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Category Archives: Transhuman News

Liftoff of SpaceX CRS-6 – HD – Video

Posted: April 14, 2015 at 9:46 pm


Liftoff of SpaceX CRS-6 - HD
The SpaceX CRS-6 Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying a Dragon spacecraft on the sixth commercial resupply services mission to...

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Nasa launch delta 4 heavy rocket – Video

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Nasa launch delta 4 heavy rocket
Watch carefully as this delta 4 heavy rocket blasts off to supply the international space station.

By: Random Guy Studios

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Space station grocery run stalled by storm clouds

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) SpaceX will have to wait another day to deliver groceries and an espresso maker to the International Space Station.

Fast-approaching storm clouds prevented the unmanned rocket from blasting off Monday afternoon. The company will try again Tuesday afternoon, but more bad weather is forecast. The odds of acceptable conditions are just 50-50.

SpaceX halted the countdown at the 2-minute mark as a menacing storm system moved into the 11-mile keep-out zone surrounding the Falcon rocket. The company had a single second to get off the ground.

"We were in a race, but we didn't quite make it today," a SpaceX launch commentator said.

The SpaceX supply ship holds more than 4,000 pounds of food, experiments and equipment. Italy provided the specially designed espresso machine for Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, who arrived at the space station last November.

The espresso maker was supposed to fly in January, but ended up on backlog following another company's launch explosion last year. That accident left the space station's pantry a little emptier than NASA would prefer. The space agency is trying to get back toa six-month reserve on food.

Once the cargo ship flies, SpaceX will try to land the leftover booster on an ocean barge. It will be the third such landing attempt for the California company led by billionaire Elon Musk. SpaceX aims to reuse the first-stage boosters that are normally thrown away, to make spaceflight more affordable.

Musk said via Twitter on Monday that he was holding the odds of a successful rocket landing at less than 50 percent. On Sunday, one of his top officers put the odds at 75 percent to possibly 80 percent.

The company failed in January on its first effort to fly a first-stage booster to a platform floating off Florida's east coast and land it vertically. The booster's steering system ran out of hydraulic fluid, and the booster hit too hard and fell off in a fiery explosion. Rough seas forced the February attempt to be called off at the last minute. Sea conditions were much better Monday, and the platform was tweaked in the meantime to be more stable.

The platform is dubbed "Just Read the Instructions." It will remain on location in the Atlantic, off Jacksonville.

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SpaceX Dragon capsule successfully launches, but return of booster goes awry

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A successful-landing party will have to wait, but Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) can celebrate the successful launch of its sixth cargo mission to the International Space Station on Tuesday.

The launch, originally scheduled for late Monday afternoon, was scrubbed about three minutes before liftoff as lightning-laced storm clouds closed in on the launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Florida's east coast.

Instead, on Tuesday, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 4:10 p.m., Eastern time, and roughly 11 minutes later, the spent second stage released the Dragon cargo capsule on its journey. Dragon is slated to arrive at the space station Friday morning.

"It was a spectacular launch, and everything looks to be on track" for the capsule's arrival Friday morning, said Dan Hartman, NASA's deputy program manager for the space station, during a postlaunch briefing early Tuesday evening.

But SpaceX's attempt to soft-land the Falcon 9's nearly spent first stage on an autonomous barge some 200 miles off of Cape Canaveral failed. The company is trying to perfect the approach as part of its quest to drive down the high cost of launching payloads to space. The goal: to have a fully reusable rocket.

Everything looked good as the booster descended under its own power, said Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX's vice president for mission assurance. The booster accurately targeted the barge but came down "a little bit too hard," he said.

SpaceX's team will analyze the data to see what went wrong, but Dr. Koenigsmann said he remains optimistic that the team eventually will nail it.

"It's a matter of finding the right parameters. I don't think there's something fundamental" at fault, he said.

Dragon is carrying more than 2.2 tons of cargo to the space station under a $1.6 billion, 12-mission station-resupply contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. A second company, Orbital Sciences Corp., also is under contract for resupply missions. But it is still recovering from a launch explosion last October that destroyed one of its space station-bound rockets and its cargo. It was the company's third out of eight planned resupply missions under a $1.9 billion contract with NASA.

Dragon's cargo includes nearly 1,900 pounds of science experiments and supporting hardware. More than 40 of the experiments are aimed at answering questions about the effects of long-duration stays in space on the human body and on human behavior.

