Astronaut Steve Swanson Visits Goddard
On Tuesday, 3 March 2015, a special guest visited NASA Goddard Space Flight Center during his time back on Earth. Steven Swanson, NASA astronaut, intrigued the audience by highlighting his...
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As instructions for space flight go, "Just Read the Instructions" seems like basic advice, but that's the last thing SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket will see as it coaxes down onto a floating landing pad today. Elon Musk's ambitious private space flight project is set to send another unmanned Dragon capsule to the International Space Station with a fresh batch of cargo, but the arguably more interesting flight is a whole lot shorter and will end much closer to home.
That's because, rather than plummeting into the ocean and being useful as little more than scrap as per traditional rocket stages, the goal is to bring the Falcon 9 stage back down to Earth in a reusable state.
To do that, SpaceX has floated an autonomous landing platform - complete with whimsical message - out at sea. Granted the ability to reposition itself at will, that pad will hopefully be where the Falcon first stage ends up, rather than in pieces.
"After Dragon and Falcon 9's second stage are on their way to orbit," SpaceX said of the test, "the first stage will execute a controlled reentry through Earths atmosphere, targeting touchdown on an autonomous spaceport drone ship approximately nine minutes after launch."
With Musk & Co. counting on reusable rockets to help bring down the cost of spaceflight, plenty is riding on the team getting this right.
It's not SpaceX's first attempt at the feat, however. Back in January, the company deemed its original test landing a success even though it ended in flames, opting to focus on the valuable telemetry rather than the failure to actually bring the rocket down in a reusable state.
Those lessons led to some big changes this time around. The rocket has been tweaked to make it more maneuverable, while the drone ship can handle choppier water without putting the landing in peril.
SpaceX expects the touchdown to come just nine minutes after Dragon and the Falcon 9 rocket take off, itself expected at 4:33pm ET today. Meanwhile, the cargo capsule will head off to the ISS, and is scheduled to arrive in roughly two days time.
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SpaceX retries drone-ship rocket landing after first fiery failure
A lollipop mans successful campaign to get people to wear red carnations in memory of those who died at Hillsborough is set to move from Aintree to Anfield.
Dave Hughes, 75, from Maghull, has been overwhelmed by the response to his Wear a Red Carnation Hillsborough Awareness Campaign, which won the backing of thousands of race-goers during the three-day Grand National Festival.
Now he wants as many people as possible to be sporting the flowers for this years Hillsborough memorial service at Anfield on Wednesday afternoon.
He says: The giving away of the red carnations was a huge success at Aintree. And personally, Ive had selfies, hugs, kisses and many handshakes from folk from all over the country people who know about Hillsborough and the struggles the families are having, and who wished us well with our campaign.
Hartleys Nurseries in Maghull have been involved with Dave's campaign since he launched it last year, while he was recently contacted by Lee Smith, who owns Ada-Lillys florists in Kirkby and whose wholesalers donated 10,000 carnations.
And Dave adds: Myself and Lee will be handing out carnations to families who are meeting at The Albert pub by the ground at lunchtime before they go on to the Kop, while Hartleys Nurseries have donated a box to give away.
Following Aintree and Anfield, Dave is planning one final carnation event, explaining: I am thinking of doing it at the 5K Run for the 96, which takes place this Sunday at Stanley Park. This for me will be the finale. The awareness campaign has achieved what it set out to do that is what many people are saying, not me. So there is no need for one next year.
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New data from NASA's Dawn spacecraft suggest varied origins for tantalizing gleams on the dwarf planet's surface
The surface of the dwarf planet Ceres (shown here) has fewer large craters than researchers expected. Credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
Not all of the puzzling bright spots on the dwarf planet Ceres are alike. The closest-yet images of the gleams, taken from 45,000 kilometres away, suggest that at least two of the spots look different from one another when seen in infrared wavelengths.
The Hubble Space Telescope spied many of the bright spots from afar years ago, but the observations from NASA'sDawn spacecraftwhich began looping around Ceres on March 6are the first at close range. The images were released on April 13 in Vienna, Austria, at a meeting of the European Geosciences Union.
Scientists say that the bright spots may be related to ice exposed at the bottom of impact craters or from some kind of active geology. They glimmer tantalizingly in a new full-colour map of Ceres, obtained in February but released at the conference. The map uses false colours to tease out slight differences on the otherwise dark surface of Ceres.
This is the first idea of what the surface looks like, said Martin Hoffmann, a Dawn scientist from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gttingen, Germany.
