NASA: Christmas lights make cities glow brighter from space during holidays

When you tell your neighbors that their"Frozen" Christmas displaycan be seen from space, you won't be lying.

Nighttime lights around major U.S. cities shine 20 to 50 percent brighter during Christmas and New Year's compared to the rest of the year, according to NASA.

Lights start getting brighter on Black Friday and continue through New Year's Day, saidMiguel Romn, a scientist from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre, Maryland.

Scientists at the centre examined light output from 70 U.S. cities in 2012 and 2013.

"When we started looking at the data at night over the United States, we were expecting to see a lot of stability in the night time lights," Romn says in a video released by NASA. "We were surprised to see there is a vibrant increase in activity during the holidays, particularly around areas in the suburbs."

Lights in some Middle Eastern cities shine more than 50 percent brighter during Ramadan, according to NASA.

Scroll through to see what your lights look like from space.

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NASA: Christmas lights make cities glow brighter from space during holidays

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover to star in Discovery Channel documentary

For those following all thehabitability results from the Curiosity roverlately, heres a special treat the Discovery Channel will air a behind-the-scenes documentary on the mission tonight (Dec. 18) at 10 p.m. Eastern.

Called Red Planet Rover, it promises to bring viewers behind the scenes of the mission, experiencing the ups and downs of the expedition through the eyes of the science team and from the perspective of the Curiosity rover itself, according to the press release.

Universe Today is also proud to announce that several Curiosity mosaics processed by our own Ken Kremer and his imaging partner Marco Di Lorenzo will be featured in the documentary.

Heres some additional info on the show via the Discovery Channel:

NASAs Curiosity was sent to solve one of the greatest mysteries of science did life ever exist on Mars? Its an audacious mission with no margin for error. And like most things, making history hasnt been easy. The Curiosity rover mission marks the beginning of what may only be the beginning to the story of life on Mars. Curiosity looks to uncover how Mars evolved over billions of years. Was it once and could it be now habitable for life?

Bombarded by radiation, Mars surface is cold, dry and lethal. But it wasnt always this way. Billions of years ago, life might have had a chance. Of all the planets in the solar system, only two have been in liquid form at some time: Earth and Mars. Both were enriched by all the chemicals necessary to create human form.

Check your local listings for detailed information.

Elizabeth Howellis the senior writer at Universe Today. She also works for Space.com, Space Exploration Network, the NASA Lunar Science Institute, NASA Astrobiology Magazine and LiveScience, among others. Career highlights include watching three shuttle launches, and going on a two-week simulated Mars expedition in rural Utah. You can follow her on Twitter@howellspaceor contact her ather website.

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NASA's Curiosity Mars rover to star in Discovery Channel documentary

NASAs Kepler finds new exoplanet

The artistic concept shows NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft operating in a new mission profile called K2. Using publicly available data, astronomers have confirmed K2's first exoplanet discovery proving Kepler can still find planets. (Credit: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T Pyle)

Provided by Felicia Chou, NASA

NASAs planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft makes a comeback with the discovery of the first exoplanet found using its new mission K2.

The discovery was made when astronomers and engineers devised an ingenious way to repurpose Kepler for the K2 mission and continue its search of the cosmos for other worlds.

Last summer, the possibility of a scientifically productive mission for Kepler after its reaction wheel failure in its extended mission was not part of the conversation, said Paul Hertz, NASAs astrophysics division director at the agencys headquarters in Washington. Today, thanks to an innovative idea and lots of hard work by the NASA and Ball Aerospace team, Kepler may well deliver the first candidates for follow-up study by the James Webb Space Telescope to characterize the atmospheres of distant worlds and search for signatures of life.

Lead researcher Andrew Vanderburg, a graduate student at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, studied publicly available data collected by the spacecraft during a test of K2 in February 2014. The discovery was confirmed with measurements taken by the HARPS-North spectrograph of the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo in the Canary Islands, which captured the wobble of the star caused by the planets gravitational tug as it orbits.

