TOP 10 SCIENCE UPDATE OF PREVIOUS MONTH BY TASA

1.  DARPA's O2 Improved Space Surveillance Network Almost Complete :

 The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) said its program to better track the thousands of pieces of space debris or junk orbiting the planet (and presumably the "dark satellites" and anti-satellite weapons (ASATs) hidden among them) is making considerable progress.  ©TASA
     DARPA's "Orbital Outlook" (O2) program was launched in 2014 to improve the United States Space Surveillance Network (SSN) by adding more data more often from more diverse sources to increase space situational awareness to determine when satellites are at risk from colliding with space junk.  ©TASA
     SSN is a worldwide network of 29 space surveillance sensors (radar and optical telescopes) that observes and catalogs space objects, including 1,200 operational satellites and over 500,000 pieces of man-made space debris orbiting Earth at 17,000 miles per hour.  ©TASA
DARPA recently reported its O2 network now comprises more than 100 sensors around the world, making it the largest space situational network ever assembled. O2 can also completely change how the U.S. military and the global space-debris-monitoring community collect and use space situational awareness data.  ©TASA
     O2 consists of three elements: the inclusion of new telescopes and radar from diverse locations providing diverse data types; a central database for this newly extended network of telescopes and radar and a validation process to ensure the data is accurate. O2 also seeks to demonstrate the ability to rapidly include new instruments to alert for indications and warnings of space events.
O2 will combine government and civilian assets together to improve the space detection system, using optical telescopes and passive radio frequency telescopes from academic institutions and privately owned optical telescopes.  ©TASA
     Another DARPA program, EchoView, will try to develop technology to harness commercial and civilian radar and passive RF telescopes, while the Low Inclined LEO Object detection program will deploy telescopes to Ascension Island in the South Atlantic Ocean for extra coverage of the equatorial orbits.  ©TASA
     "By including new telescopes and radar facilities based in diverse locales, and by revolutionizing how we process different data types, we anticipate vast improvements in our tracking of potentially hazardous objects and our ability to efficiently avoid collisions in space," said Lt. Col. Jeremy Raley, DARPA program manager.  ©TASA
                                                                                             

2.  Giant spacecraft arrives at Jupiter on July 4 :

     NASA's robotic Juno probe is carrying seven science instruments designed to help scientists figure out how Jupiter formed and evolved. The planet is the most massive in our solar system a huge ball of gas 11 times wider than Earth. Researchers think it was the first planet to form and that it holds clues to how the solar system evolved.

  ©TASA     "One of the primary goals of Juno is to learn the recipe for solar systems," Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator, said at a news conference on June 16. "How do you make the solar system? How do you make the planets in our solar system?" Spacecraft have been to Jupiter before, but scientists still are puzzled. What's going on under Jupiter's dense clouds? Does it have a solid core? How much water is in its atmosphere? And how deep are those colorful bands and that mysterious giant red spot? "Jupiter looks a lot like the sun," Bolton said. But it has much more than the sun, and that's really important. "The stuff that Jupiter has more of is what we're all made out of," he said. "It's what the Earth is made out of. It's what life comes from." Juno will help solve the mysteries of Jupiter by looking at its interior. The spacecraft will orbit the poles about 3,000 miles (5,000 kilometers) above the planet's clouds and try to dodge the planet's most hazardous radiation belts. To protect the spacecraft from the radiation, Juno has a shielded electronics vault. Juno also has a color camera and a three LEGO crew members (yes, LEGOs).  ©TASA
     The camera is called JunoCam and NASA says it will take "spectacular close-up, color images" of Jupiter. NASA is asking the public to help decide where to point the camera.
Now, about those LEGO crew members. Three 1.5-inch figurines are onboard Juno. One is a likeness of Galileo Galilei -- the scientist who discovered Jupiter's four largest moons. The other two represent the Roman god Jupiter and his wife Juno. They were included to inspire children to study science and math.Juno's spacecraft body measures 11.5 feet (3.5 meters) tall and 11.5 feet in diameter. But with its three solar panels open, it spans about 66 feet (20 meters). For comparison, an NBA basketball court is 50 feet wide and 94 feet long.  ©TASA