Dawn is beginning to sharpen its view of the bright spots as it gets closer to Ceres. The new infrared images compare Spot 1, near Ceres' equator, with a pair of bright spots collectively known as Spot 5. Some scientists have speculated that the latter could belinked to an icy plume.
Spot 1 appears darker in images from Dawn's infrared spectrometer, said Federico Tosi, a Dawn scientist at the Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology and the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome. That suggests that the area is cooler than the rest of the dwarf planet's surface, supporting the idea that the spot is made of ice.
But for some reason Spot 5the brightest feature seen on Dawndoes not show up in infrared images. One possibility is that we still dont have enough resolution to see it in the proper way, said Tosi.
Dawn has also shown that some parts of Ceres are pockmarked by impact craters, while other regions seem smooth. So far there seem to be fewer large craters on Ceres than expected, says the mission's principal investigator, Christopher Russell of the University of California, Los Angeles.
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A Tribute to Nasa Reykjavik
I am still convinced that NASA Reykjavik can be safed.
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Universal Electro Systems Company TVX Unregistered Nonprofit Official Nasa Venezuela
Sistemas Electro Universal Tvx Empresa No Registrada Sin Fines De Lucro Logo Oficial Nasa Venezuela Operador Alexis Jos Morillo Anlisis de los primitivos humanos el amor por el dinero...
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NASA julia Belechak Course Video Assignmt News packages for Students #39; Live Newscast
This NASA video was part of the JMA 449 Newsroom Operations Class where each student, each week, is required to produce News packages for their Live Newscast. Student Julia Belechak ...
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Cities Skylines Deutsch inkl. Mods #062 Nasa Gebude ( Let #39;s Play Cities: Skylines German)
Cities Skylines Deutsch inkl. Mods | Let #39;s Play Gameplay German Cities Skylines Playlist: http://bit.ly/18gNCUc Beam Mod Sammlung: http://bit.ly/1D1np7r Cities Skylines kaufen:...
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4/12/2015 - Gateway Motorsports Park - NASA HPDE4 - Lap 4
4/12/2015 - Gateway Motorsports Park - NASA HPDE4 - Lap 4 Driver - N.Kohler Car - 2003 Nissan 350z.
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NASA astronauts take GoPro on spacewalk
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station took some footage of themselves while working on the exterior. Patrick Jones (@Patrick_E_Jones) gives you the highlights. Check out more videos...
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NASA will hold a media and public event at 1 p.m. EDT on Thursday, April 16, to share scientific findings and technical accomplishments of the agencys MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft.
After more than 10 years in space, the highly successful mission will come to an end when it is expected to collide into Mercury at a speed of more than 8,750 miles per hour (3.91 km/sec) near the end of this month.
The event will take place in the NASA Headquarters' James E. Webb Auditorium, 300 E Street, S.W., Washington, and will be carried live on NASA Television and the agencys website.
Launched in August 2004, MESSENGER traveled 4.9 billion miles (7.9 billion kilometers) - a journey that included 15 trips around the sun and flybys of Earth once, Venus twice, and Mercury three times - before it was inserted into orbit around its target planet in March 2011. The spacecraft's cameras and other sophisticated, high-technology instruments have collected unprecedented images and made other observations. Mission managers are preparing to impact Mercury surface in the next couple weeks.
Participants will include:
James Green, director, Planetary Science Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington
Sean Solomon, MESSENGER principal investigator; director, Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, New York
Helene Winters, MESSENGER project manager, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland
Daniel OShaughnessy, MESSENGER systems engineer, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland
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NASA to Celebrate MESSENGER Mission Prior to Surface Impact of Mercury
IMAGE:On April 13, the MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured this visible-light image of Solo's elongated remnants. The bulk of clouds were southeast of the barely discernable center.... view more
Tropical Cyclone Solo was dissipating over the Southwestern Pacific Ocean when NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead on April 13, 2015.
On April 11 Tropical Cyclone Solo spawned warnings in New Caledonia as it passed by. By April 12, the warnings were dropped and wind shear had taken its toll on the storm weakening it.
On April 12 at 0300 UTC (April 11 at 11 p.m. EDT), the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) issued their final bulletin on Solo. At that time it was 116 nautical miles north of Noumea, New Caledonia near 20.2 south latitude and 165.7 east longitude. Solo had maximum sustained winds near 35 knots (40 mph/64 kph) and weakening. Solo was moving to the east-southeast at 18 knots (20.7 mph/33.3 kph).
