NASA | Missions Take an Unparalleled Look into Superstar Eta Carinae
Eta Carinae is a binary system containing the most luminous and massive star within 10000 light-years. A long-term study led by astronomers at NASA #39;s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,...
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NASA | Missions Take an Unparalleled Look into Superstar Eta Carinae - Video
IMAGE:This is Eta Carinae's great eruption in the 1840s created the billowing Homunculus Nebula, imaged here by Hubble. Now about a light-year long, the expanding cloud contains enough material to... view more
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
Eta Carinae, the most luminous and massive stellar system within 10,000 light-years of Earth, is known for its surprising behavior, erupting twice in the 19th century for reasons scientists still don't understand. A long-term study led by astronomers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, used NASA satellites, ground-based telescopes and theoretical modeling to produce the most comprehensive picture of Eta Carinae to date. New findings include Hubble Space Telescope images that show decade-old shells of ionized gas racing away from the largest star at a million miles an hour, and new 3-D models that reveal never-before-seen features of the stars' interactions.
"We are coming to understand the present state and complex environment of this remarkable object, but we have a long way to go to explain Eta Carinae's past eruptions or to predict its future behavior," said Goddard astrophysicist Ted Gull, who coordinates a research group that has monitored the star for more than a decade.
Located about 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation of Carina, Eta Carinae comprises two massive stars whose eccentric orbits bring them unusually close every 5.5 years. Both produce powerful gaseous outflows called stellar winds, which enshroud the stars and stymy efforts to directly measure their properties. Astronomers have established that the brighter, cooler primary star has about 90 times the mass of the sun and outshines it by 5 million times. While the properties of its smaller, hotter companion are more contested, Gull and his colleagues think the star has about 30 solar masses and emits a million times the sun's light.
Speaking at a press conference at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle on Wednesday, the Goddard researchers discussed recent observations of Eta Carinae and how they fit with the group's current understanding of the system.
At closest approach, or periastron, the stars are 140 million miles (225 million kilometers) apart, or about the average distance between Mars and the sun. Astronomers observe dramatic changes in the system during the months before and after periastron. These include X-ray flares, followed by a sudden decline and eventual recovery of X-ray emission; the disappearance and re-emergence of structures near the stars detected at specific wavelengths of visible light; and even a play of light and shadow as the smaller star swings around the primary.
During the past 11 years, spanning three periastron passages, the Goddard group has developed a model based on routine observations of the stars using ground-based telescopes and multiple NASA satellites. "We used past observations to construct a computer simulation, which helped us predict what we would see during the next cycle, and then we feed new observations back into the model to further refine it," said Thomas Madura, a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow at Goddard and a theorist on the Eta Carinae team.
According to this model, the interaction of the two stellar winds accounts for many of the periodic changes observed in the system. The winds from each star have markedly different properties: thick and slow for the primary, lean and fast for the hotter companion. The primary's wind blows at nearly 1 million mph and is especially dense, carrying away the equivalent mass of our sun every thousand years. By contrast, the companion's wind carries off about 100 times less material than the primary's, but it races outward as much as six times faster.
Madura's simulations, which were performed on the Pleiades supercomputer at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, reveal the complexity of the wind interaction. When the companion star rapidly swings around the primary, its faster wind carves out a spiral cavity in the dense outflow of the larger star. To better visualize this interaction, Madura converted the computer simulations to 3-D digital models and made solid versions using a consumer-grade 3-D printer. This process revealed lengthy spine-like protrusions in the gas flow along the edges of the cavity, features that hadn't been noticed before.
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NASA observatories take an unprecedented look into superstar Eta Carinae
We are a nation of inventors.Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, the Wright Brothers, Dr. Temple Grandin, George Eastman and Elon Musk are just a few individuals in a massive catalog of creative makers who have used the inspiration of the innovative culture of the United States to advance technology. At the same time, government research has pushed the fundamental, but not-yet-commercialside of research in an incredibly important way, and at the core of that is NASA. For more than fifty years, NASA hastransferred its cutting-edge technologies to the private sector, helping create new commercial products, improve existing products and boost the competitiveness of the U.S. economy.