     Jupiter was 445 million miles (716 million kilometers) from Earth when Juno was launched from Cape Canaveral on August 5, 2011. But the probe traveled a total distance of 1,740 million miles (2,800 million kilometers) to reach the gaseous planet, making a flyby of Earth to help pick up speed. You can see Jupiter from Earth without any special binoculars or telescopes. It's the bright star in the evening sky from January through August. If you do have a telescope, you can see its largest moons.The Juno mission ends on February 20, 2018, when Juno will crash into Jupiter.  ©TASA

3.  Indiana science teacher starts Butterfly Project to help students take flight :

     The Butterfly Project took flight when East Allen Alternative School science teacher Jan Hipskind read a newspaper article about the plight of monarch butterflies. Then the idea came to her like a "little flutter of butterfly wings.  ©TASA
     "It made me think, if we could do one little thing, maybe we could get milkweed plants for the monarchs."  ©TASA
     Students in her science class will tell you as the monarch's habitat shrinks, so does the population of monarch butterflies, and the monarch is a pollinator. The only plant in the world out there for the monarch's survival is milkweed, a common enough weed that has been disappearing with the use of herbicides, Hipskind said.  ©TASA
     The monarch is in the process of being named to the endangered species list, Hipskind added.
More than two years ago, an Eagle Scout gave Hipskind a butterfly box to show the class. Butterfly boxes provide a safe place for any butterfly. When her husband, Pat, took a look at them, the concrete contractor offered to put together some kits.  ©TASA
     The project, which just finished its second year, has taught students all sorts of skills besides basic insect biology. Student Maddi Moore, 20, from Woodburn, said before the project she had no idea how important the monarch is. "I just thought a butterfly was a butterfly," Moore said. Students learned to plant, build, take photos, paint and nurture. They went on field trips to the Foellinger-Freimann Botanical Conservatory and purchased larvae through the conservatory. They visited Fox Island where naturalist Jeff Ormiston passed on his enthusiasm for preserving the monarchs, along with some native plants.  ©TASA
     As student Caitlin Lee said, "one butterfly can change everything." It's known as the butterfly effect. And as the class's monarch butterflies went through the stages from egg to adult, students spread their wings just like their butterflies. This year's class of about 15 students built 20 butterfly boxes. On one of their outings, they visited preschool students at New Haven United Methodist Church and helped them paint the boxes. The students read the little ones "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," a well-known children's book written by Eric Carle. Seventeen boxes were donated to the church for adoption by church members and two boxes went home with staff. Student John Newhard who lives in the Leo-Cedarville area took one butterfly box home and installed it next to the family's organic garden.  ©TASA
     Last year, a butterfly box went home with Sandy Theisen-Mitchel, who works at the school and became the one who watered the outside habitat when school was out and filled in wherever she was needed. Many students come to the school discouraged. Regular high school is too much for these kids with troubles, said Hipskind, who retired this year but will come back as a volunteer to continue the project. Newhard went from gaining three credits his first year to 27 the next, a lot of that credited to the butterfly project."We're doing it to help out the butterflies," Newhard said one recent sunny day in June standing outside the school and looking over the wildlife habitat he and others have created with native plants. "We're also doing it to help out ourselves."  ©TASA
_________________________________________________________________________

4.  Top science groups tell climate change doubters in Congress to knock it off :

     More than half of the Republicans in Congress question the science of human-caused climate change, according to the Center for American Progress. The presumptive Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump, has also said he is not “a great believer in man-made climate change.” In a letter dated Tuesday, 31 leading U.S. scientific organizations sent members of Congress a no-nonsense message that human-caused climate change is real, poses risks to society and is backed by overwhelming evidence.  ©TASA

     “Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research concludes that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver,” the letter states. “This conclusion is based on multiple independent lines of evidence and the vast body of peer-reviewed science.”  ©TASA

The effort to draft the letter was spearheaded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), whose leader, Rush Holt — a former member of Congress, vigorously promoted its message. “Climate change is real and happening now, and the United States urgently needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said Holt, who was the U.S. representative for New Jersey’s 12th congressional district from 1999 to 2015. “We must not delay, ignore the evidence, or be fearful of the challenge.”  ©TASA

      The 31 organizations that signed the letter include the American Meteorological Society, the American Chemical Society, the American Public Health Association, the American Geophysical Union, and University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.  ©TASA