As Solo continued in an east-southeasterly direction and passed New Caledonia, strong vertical wind shear weakened the storm to a remnant low pressure area. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Solo's remnants on April 13 and the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instrument aboard captured a visible-light image of it. The MODIS image revealed that the remnants had become an elongated system with the bulk of clouds pushed southeast of the barely discernable center. Solo continued to dissipate under the strong vertical wind shear.
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If there's one place in the solar system where were likely to find extraterrestrial life, its Europa. The Jovian moon is covered in ice, almost certainly has liquid water oceans underneath, and tidal forces from Jupiter drivegeologic activity to keepeverything warm.
Considering that finding aliens (even if theyre just microbes)would be (or will be) one of the most profound discoveries that anyone has ever made, ever, its a little weird that weve managed to send a few dozen spacecraft to Mars, and not a single one to Europa. NASA has had Europa missions scrapped over and over by budget cuts, but it now looks as though the agency will be putting a Europa Clipper mission together starting later this year. NASA wont be incorporating a lander into the Clipper, but they've asked the European Space Agency if theyre interested in sending one along for the ride.We could be looking at the very first Europa landing attempt.
NASAsEuropa Clipper would launch in the early2020s and head straight for Jupiter, spending about eight years in transit. On arrival, rather than try to orbit Europa, the Clipper would loop into a fancy orbit around Jupiter that it would swing it past Europa as many as 45 times, giving us an excellent look at the moon (from altitudes as low as 25 kilometers)over the course of several years, or until Jupiter's radiation fries the Clipper to a crisp.
Since NASA doesnt have the budget for the fancy life-detecting roboticlander/submarine that we all want, they've asked ESA if the agency wants to sendits lander along for the ride. NASA might be a little wary of sending a lander if they're fans of Arthur C. Clarke (and Im sure they are), but besides budgetary constraints, ESA also already has some experience dropping probes onto the moons of gas giants.
Ten years ago, ESAs Cassini spacecraft launched a small probe called Huygens toward Titan, one of the moons of Saturn. Even though Huygens wasnt really intended to be a lander,but more of an atmospheric probe, it managed to survive entry into Titans atmosphere, descent, and a touchdown on the surface, where it continued to send back data for an hour and a half, despite an expected design life of just a few minutes.
Specifically, NASA has asked ESA to consider a surface lander or even a surface penetrator for the Europa mission. For its part, ESA seems open to the idea, especially since theyre already planning to launch their ownJUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) mission to study Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto in 2022.
The next step is for ESA to decide whether it wants to be involved in the Clipper mission, and if so, what exactly its involvement will consist of. NASA expects to make some sort of announcement regarding the science payload of the Europa Clipper within the next few weeks, and final instrument selection will (hopefully) happen by next year.
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The long-standing mystery of why Saturn seethes with enormous storms every 30 years may have been solved by scientists working with data from NASA's Cassini mission. The tempests, which can grow into bright bands that encircle the entire planet, are on a natural timer that is reset by each subsequent storm, the researchers report.
In 140 years of telescope observations, great storms have erupted on Saturn six times. Cassini and observers on Earth tracked the most recent of these storms from December 2010 to August 2011. During that time, the storm exploded through the clouds, eventually winding its way around Saturn.
In a paper published online today in the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists describe the effect they believe is responsible for the periodic outbursts. The basic idea is that water vapor is heavier than the hydrogen and helium that make up the bulk of Saturn's atmosphere, so once each giant storm dumps its huge mass of rain, the air within the clouds is left lighter than the atmosphere below. For a time, this situation shuts off the process of convection -- in which warm, moist air rises, and cool, dense air sinks -- that creates new clouds and storms.
"For decades after one of these storms, the warm air in Saturn's deep atmosphere is too wet, and too dense, to rise," said Cheng Li, a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, who led the study. "The air above has to cool off, radiating its heat to space, before its density is greater than that of the hot, wet air below. This cooling process takes about 30 years, and then come the storms."
Li thinks the episodic nature of the storms indicates Saturn's deep atmosphere contains more water, relative to the other atmospheric constituents, than Jupiter. The researchers suggest Saturn's extra-wet interior might explain why the planet has such epic tantrums, whereas Jupiter does not. If Saturn's deep atmosphere were drier, scientists would expect continuous, smaller storms, as observed on Jupiter, Li said. Instead, Saturn's outbursts are episodic and quite explosive.