It isnt just a one-way street, though; NASA is increasingly reaching out to individuals and organizations outside of the agency to apply their own inventive initiative to further technology needed to enable the next steps required to execute NASAs goals in space exploration and aeronautics.
In order to accomplish great things, NASA has always needed partners in industry and academia. But notable accomplishments do not only come from big moonshots and Mars landings. Some amazing technology developments can be found in very small packages, like projects from NASA's AmesResearch Center, includingPhoneSatand the upcomingEdison Demonstration of Smallsat Networksmissions, in which engineers use commercialoff-the-shelf smartphones as the motherboard to operate mini cube-shaped research satellitesor CubeSats.
Each single CubeSat is approximately four inches in length, width and height, and weighs 3 pounds. Small satellites are an interesting development in space exploration because of their low cost and relatively easy access to space.Typically CubeSats hitch a ride on launches that have some leftover weight and volume capacity in addition to the primary payload flying.
Ames, located in Californias Silicon Valley, is recognized as a major contributor to the small satellite community through projects like PhoneSat.As such, Ames was a natural organization to issue a challenge to the nation to incentivize development of CubeSat capabilities. In November 2014, NASA announced that Ames will manage a competition called theCube Quest Challengeunder the agencys series ofCentennial Challenges.
The Centennial Challenges program drives innovations in aerospace technology through collaborative teams of citizen-inventors, universitiesand industry participation; increases communication through public forum and results-oriented competitions; andfosters economic productivity and opportunity through new or expanded business development.There have been 24 Centennial Challenges events since 2005. NASA has awarded more than $6 million to 16 challenge-winning teams in competitions such as the Sample Return Robot Challenge, the Strong Tether Challengeand the Moon ROx Challenge.
For the Cube Quest Challenge, teams must design, develop and deliver a small spacecraft the volume of six combined single CubeSat unitsthat can catch a ride to lunar orbit or further in deep space, and then rapidly transfer large data volumes from itself to Earth, while surviving the extended duration in space.
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NASA will hold two briefings Thursday, Jan. 15 at the agencys Johnson Space Center in Houston, to preview the upcoming Expedition 43 mission aboard the International Space Station and the launch of the crew embarking on a yearlong mission. NASA Television and the agencys website will broadcast the briefings live.
At noon EST, an International Space Station Program and Science Overview briefing will cover mission priorities and objectives, which include hundreds of research experiments, numerous spacewalks and international and commercial cargo deliveries to the complex.
The briefing participants are:
Michael Suffredini, International Space Station program manager
Emily Nelson, International Space Station expedition flight director
Julie Robinson, International Space Station program scientist
Steve Gilmore, lead flight surgeon for Scott Kelly
At 2 p.m., NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Gennady Padalka of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) will discuss their upcoming mission. B-roll video of the crews training will air at 1:30 p.m.
The trio is set to launch to the space station aboard the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft March 27. Padalka will return to Earth in September while Kelly and Kornienko will remain onboard until March 2016.
Kelly and Kornienko are embarking on a first-ever yearlong mission to the station. The valuable scientific data collected will provide insight into how the human body responds to longer durations in space, supporting the next generation of space exploration.
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NASA Previews Yearlong Space Station Mission in Jan. 15 Briefing
SEATTLENASA's venerable planet-hunter, the Kepler spacecraft, has shaken its one-thousandth planet from the sky. Eight new worlds beyond our solar system, announced Tuesday, boost the number of Kepler's confirmed planets to 1,004 (if you're keeping count), including two of the most Earthlike planets discovered so far.
Those eight new worlds are each less than 2.7 times the size of Earth, astronomers reported at the American Astronomical Society's annual winter meeting. But hiding in the wings, among a group of 554 newly announced planet candidates, is an even more tantalizing set of planets.
"These candidates represent the closest analogues to the Earth-sun system found to date, and this is what Kepler has been looking for. We are now closer than we have ever been to finding a twin for Earth around a star," says Fergal Mullally of the SETI Institute and NASA's Ames Research Center.
Kepler's eight newly confirmed planets are all relatively small, and they all orbit stars that are smaller and cooler than the sun. Depending which calculations scientists use, at least three of the planetsand perhaps all eightare in the habitable zones of their parent stars. This is the region where temperatures are just right for supporting liquid water on the planet's surface. (Learn more about habitable-zone planets in "Kepler Telescope Discovers Most Earth-Like Planet Yet.")
