Daily Archives: January 6, 2015

SpaceX scrubs rocket launch: why it must wait until Friday to try again

Posted: January 6, 2015 at 9:47 pm

The launch of a resupply mission bound for the International Space Station was called off less than two minutes before liftoff early Tuesday after a malfunction cropped up related to the motor on the rocket's second stage.

The rocket, Space Exploration Technology Corporation's Falcon 9, signaled a problem with one of two actuators critical for steering the second stage to keep it on course. The actuators move the second-stage motor's exhaust nozzle to change the direction of the motor's thrust.

If this mission had been a satellite launch rather than a rendezvous mission, in principle it might have been possible to troubleshoot the problem and launch later in the morning. But the demands of a rendezvous with the space station, which orbited directly overhead shortly before launch, meant that the SpaceX team had to launch at 6:20 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.

The malfunction occurred too close to launch to allow time to investigate the cause. The next opportunity for a launch comes at 5:09 a.m. Friday morning.

The Dragon cargo capsule atop the rocket is carrying some 2.5 tons of food, spare parts, experiments, and tools that station crew members will need to install new docking adapters to the station. On its return, Dragon is expected to carry nearly 2 tons of cargo back to Earth.

The launch also aims to make the first attempt at bringing Falcon 9's spent first stage to a controlled landing on something other than the open ocean. SpaceX has acquired a floating landing platform on which it will attempt to land the first stage. The experiment represents a step toward SpaceX's goal of building a fully reusable rocket,.

The platform, known as the autonomous spaceport drone ship, sports powerful thrusters to keep it in one spot. In addition, the Falcon 9 has been redesigned. Part of that redesign added landing legs to the first stage, as well as four adjustable fins that resemble oversized rectangular tennis racquets. Through carefully orchestrated movements, these gridded fins are designed to help keep the first stage on course during its descent to the drone ship.

The drone ship's landing surface measures 100 feet by 300 feet, a tiny target to hit from 150 miles up. Previous experiments with the soft-landing system, which ended up in the Atlantic Ocean by design, brought the first stage to its landing spot, give or take about six miles. The new system is designed to land the stage within about 30 feet of the landing surface's center.

SpaceX gives the experiment a 50-50 chance of succeeding on this first try, noted Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX's vice president for mission assurance, late Monday afternoon. Even so, those were pretty good odds given the goal, he acknowledged.

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Space X calls off rocket launch, B.C. students experiment on hold again

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CAPE CANAVERAL, FLASpaceX called off its planned flight to the International Space Station on Tuesday because of rocket trouble.

The unmanned Falcon rocket was supposed to blast off before sunrise. But the countdown was halted with just over a minute remaining. The soonest SpaceX can try again is Friday morning, provided it can fix the problem by then.

As a result, a science project dreamed up by a group of students in central British Columbia that exploded on a rocket launching pad almost two months ago is on hold again.

Officials said the problem was with motors needed for second-stage rocket thrust steering. If controllers had not aborted the launch, computers would have done so closer to flight time, NASA launch commentator George Diller said.

Four boys from McGowan Park Elementary School in Kamloops, B.C., had won a contest to have their experiment join 17 other student projects from across North American on a trip to the orbiting station.

But the amateur experiments along with a payload of supplies destined for the space station were destroyed on Oct. 28 when a NASA-contracted rocket exploded in a spectacular fireball in eastern Virginia.

If and when the Kamloops students experiment gets to the station, it will examine how the zero-gravity environment of space affects the growth of crystals.

The students prepared silicon tubes containing solutions that, when mixed, cause crystals to form. On the space station, astronauts would remove small clips keeping the solutions apart. When the tubes returned, the students would analyze the crystals and compare them to crystals grown on Earth.

The Dragon capsule aboard the Falcon contains more than 2,000 kg of supplies and experiments ordered up by NASA. Thats the primary objective for SpaceX. But the California-based company plans to attempt an even more extraordinary feat once the Dragon is on its way: flying the booster rocket to a platform in the Atlantic. No one has ever pulled off such a touchdown.

SpaceXs billionaire founder and chief executive Elon Musk said recovering and reusing rockets could speed up launches and drive down costs.

