CWL

International Space Station Leaking Ammonia Coolant, NASA Says

The International Space Station has a radiator leak in its power system. The outpost’s commander calls the situation serious, but not life-threatening.

The six-member crew on Thursday noticed white flakes of ammonia leaking out of the station. Ammonia runs through multiple radiator loops to cool the station’s power system. NASA said the leak is increasing from one previously leaking loop that can be bypassed if needed. NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs said engineers are working on rerouting electronics just in case the loop shuts down. The Earth-orbiting station has backup systems.

Space station Commander Chris Hadfield of Canada tweeted that the problem, while serious, was stabilized. Officials will know more Friday.

The space station always has enough emergency escape ships for the crew, but there are no plans to use them.

‘Smart Skin’ Transistors Give Robots “Sense of Touch,” Better Interaction With Touch Screens for Humans

The creation of an array of piezotronic transistors using nanowires that convert mechanical motion to electronic controlling signals means we will now have better touch-screen interactions with our tablets and smartphones—but also robots that have “a sense of touch.”

The arrays contain about 8,000 touch-sensitive transistors called taxels that are thin, clear, flexible sheets that wrap around a robotic limb like our skin.

“When we [humans] touch fire, we know it’s hot. [This technology] can allow robots to have that human sense - in other words, make robots more like humans,” lead researcher Zhong Lin Wang told TechNewsDaily.

The achievement of mimicking touch through electronic devices came through measuring changes in resistance caused by mechanical touch.

“Any mechanical motion, such as the movement of arms or the fingers of a robot, could be translated to control signals. This could make artificial skin smarter and more like the human skin. It would allow the skin to feel activity on the surface,” said Zhong Lin Wang, from the Georgia Institute of Technology and one of the study authors.

“This is a fundamentally new technology that allows us to control electronic devices directly using mechanical agitation,” Wang added in a news release. “This could be used in a broad range of areas, including robotics, MEMS, human-computer interfaces and other areas that involve mechanical deformation.”

The study was published in the journal Science.

Baked Exoplanet Gets Lab Treatment

Don’t get too excited, an exoplanet hasn’t really been captured from the cosmic wilds. And no, one of NASA’s boffins isn’t really taking a pair of tongs to the upper atmosphere of a strangely tiny “hot-Jupiter” being baked by a Bunsen burner. The doctored photo is actually a fun metaphor for this golden age of exoplanetary science. In particularly, it illustrates what one NASA space telescope is doing to understand the chemistry and dynamics of a particular Jupiter-sized exoplanet located some 385 light-years away.

Of course, it would be preferential if we could directly sample an exoplanet’s atmosphere in a lab, but as all exoplanets orbit stars many light-years from the nearest Bunsen burner, astronomers need to think up novel techniques by which the atmospheres of exoplanets can be remotely probed. Enter the Spitzer Space Telescope, NASA’s premier infrared observatory, the inadvertent hero of exo-atmospheric science!

Launched in 2003, Spitzer was designed to observe the infrared universe — particularly star-forming molecular clouds and distant galaxies — but in 2005 it became famous for detecting infrared emissions from extra-solar planets, namely HD 209458b and TrES-1. Since then, Spitzer has continued to notch up some impressive exoplanetary discoveries.

“When Spitzer launched in 2003, we had no idea it would prove to be a giant in the field of exoplanet science,” said Michael Werner, Spitzer project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “Now, we’re moving farther into the field of comparative planetary science, where we can look at these objects as a class, and not just as individuals.”

In a new study published in the Astrophysical Journal, astronomers have used Spitzer to watch an exoplanet complete a full orbit around its host star.

Over 6 days, the hot-Jupiter HAT-P-2b passed in front of its star, behind and back in front again. Interestingly, HAT-P-2b’s orbit is highly eccentric, meaning its orbital path takes it only 2.8 million miles from the star’s surface at closest approach and out to 9.3 million miles at its most distant. As a comparison, the solar system’s innermost planet, Mercury, orbits the sun every 88 days and doesn’t come closer than 28 million miles — HAT-P-2b is therefore a roasted planet, where rapid changes in its atmosphere can be expected from extreme heating.