At least two of those planets, Kepler 438-b and Kepler 442-b, are likely to be rocky, like Earth.
"We have significantly increased the number of these verified, small, habitable-zone planets from Kepler," says Doug Caldwell of the SETI Institute and NASA's Ames Research Center.
"They really make up a special population that is of interest for understanding the prevalence of life in the universe. Yesterday we had five Kepler exoplanets in this special hall of fame, and today we have eight in this elite club."
Earth Twins
The new catalog of worlds from Kepler identifies an additional 554 planet candidates, bringing the mission's total number of candidatesobjects that might be exoplanetsto 4,175. Of those 554 new candidates, eight are small, less than twice the size of Earth, and in the habitable zones of their stars. (These candidates are in addition to the eight newly confirmed planets.)
And here's the really tantalizing bit: Six of those potential planets are orbiting sunlike stars and represent a class of planet that Kepler hasn't yet gotten a good look at: the real exo-Earths.
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NASA's Kepler Spacecraft Discovers New Batch of Earthlike Planets
By Brian Mastroianni
A bigger and sharper Hubble telescope photograph of the iconic Eagle Nebula's 'Pillars of Creation' (R) is seen next to the original 1995 Hubble picture in this NASA image released January 6, 2015.(REUTERS/NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team/Handout via Reuters)
A Hubble telescope photograph of the iconic Eagle Nebula 'Pillars of Creation' is seen in this NASA image released January 6, 2015.(REUTERS/NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team/Handout via Reuters)
In 1995, NASAs Hubble Space Telescope released an iconic image that changed peoples perception of space. Through the photo of the so-called Pillars of Creation, the telescope offered a glimpse at what the origins of our own solar systems sun might have looked like.
Showing three columns of gas highlighted by the ultraviolet light emitted from a nearby star cluster in M16, a region of the Eagle Nebula in the constellation Serpens, the image has inspired everyone from those behind the recent Star Trek films to children who aspire to study astronomy.
In honor of the telescopes upcoming 25th anniversary in April, NASA has provided a clearer view of the celestial phenomenon, with new high-definition images of the pillars that are being unveiled at this weeks American Astronomical Society meeting.
What is it that gives the image such power? For Ray Villard, news director at the Space Telescope Science Institute, the photograph gave people a look at the universe as something that was organic and not a dark void.
It looks almost like a fantasy landscape theres a feel to it that convinces yourself that you are looking at something that is living under a microscope, Villard told FoxNews.com. It defies expectations of whats out there in space.
Villard, who first became interested in astronomy when he caught a glimpse of an image of a similar celestial site the Horsehead Nebula as a young child, said that these kinds of images, made possible by the wide reach of Hubble, are inspirational and resonate way beyond hardcore science. In short, these glimpses at the far reaches of space are accessible in that they make astronomy tangible for the science lay person.
The image of the pillars sheds light on the constantly shifting face of the universe. The gaseous bodies suggest creation but also destruction, according to a release from NASA.
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NASA honors Hubble's 25th anniversary with high-def version of iconic image
Most bowlers dread the thought of facing the worlds biggest hitters when it comes to Twenty20 cricket.
But Stephen Parry cant wait to do just that after his Big Bash dream came true.
The Lancashire spinner has been handed the chance of a lifetime to join Red Rose team-mate Andrew Flintoff playing for the Brisbane Heat in Australias showpiece T20 competition.
He flew out last night, and is set to make his debut at the Gabba on Sunday against the Sydney Sixers in place of Daniel Vettori, who is joining up with the New Zealand squad.
And after failing to make Englands World Cup squad, who also head Down Under last night as they prepared for next months tournament, Parry knows an impressive performance in the Big Bash will give his chances of another call-up a major boost and even open up the opportunity to play in the lucrative Indian Premier League.
I am really excited to play in such a big tournament. It is as big as any global tournament, Parry told M.E.N. Sport. It shows how highly people rate me around the world. It is a bit of a dream for me.
Not many English players have been asked to play in it, but I have been asked to. It gives a little reminder to England too.
And if it goes really well, then England will have to take another look at me.
