NASA sees major Tropical Cyclone Bansi north of Mauritius

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IMAGE:NASA's Terra satellite captured this visible image of Tropical Cyclone Bansi on January 13 at 6:25 UTC (1:25 a.m. EST). view more

Credit: Image Credit: NASA's Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Center

NASA's Terra satellite passed Tropical Cyclone Bansi on January 13 when it was about 170 nautical miles (195 miles/314 km) north of the Island of Mauritius and a major hurricane in the Southern Indian Ocean.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Cyclone Bansi on January 13 at 6:25 UTC (1:25 a.m. EST). The image revealed a 12 nautical mile-wide visible eye with high, powerful thunderstorms ringed around it, and spiraling bands of thunderstorms wrapping into the center of circulation. The eye of Bansi appears a couple of hundred miles north of Mauritius.

The image was created by the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

On January 13 at 0900 UTC (4 a.m. EST), Bansi's maximum sustained winds had increased to 130 knots (149.6 mph/240.8 kph). Bansi is a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale. At 0900 UTC, it was centered near 17.3 south latitude and 57.7 east longitude, about 169 nautical miles (194.5 miles/313 km) north of Port Louis, Mauritius. Bansi is moving to the northeast at 4 knots (4.6 mph/7.4 kph).

Mauritius remains under a tropical cyclone warning class 2 and La Reunion Island remained on Yellow pre-alert on January 13. Bansi is creating very rough seas, with maximum wave heights to 30 feet. (9.1 meters)

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center noted that slow or near quasi-stationary movement is expected over the next 36 hours due to a weak steering environment. Over that time, some intensification is likely, and the cyclone is forecast to peak as a Category 5 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Scale at 140 knots (161.1 mph/259.3 kph) before starting to weaken.

The forecast calls for Bansi to continue moving away from Mauritius and head in an easterly direction over open waters of the Southern Indian Ocean.

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NASA sees major Tropical Cyclone Bansi north of Mauritius

NASA and Nissan Chase Self-Driving Car Technology

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Googles self-driving cars wont be the only robotic vehicles roaming NASAs Ames Research Center at Moffett Field in California. The U.S. space agency has teamed up with automaker Nissan to test autonomous drivingtechnologies that could find their way into future vehicles both on the road and in space exploration missions.

NASA hopes thefive-yearpartnership can help improve the autonomous vehicle technologies available for its robotic rovers duringMars missionsand other future space exploration. On Earth, Nissan has set a 2020 goal for the market debut of cars that can navigate without human intervention under most driving conditions. Researchers from both organizations aim to begin testing the first of a fleet of self-driving vehicles before the end of 2015.

The work of NASA and Nissanwith one directed to space and the other directed to earthis connected by similar challenges,said Carlos Ghosn, president and CEO of Nissan Motor Co, in an 8 Januarypress release.The partnership will accelerate Nissan's development of safe, secure and reliable autonomous drive technology that we will progressively introduce to consumers beginning in 2016 up to 2020.

The two organizations have cooperated on technological development in the past. For instance,Nissan used NASAs research on neutral body posture in low-gravity conditions to develop more comfortable car seats. But hardware and softwareforself-driving cars could prove to be some of the mosttransformative technologies to reach mainstream acceptance in the coming years.

Ghosnhas suggested that Nissansintroduction of a commercially available self-driving car could even take place as soon as2018. He mentioned legal considerations rather than technological roadblocks as the biggest potential stumbling block along any timeline. On the other hand, Nissan engineers have emphasized a less firm deadline in order to leave themselvesmore wiggle room.

Other observers say that, Ghosns reassurances notwithstanding,there remains a list of technical and regulatory hurdles that must be cleared beforeself-driving cars can be expected to make the worlds roadsat least as safe as they are with humans in control. The toughest part of the challenge for robotic cars will be dealing with a mix of automated vehicles and ordinary vehicles driven by humans.

