A spokesperson for Joint Base Charleston told News19 Sunday morning that a group of 12 C-17 cargo jets took off from their base around 7 p.m. Saturday. Courtesy Charleston, SC (WLTX)
Staff Sgt. John Eller conducts pre-flights check on his C-17 Globemaster III Jan. 3 prior to taking off from Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii for a local area training mission. Sgt. Eller is a loadmaster from the 535th Airlift Squadron. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Shane A. Cuomo)
The Breakthrough Junior Challenge is a global science video competition designed to inspire creative thinking about fundamental concepts in the life sciences, physics, and mathematics. In recognition of her winning submission, Hillary Diane Andales receives up to $400,000 in educational prizes, including a scholarship worth up to $250,000, another $50,000 for the science teacher who inspired her, and a state-of-the-art science lab valued at $100,000 designed by and in partnership with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
This was Andales’ second time in the competition, and last year, she was the Top Scorer in the Popular Vote, a segment of the contest that allows the public to vote for their favorites online. As the Top Scorer in the Popular Vote, she won a DNA molecular-biology laboratory as her school recovered from damage by Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. This year, her overall victory in the competition will secure for her school a Fabrication/Physics/Design/Innovation Lab.
More than 11,000 entries from 178 countries were received in the 2017 installment of the global competition, which kicked off on September 1, 2017. The Breakthrough Junior Challenge is funded by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, and Yuri and Julia Milner, through the Breakthrough Prize Foundation, based on a grant from Mark Zuckerberg’s fund at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and a grant from the Milner Global Foundation.
Here is her prize-winning submission, Relativity & The Equivalence of Reference Frames:
BREAKTHROUGH PRIZE – “THE OSCARS OF SCIENCE” – CELEBRATES TOP ACHIEVEMENTS IN PHYSICS, LIFE SCIENCES & MATHEMATICS, AWARDS $22 MILLION IN PRIZES AT GALA TELEVISED CEREMONY IN SILICON VALLEY
An artist concept depicting one of NASA’s twin Voyager spacecraft. Humanity’s farthest and longest-lived spacecraft are celebrating 40 years in August and September 2017.
The Voyager spacecraft were built by JPL, which continues to operate both. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena. California. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more information about the Voyager spacecraft, visit https://www.nasa.gov/voyager and https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov.
If you tried to start a car that’s been sitting in a garage for decades, you might not expect the engine to respond. But a set of thrusters aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft successfully fired up Wednesday after 37 years without use.
Voyager 1, NASA’s farthest and fastest spacecraft, is the only human-made object in interstellar space, the environment between the stars. The spacecraft, which has been flying for 40 years, relies on small devices called thrusters to orient itself so it can communicate with Earth. These thrusters fire in tiny pulses, or “puffs,” lasting mere milliseconds, to subtly rotate the spacecraft so that its antenna points at our planet. Now, the Voyager team is able to use a set of four backup thrusters, dormant since 1980.
“With these thrusters that are still functional after 37 years without use, we will be able to extend the life of the Voyager 1 spacecraft by two to three years,” said Suzanne Dodd, project manager for Voyager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
Since 2014, engineers have noticed that the thrusters Voyager 1 has been using to orient the spacecraft, called “attitude control thrusters,” have been degrading. Over time, the thrusters require more puffs to give off the same amount of energy. At 13 billion miles from Earth, there’s no mechanic shop nearby to get a tune-up.
The Voyager team assembled a group of propulsion experts at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, to study the problem. Chris Jones, Robert Shotwell, Carl Guernsey and Todd Barber analyzed options and predicted how the spacecraft would respond in different scenarios. They agreed on an unusual solution: Try giving the job of orientation to a set of thrusters that had been asleep for 37 years.
“The Voyager flight team dug up decades-old data and examined the software that was coded in an outdated assembler language, to make sure we could safely test the thrusters,” said Jones, chief engineer at JPL.