I want to play cricket against the best in the world, thats what it is all about. For me to get better, if I dont get international exposure in the next 12 months, I want to make sure I am getting in these competitions and in first-class cricket around the world.
I think its just going to make me a better cricketer.
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New European Research grant for diabetes researcher Dr. Francesca Spagnoli of the MDC
Diabetes researcher Dr. Francesca Spagnoli of the Max Delbrck Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch has been awarded an extra research grant from the European Research Council (ERC). This Proof-of-Concept (PoC) grant is endowed with 150,000 euros over a period of two years. It is designed for researchers who already hold an ERC grant in order to transform their research results into practical applications. Dr. Spagnoli was named one of 50 recipients of this grant in 2014. In 2009 she received a one million euro ERC Starting Grant for her research on reprogramming liver cells into pancreas cells. Now, after having identified a factor that converts murine liver cells into pancreas cells, she wants to investigate whether human liver cells can also be reprogrammed into insulin-producing cells.
Diabetes affects more than 350 million people worldwide. In these patients, the insulin-producing beta cells of the pancreas have been destroyed or are dysfunctional, causing blood glucose levels to rise. In individuals with type 1 diabetes, the beta cells have been destroyed due to a misguided response of the immune system. These people must inject insulin throughout their whole life. People with type 2 diabetes are not able to utilize insulin properly, but can be treated with a special diet and drugs. However, even in these individuals, beta cell-function may decline over time, so that they, too, may need to inject insulin.
Insulin replacement therapy, however, has adverse side effects. This is why physicians have been trying for a long time to transplant intact beta cells or whole pancreas organs, but with little success. According to Dr. Spagnoli, there are several reasons for this. One is a shortage of donors; another is that the transplanted organ or cells frequently do not function well. After five years the patients often need a new transplant or have to inject insulin again.
Therefore, researchers are now focusing on cell-based therapy, which in their view represents the most promising option. Different potential sources for new beta cells are currently being explored, including embryonic stem cells and other cell types. A particularly attractive therapeutic strategy is to convert liver cells of diabetic patients into functional pancreatic beta cells through reprogramming. "Both organs derive from the same region in the embryo, and both play an important role in metabolism and in blood glucose regulation," Dr. Spagnoli explained. "Moreover, they share a number of genes." Her research has led to the identification of a novel factor that converts mouse liver cells into pancreatic cells. With her ERC PoC grant she wants to extend these findings to human liver cells and assess whether this strategy may be exploited to develop a cell-based therapy for diabetes using a patient's own liver cells, a so-called autologous cell-based therapy. An application to patent Dr. Spagnoli's discovery has been filed at the European Patent Office in Munich.
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Contact: Barbara Bachtler Press Department Max Delbrck Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch in the Helmholtz Association Robert-Rssle-Strae 10; 13125 Berlin; Germany Phone: +49 (0) 30 94 06 - 38 96 Fax: +49 (0) 30 94 06 - 38 33 e-mail: presse@mdc-berlin.de http://www.mdc-berlin.de/en
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.
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I know its treading on holy ground at this point, especially on this site, when anyone addresses something about shared cinematic universes, but Ive got a bone to pick with them. Firstly, its been a great run for Marvel over the past few years, with only one film that most would call mediocre (Iron Man 2) and it looks like it will continue. To add to all of that, now were getting a DC and Universal Monsters shared universe, along with massive expansions of older franchises (Star Wars being the biggest draw). Its all incredibly exciting.
But, theres a point of contention here: while it may be many a fans dream to see so much content pouring out of their favorite franchises it must be the strangest thing as one of the bigger creative forces behind it. Think about it: if youre a director, unless youre the head of the centre-piece film (i.e. Avengers, Justice League, Star Wars: Episode xyz), youre not the shepherd anymore; youre just another dog. The real shepherds are the Feiges, Tsujiharas (kind of), and (unfortunately) Orcis of the industry. In a medium where directors usually reign weve gotten to a point where its the most TV-like studios (ones that have showrunners) that are making the biggest bucks. Marvel films, the Transformers franchise, you name it they all have the same heads of creativity behind them. Franchises are turning the film medium into extended TV. And now with the advent of streaming companies like Netflix, Amazon, etc. releasing full seasons of shows in one day, it seems like the roles have reversed. Fincher and Scorsese are making the jump to HBO with more intent than just being executive producers and True Detectives proven that a single directors vision (Cary Fukunaga in this case) for a show can work in tandem or even outweigh the whims of the producers/writers. Its a really strange time and I hope that its not an outright switch of practices between film and television.