5.  Science of Food: The story with soy :

     Our bodies contain millions of proteins. Proteins are made up of long chains of amino acids and we all have a unique set of proteins derived from our DNA. In addition to their structural role building muscle mass and connective tissue, proteins are responsible for carrying out nearly all the functions in our body, from transporting oxygen to regulating cell division to mediating the immune response. Like tiny molecular machines, they receive specific “signals” that can either turn on or turn off its given function.  ©TASA

      To understand how this works, think of a lock and a key. Only a specific key can unlock a door because the key has the right shape to fit into the lock. Proteins work by a similar mechanism, each with a specific three-dimensional shape. When the right key comes by, it fits into the protein’s lock and can open the door to either activate or deactivate its function.  ©TASA 

There are literally thousands of unique so-called “phytoestrogens” (the word “phyto” is derived from the Greek word for plant) found in over 300 different foods that have a similar shape to natural estrogen and fit into the lock of the protein. The estrogenic activity of most phytoestrogens is usually inherently lower than estrogen itself and the diverse range of compounds (e.g. lignans, isoflavones, and coumestans) are typically found in small doses in whole foods.  ©TASA

     However, some foods like soybeans and flaxseed have relatively high concentrations of phytoestrogens and there is currently some controversy around the ability of these estrogen-like molecules to influence cancer progression. The single isoflavone compound genistein present in soy is perhaps one of the most widely studied phytoestrogens. When examined in the laboratory or the clinic, genistein acts similarly to the drug tamoxifen, effectively turning off estrogen receptor activity and shutting down cell growth. In addition, epidemiological studies examining Japanese people with a diet rich in soy show a low incidence of hormone-dependent cancers, suggesting soy’s protective role.  ©TASA

      There are too many phytoestrogens with such different and interdependent physiological behaviors to tease out the activity of each one individually. Most of the evidence shows that soy and phytoestrogens in general are beneficial. Perhaps the conflicting conclusions on soy’s role in cancer are due to the fact that man-made soy products such as soy lecithin, soybean oil, soy protein powder and genetically-modified soy are present in so many modern foods and those concentrated and modified forms of soy may interact with the estrogen receptor differently than whole soybeans. Soy isoflavone supplements have also become widely available due to its known estrogenic activity. I would suggest eliminating those synthetic sources of soy, especially those with existing breast cancer.

Isn’t it interesting that plants contain natural substances that look just like the human hormone estrogen? Any substance that we consume has the potential to act as a key to unlock proteins. The soy story represents just one example of how food can react in the body to modulate biological function via this lock and key mechanism. Imagine what the other foods you are eating can do!   ©TASA

6.  Do we really become more bigoted with age? Science suggests yes :

      Young people in the United Kingdom were shocked and dismayed when the Brexit vote came in last week. The youth — by a large margin — supported remaining in the European Union. Many of their parents and grandparents did not. “Brexit is a middle finger from the baby boomers to young people like me,” wrote Jack Lennard, a UK graduate student, in an essay for Vox. “Despite young people having to live with the decision of the referendum for an average of 69 years, it has been decided for them by people who will only have to live with it for an average of 16 years.”  ©TASA

     The reasons UK voters decided to leave are complicated. Polling results suggest they were motivated by a combination of nationalist sentiment, a desire for self-determination, and anxiety about immigration, and some might have been aided by misinformation from politicians.  ©TASA

     But perhaps Lennard and his generation could one day be more inclined to make a vote similar to the Brexit. Social science tells us that older people tend to be more conservative than the young.

Indeed, Brexit raises a big — and disturbing — question: Are we all destined to become more prejudiced, cantankerous shadows of our former selves one day?  ©TASA

7.  Science and guitars: An odd couple that works for Bucks County teachers :

    It's a challenge to educators everywhere: How to make science, technology, engineering and mathematics interesting to students.  ©TASA      One possible solution? Build guitars.       For the past week, Pennsbury High School hosted the National STEM Guitar Project. This National Science Foundation-funded program teaches educators alternative ways to spark student interest in hard sciences. Fifteen high and middle school teachers spent their mornings in workshops on teaching theory and techniques. They moved to the school's wood shop in the afternoons and learned to build electric guitars.   ©TASA
     "They said at the beginning that this week would change our lives and it really has," said Kristian Randt, 31, a pre-engineering and STEM teacher at Cecilia Snyder Middle School in Bensalem. "Since Monday morning, all I've been thinking about is guitars."  ©TASA
     Randt especially liked the potential for experiential learning in the classroom. He hopes to get his students using their hands: working with tools, magnets and electric currents. 
    The STEM Guitar Project is the brainchild of Mark French, a professor of mechanical engineering technology at Purdue University; he started the program as an attempt to instruct teachers how to reach students who need more convincing.   ©TASA