In the early days of the mission, Voyager 1 flew by Jupiter, Saturn, and important moons of each. To accurately fly by and point the spacecraft’s instruments at a smorgasbord of targets, engineers used “trajectory correction maneuver,” or TCM, thrusters that are identical in size and functionality to the attitude control thrusters, and are located on the back side of the spacecraft. But because Voyager 1’s last planetary encounter was Saturn, the Voyager team hadn’t needed to use the TCM thrusters since November 8, 1980. Back then, the TCM thrusters were used in a more continuous firing mode; they had never been used in the brief bursts necessary to orient the spacecraft.
All of Voyager’s thrusters were developed by Aerojet Rocketdyne. The same kind of thruster, called the MR-103, flew on other NASA spacecraft as well, such as Cassini and Dawn.
On Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2017, Voyager engineers fired up the four TCM thrusters for the first time in 37 years and tested their ability to orient the spacecraft using 10-millisecond pulses. The team waited eagerly as the test results traveled through space, taking 19 hours and 35 minutes to reach an antenna in Goldstone, California, that is part of NASA’s Deep Space Network.
Lo and behold, on Wednesday, Nov. 29, they learnedthe TCM thrusters worked perfectly — and just as well as the attitude control thrusters.
“The Voyager team got more excited each time with each milestone in the thruster test. The mood was one of relief, joy and incredulity after witnessing these well-rested thrusters pick up the baton as if no time had passed at all,” said Barber, a JPL propulsion engineer.
The plan going forward is to switch to the TCM thrusters in January. To make the change, Voyager has to turn on one heater per thruster, which requires power — a limited resource for the aging mission. When there is no longer enough power to operate the heaters, the team will switch back to the attitude control thrusters.
The thruster test went so well, the team will likely do a similar test on the TCM thrusters for Voyager 2, the twin spacecraft of Voyager 1. The attitude control thrusters currently used for Voyager 2 are not yet as degraded as Voyager 1’s, however.
Voyager 2 is also on course to enter interstellar space, likely within the next few years.
The Voyager spacecraft were built by JPL, which continues to operate both. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more information about the Voyager spacecraft, visit:
The Society of Medical Doctors in Malawi is now speaking out publicly to declare the current fear of blood suckers to be a case of “mass hysteria” also known as “shared delusion disorder.”
In a statement, society president Dr. Amos Salimanda Nyaka said: “We are disturbed by the reports of thuggery that has resulted into some health workers being attacked for carrying a stethoscope. Some have had unfortunate incidences of having their vehicles smashed, and in others having their possessions taken off them for being suspected of being blood suckers, and or in pursuit of the non-existent suckers. Some ambulances have also been attacked whilst being used to ferry patients to and or from hospital.”
The society also criticized Malawi President Peter Mutharika and the Malawi media for not fully denouncing the fear of vampires as nonsense and appealing to reason. Mutharika later came out in a more direct statement to the country addressing the rumors as both a hoax and an opportunity to enter homes and rob innocent people.
President Mutharika
Since the panic began in late summer of this year, more than nine people have been killed and more than 100 have been arrested.
THE MONKEY MAN OF NEW DEHLI, 2001
A similar mass hysteria occurred in New Dehli when, in May of 2001, police began receiving inconsistent reports of a clawed entity with glowing red eyes. Some described it as feline-like, while others felt it was a monkey-man. Sometimes it was described wearing a helmet. Folks began to report unexplained bite-like injuries, scratches and bruises, and at least two people died in falls trying to escape the creature. Early on, more than 50 attacks were reported to have occurred in a single night.
Just as in Malawi, the reports in New Dehli began to spread to more and more locations. Also, like Malawi areas affected by blood sucking vampires, most residents were illiterate, superstitious, and often isolated in rural areas with no electric lighting. Also similar to the Malawi situation, there was a belief that rumors were being deliberately created by a foreign source or for a nefarious political motivation. In both cases, the police were severely taxed, forced to patrol areas to control panic as well as make those in genuine fear feel protected.
Two official drawings of Monkey Man were released to the public based on witness accounts.
While at least nine people in Malawi have been killed by mobs on suspicion of being bloodsuckers, in New Dehli an innocent four foot tall man was beaten and delivered to the police. Later, a man driving a van was beaten and suffered multiple broken bones.
At one point, a neighboring village in India reported a wolf-like Bear Man was also attacking citizens. The Bear Man would become invisible if a light were shone upon him.