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SpaceX launches cargo to ISS, fails landing attempt

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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket boosted a Dragon cargo ship into orbit Tuesday on a three-day flight to deliver nearly 4,400 pounds of equipment and supplies -- including an espresso machine -- to the International Space Station.

The climb to space was picture perfect, but an attempt to land the rocket's first stage on a barge stationed some 200 miles east of Jacksonville -- a key step in SpaceX founder Elon Musk's drive to lower launch costs -- was not successful. The rocket made it down to the barge, but it tipped over after touchdown.

"Ascent successful. Dragon (cargo ship) enroute to space station," Musk tweeted about 25 minutes after launch. "Rocket landed on droneship, but too hard for survival."

SpaceX tweeted photos showing the booster descending under rocket power just above the deck of the barge with its four landing legs extended. A second photo showed black smoke swirling around the base of the rocket, apparently just before or after touchdown. Musk tweeted: "Looks like Falcon landed fine, but excess lateral velocity caused it to tip over post landing."

Earlier attempts to land on the barge, named "Just Read The Instructions," were not successful due to to stormy weather and problems with stabilizing fins needed to help control the descent. SpaceX fixed the technical issues, but pulling off a successful landing remains an elusive goal.

For his part, Musk has never promised better than 50-50 odds for the initial landing attempts. But in a tweet earlier this week, he said he hopes the company can achieve an 80 percent success rate by the end of the year, after gaining experience through multiple flights.

And in any case, Tuesday's landing try was a strictly secondary objective. The primary goal of the flight was to get the Dragon cargo ship into orbit and safely on its way to the International Space Station. And that part of the mission went off without a hitch.

The first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster descends toward touchdown on an offshore landing barge. Company founder Elon Musk tweeted the rocket landed "too hard for survival."

SpaceX

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Too few minority women breastfeed — can ob/gyns change their minds?

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IMAGE:Breastfeeding Medicine, the official journal of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, is an authoritative, peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary journal published 10 times per year in print and online. The Journal publishes original... view more

Credit: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers

New Rochelle, NY, April 14, 2015--Obstetricians and gynecologists have a unique opportunity to educate and encourage minority women to nurse their infants to help reduce persistent racial and ethnic disparities in breastfeeding. As part of prenatal care, ob/gyns should promote the known health benefits of breastfeeding and help identify potential barriers their minority patients may face, according to an article in Breastfeeding Medicine, the official journal of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Breastfeeding Medicine website until May 14, 2015.

Coauthors Katherine Jones, Michael Power, PhD, John Queenan, and Jay Schulkin, PhD, from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American University, and Georgetown University, Washington, DC, present data from a comprehensive literature review demonstrating lower rates of breastfeeding initiation and continuation for some racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. compared to White women. By understanding the cultural and social factors and the inadequacies of the healthcare system that may affect a minority woman's decision to breastfeed and her attitudes toward nursing, ob/gyns may be better able to help their patients overcome obstacles to nursing.

In the article "Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Breastfeeding," the authors provide information such as what programs and techniques can positively impact these rates and they urge ob/gyns to use these data to support breastfeeding in their clinical practices and in public policy.

"The persistent disparities cast shame on our healthcare system, a system that continues to short change that part of our population that is most in need of the benefits of breastfeeding," says Arthur I. Eidelman, MD, Editor-in-Chief of Breastfeeding Medicine. "Hopefully clinicians will incorporate the information in this article into their daily activities and reverse this negative situation."

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About the Journal

Breastfeeding Medicine, the official journal of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, is an authoritative, peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary journal published 10 times per year in print and online. The Journal publishes original scientific papers, reviews, and case studies on a broad spectrum of topics in lactation medicine. It presents evidence-based research advances and explores the immediate and long-term outcomes of breastfeeding, including the epidemiologic, physiologic, and psychological benefits of breastfeeding. Tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Breastfeeding Medicine website.

About the Publisher

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Too few minority women breastfeed -- can ob/gyns change their minds?

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Africa: Photosynthesis Upgrade Proposed to Raise Crop Yields

Posted: at 9:45 pm

By Edd Gent

Supercomputers and genetic engineering could help boost crops' ability to convert sunlight into energy and tackle looming food shortages, according to a team of researchers.