Other observations by ground and space-based telescopes have hinted at a wet interior for Saturn. "Previous studies using spectroscopy have shown that Saturn's interior is enriched in methane and other volatiles, by two or three times, compared to Jupiter. From there, it's a short leap to expect that Saturn is also rich in oxygen, which is also a volatile and a big part of every H2O molecule," said Andrew Ingersoll, a member of the Cassini science team, also at Caltech, who co-authored the paper with Li. Volatiles are elements and chemical compounds that change from solid to liquid or gas at relatively low temperatures.
Scientists are interested in understanding the amount of oxygen and other volatile ingredients in Saturn and Jupiter. These ingredients provide important clues about the formation of the two planets -- which are thought to have formed before all the others -- and conditions in the early solar system.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of Caltech, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For previous news and images related to Saturn's giant storm: http://go.nasa.gov/1H89e3p
For more information about Cassini, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov
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(MENAFN Press)
Nanotechnology in Medical Devices Market by Product (Biochip Implant Materials Medical Textiles Wound Dressing Cardiac Rhythm Management Devices Hearing Aid) Application (Therapeutic Diagnostic Research) - Global Forecast to 2019
Over the last five years the nanotechnology-based medical devices market witnessed tremendous growth primarily due to growth in the aging population and increasing government support with increased nanotechnology R&D expenditure and increased international research collaborations.
In this report the global nanotechnology-based medical devices market is segmented on the basis of products and applications. On the basis products the nanotechnology-based medical devices market is categorized into biochips implantable materials medical textile and wound dressing active implantable devices and others. The implantable materials segment is bifurcated into dental filling materials and bone restorative materials; whereas the active implantable devices segment is bifurcated into cardiac rhythm management devices hearing aid devices and retinal implants. On the basis of applications the nanotechnology-based medical devices market is segmented into therapeutics applications diagnostics applications and research applications.
Full Report Details at - http://www.fastmr.com/prod/974468_nanotechnology_in_medical_devices_market_global.aspx?afid=101
The global nanotechnology-based medical devices market is expected to grow at a significant CAGR of around 11-12% during the forecast period (2014-2019). The market is mainly driven by the growth in aging population rising adoption of nanotechnology-based medical devices and increased nanotechnology R&D expenditure. In addition the governments of several nations are investing heavily in developing and commercializing new nanotechnology products. However safety issues regarding nanotechnology-based medical devices stringent regulatory guidelines and time-consuming approval processes for these devices are hampering the growth of this market to a certain extent.
Active implantable devices accounted for a major share of the nanotechnology-based medical devices the market. The nanotechnology-based medical devices market for active implantable devices is primarily driven by the growing incidence of age-related disorders such as hearing and cardiovascular disorders. In addition the growing awareness about these diseases and increased acceptance of the hearing aid devices are further driving the market for active implantable devices.
In 2013 North America accounted for the largest share to the global nanotechnology-based medical devices market followed by Europe Asia-Pacific and RoW. However Asia-Pacific is expected to be the fastest-growing region during the forecast period owing to the rapidly aging population rising adoption of advanced nanotechnology-based medical devices increased accessibility to healthcare facilities and rising R&D and healthcare expenditure.
The global nanotechnology-based medical devices market is dominated by six players that accounted for around 65-70% of the global market in 2014. The major players in the global nanotechnology-based medical devices market are Stryker Corporation (U.S.) 3M Company (U.S.) St. Jude Medical Inc. (U.S.) Affymetrix Inc. (U.S.) PerkinElmer Inc. (U.S.) Starkey Hearing Technologies (U.S.) and Smith & Nephew plc (U.K.).
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New Market Research Report Nanotechnology in Medical Devices Market - Global Forecast to 2019
Researchers in South Korea have developed a new highly efficacious anti-cancer nanotechnology by delivering anti-cancer drugs uniformly to an entire tumor.
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)'s Department of Bio and Brain Engineering Professor Ji-Ho Park and his team successfully developed a new highly efficacious anti-cancer nanotechnology by delivering anti-cancer drugs uniformly to an entire tumor. Their research results were published in Nano Letters online on March 31, 2015.
To treat inoperable tumors, anti-cancer medicine is commonly used. However, efficient drug delivery to tumor cells is often difficult, treating an entire tumor with drugs even more so.
Using the existing drug delivery systems, including nanotechnology, a drug can be delivered only to tumor cells near blood vessels, leaving cells at the heart of a tumor intact. Since most drugs are injected into the bloodstream, tumor recurrence post medication is frequent.