Theres a reason why directors were the end all be all of creative decisions on films and the same goes for showrunners/writers for TV. Films arent really meant for long form storytelling that doesnt already have a beginning and end planned; I mean why do they keep on quasi-rebooting Bond all the time? Because they never have an end planned for him and because its so difficult to think of one that fits the messes theyve made (great as they are) from the films prior. Hence reboot after reboot. Why arent shows rebooted as often as films are? Because each thread of the particular franchise/universe has been so meticulously laid out for 5-10 seasons its impossible to try and revisit the stable of characters and environments that have already been introduced.
Maybe Im being too conservative about what films and TV should be fitting them into boxes, which, in and of itself, is contrary to the idea of creative media in the first place but Ive liked films being one-off tales and TV being the long adventures theyve been because it just works so well. I cant imagine Star Wars being able to pull off its charm on TV and weve seen what Star Trek is like on film (excluding the JJ Abrams pseudo-Star Wars/Trek films of the past few years) and the spark isnt there aside from (SPOILERS) Spocks death in Wrath of Khan. Its alright to have a few stragglers here and there between mediums, but Im hoping we never get to a point where films become dragged out two hour long episodes of a series and TV show episodes become short yet unsatisfying collections of films.
But hey, those are just my two cents.
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"Preventative Medicine and Nutrition," Kailash Bajaj, MD, MPH
"Preventative Medicine and Nutrition," Kailash Bajaj, MD, MPH Recorded June 15, 2014.
By: ETSU CME Grand Rounds
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"Preventative Medicine and Nutrition," Kailash Bajaj, MD, MPH - Video
B-cure Laser - Veterinary medicine
By: B-Cure Laser
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discussion of #revelations in #quantum #physics, medicine, #mathematics, #cognition, and #society
By: Mark Bartholomew
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Dr Tafur Ayahuasca and Integrative Medicine remix
Integrative Exploring the intersection between traditional ayahuasca healing and allopathic medicine. Special Thanks to Shane Lapp for the additional editing. Filmed at The Source Spiritual...
By: Joe Tafur
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New York Doctors Episode 5 Part 2 - Sleep Medicine
Episode 5 - Sleep Medicine Hosts Faten Al Ali, Dr. Hossam Amin Dr. Estelle Torbey Guest Dr. Ali El Atat, MD facebook.com/NewYorkDoctors youtube.com/NewYorkDoctors http://www.reachmediatv.com.
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The Universal Medicine by Art Corpus
Laughter is not the best medicine. If you have a weak heart, you can die laughing. But you cannot die by drinking your fresh urineeven if you have a weak heart. On the contrary, your weak...
By: XlibrisPub
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Dr. John J. Reilly Jr. (University of Colorado School of Medicine)
The University of Colorado has named its next dean of the School of Medicine, Dr. John J. Reilly Jr., former chair of the University of Pittsburgh's department of medicine and a pulmonary expert.
Reilly will become the new dean and the university's vice chancellor for health affairs on April 1.
He will succeed Dr. Richard D. Krugman, who is the longest-serving U.S. medical school dean, having been named acting dean in 1990 and appointed to the job in 1992.
Reilly, who joined Pittsburgh in 2008 after more than 20 years with Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, is a researcher with more than 100 peer-reviewed reports to his credit. He is a co-author of textbook chapters on internal medicine.
Reilly's areas of interest include genetic and environmental factors in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and the role of specific enzymes in COPD, emphysema and lung cancer.
Reilly, who will hold the Richard D. Krugman School of Medicine Dean's Endowed Chair, graduated from Harvard Medical School after earning an undergraduate degree in chemistry from Dartmouth College.
Under Krugman, more than 4,000 physicians, physician assistants, physical therapists and medical scientists earned degrees.
Krugman announced one year ago he would step down when a successor was hired.