Photosynthesis is far from its theoretical maximum efficiency, say the authors of a paper in Cell, published on 26 March. They say that supercomputing advances could allow scientists to model every stage in the process and identify bottlenecks in improving plant growth.

But the authors add that far more science spending is needed to increase yields through these sophisticated genetic manipulations, which include refining the photosynthesis process.

"Anything we discover in the lab now won't be in a farmer's field for 20 to 30 years," says lead author Stephen Long, a plant biologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in the United States. "If we discover we have a crisis then, it's already too late."

The paper says that, by 2050, the world is predicted to require 85 per cent more staple food crops than were produced in 2013. It warns that yield gains from last century's Green Revolution are stagnating as traditional approaches to genetic improvement reach biological limits.

Instead, the group says crops such as rice and wheat, which evolved the more common C3 method of photosynthesis, could be upgraded to the more efficient C4 process found in crops such as maize, sorghum and sugar cane.

This could be done by transplanting genes from C4 plants to widen the spectrum of light the receiving plants can process and improve their growth, the scientists say.

Long's lab has demonstrated in a soon-to-be-published paper that inserting genes from cyanobacteria, a type of photosynthetic bacteria, into crop plants can make photosynthesis 30 per cent more efficient. A project backed by the philanthropic Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is now attempting to convert rice from C3 to C4

The paper identifies two steps necessary to achieve these gains. First, techniques that allow researchers to insert genes into targeted parts of the genome must be translated from microbe biotechnology into plant biotechnology. Second, existing partial computer models of crop plants must be combined into a complete simulation.

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Antimalarial tea — from herbal remedy to licensed phytomedicine

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IMAGE:The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine is a monthly peer-reviewed journal published online with Open Access options and in print. The Journal provides observational, clinical, and scientific... view more

Credit: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers

New Rochelle, NY, April 14, 2015--Malaria is a critical health problem in West Africa, where traditional medicine is commonly used alongside modern healthcare practices. An herbal remedy derived from the roots of a weed, which was traditionally used to alleviate malarial symptoms, was combined with leaves and aerial portions from two other plants with antimalarial activity, formulated as a tea, and eventually licensed and sold as an antimalarial phytomedicine. The fascinating story and challenges behind the development of this plant-based treatment are presented in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine website until May 14, 2015.

Dr. Merlin Willcox (University of Oxford, U.K.), Dr. Zphirin Dakuyo (Phytofla, Banfora, Burkina Faso), and coauthors discuss the antimalarial and pharmacological properties of the herbal medication derived from Cochlospermum planchonii (a shrubby weed known as N'Dribala), Phyllanthus amarus, and Cassia alata. The authors provide a unique historical perspective in describing the early evaluation, development, and production of this phytomedicine. They present the ongoing research and challenges in scaling up cultivation and harvesting of the plants and in production of the final product. The article also describes other traditional uses of the medication, such as to treat hepatitis.

###

About the Journal

The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine is a monthly peer-reviewed journal published online with Open Access options and in print. The Journal provides observational, clinical, and scientific reports and commentary intended to help healthcare professionals and scientists evaluate and integrate therapies into patient care protocols and research strategies. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 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 Alternative and Complementary Therapies, Medical Acupuncture, and Journal of Medicinal Food. 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.

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

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The genetics of psychiatric disorders

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While it has long been recognized that genetics -- alongside environmental factors -- play a role in developing psychiatric disorders, the function of individual genes is still largely unknown. But an international, multi-disciplinary team led by Bournemouth University's Dr Kevin McGhee is aiming to uncover just that -- using fruit flies to isolate and examine the genes involved in the development of schizophrenia, with the hope of improving knowledge and treatments for the condition.

"In psychiatric genetics, a lot of time and money has been invested in large, genomewide studies to find the genes that are involved," said Dr McGhee, a Senior Lecturer in Health Sciences at Bournemouth University (BU). "Now, we want to find out what the functions of those genes are. If you can do that, the ultimate impact is that you can then design better treatments." Dr McGhee is the principal investigator of the year-long project, working alongside colleagues from the National University of Ireland, Galway and University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

Students are also playing a part in the Bournemouth University funded project, with a number of dissertation students trained to carry out lab-based examinations of the fruit flies. They will isolate and switch off genes that human data has previously indicated play a role in schizophrenia, before examining the effect on the flies' nerve cells at different life stages.