Fortunately, because HAT-P-2b’s orbit is not only compact but also eccentric, astronomers have a wonderful opportunity to see these changes occur over a very short timescale.

Full Article Over at Discovery News

Starburst Galaxy Could Illuminate Early Universe

A newfound primordial galaxy nearly 13 billion light-years away is breaking distance records and may unlock the secrets of how and when some of the most massive star factories were born in the early universe, according to a new study.

Image: An illustration of a starburst galaxy, similar to one—dubbed HFLS3—recently found by researchers. Illustration courtesy C. Carreau, ESA

Using the infrared mapping capabilities of the European Space Agency’s Herschel space telescope, a team of astronomers have spied the faraway light of a starburst galaxy—one that exhibits a high rate of star formation—from when the 14-billion-year-old universe was just 880 million years old.

Dubbed HFLS3, the galaxy—which is the farthest starburst galaxy yet found—was caught in the act of forming and pumping out new stars at unheard of rates more than a billion years earlier than expected.

“This newly discovered galaxy is pushing the extremes in virtually every aspect of its existence,” said Dominik Riechers, an astronomer at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and lead author of the new paper published April 17 in the journal Nature.

“It is not only the earliest we have discovered, but also one of the most intensely star-forming, even among its peers that exist at later epochs,” he said.

While its overall size is estimated to be similar to the size of our own Milky Way, scientists were stunned to find that the starburst galaxy is churning out matter with the mass equivalent of 2,900 suns every year.

“It forms stars at a rate more than 2,000 times that of our own Milky Way, and close to the limit where it can stay stable in light of the intense, plentiful, high-energy radiation emitted by the many newly formed young stars,” Riechers added.

How Mars and Jupiter Formed from Space Rock Crashes

The violent space rock collisions that gave birth to Mars appear to be surprisingly different from those thought to form the rocky core of Jupiter, scientists say.

Image: An artist rendition of the interior of Mars. A new study suggests Mars formed from the collision of smaller space rocks than those that created the rocky core of Jupiter. Image added April 30, 2013. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The difference comes from variations in the disc of dust, ice and other particles that swirled around the sun in the early years of the solar system.

Researchers said there was a “gradient” in the size of planetesimals — an early stage of planet formation — that orbited the young sun. Planets that were further away from the sun were more likely to grow larger than worlds closer in, they added.

“This difference can be explained by the snow line,” said Hiroshi Kobayashi, a researcher at Nagoya University in Japan, referring to the zone in the solar system where it was cold enough for icy compounds to condense 4.5 billion years ago.

“If we consider terrestrial planets, this is close to the sun, this means the temperature was very high, and the main component of the solid was rock, or something like that,” Kobayashi added. “But if we consider the outer disc — in this case, the main component is ice — it probably was ice planetesimals [that formed Jupiter].”

Open Your Mind to the New Psychedelic Science

‘The illegality of these drugs … is one of the greatest scandals in modern research’

Greg Miller over WiredScience writes an enticing piece on the development of psychedelic drug usage not just as a recreational activity but also for psychological health benefits. I picked out my favorite excerpts from the article but I recommend going over and reading the whole thing:

“Now that we’ve been able to start getting some evidence on the benefits, it changes people’s calculus,” said Rick Doblin, the founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), one of the meeting’s sponsors.

Doblin and MAPS have been battling regulators since the mid-80s to allow research and clinical trials with psychedelics. The recent revival of psychedelic science may be one sign their efforts are finally paying off.

Public attitudes towards illegal drugs in general may be shifting. A recent Pew Research Center survey, for example, found for the first time that more than half of Americans think marijuana should be legal. Baby boomers in particular, who may have hidden their stash while raising kids, seem to be loosening up in their old age, the survey found.

The interest in psychedelics may also have something to do with a growing sense of frustration over the lack of promising new psychiatric drugs in the pipeline. Many of the current drugs are based on compounds discovered serendipitously in the 1950s, and true innovation has been so hard to come by that many companies are giving up.