The newly confirmed planet, HIP 116454b, is 2.5 times the diameter of Earth and follows a close, nine-day orbit around a star that is smaller and cooler than our sun, making the planet too hot for life as we know it. HIP 116454b and its star are 180 light-years from Earth, toward the constellation Pisces.

Keplers onboard camera detects planets by looking for transits when a distant star dims slightly as a planet crosses in front of it. The smaller the planet, the weaker the dimming, so brightness measurements must be exquisitely precise. To enable that precision, the spacecraft must maintain steady pointing. In May 2013, data collection during Keplers extended prime mission came to an end with the failure of the second of four reaction wheels, which are used to stabilize the spacecraft.

Rather than giving up on the stalwart spacecraft, a team of scientists and engineers crafted a resourceful strategy to use pressure from sunlight as a virtual reaction wheel to help control the spacecraft. The resulting K2 mission promises to not only continue Keplers planet hunt, but also to expand the search to bright nearby stars that harbor planets that can be studied in detail and better understand their composition. K2 also will introduce new opportunities to observe star clusters, active galaxies and supernovae.

Small planets like HIP 116454b, orbiting nearby bright stars, are a scientific sweet spot for K2 as they are good prospects for follow-up ground studies to obtain mass measurements. Using K2s size measurements and ground-based mass measurements, astronomers can calculate the density of a planet to determine whether it is likely a rocky, watery or gaseous world.

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NASAs Kepler finds new exoplanet

A lens-free microscope that borrows tech from your cellphone

Scientists at UCLA have created a lens-free microscope that relies on a silicon chip found in smartphones and digital cameras. You can't use it to snap a selfie, but it could help scientists detect cancer.

In a paper published Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine, the research team shows that images taken with the lens-free microscope were just as capable of revealing cellular abnormalities in tissue samples as more traditional, and more expensive light microscopes.

"Our microscope provides the same level of quality as a state-of-the-art optical light microscope, and it has a significantly larger field of view, a simpler design, and it is more cost-effective," said Aydogan Ozcan, a professor of electrical engineering at UCLA and the senior author on the paper.

Ozcan's lab specializes in creatingcomputer codes that simplify the design of microscopes, nanoscopes and other instruments, and improve their performance.

His team recently created a device that turns a smartphone into a high-powered microscope capable of imaging individual DNA molecules. Another project turned Google Glass into a tool that can perform diagnostic tests on blood and tissue samples.

Like much of Ozcan's work, the design of the lens-free microscope borrows from existing technology.

"The bread and butter of this project is a CCD or CMOS imager, which is the same thin chip you find in every digital camera, whether it's a high-end SLR or a cellphone camera," he said.

The setup also requires a light source and a sample holder that keeps the slide hovering just a little above the chip. When the light shines down on the sample slide, the slide casts a shadow of the sample tissue onto the imaging chip.

You can get an idea of how this works by holding your hand above your desk and under a light source. The closer to the desk you put your hand, the more defined the shadow becomes. The shadow of your hand is solid, but because cells are translucent, their shadows are more detailed.

The shadow image the chip collects is a murky-looking holograph that bears little resemblance to what you would see if you looked at the same slide through a light microscope. After the image is captured, it is reconstructed with software developed by Ozcan's team that converts the messy patterns into an image that is at least as clear as what you would see through a traditional microscope.

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A lens-free microscope that borrows tech from your cellphone

Two students from Mangaluru to represent India at Science Fair in US

Daijiworld Media Network - MangaluruWith Inputs from Media Release

Mangaluru, Dec 19: Two budding scientists, students of Sharada Vidyaniketan Public School here, have been selected to represent India in the International Science Fair to be held in the United States of America.

Komal of class XI and Aditya Bhargav of class X, were awarded the gold medal in the national-level Science Fair conducted by The Initiative for Research and Innovation in Science (IRIS) held in Ahmedabad, for their paper on inventing a machine using nano materials that can convert harmful gases in the environment (like carbon monoxide emitted from vehicles and sulfur dioxide emitted from factories) into harmless gases. The event was held from December 4 to 7.

Having bagged the gold medal at the national level, Komal and Aditya are now all set to represent the country in the USA.