Electa Draper: 303-954-1276, edraper@denverpost.com or twitter.com/electadraper
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CU School of Medicine names Pitt's Dr. John J. Reilly Jr. new dean
When it came to education and training issues important to family medicine in 2014, rising Match numbers and progress on both the workforce and graduate medical education reform fronts were among the highlights. Here's a look at some of the key events from the past year.
Catherine Louw at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, celebrates with her fianc, Ryan Coe, after learning she'll soon head to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Family Medicine Residency.
In February, AAFP News reported that more osteopathic physicians matched to family medicine than any other medical specialty in the recently completed American Osteopathic Association (AOA) Intern/Resident Registration Program, which pairs graduating osteopathic physicians with residency programs nationwide.
When the results were tabulated, family medicine filled 519 of 880 open positions in the 2014 osteopathic Match.
The good news continued in March, when results of the 2014 National Resident Matching Program, commonly known as the Match, highlighted the same sort of positive trend for allopathic family medicine programs. For the fifth straight year, the number of medical students choosing family medicine ticked higher than the previous year.
Specifically, 3,000 students, including both U.S. medical school graduates and international medical graduates, chose family medicine; that figure represents a 2 percent increase (62 more positions filled) compared with the 2,938 family medicine spots filled in 2013. Moreover, of this year's total, 1,416 U.S. seniors matched to family medicine; that's 42 more than in 2013, or a 3 percent increase.
Finally, a total of 70 more family medicine residency positions were offered in 2014 compared with 2013 (3,132 versus 3,062), yet the higher number of students matching into the specialty maintained the same fill rate of 96 percent.
Those numbers are especially encouraging given the ongoing need to feed the primary care workforce pipeline. Nowhere is this need felt more keenly than in the nation's more remote communities, where tens of millions of Americans rely on rural health professionals for their care.
In January, a Capitol Hill forum on rural health care highlighted the shortages of primary care physicians and other health professionals in rural areas for policymakers and other interested parties. Panelists who spoke during the event, which was sponsored by the Robert Graham Center on Policy Studies in Family Medicine and Primary Care, pointed to the success of the Rural Training Track Program and stressed the need for continued support of this program.
According to panelist Amy Elizando, M.P.H., vice president of program services for the National Rural Health Association in Washington, 62 million Americans rely on rural health care professionals. Another panelist, former AAFP President Ted Epperly, M.D., of Boise, Idaho, pointed to a number of strategies needed to grow the U.S. rural physician workforce, including a focus on the kindergarten-to-12th-grade pipeline. Students who would make good primary care physicians need to be identified and encouraged early, particularly those in rural areas. In addition, students need shadowing and mentoring opportunities, loan repayment programs, and recruitment efforts that are aimed at retaining them in primary care, said Epperly.
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Strong Match, Advances in Workforce Reform Top Education Gains Last Year
"Over Communicate with Patients and their Families"
Here is a look into the 2013 Annual NICHE Conference with Sharon Inouye, MD, MPH, Director, Aging Brain Center, Institute for Aging Research, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School....
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PMP/Appendiceal Cancer: Whats New in 2014 - Panel Discussion
November 19, 2014 UMass Memorial Medical Center University Campus Keynote Address The Latest Consensus on Pathologic Staging of Appendiceal Cancer is presented by Joseph Misdraji,...
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PMP/Appendiceal Cancer: Whats New in 2014 - Panel Discussion - Video
As UTRGV prepares for a new medical school multiple school districts across the Valley are providing their own students with educational opportunities in the medical field.
If you've driven on Expressway 77 through Rancho Viejo recently, you've probably noticed the new school rising from the brush.
It's South Texas Independent School District's new Medical Academy.
The 181,000 foot campus will serve more than 650 students in the fall.
"We want to improve the quality of life in the valley, that is our focus," Superintendent Dr. Marla Guerra said.
Guerra says classrooms are designed to mimic real life work before they send students off campus to learn.
"What we want to do is send our students to the medical school to shadow doctors," Guerra said.
In fact, the Medical Academy is the first high school in the country to provide a phlebotomy certification.
"Our kids are able to draw blood, and they use that training to work themselves through college. It's not an end in itself but a means to an end and that's a college degree, Guerra said.
South Texas ISD is not the only district placing an emphasis on medicine.
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