Therefore, the team used liposomes that can fuse to the cell membrane and enter the cell. Once inside liposomes the drug can travel into the bloodstream, enter tumor cells near blood vessels, where they are loaded to exosomes, which are naturally occurring nanoparticles in the body. Since exosomes can travel between cells, the drug can be delivered efficiently into inner cells of the tumor.
Exosomes, which are secreted by cells that exist in the tumor microenvironment, is known to have an important role in tumor progression and metastasis since they transfer biological materials between cells. The research team started the investigation recognizing the possibility of delivering the anti-cancer drug to the entire tumor using exosomes.
The team injected the light-sensitive anti-cancer drug using their new delivery technique into experimental mice. The researchers applied light to the tumor site to activate the anti-cancer treatment and analyzed a tissue sample. They observed the effects of the anti-cancer drug in the entire tumor tissue.
The team's results establish a ground-breaking foothold in drug delivery technology development that can be tailored to specific diseases by understanding its microenvironment. The work paves the way to more effective drug delivery systems for many chronic diseases, including cancer tumors that were difficult to treat due to the inability to penetrate deep into the tissue.
The team is currently conducting experiments with other anti-cancer drugs, which are being developed by pharmaceutical companies, using their tumor-penetrating drug delivery nanotechnology, to identify its effects on malignant tumors, which were difficult to penetrate with existing technology.
Professor Park said, "This research is the first to apply biological nanoparticles, exosomes that are continuously secreted and can transfer materials to neighboring cells, to deliver drugs directly to the heart of tumor."
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Anti-cancer therapy delivering drug to an entire tumor developed
On April 19, one of the most misunderstoodmaxims in history will celebrate a birthday.
No, ot the Second Amendment. Moores Law, the prescient observation outlined in an article in Electronics Magazine by Intel Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that effectively became the foundation document of thetechnology industry.
For a quick handy guide, here are a few pointers to remember:
1. Its An Observation, Not a Law. Laws dont change. Observations do. The classic statement of Moores Law is that the number of transistors on a chip double every two years. From 1965 to 1975, it was doubling every year. Since around 2008, the pace has slowed down to around 2.5 to 3 years. Weirdly, it was never 18 months although thats the most remembered version. Still, flexibility has added to its longevity. He also didnt call it a law.
Moores Law has come to be applied to anything that changes exponentially, and I am happy to take credit for it, Moore joked once.
2. Everything Depends On It. VCs dont invest in chip companies, budding entrepreneurs dream about launching sharing sites, and Apple Apple has become one of the most valuable companies in the world by selling technology as a luxury good. Semiconductors are about as cool as vacuum tubes they replaced.
But without the work being accomplished in those low-slung beige buildings off the Central Expressway we wouldnt be here. If we were still using the technology that was around when ENIAC (the machine that kicked off the tech revolution) was developed, an iPhone would be the size of a steamer trunk. Cellular relay stations would rival the Washington Monument in size. And a Google Google datacenter would consume as much energy as Manhattan.
Over the years, people have claimed transistor advances were becoming irrelevant. A series of well-publicized articles in 2003 quoting Marc Andreessen and Eric Schmidt warned about how hardware was delivering more performance than necessary. Then, oops, a few months later WiFi became a global sensation. Facebook and YouTube followed.
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SAN JOSE, Calif. On April 19, 1965, Electronics magazine published a paper in which Gordon Moore made a stunning observation: About every two years, engineers should be able to cram twice as many transistors into the same area of a silicon chip.
Over the next 50 years, engineers more or less managed to maintain that predicted pace of innovation, delivering dramatically better semiconductors. Their efforts were central to the seeming magic of a high tech sector riding an exponential growth curve that became known as Moores law.
Of the thousands of engineers who have kept Moores law going, EE Times interviewed a trio of top chip technologists who shared their stories and optimism that progress will continue.
To date the progress Moores law represents has not been limited to just ever faster and cheaper computers but an infinite number of new applications from communications and the Internet to smart phones and tablets, said Robert Maire, a semiconductor analysts writing in a recent newsletter.
No other industry can claim similar far reaching impact on the lives of so many people[in] less than a lifespan, more changes in the world can be traced back to the enabling power of the semiconductor industry than any other industryMore lives have been saved and fortunes impacted, Maire wrote.
Those benefits are measured in trillions of dollars, according to G. Dan Hutcheson, chief executive of VLSI Research. He calculates the deflationary value of packing more features into the same silicon area at $67.8 billion last year alone, with a knock-on value of half a trillion dollars to the overall electronics industry that used the chips.