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Tiny Greenhouse Could Fly Plants to Mars in 2018

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Lifeforms from Earth may touch down on Mars just a few years from now but those interplanetary travelers would be plants, not people.

A tiny, self-contained greenhouse has been selected to fly on the robotic lander that Red Planet colonization effort Mars One intends to launch in 2018, group representatives announced Monday (Jan. 5).

The greenhouse experiment, known as Seed, was one of 35 proposed lander science payloads submitted by university groups around the world. Mars One whittled this original pool down to 10 finalists, and Seed was chosen by a monthlong public vote that closed on Dec. 31. [Mars One's Red Planet Colony Project (Gallery)]

"We are really pleased to be the selected project among so many excellent ideas," Seed team member Teresa Arajo said in a statement. "We are thrilled to be the first to send life to Mars. This will be a great journey that we hope to share with you all."

The payload will send seeds of the small flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana, an organism commonly used in space-science experiments, to Mars inside two containers. (The outer one will serve a protective function.) Upon landing, the seeds will be exposed to heat and a growth medium, giving them the chance to germinate and grow. Images relayed to Earth will let team members who are based at several universities in Portugal and Spain know how the experiment is going.

Seed is designed to advance researchers' understanding of the potential for plant growth on Mars, which could aid the development of life-support systems on the Red Planet, experiment leaders said.

Although Seed won the competition, it has not yet locked down its spot on the 2018 mission. Mars One will first examine the proposal, to make sure it is feasible and can be integrated on the lander, group representatives said. If this analysis reveals any serious issues, Mars One may end up going with one of the contest runners-up. (You can read more about all 10 finalists here; the second- and third-place finishers are Cyano Knights and Lettuce on Mars.)

Mars One aims to land four astronauts on the Red Planet in 2025, kickstarting a permanent colony that will be augmented with new arrivals every two years thereafter. There are no plans at the moment to bring any of the settlers back to Earth.

To help prepare for colonization, Mars One a nonprofit based in the Netherlands plans to launch a number of robotic precursor missions, including the 2018 effort, which would send a communications orbiter and lander to Mars.

Mars One intends to pay for its ambitious activities primarily by staging a global media event around the colonization process, from astronaut selection through the pioneers' time on the Red Planet.

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What motivates males who commit sexual assault on campus?

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IMAGE:Violence and Gender is the only peer-reviewed journal focusing on the understanding, prediction, and prevention of acts of violence. Through research papers, roundtable discussions, case studies, and other original content,... view more

Credit: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers

New Rochelle, NY, January 6, 2015-The shocking statistic that about one in five women will be the victim of sexual assault while in college is made even more so by the fact that most of those women will know their assailants. No one-size-fits-all approach to rape prevention will be effective, as some offenders are driven by hostility toward women, while others may objectify women and view forceful intercourse as part of expected male dominant behavior. These different motivations and views on rape, and how they can be used to deliver rape prevention measures and successful intervention strategies are explored in an article in Violence and Gender, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Violence and Gender website until February 6, 2015.

In the article "Denying Rape but Endorsing Forceful Intercourse: Exploring Differences Among Responders," Sara Edwards, PhD, and Kathryn Bradshaw, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, and Verlin Hinsz, PhD, North Dakota State University, Fargo, separated male participants into three groups based on how they scored on measurements of hypermasculinity, hostility toward women, and callous sexual attitudes. The authors reported associations between these groupings and whether the men denied any intention to rape or use force to obtain intercourse, self-reported intentions to rape, or indicated a distinction between sexually coercive behavior and rape and expressed intentions to use of force to obtain intercourse but denied rape.

"These authors describe the numbers as staggering, and we know it is one of the most concerning crimes in the country today," says Violence and Gender Editor-in-Chief Mary Ellen O'Toole, PhD, Forensic Behavioral Consultant and Senior FBI Profiler/Criminal Investigative Analyst (ret.). "Sexual assault on college campuses is the pink elephant in the room. It is a crime that is underreported and misunderstood. In this article, researchers look at how callous sexual attitudes of some males who do not have feelings of hostility toward women can still engage in forced intercourse with a victim, and consider their behavior as an achievement rather than rape. The implications for these findings are extremely significant for education programs about sexual aggression and rape prevention and the development of a more accurate identification of subtypes of offenders based on their motivation, cognition, and personality traits."