Patients taking psilocybin to treat depression show reduced symptoms weeks after treatment following a ‘reset’ of their brain activity.
The findings come from a study in which researchers from Imperial College London used psilocybin – the psychoactive compound that occurs naturally in magic mushrooms – to treat a small number of patients with depression in whom conventional treatment had failed.
In a paper, published in the journal Scientific Reports, the researchers describe patient-reported benefits lasting up to five weeks after treatment, and believe the psychedelic compound may effectively reset the activity of key brain circuits known to play a role in depression.
Comparison of images of patients’ brains before and one day after they received the drug treatment revealed changes in brain activity that were associated with marked and lasting reductions in depressive symptoms.
Whole-brain cerebral blood flow maps for baseline versus one-day post-treatment, plus the difference map (cluster-corrected, p < 0.05, n = 16). Correlation chart shows post-Treatment changes in bilateral amygdala CBF versus changes in depressive symptoms (r = 0.59, p = 0.01). One patient failed to completed the scan 2 QIDS-SR16 rating, reducing the sample size to n = 15 for the correlation analysis. In all of the images, the left of the brain is shown on the left. CREDIT: Carhart-Harris, R et al. Scientific Reports 2017.
The authors note that while the initial results of the experimental therapy are exciting, they are limited by the small sample size as well as the absence of a control group – such as a placebo group – to directly contrast with the patients.
Dr Robin Carhart-Harris, Head of Psychedelic Research at Imperial, who led the study, said: “We have shown for the first time clear changes in brain activity in depressed people treated with psilocybin after failing to respond to conventional treatments.
“Several of our patients described feeling ‘reset’ after the treatment and often used computer analogies. For example, one said he felt like his brain had been ‘defragged’ like a computer hard drive, and another said he felt ‘rebooted’. Psilocybin may be giving these individuals the temporary ‘kick start’ they need to break out of their depressive states and these imaging results do tentatively support a ‘reset’ analogy. Similar brain effects to these have been seen with electroconvulsive therapy.”
Over the last decade or so, a number of clinical trials have been conducted into the safety and effectiveness of psychedelics in patients with conditions such as depression and addictions, yielding promising results.
In the recent Imperial trial, the first with psilocybin in depression, 20 patients with treatment-resistant form of the disorder were given two doses of psilocybin (10 mg and 25 mg), with the second dose a week after the first. Nineteen of these underwent initial brain imaging and then a second scan one day after the high dose treatment. Carhart-Harris and team used two main brain imaging methods to measure changes in blood flow and the crosstalk between brain regions, with patients reporting their depressive symptoms through completing clinical questionnaires.
Immediately following treatment with psilocybin, patients reported a decrease in depressive symptoms – corresponding with anecdotal reports of an ‘after-glow’ effect characterised by improvements in mood and stress relief.
Functional MRI imaging revealed reduced blood flow in areas of the brain, including the amygdala, a small, almond-shaped region of the brain known to be involved in processing emotional responses, stress and fear. They also found increased stability in another brain network, previously linked to psilocybin’s immediate effects as well as to depression itself.
These findings provide a new window into what happens in the brains of people after they have ‘come down’ from a psychedelic, where an initial disintegration of brain networks during the drug ‘trip’, is followed by a re-integration afterwards.
Dr Carhart-Harris explained: “Through collecting these imaging data we have been able to provide a window into the after effects of psilocybin treatment in the brains of patients with chronic depression. Based on what we know from various brain imaging studies with psychedelics, as well as taking heed of what people say about their experiences, it may be that psychedelics do indeed ‘reset’ the brain networks associated with depression, effectively enabling them to be lifted from the depressed state.
The authors warn that while the initial findings are encouraging, the research is at an early stage and that patients with depression should not attempt to self-medicate, as the team provided a special therapeutic context for the drug experience and things may go awry if the extensive psychological component of the treatment is neglected. They add that future studies will include more robust designs and currently plan to test psilocybin against a leading antidepressant in a trial set to start early next year.
Professor David Nutt, Edmond J. Safra Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology and director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit in the Division of Brain Sciences, and senior author of the paper, added: “Larger studies are needed to see if this positive effect can be reproduced in more patients. But these initial findings are exciting and provide another treatment avenue to explore.”