"If we can prove that it works and can be applied to human psychiatric genetics, then it helps create a cheap and easy functional model that is beneficial to everyone," explained Dr McGhee. "I believe what we find out from these genetic studies will help infer what is going on biologically, and that will ultimately lead to better treatment."

Another strand of the research will help kickstart the use of psychiatric genetic counselling in the UK. Genetic counselling -- where patients and relatives are given advice and support around the probability of developing an inherited disorder -- has long been used to assess the risks around conditions like Down's Syndrome and certain cancers.

A psychiatric genetic counselling workshop -- the first of its kind -- is being held by the research team. It will explore how best to translate the increasing knowledge about the genetics of psychiatric disorders into educational and counselling-based interventions to improve outcomes for patients and their families.

"Genetic counselling will probably expand over the next ten or 20 years and we want to put BU at the forefront, as a UK leader in the field," said Dr McGhee, adding that the workshop has already attracted interest from around the world. "I think people having that education and training to be able to explain and support people through diagnosis will lead to better treatments and help reduce that sense of stigma and guilt around psychiatric disorders."

Open access publishing is another way in which Dr McGhee believes that the wider public can benefit and learn from research projects. "Impact is really important for research and open access really helps to achieve that -- as anyone can see it, whether they are students, doctors, charities, policy makers, whoever," he said. "I think, hopefully, another impact of this work will be to better show where we are with this research, which again goes back to open access -- helping people to see that there are hundreds of markers and hundreds of genes and they each have a very small effect.

"Ultimately, we want to educate the healthcare professionals, policy makers and eventually the public -- the patients and families who suffer from psychiatric diseases -- so that they are better informed."

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Oldest Neanderthal DNA

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File photo - Hyperrealistic face of a neanderthal male is displayed in a cave in the new Neanderthal Museum in the northern Croatian town of Krapina Feb. 25, 2010.(REUTERS/Nikola Solic)

The calcite-encrusted skeleton of an ancient human, still embedded in rock deep inside a cave in Italy, has yielded the oldest Neanderthal DNA ever found.

These molecules, which could be up to 170,000 years old, could one day help yield the most complete picture yet of help paint a more complete picture of Neanderthal life, researchers say.

Although modern humans are the only remaining human lineage, many others once lived on Earth. The closest extinct relatives of modern humans were the Neanderthals, who lived in Europe and Asia until they went extinct about 40,000 years ago. Recent findings revealed that Neanderthals interbred with ancestors of today's Europeans when modern humans began spreading out of Africa 1.5 to 2.1 percent of the DNA of anyone living outside Africa today is Neanderthal in origin. [Image Gallery: Our Closest Human Ancestor]

In 1993, scientists found an extraordinarily intact skeleton of an ancient human amidst the stalactites and stalagmites of the limestone cave of Lamalunga, near Altamura in southern Italy a discovery they said had the potential to reveal new clues about Neanderthals.

"The Altamura man represents the most complete skeleton of a single nonmodern human ever found," study co-author Fabio Di Vincenzo, a paleoanthropologist at Sapienza University of Rome, told Live Science. "Almost all the bony elements are preserved and undamaged."

The Altamura skeleton bears a number of Neanderthal traits, particularly in the face and the back of the skull. However, it also possesses features that usually aren't seen in Neanderthals for instance, its brow ridges were even more massive than those of Neanderthals.These differences made it difficult to tell which human lineage the Altamura man might have belonged to. Moreover, the Altamura skeleton remains partially embedded in rock, making it difficult to analyze.

Now, new research shows that DNA from a piece of the skeleton's right shoulder blade suggests the Altamura fossil was a Neanderthal. The shape of this piece of bone also looks Neanderthal, the researchers said.

In addition, the scientists dated the skeleton to about 130,000 to 170,000 years old. This makes it the oldest Neanderthal from which DNA has ever been extracted. (These bones are not the oldest known Neanderthal fossils the oldest ones ever found are about 200,000 years old. This isn't the oldest DNA ever extracted from a human, either; that accolade goes to 400,000-year-old DNA collected from relatives of Neanderthals.)

The bone is so old that its DNA is too degraded for the researchers to sequence the fossil's genome at least with current technology. However, they noted that next-generation DNA-sequencing technologies might be capable of such a task, which "could provide important results on the Neanderthal genome," study co-author David Caramelli, a molecular anthropologist at the University of Florence in Italy, told Live Science.

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