8. Research opportunities abound for Drury science students :

     “My specific project is looking at burial depth of the carcass and different gene expressions and reproductive trade offs in the beetles that may differ in shallow burials versus deep burials,” says Brinck. “The general idea is correlating genetics with a variable of the burying behavior.” The size and scope of the lab setting is much different than at Drury, Brinck says, but the fundamentals of research are the same. She says Drury prepared her well for the work she is doing this summer through REU. She’s been conducting research of some kind since her freshman year, mainly focusing on genetics.  ©TASA

     “Drury is a place where almost anything you want to do is possible,” she says. “It’s a network of truly supportive peers, professors and other faculty and staff, so if you want to do a specific type of research, it can happen.” When comparing her experience to other undergrads participating in REU projects, and even graduate students earning their Ph.D. at UGA, it’s clear to Brinck that she’s had more opportunities for meaningful research than many of her peers. “They came from larger schools where you have to be an upperclassman to be considered for research or you have to know the right people in order to get into a lab group,” she says. “Since I have had a lot of research experience, I already have a basic research skill set that is extremely valuable.” ©TASA

     In addition to research skills, one of the underlying values Drury’s science faculty has taught Brinck is curiosity. “A lot of research is very tedious, so the desire to solve the questions puzzling you is a necessity to be successful,” she says. “The liberal arts experience has definitely given me the cognitive capabilities to be able to ask the right questions and to further my research curiosity. Every professor I have ever had at Drury has not only encouraged me to be curious, but have also been great examples of curious people themselves.” ©TASA

     Brinck wants to pursue a Ph.D. in genetics and will be applying to graduate schools this coming year as she completes her studies at Drury. ©TASA

9.  Understanding The Human Brain With €1.2 Billion Human Brain Project (HBP) :

      The Human Brain Project (HBP) is a €1.2 billion worth that aims to research in the fields of neuroscience,computing and brain-related medicine. It comprises of 130 research institutions in Europe and coordinated through the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. It also advocates collaboration around the world.  ©TASA

      The Neuroscience subprojects include brain organization and theory to maintain the building of more and more sophisticated models and simulations. It also involves related work in brain-like computing and robotics and laying the foundations for simulation of the much larger and more complex human brain.  ©TASA

      The Human Brain Project (HBP) also provides the solution for experimental mapping of the brain, which turned out to be a dead end. It takes 20,000 experiments to map just one neural circuit and human brain comprises of 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses. HBP resolve this by building the first human brain model. These involve neuromorphic computing systems which use the similar basic principles of cognitive architectures and computation of the brain.  ©TASA

      They would identify the basic principles of how neurons are connected and utilize those principles to build statistical simulations. This simulation model will foresee how the particular parts of the brain are wired. The concept is to look for underlying principle that governs reverse-engineer the human brain and the brain's morphology with the help of supercomputers.  ©TASA

     Other plans of HBP are discussed by Henry Markram, a neuroscientist, and co-director of HBP. Markram wants to amalgamate the brain simulation with a medical informatics platform. With this, the available clinical data on mental diseases from public hospitals and pharmaceutical companies would be incorporated in the simulation model.   ©TASA

10.   5-Year-Old Scientist Debuts His Science Show With A Tornado In A Jar :

      This little boy is an Einstein in the making. 5-year-old Oliver opened his new science show, “Oliver’s Science Lab,” by creating a mini tornado in a jar and then sharing some cool facts about the twisters.  ©TASA
     The first episode of the show is called “Tornado in a Jar” and little Oliver advises his fans to have “adult supervision to help” before starting his experiment. Turns out, all you need to make your own little DIY tornado are a few common household items.  ©TASA
      Oliver mixes in a teaspoon of vinegar and dish soap (and some food coloring so the viewers could easily see the tornado forming) with water to make a very realistic, diminutive tornado.
However, Oliver explains that’s not how real twisters are formed.  ©TASA
      “So tornadoes form if warm rising air, cold air, mix together forming a funnel” says Oliver, illustrating his lesson with the tornado funnel he made.  ©TASA

GIVE US YOUR FEED BACK CLICK HERE

-:  © 2016 - TASA :-