Meanwhile, people have been using hallucinogens for centuries, often in religious healing ceremonies, and yes, sometimes just for the hell of it. But just because they’re party drugs for some doesn’t mean they can’t be the subject of serious scientific inquiry. Or does it? After all, it didn’t end so well the first time around.

From its inception in 2010, the Psychedelic Science meeting has brought together an interesting mix of people. A record 1,800 of them attended this year. The prevalence of ponytails, nose rings and hemp accessories is predictably higher than at a typical science conference. There was also a tea lounge, a psychedelic art gallery, and a quiet room for anyone in need of riding out a rough trip.

“Absolutely some scientists would see the rainbow colors on the logo and the psychedelic art exhibits and say ‘that’s not real science,’” said Brad Burge, the communication director for MAPS. At the same time, some of the more mystically inclined devotees of psychedelics are averse to the scientific dissection of what they see as a sacred experience, Burge says. The conference isn’t for the folks at those ends of the spectrum.

Burge acknowledges there’s a tricky balancing act involved in hosting a forum for scientists who want their work to be taken seriously without excluding those who use psychedelic drugs recreationally. Even so, “we’re trying to get around the idea that there has to be a separation,” he said.

After all, this latter group helps fund much of the research through their donations to MAPS and other private organizations like the Heffter Research Institute and Beckley Foundation. Government funders like the National Institutes of Health are still skittish about psychedelic research.

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Dráulio Barros de Araújo, a neuroscientist at the Brain Institute at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil, presented new findings from an fMRI brain scan study with 10 experienced ayahuasca users, followers of Santo Daime, a spiritual practice that uses the brew.

Araújo’s team found that ayahuasca reduces neural activity in something called the default mode network, an web of interconnected brain regions that fire up whenever people aren’t focused on any specific task. It’s active when people daydream or let their minds wander, for example.

The default mode network has been a hot topic in neuroscience in recent years. Scientists don’t really know what it does, but they love to speculate. One interpretation is that activity in this network may represent what we experience as our internal monologue and may help generate our sense of self.

Full Article

Hubble Telescope Snaps Stunning Nebula Photo for 23rd Birthday

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has snapped a spectacular new image of an iconic nebula to celebrate its 23 years of peering deep into the heavens.

Image: This new Hubble image, captured and released to celebrate the telescope’s 23rd year in orbit, shows part of the sky in the constellation of Orion (The Hunter). Rising like a giant seahorse from turbulent waves of dust and gas is the Horsehead Nebula, otherwise known as Barnard 33. Image released April 19, 2013. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)

The Hubble observatory, which launched on April 24, 1990, captured the Horsehead Nebula in infrared light, peering through obscuring veils of dust to reveal the object’s hidden features.

“The result is a rather ethereal and fragile-looking structure, made of delicate folds of gas — very different to the nebula’s appearance in visible light,” mission officials wrote in an image description today (April 19). The new observations allowed astronomers to create a dazzling video of the Horsehead Nebula based on Hubble’s photos.

Continue..

Neil deGrasse Tyson Connects with Rapper The GZA

Have you seen the episode of StarTalk on the Nerdist Channel where Neil interviews GZA from the Wu-Tang Clan? If not, you can watch it below.

In case you didn’t know it, Neil is not a Hip Hop fan. No, Neil is into the Blues, in a big way. And so he didn’t know much about GZA going into the interview. I watched as our producer and a Hip Hop aficionado (who also happened to be a postdoctoral researcher in physics at MIT) briefed Neil on “The Genius.”

Then GZA came in to the studio, and I watched him and Neil get to know each other. On paper, the two don’t appear to have much in common, and at the start of the afternoon, it wasn’t certain that they’d end up that way, either.

But then they got into the studio and the interview began. Slowly, GZA got comfortable with Neil, and they started to connect. And it turns out that they both have one very powerful thing in common: the universe is their muse.

Listening to two people who have influence over others – who inspire those they touch to learn, to explore, to question – who are so very different in some ways, watching them come to understand and respect each other was a powerful experience, and I think it comes across in the video. I know everyone in the studio felt it that day.