In Ahmedabad, the duo presented their project under 'Engineering: Materials and Bioengineering about Smart Nanodevices - Future for clean air and green world'. They were mentored by Ganesh Shastri, faculty of biology at Sharada Vidyaniketan. They were also guided in their experiments by inorganic and physics chemistry and nano sciences and engineering departments of IISC, Bengaluru.

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Two students from Mangaluru to represent India at Science Fair in US

Scissr dating app: the new Tinder for lesbians?

Scissr: a new mind-blowing dating app for lesbians. Photograph: Scissr

Its being tipped as the lesbian equivalent of Grindr, but classier, a dating app for lesbians, by lesbians: introducing, the none-too-subtly named, Scissr.

The free app, which will be available on iOS and Android, will fill a gap in the women-seeking-women app sector.

The brainchild of the Chicago-based climbing instructor Allison Ullrich, Scissr promises to offer a mind-blowing experience.

After experiencing little luck with the more traditional dating techniques of bar hopping and mingling with mutual friends, Ullrich hit on the idea of Scissr.

I think what spawned the idea was life reality and conversations Ive had with my friends regarding relationships and women, she told DNAinfo.

Ullrich was disappointed with heterosexual-focused apps and websites such as OkCupid, Match and Tinder.

Tinder, for instance, will often throw up men as options for women who have set their preferences for other women.

With the the help of her friend, Adnan Beck and developers Ora Interactive, Scissr was born.

Users must be over 18, and are allowed to upload three photographs and write a bio of 300 words.

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Scissr dating app: the new Tinder for lesbians?

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Local sports medicine pioneer Leslie Bodnar dies at 98

From Notre Dame Press Release:

Dr. Leslie Bodnar, a widely-respected sports medicine pioneer who worked with University of Notre Dame student-athletes for nearly four decades, died this morning in South Bend. He was 98.

Upon completion of his residency, he established his private practice of orthopedic surgery in South Bend in 1947. That practice evolved into what is now known as the South Bend Orthopaedic Surgery and Sports Medicine Clinic.

In 1949, Bodnar joined the staff of the athletics department at Notre Dame as orthopedic surgeon for student-athletes, a position he held until 1985. He served as director of sports medicine for the University from 1976-85, held the title of team physician during that period and was on teaching faculty at its extension of the Indiana University School of Medicine. He continued as a senior consultant for Irish athletics for a period after 1985.

Bodnar is a founding member of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine, a fellow of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the American College of Surgeons and the American College of Sports Medicine, among other professional memberships.

After 52 years, Bodnar retired from private practice and has dedicated his time to philanthropic pursuits, serving as pro bono orthopedic consultant to the Chapin Street Health Center and donating the funds for exam rooms at the Sister Maura Brannick Health Center, both in South Bend.

Beginning nearly 60 years ago, Bodnar has conducted numerous sports medicine conferences around the country for coaches and athletic trainers, giving seminal presentations that established precedent and practice for the field of orthopedic surgery. His leadership and vision were significant factors toward the original formalization of relationships between professional orthopedic and national athletic entities such as the AOSSM and the U.S. Olympic Committee.

He earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Illinois in 1939 and completed his M.D. there two years later. Charity Hospital in New Orleans functioned as the site for both his medical internship (1941-42) and surgical orthopedic residency (1942-43; 1946-47). From 1943-46, Bodnar served as an orthopedic surgeon in the United States Army.

Bodnar is the author of two books, Carnie (2010) and Sports Medicine, Notre Dame (2014).

With his late wife Bunny, he enjoyed 53 years of marriage, nine children and more than two dozen grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

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Local sports medicine pioneer Leslie Bodnar dies at 98

Child Flourishing Symposium 2014 – Joshua Sparrow – Video


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Louis Aronne, M.D., discusses Eating Disorders and Obesity – Video


Louis Aronne, M.D., discusses Eating Disorders and Obesity
Lois Aronne, M.D., a member of RiverMend Health #39;s Scientific Advisory Board and Professor and Chair, Department of Psychiatry, Cooper Medical School, Rowan University discusses a variety of...

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