagement, the Marble Center serves as a bridge to a wide network of nanomedicine resources, connecting its members to MIT.nano, other nanotechnology researchers, and clinical collaborators across Boston and beyond. The center has also convened a scientific advisory board, whose members hail from leading academic and clinical centers around the country, and will help shape the centers future programs and continued expansion.

As the Marble Center begins another year of collaborations and innovation, there is a new milestone in sight for 2018.Nanomedicine has been selected as the central theme for the Koch Institutes 17th Annual Cancer Research Symposium. Scheduled for June 15, 2018, the event will bring together national leaders in the field, providing an ideal forum for Marble Center members to share the discoveries and advancements made during its sophomore year.

Having next years KI Annual Symposium dedicated to nanomedicine will be a wonderful way to further expose the cancer research community to the power of doing science at the nanoscale, Bhatia says. The interdisciplinary approach has the power to accelerate new ideas at this exciting interface of nanotechnology and medicine.

To learn more about the people and projects of the Koch Institute Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine, visit nanomedicine.mit.edu.

Link:

Converging on cancer at the nanoscale - The MIT Tech

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