The market value of the companies across the spectrum of technology driven by Moores Law amounted to $13 trillion in 2014, Hutchison estimated. Another way to put it is that one-fifth of the asset value in the worlds economy would be wiped out if the integrated circuit had not been invented and Moores law never happened, he said.
Gordon Moore submitted this simple table for his original magazine article.
For engineers like Mark Bohr, Moores law was the heartbeat of daily life at Intel, driving it to its longstanding position as the worlds biggest chip maker.
By the time I joined the company in 1978, the concept was well engrained in Intel culture, said Bohr, now a senior fellow in Intels manufacturing group. What started out as an observation became a guide for us all that we felt we needed to follow and, if possible, faster than anyone else in the industry, he said.
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INDIANAPOLIS -
A third reading on Senate Bill 406, also known as Aaron's Law, will be done at the Statehouse today. The law would put a heroin antidote in the hands and homes of everyday Hoosiers.
First responders and law enforcement has been have been equipped with Narcan for almost a year. Narcan is an antidote that can save a life if someone overdoses on heroin. Supporters of the bill say that over the past year, one thousand lives have been saved using Narcan in Marion County alone, including more than 200 this year alone. It's the next step, they say, in curbing what many call a heroin crisis in the state.
"We're not permitting the use of heroin," said Republican Representative Jim Merritt. "We're acknowledging we have addicts in our homes, and Narcan is needed to save lives, so this is an anecdote that is needed today. The next step is to treat those addicts so that maybe we can change our communities with the addiction to heroin."
Indiana's heroin problem also impacts children. A dramatic increase in Children in Need of Services cases (commonly called CHINS cases) are being filed in Marion County juvenile court. There was a 45% rise in these types of cases in 2014. So far in 2015, they have increased by 62%.
Juvenile Court Judge Marilyn Moores describes this increase as putting Indianapolis "youth in crisis." With that in mind, Moores is helping launch a new campaign called "We Care about Indy's Kids" to get help for abused and neglected children as a result of heroin addictions and use. That announcement will be made later this afternoon.
Aaron's Law will have a third read in the House today. Then, it will be on to the Senate for approval.
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Newswise BOSTON Placebos have helped to ease symptoms of illness for centuries and have been a fundamental component of clinical research to test new drug therapies for more than 70 years. But why some people respond to placebos and others do not remains under debate.
With the advent of genomics, researchers are learning that placebo responses are modified by a persons genetics, a discovery that raises important new questions regarding the role of the placebo in patient care and in drug development: How many genetic biomarkers exist? Can the medical field harness the placebo response to enhance personalized medical treatment? What might be the impact of placebo-drug interactions? And what will this new information mean for randomized clinical trials, which depend on placebo controls to test the efficacy of new drug candidates? Should a no-treatment control be added to future trials?
Researchers from the Program in Placebo Studies (PiPS) at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and from the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Womens Hospital (BWH) explore these provocative issues in a review of evidence from placebo studies and randomized clinical trials. Published online today in Trends in Molecular Medicine, the article introduces the concept of the placebome,and identifies a network of genes that could significantly influence medicine and clinical trial design suggesting that placebos play a larger role in health care than previously recognized.
Genetic sequencing is revealing that the placebo response is, in fact, a complex phenotype with an unfolding physiology, says corresponding author Kathryn T. Hall, PhD, MPH, a PiPS Research Fellow in the Division of General Medicine and Primary Care at BIDMC and Harvard Medical School. The study of genomic effects on the placebo response what we call the placebome -- is in its infancy, but there is already ample evidence that genetic variations in the brains neurotransmitter pathways modify placebo effects. As a result, placebo responses are emerging as a legitimate series of biological reactions that must be rigorously characterized for efficient pharmaceutical development and optimal patient care.
The article focuses on several key concepts for future research and discussion regarding the role of the placebome in health care.
The Role of the Neurotransmitter in the Placebo Effect
The placebo effect occurs when patients show improvement from treatments that contain no active ingredients. Scientists initially used behavioral instruments, such as personality measures, to predict which patients would respond to placebos, but over the past decade, the development of sophisticated neuroimaging technologies illuminated the activation of the brains neurotransmitter pathways in response to placebos. Because they are the chemical messengers that either excite or inhibit nerve function in the brain, many neurotransmitters play key roles in reward and pain, explains Hall. We hypothesized that genetic variation in the genes that encode the proteins in these neurotransmitter pathways might also modify placebo responses.
In 2012, Hall identified the first placebo biomarker, the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene, reporting that genetic variations in COMT which influence the brains levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine -- also determined the extent of an individuals placebo response.
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