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About the Journal

Violence and Gender is the only peer-reviewed journal focusing on the understanding, prediction, and prevention of acts of violence. Through research papers, roundtable discussions, case studies, and other original content, the Journal critically examines biological, genetic, behavioral, psychological, racial, ethnic, and cultural factors as they relate to the gender of perpetrators of violence. Led by Editor-in-Chief Mary Ellen O'Toole, PhD, Forensic Behavioral Consultant and Senior FBI Profiler/Criminal Investigative Analyst (ret.), Violence and Gender explores the difficult issues that are vital to threat assessment and prevention of the epidemic of violence. Violence and Gender is published quarterly online with Open Access options and in print, and is the official journal of The Avielle Foundation. Tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Violence and Gender website.

About the Publisher

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking and Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 80 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.

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The 'Berlin patient,' first and only person cured of HIV, speaks out

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IMAGE:AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses, published monthly in print and online, presents papers, reviews, and case studies documenting the latest developments and research advances in the molecular biology of HIV... view more

Credit: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers

New Rochelle, NY, January 6, 2015--Timothy Ray Brown, long known only as the "Berlin Patient" had HIV for 12 years before he became the first person in the world to be cured of the infection following a stem cell transplant in 2007. He recalls his many years of illness, a series of difficult decisions, and his long road to recovery in the first-person account, "I Am the Berlin Patient: A Personal Reflection," published in AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is part of a special issue on HIV Cure Research and is available free on the AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses website.

Brown's Commentary describes the bold experiment of using a stem cell donor who was naturally resistant to HIV infection to treat the acute myeloid leukemia (AML) diagnosed 10 years after he became HIV-positive. The stem cell donor had a specific genetic mutation called CCR5 Delta 32 that can protect a person against HIV infection. The virus is not able to enter its target, the CD4 cells. After the stem cell transplant, Brown was able to stop all antiretroviral treatment and the HIV has not returned.

"This is the first time that we get to read this important story written by the man who lived it," says Thomas Hope, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses and Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL. "It is a unique opportunity to share in the human side of this transformative experience."

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About the Journal

AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses, published monthly in print and online, presents papers, reviews, and case studies documenting the latest developments and research advances in the molecular biology of HIV and SIV and innovative approaches to HIV vaccine and therapeutic drug research, including the development of antiretroviral agents and immune-restorative therapies. The content also explores the molecular and cellular basis of HIV pathogenesis and HIV/HTLV epidemiology. The Journal features rapid publication of emerging sequence information and reports on clinical trials of emerging HIV therapies. Tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses website.

About the Publisher

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers/ is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including AIDS Patient Care and STDs, Viral Immunology, and Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 80 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.

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First human trial of new experimental Ebola vaccine begin

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Oxford University scientists begin to immunise volunteers Hope to immunise 72 adults by the end of the month to trial the new jab A prime injection is followed by a booster to strengthen immune response The vaccine wassuccessfulin protecting primates against Ebola There are now at least three Ebola vaccines being trialled for safety

By Madlen Davies for MailOnline

Published: 10:08 EST, 6 January 2015 | Updated: 16:10 EST, 6 January 2015

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The first human trials of a new Ebola vaccine are today underway, the latest step in attempts to halt the spread of the virus in West Africa.

Scientists at Oxford University have immunised the first healthy volunteers with a new drug, which they hope will protect people against the disease.

The World Health Organisation said today more than 8,100 people have now lost their lives to the virus, the majority in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

In September a separate trial was launched at the university, to test the effects of another potential vaccine.

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AW: *Live* DNA BOMB w/ *Insane* 90 KillStreak – "DNA BOMB" with Diamond Bal-27 – Video

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"DNA Bomb" on DEFENDER w/ BAL-27: Obsidian Steed! – Video

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AW: DNA Bomb FAIL | 25-0 Flawless w/AK12 on Bio Lab | xPaniko – Video

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