The research was supported by the Medical Research Council, the Alex Mosley Charitable Trust and the Safra Foundation.
‘Psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression: fMRI-measured brain mechanisms’ by Carhart-Harris, R, et al. is published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Pictured: Ariel Waldman, Founder of Science Hack Day and author, What’s it Like in Space?
#ScienceHackDay is occurring October 14-15, 2017 in San Francisco. See below for a link to more events worldwide or how to schedule your own.
What is Science Hack Day?
Science Hack Day is a two-day-all-night event where anyone excited about making weird, silly or serious things with science comes together in the same physical space to see what they can prototype within 24 consecutive hours. The mission of Science Hack Day is to get excited and make things with science. Designers, developers, scientists and anyone excited about making things with science are welcome to attend – no experience in science or hacking is necessary, just an insatiable curiosity. The event is entirely free to attend, organized by volunteers, and supported via sponsors.
A typical Science Hack Day, San Francisco in 2013.
People organically form multidisciplinary teams over the course of a weekend: particle physicists team up with designers, marketers join forces with rocket scientists, writers collaborate with molecular biologists, and developers partner with school kids.
Science Hack Day is inherently about mashing up ideas, mediums, industries and people to create sparks for future ideas, collaborations and inspirations from which to launch. To date, there have been over 60 Science Hack Day events across 22 countries around the globe and dozens more are being planned.
What is a hack?
A hack is a quick solution to a problem – maybe not the most elegant solution, but often the cleverest.
Can I organize a Science Hack Day in my city?
Yes! Anyone can create a Science Hack Day in their city – there’s an open set of guidelines for how to get started at http://sciencehackday.org/howto.
What’s the origin of Science Hack Day?
In 2010, Ariel Waldman was frustrated that there was a lot of science data being made open, but that no one was doing anything interesting with it. She put together a panel at SXSW that year to share her frustration with others. Jeremy Keith was sitting in the audience and became so inspired by this problem that he organized the first Science Hack Day later that year in London. Encouraged by what Jeremy had started, Ariel took the torch to make Science Hack Day a global phenomenon. She re-created the event in San Francisco, and published open instructions that anyone could adopt. Ariel continues to instigate events across the globe, supporting people in creating a Science Hack Day in their own city.
Update2/2: #Seismic actvy in non-active zone of interest 2#CTBT: All 3 Events related 2geological stress from Sept3 Man-made main blast! pic.twitter.com/TWTSlOg8Kh
The three factors for protecting oneself from radiation and fallout are distance, shielding and time.
Distance – the more distance between you and the fallout particles, the better. An underground area such as a home or office building basement offers more protection than the first floor of a building.
Shielding – the heavier and denser the materials – thick walls, concrete, bricks, books and earth – between you and the fallout particles, the better.
Time – fallout radiation loses its intensity fairly rapidly. In time, you will be able to leave the fallout shelter. Radioactive fallout poses the greatest threat to people during the first two weeks, by which time it has declined to about 1 percent of its initial radiation level.
Taking shelter during a nuclear blast is absolutely necessary. There are two kinds of shelters:
Blast shelters are specifically constructed to offer some protection against blast pressure, initial radiation, heat and fire. But even a blast shelter cannot withstand a direct hit from a nuclear explosion.
Fallout shelters do not need to be specially constructed for protecting against fallout. They can be any protected space, provided that the walls and roof are thick and dense enough to absorb the radiation given off by fallout particles.
Remember that any protection, however temporary, is better than none at all, and the more shielding, distance and time you can take advantage of, the better.
25 Aug 2010 – “Storax Sedan” underground nuclear test – July 1962 Storax Sedan (yield 104 kt) – shallow underground nuclear test conducted by the United States on 6 July 1962 at Nevada Test Site. The main purpose of the detonation was to asses the non military dimension of a nuclear explosion. Image in the public domain Photo: The Official CTBTO Photostream
Before a Nuclear Blast
The following are things you can do to protect yourself, your family and your property in the event of a nuclear blast.
Build an Emergency Supply Kit
Make a Family Emergency Plan.
Find out from officials if any public buildings in your community have been designated as fallout shelters.