As I noted earlier, the zero-emission, self-driving vehicles to be tested by Nissan wont have the run of the place. Theyll share the NASA testing grounds with potential competitors such as Google.Google has already been making use of the NASA Ames Research Center to test its own self-driving vehiclea two-seat, all-electric prototype that dispenses with the traditional steering wheel and accelerator and brakepedals in favor of just a start and stop button. The Silicon Valley giant hopes to begin tests of its unoccupiedself-driving carson the NASA research campus sometime this year.

Other carmakers are also racing to develop self-driving vehicles. Mercedes-Benz has begun testing its own robocars at an abandoned naval base in Concord, Calif. Meanwhile, Elon Musk has promised that his Tesla electric cars will be able to operate without human assistance for 90 percent of miles drivenstarting this year.

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IEEE Spectrums blog about the sensors, software, and systems that are making cars smarter, more entertaining, and ultimately, autonomous. Contact us:p.ross@ieee.org

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NASA and Nissan Chase Self-Driving Car Technology

Providing a clearer picture of nanotechnology's full potential

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A new tool capable of carrying out simultaneous nano-sized measurements could soon lead to more innovative nanotech-based products and help boost the EU economy. Indeed the tool, developed by scientists cooperating through the EU-funded UNIVSEM project, has the potential to revolutionise research and development in a number of sectors, ranging from electronics and energy to biomedicine and consumer products.

Nanotechnology, which involves the manipulation of matter at the atomic and molecular scale, has led to new materials such as graphene and microscopic devices that include new surgical tools and medicines. Up until now however, nanotech R&D has been hampered by the fact that it has not been possible to achieve simultaneous information on 3D structure, chemical composition and surface properties.

This is what makes the UNIVSEM project, due for completion in March 2015, so innovative. By integrating different sensors capable of measuring these different aspects of nano-sized materials, EU scientists have created a single instrument that enables researchers to work much more efficiently. By providing clearer visual and other sensory information, the tool will help scientists to manipulate nano-sized particles with greater ease and help cut R&D costs for industry.

The project team began in April 2012 by developing a vacuum chamber capable of accommodating the complex sensory tools required. In parallel, they significantly improved the capabilities of each individual analytical technique. This means that users now need just one instrument to achieve key capabilities such as vision and chemical analysis.

Preliminary tests demonstrated that the achieved optical resolution of 360 nanometres (nm) far exceeds the original 500 nm target set out at the start of the project. This should be of significant interest to numerous sectors where cost-efficient but incredibly precise measurements are required, such as in the manufacture of nano-sized surgical tools and nano-medicines.

Electronics is another key area. For example, the UNIVSEM project could help scientists learn more about the properties of quasiparticles such as plasmons. Since plasmons can support much higher frequencies than today's silicon based chips, researchers believe they could be the future for optical connections on next-generation computer chips.

Plasmon research could also lead to the development of new lasers and molecular-imaging systems, and increase solar cell efficiencies due to their interaction with light. Another exciting area of nanotechnology concerns silver nanowires (AgNWs). These nanowires can form a transparent conductive network, and thus are a promising candidate for solar cell contacts or transparent layers in displays.

The next stage is the commercialisation of the instrument. The multi-modal tool is expected to spur nanotechnology development and enhanced quality control in numerous areas such as the development of third generation solar cells and create new opportunities in sectors that have until now not fully tapped into the potential of nanotechnology.

Explore further: Using nanoparticles to better protect industrial applications

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Providing a clearer picture of nanotechnology's full potential

New target identified for potential brain cancer therapies

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Researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Massey Cancer Center and the VCU Institute for Molecular Medicine (VIMM) have identified a new protein-protein interaction that could serve as a target for future therapies for the most common form of brain cancer, glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). GBM is a devastating disease that originates from glia or their precursors within the central nervous system, and the prognosis for GBM patients is unfortunately poor, but this discovery offers new therapeutic potential.