At one point Neil asks GZA how science factors into his creativity and what scientific idea is most intriguing. And GZA answers, “How everything is connected.”

Clearly, one of the things that connects Neil and GZA is their love and awe for science. But there is something else that connects them, something that GZA puts best in the interview:

“That’s one of the unique things about being an artist. That you have a voice that people hear and listen to, so it’s important to say something that’s important.”

Interview Can Be Found Here

SN 1006: New X-Ray View of A Thousand-Year-Old Cosmic Tapestry

Over a millenia ago Earth witnessed an explosion in the heavens, that explosion was later discovered to be a supernova. Now, new data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory adds to the awesome factor of SN 1006 and supernovae like it, which provides new details about the remains of this exploded star. As noted in Chandra’s official site:

“The Chandra data provides the best map to date of the debris field including information on important elements expanding into space.”

A new image of SN 1006 from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory reveals this supernova remnant in exquisite detail. By overlapping ten different pointings of Chandra’s field-of-view, astronomers have stitched together a cosmic tapestry of the debris field that was created when a white dwarf star exploded, sending its material hurtling into space. In this new Chandra image, low, medium, and higher-energy X-rays are colored red, green, and blue respectively.

The Chandra image provides new insight into the nature of SN1006, which is the remnant of a so-called Type Ia supernova . This class of supernova is caused when a white dwarf pulls too much mass from a companion star and explodes, or when two white dwarfs merge and explode. Understanding Type Ia supernovas is especially important because astronomers use observations of these explosions in distant galaxies as mileposts to mark the expansion of the Universe.

Further Details on The Newly Discovered Data

Kepler-62 Has Two Water Worlds Circling in its Habitable Zone

NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has discovered two planets that are the most similar in size to Earth ever found in a star’s habitable zone — the temperate region where water could exist as a liquid.

The finding, reported online today in Science1, demonstrates that Kepler is closing in on its goal of finding a true twin of Earth beyond the Solar System, says theorist Dimitar Sasselov of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who is a member of the Kepler discovery team.

Both planets orbit the star Kepler-62, which is about two-thirds the size of the Sun and lies about 1,200 light years (368 parsecs) from the Solar System. The outermost planet from the star, Kepler-62f, has a diameter that is 41% larger than Earth’s and takes 267 days to circle its star. The inner planet, Kepler-62e, has a diameter 61% larger than Earth’s and a shorter orbit of 122 days.

Kepler detected the planets by recording the tiny decrease in starlight that occurs when either of them passes in front of their parent star. Astronomers used those measurements to calculate the planets’ relative size compared to that star.

Continue: Worlds Apart

Sex in Space Could Be Out of this World … Or Not

Getting busy might sound like a good way to pass the time on long space journeys, but it may not be the best idea, experts say.

If humans attempt to push the boundaries of exploration, space-based procreation will be an essential part of keeping a crew alive for the lifetime of a mission to a distant star. However, scientists don’t know how safe sex in space and childbirth may be.

NASA officials have long maintained that there has never been any hanky-panky between the space agency’s astronauts on the International Space Station or during space shuttle missions, which ended in 2011.

In light of the nonprofit Inspiration Mars Foundation’s recent plan to send a married couple on a 501-day manned mission around Mars in 2018, however, the first documented case of human sex in space might be on the horizon.

“Well, I’m sure that the couple chosen for the Inspiration Mars plan will have sex in space,” Laura Woodmansee, author of the book “Sex in Space,” told SPACE.com in an email. “No doubt there! I think that’s kind of an unwritten requirement. That’s why, I suppose, the foundation is planning to send a married couple.”

But doing the deed in microgravity might be a tall order.

“Sex is very difficult in zero gravity, apparently, because you have no traction and you keep bumping against the walls,” biologist Athena Andreadis of the University of Massachusetts Medical School told SPACE.com in 2011. “Think about it: you have no friction, you have no resistance.”

Continue to Full Article: Dangers of childbirth in space