2011 December 31 - Comet Lovejoy and the ISS. Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2011 December 31 Comet Lovejoy and the ISS Image Credit: Left - Carlos Caccia, (Intendente Alvear, Argentina) / Right - Dan Burbank (ISS Expedition 30, NASA) Explanation: On December 24, Comet Lovejoy rose in dawn's twilight, arcing above the eastern horizon, its tails swept back by the solar wind and sunlight. Seen on the left is the comet's early morning appearance alongside the southern Milky Way from the town of Intendente Alvear, La Pampa province, Argentina. Tomorrow's picture: a new year's resolution Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important NoticesA service of:ASD at NASA / GSFC& Michigan Tech.
Canadian university's AIDS vaccine wins approval | Canada. LONDON, ONT. - Canadian researchers have been given a green light to test a vaccine for HIV/AIDS on humans. The approval from the Food and Drug Administration will lead to further tests that, if successful, could see a vaccine on the market in about five years, researchers from the University of Western Ontario said in announcing the milestone Tuesday morning at the campus in London. Ont. The vaccine is the first based on a genetically modified, killed whole virus, following a line of research that successfully produced vaccines for polio, rabies and hepatitis A. It is the only HIV vaccine currently under development in Canada, and one of only a few in the world, said the researchers. Dr. Chil-Yong Kang and a team at the university, funded by pharmaceutical venture company Sumagen Canada, said approval by the American agency was crucial because its strict standards are generally regarded as a world standard.
A clinical trial on 40 HIV-positive volunteers will begin next month. World’s Smallest Steam Engine Is Size of Fog Droplet | Wired Science. Engineers have made a tiny engine a few micrometers wide, or roughly the size of a water droplet found in fog. The device is both confined and powered by a “trap” of laser light, and it sputters a bit. The fact that it works at all, however, may push the boundary of what’s possible in engineering microscopic machines. “The machine is so small that its motion is hindered by microscopic processes which are of no consequence in the macroworld,” said physicist Clemens Bechinger of the University of Stuttgart in a press release. A study about the microscopic Stirling engine was published Dec. 11 in Nature Physics. The microengine doesn’t use parts found in traditional Stirling engines, which are super-efficient devices pioneered in 1816 by the Scottish clergyman Robert Stirling.
The new device is a tiny bead of melamine plastic, a material found in everything from counter tops to guitars, and it’s 10,000 times larger than an atom (yet still light enough to float on water). Grudgingly, Virologists Agree to Redact Details in Sensitive Flu Papers. Two groups of scientists who carried out highly controversial studies with the avian influenza virus H5N1 have reluctantly agreed to strike certain details from manuscripts describing their work after having been asked to do so by a U.S. biosecurity council.
The as-yet unpublished papers, which are under review at Nature and Science, will be changed to minimize the risks that they could be misused by would-be bioterrorists. But the stricken details may still be made available to influenza scientists who have a legitimate interest in knowing them under a new system the journals and U.S. government officials have been actively debating for some time. The two papers have both been reviewed at length by the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSSAB), and both have been the subject of intense global media attention the past 2 months.
This morning, the U.S. H5N1 is primarily a bird virus; humans can become infected but they rarely pass the illness on. Should we terraform Mars? As we continue to explore farther out into our solar system and beyond, the question of habitation or colonization inevitably comes up. Manned bases on the Moon or Mars for example, have long been a dream of many. There is a natural desire to explore as far as we can go, and also to extend humanity’s presence on a permanent or at least semi-permanent basis. In order to do this, however, it is necessary to adapt to different extreme environments. On the Moon for example, a colony must be self-sustaining and protect its inhabitants from the airless, harsh environment outside.
Mars, though, is different. One of the main issues is whether Mars has any indigenous life or not – how does this affect the question of colonization or terraforming? If Mars does have any kind of biosphere, it should be preserved as much as possible. What if Mars is lifeless? There is also the more current but related problem of contamination. See also this excellent paper by astrobiologist Chris McKay. A Photo-Thermal-Electrical Converter Based On Carbon Nanotubes for Bioelectronic Applications - Miyako - 2011 - Angewandte Chemie International Edition. Patterns of connections reveal brain functions. For more than a decade, neuroscientists have known that many of the cells in a brain region called the fusiform gyrus specialize in recognizing faces. However, those cells don’t act alone: They need to communicate with several other parts of the brain. By tracing those connections, MIT neuroscientists have now shown that they can accurately predict which parts of the fusiform gyrus are face-selective.
The study, which appeared in the Dec. 25 issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience, is the first to link a brain region’s connectivity with its function. No two people have the exact same fusiform gyrus structure, but using connectivity patterns, the researchers can now accurately predict which parts of an individual’s fusiform gyrus are involved in face recognition. This work goes a step beyond previous studies that have used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to locate the regions that are involved in particular functions.
Making connections.