According to a new study recently published in the online edition of the journal Cancer Research, scientists pinpointed a novel interaction between the genes AEG-1 and Akt2 that regulates the malignant characteristics of GBM. Prior research by the study's lead author, Paul B. Fisher, M.Ph., Ph.D., discovered the AEG-1 gene and found it to be overexpressed in the vast majority of cancers. The Akt2 gene is also overexpressed in several additional cancers. This new research demonstrates a positive feedback loop between the proteins expressed by these genes that promote GBM growth and survival.

"This is the first time that this specific protein-protein signaling complex has been identified in GBM, and it gives us a new potential target for drug development," says Fisher, Thelma Newmeyer Corman Endowed Chair in Cancer Research and co-leader of the Cancer Molecular Genetics research program at VCU Massey, professor and chair of the Department of Human and Molecular Genetics at the VCU School of Medicine, and director of the VIMM. "If we can develop drugs that disrupt the interaction between these two proteins, we could potentially combine them with conventional therapies to more effectively treat malignant gliomas."

Cell signaling is a complex process where interactions between cells and their environment govern basic cellular functions and activities. Bin Hu, PhD, senior postdoctoral scientist on Fisher's team discovered that the interaction between the AEG-1 and Akt2 proteins was critical for further Akt2 signaling, which regulates tumor cell survival, proliferation and invasion.

Additionally, analyses of patient tissue samples showed that AEG-1 and Akt2 expression correlated with GBM progression and reduced patient survival. In preclinical experiments, the researchers disrupted AEG-1/Akt2 interaction through a process known as competitive binding and observed a reduction in GBM cell survival and invasion. When combined with AEG-1 silencing in mouse models of human GBM, there was a marked increase in survival.

"In this study we mapped the interacting regions in both genes in order to begin the process of developing drugs that can fill in these spaces and block the genes from binding," says Fisher. "If successful, these new treatments could also be applicable to a variety of additional cancers in which both genes are overexpressed."

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Fisher collaborated on this research with: Bin Hu, Ph.D., senior postdoctoral scientist in the VCU Department of Human and Molecular Genetics; Luni Emdad, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., member of the Cancer Molecular Genetics research program at Massey, assistant professor in the VCU Department of Human and Molecular Genetics and member of the VIMM; Devanand Sarkar, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., Harrison Scholar and member of the Cancer Molecular Genetics research program at Massey, Blick Scholar, associate professor in the VCU Department of Human and Molecular Genetics and associate scientific director, Cancer Therapeutics, in the VIMM; Swadesh K. Das, Ph.D., member of the Cancer Molecular Genetics research program at Massey, member of the VIMM and assistant professor in the VCU Department of Human and Molecular Genetics; Manny Bacolod, Ph.D., instructor in the VCU Department of Human and Molecular Genetics; Timothy P. Kegelman, graduate student in the M.D./Ph.D. program at VCU School of Medicine; and Mohammad Al-Zubi and Xue-Ning Shen, both research technicians in the VCU Department of Human and Molecular Genetics and the VIMM.

This study was supported by National Institutes of Health(NIH)-National Cancer Institute (NCI) grants R01 CA134721 and R01 CA138540; The National Foundation for Cancer Researcher; the James S. McDonnell Foundation; and, in part, by VCU Massey Cancer Center's NIH-NCI Cancer Center Support Grant P30 CA016059.

The full manuscript of this study is available online at: http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/74/24/7321.long

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New target identified for potential brain cancer therapies

Tom Montine, MD, PhD on "Precision Medicine for the Molecular and Clinical Complexity of Dementia" – Video

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Tom Montine, MD, PhD on "Precision Medicine for the Molecular and Clinical Complexity of Dementia"
IOA Visiting Scholar, Tom Montine, MD, PhD, Professor and Chair, Department of Pathology, University of Washington, discusses his lecture on "Precision Medicine for the Molecular and Clinical...

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Tom Montine, MD, PhD on "Precision Medicine for the Molecular and Clinical Complexity of Dementia" - Video