If your community has no designated fallout shelters, make a list of potential shelters near your home, workplace and school, such as basements, subways, tunnels, or the windowless center area of middle floors in a high-rise building.
During periods of heightened threat increase your disaster supplies to be adequate for up to two weeks.
During a Nuclear Blast
The following are guidelines for what to do in the event of a nuclear explosion.
Listen for official information and follow the instructions provided by emergency response personnel.
If an attack warning is issued, take cover as quickly as you can, below ground if possible, and stay there until instructed to do otherwise.
Find the nearest building, preferably built of brick or concrete, and go inside to avoid any radioactive material outside.
If better shelter, such as a multi-story building or basement can be reached within a few minutes, go there immediately.
Go as far below ground as possible or in the center of a tall building.
During the time with the highest radiation levels it is safest to stay inside, sheltered away from the radioactive material outside.
Radiation levels are extremely dangerous after a nuclear detonation but the levels reduce rapidly.
Expect to stay inside for at least 24 hours unless told otherwise by authorities.
When evacuating is in your best interest, you will be instructed to do so. All available methods of communication will be used to provide news and/or instructions.
If you are caught outside and unable to get inside immediately:
Do not look at the flash or fireball – it can blind you.
Take cover behind anything that might offer protection.
Lie flat on the ground and cover your head. If the explosion is some distance away, it could take 30 seconds or more for the blast wave to hit.
Take shelter as soon as you can, even if you are many miles from ground zero where the attack occurred – radioactive fallout can be carried by the winds for hundreds of miles.
If you were outside during or after the blast, get clean as soon as possible, to remove radioactive material that may have settled on your body.
Remove your clothing to keep radioactive material from spreading. Removing the outer layer of clothing can remove up to 90% of radioactive material.
If practical, place your contaminated clothing in a plastic bag and seal or tie the bag. Place the bag as far away as possible from humans and animals so that the radiation it gives off does not affect others.
When possible, take a shower with lots of soap and water to help remove radioactive contamination. Do not scrub or scratch the skin.
Wash your hair with shampoo or soap and water. Do not use conditioner in your hair because it will bind radioactive material to your hair, keeping it from rinsing out easily.
Gently blow your nose and wipe your eyelids and eyelashes with a clean wet cloth. Gently wipe your ears.
If you cannot shower, use a wipe or clean wet cloth to wipe your skin that was not covered by clothing.
After a Nuclear Blast
People in most of the areas that would be affected could be allowed to come out of shelter within a few days and, if necessary, evacuate to unaffected areas. The heaviest fallout would be limited to the area at or downwind from the explosion. It might be necessary for those in the areas with highest radiation levels to shelter for up to a month.
Returning to Your Home
Remember the following when returning home:
Keep listening to the radio and television for news about what to do, where to go and places to avoid.
Stay away from damaged areas. Stay away from areas marked “radiation hazard” or “HAZMAT.”
Launched in February 2003, Ready is a National public service campaign designed to educate and empower the American people to prepare for, respond to and mitigate emergencies, including natural and man-made disasters. The goal of the campaign is to promote preparedness through public involvement.
Harry Price fancied himself to be one of the first scientific paranormal investigators in modern history. Although he had no formal scientific training, he aspired to create a reputation for himself as a debunker of paranormal fraud and hoped to become a legitimate investigator of scientific truth.
Price gained fame by exposing William Hope, spirit photographer extraordinaire, and an account of his investigation titled A CASE OF FRAUD WITH THE CREWE CIRCLE was published in 1922 in the Journal of Society for Psychical Research.
Read Spirit photography: William Hope Cashed in on Grief
But Harry Price walked a fine line between skepticism and belief. He seemed to debunk some, while letting others slide, especially if he could use them to further his own fame. (The case of the “mediumship” of Willi and Rudi Schneider will be discussed in another article).
To this end, Price created a laboratory where paranormal investigation could take place. Originally named the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, it was moved to the University of London and renamed the Council for Psychical Investigation, but was never an official project of the university itself.
The National Laboratory of Psychical Research, London, 1926.
In this 10-minute film, Harry Price reveals tricks of fraudulent mediums, clairvoyants and more. Price gives us a fascinating tour of his laboratory in 1936:
