Science and Technology

Dione on a Diagonal

2012-02-02T16:26:00.000-08:00

Saturn and Dione appear askew in this Cassini spacecraft view, with the north poles rotated to the right, as if they were threaded along on the thin diagonal line of the planet's rings.

This view looks toward the anti-Saturn side of Dione (698 miles, or 1,123 kilometers across). North on Dione is up and rotated 20 degrees to the right. This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from less than one degree above the ring plane.

The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Dec. 12, 2011. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 35,000 miles (57,000 kilometers) from Dione and at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 41 degrees.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

National Museum USAF Displays Formerly Classified Reconnaissance Satellites

2012-02-02T16:24:00.000-08:00

By Rob Bardua, National Museum of the U.S. Air Force

DAYTON, Ohio (AFNS) — Military, government and industry officials gathered Jan. 26 to officially place three formerly classified reconnaissance satellites on public display in the Cold War Gallery at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force here.

The three satellites — Gambit 1 KH-7, Gambit 3 KH-8 and Hexagon KH-9 — were among the most important U.S. photo reconnaissance systems used from the 1960s to the 1980s, and played a critical role in winning the Cold War and maintaining U.S. national security, officials said.

Passing in space high over their targets, these satellites used specially-designed film and cameras to take photos in orbit. The satellites were unmanned and unlikely to be shot down, and therefore minimized risks to military personnel while still obtaining information about areas of the world that the U.S. could not access.

Led by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the Department of Defense, U.S. Air Force, Central Intelligence Agency and industry partners worked together to create these amazingly complex and capable satellites, officials said.

According to retired Air Force Gen. Bruce Carlson, the NRO director, NRO reconnaissance systems — from planes to satellites such as Gambit and Hexagon — have been and continue to be the foundation for global situational awareness in protection of our nation.

“Last year the NRO celebrated its 50th anniversary, and we announced the declassification of two NRO systems, Gambit and Hexagon, which were America’s eyes in space and the most sophisticated satellites of their time,” Carlson said. “These systems were critical for monitoring key targets in the USSR and around the globe and provided much-needed cartographic information to the DOD to produce accurate, large-scale maps.”

Gambit 1 satellites were the first American high-resolution space reconnaissance systems. This first generation of Gambit vehicle flew from 1963-1967. Gambit 1 added important new close-up capability to wide-search satellites already in use and were the first satellites to feature stereo high resolution cameras.

Gambit 3 satellites improved upon the Gambit 1 by providing much better image resolution in tracking adversaries’ weapons development. Gambit 3 was a long-lived system and completed 54 missions from 1966-1984. The most notable advancement from Gambit 1 to Gambit 3 was the addition of a “roll joint” between the camera module and the Agena control vehicle in the rear. This rolling joint made the satellite extremely stable as a photo platform, conserved film and increased the number of targets photographed. In addition, new super-thin photographic film allowed the vehicle to carry more film.

Hexagon satellites were the largest and last U.S. intelligence satellites to return photographic film to earth. Hexagon provided vital intelligence and mapping photos from space that allowed U.S. planners to counter Cold War threats. Between 1971 and 1984, 19 Hexagon missions imaged 877 million square miles of the earth’s surface. Objects smaller than two feet across could be imaged from around 80-100 miles altitude. Analysts could search broad and wide areas for threats with Hexagon and then focus in on suspect areas with surveillance from Gambit satellites.

Both Gambit and Hexagon systems returned exposed film to earth in re-entry vehicles or “buckets” that separated from the satellite, fell through the atmosphere, and descended by parachute. Air Force aircraft were assigned to pluck the buckets from the sky at around 15,000 feet.

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Jack Hudson, the director of the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, said the three satellites are a great addition for the Air Force’s national museum because the Air Force played a key role in space reconnaissance from the beginning.

“Gambit 1, Gambit 3 and Hexagon satellites are significant and rare artifacts, which will enable us to better present the story of Air Force operations in space,” Hudson said. “The Air Force has provided launch, tracking, control and range safety services for reconnaissance satellites throughout the entire Cold War, and it continues these activities today.”

To commemorate the event, Hudson presented Carlson with a painting of the Hexagon satellite by nationally recognized artist and Dayton, Ohio, resident Dr. Richard Black, which was commissioned by the Air Force Museum Foundation.

Eventually, the satellites will be placed in the museum’s planned fourth building, which will house the Space Gallery, Presidential Aircraft Gallery and Global Reach Gallery.

The National Museum of the United States Air Force is located on Springfield Street, six miles northeast of downtown Dayton. It is open seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day). Admission and parking are free. For more information about the museum, visit www.nationalmuseum.af.mil.

This article first appeared on AF.mil.

East Coast Students to Speak Live With Space Station Commander

2012-02-02T15:56:00.000-08:00

Ann Marie Trotta
Headquarters, Washington

Rachel Kraft

Johnson Space Center, Houston

WASHINGTON -- Students participating in a U.S. Coast Guard Academy mentoring program will speak with Expedition 30 Commander Dan Burbank aboard the International Space Station at 11:15 EST on Thursday, Feb. 2.

Burbank, a NASA astronaut and retired Coast Guard captain, will talk to kindergarten through 12th-grade students about life on the space station. The event, hosted by the academy, will be broadcast live on NASA Television and include video of Burbank in the live question-and-answer session.

The mentored students, accompanied by their Coast Guard cadet mentors, will participate from five schools across the Eastern seaboard, including Science and Technology Magnet High School of Southeastern Connecticut in New London, Conn.; The Friendship Academy of Engineering and Technology in Baltimore; Coretta Scott King Young Women’s Leadership Academy High School in Atlanta; Key Biscayne K-8 Center in Miami; and Maritime and Science Academy, also in Miami. Through the guidance of their mentors, students are learning about space and preparing for this interactive event.

Burbank and Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin arrived at the station Nov. 15. NASA’s Don Pettit, cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers joined the crew on Dec. 23.

This in-flight education downlink is one in a series with educational organizations in the United States and abroad to improve STEM teaching and learning. It is an integral component of NASA's Teaching From Space education program, which promotes learning opportunities and builds partnerships with the education community using the unique environment of space and NASA's human spaceflight program.

The exact time of the downlink could change. For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

For information about NASA's education programs, visit http://www.nasa.gov/education.

For information about the International Space Station, visit http://www.nasa.gov/station.

To follow Twitter updates from Burbank, visit http://twitter.com/AstroCoastie.

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NASA Spacecraft Returns First Video from Far Side of The Moon

2012-02-02T15:52:00.001-08:00

Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington

DC Agle

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Caroline McCall

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge

Whitney Lawrence Mullen

Sally Ride Science, San Diego

WASHINGTON -- A camera aboard one of NASA's twin Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) lunar spacecraft has returned its first unique view of the far side of the moon. MoonKAM, or Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students, will be used by students nationwide to select lunar images for study.

GRAIL consists of two identical spacecraft, recently named Ebb and Flow, each of which is equipped with a MoonKAM. The images were taken as part of a test of Ebb's MoonKAM on Jan. 19. The GRAIL project plans to test the MoonKAM aboard Flow at a later date.

To view the 30-second video clip, visit http://go.nasa.gov/zZXAPs.

In the video, the north pole of the moon is visible at the top of the screen as the spacecraft flies toward the lunar south pole. One of the first prominent geological features seen on the lower third of the moon is the Mare Orientale, a 560 mile-wide (900 kilometer) impact basin that straddles both the moon's near and far side.

The clip ends with rugged terrain just short of the lunar south pole. To the left of center, near the bottom of the screen, is the 93 mile-wide (149 kilometer) Drygalski crater with a distinctive star-shaped formation in the middle. The formation is a central peak, created many billions of years ago by a comet or asteroid impact.

"The quality of the video is excellent and should energize our MoonKAM students as they prepare to explore the moon," said Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

The twin spacecraft successfully achieved lunar orbit last New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Previously named GRAIL-A and -B, the washing machine-sized spacecraft received their new names from fourth graders at the Emily Dickinson Elementary School in Bozeman, Mont., following a nationwide student-naming contest.

Thousands of fourth- to eighth-grade students will select target areas on the lunar surface and send requests to the GRAIL MoonKAM Mission Operations Center in San Diego. Photos of the target areas will be sent back by the satellites for students to study. The MoonKAM program is led by Sally Ride, America's first woman in space. Her team at Sally Ride Science and undergraduate students at the University of California in San Diego will engage middle schools across the country in the GRAIL mission and lunar exploration. GRAIL is NASA's first planetary mission carrying instruments fully dedicated to education and public outreach.

"We have had great response from schools around the country, more than 2,500 signed up to participate so far," Ride said. "In mid-March, the first pictures of the moon will be taken by students using MoonKAM. I expect this will excite many students about possible careers in science and engineering."

Launched in September 2011, Ebb and Flow periodically perform trajectory correction maneuvers that, over time, will lower their orbits to near-circular ones with an altitude of about 34 miles (55 kilometers). During their science mission, the duo will answer longstanding questions about the moon and give scientists a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the GRAIL mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The GRAIL mission is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft.

For more information about GRAIL, visit http://www.nasa.gov/grail.

Information about MoonKAM is available at https://moonkam.ucsd.edu/.

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NASA Receives Final NRC Report On Space Technology Roadmaps

2012-02-02T15:08:00.000-08:00

David E. Steitz
Headquarters, Washington

WASHINGTON -- NASA has received the National Research Council (NRC) report "NASA Space Technology Roadmaps and Priorities," which provides the agency with findings and recommendations on where best to invest in technologies needed to enable NASA's future missions in space. The NRC report will help define NASA's technology development priorities in the years to come.

One year ago, NASA provided 14 draft space technology area roadmaps to the NRC and asked the council to examine and prioritize technologies for the agency. The technologies were prioritized in each of the 14 areas and then across all categories.

The report finalizes the NRC's review and identifies 16 top-priority technologies necessary for NASA's future missions, which also could benefit American aerospace industries and the nation. The 16 were chosen by the NRC from its own ranking of 83 high-priority technologies out of approximately 300 identified in the roadmaps.

"The report strongly reaffirms the vital importance of technology development to enable the agency's future missions and grow the nation's new technology economy," said Mason Peck, chief technologist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The report confirms the value of our technology development strategy to date. NASA currently invests in all of the highest-priority technologies and will study the report and adjust its investment portfolio as needed."

The technology priorities the report identifies are aligned with NASA missions to extend and sustain human activities beyond low Earth orbit, explore the evolution of the solar system and the potential for life elsewhere, and expand our un¬derstanding of Earth and the universe in which we live.

The report observes that "technological breakthroughs have been the foundation of virtually every NASA success. In addition, technological advances have yielded benefits far beyond space itself in down-to-Earth applications." It also states "future U.S. leadership in space requires a foundation of sustained technology advances."

During the coming months, NASA's Office of the Chief Technologist will lead an agency-wide analysis and coordination effort to update the 14 technology area roadmaps with the NRC report's findings and recommendations.

To review a copy of the report, visit http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13354.

For more information about NASA's Space Technology Program, visit http://www.nasa.gov/oct.

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NASA Glenn To Host Tweetup Celebrating 50th Anniversary Of First American To Orbit Earth

2012-02-02T15:05:00.000-08:00

Stephanie L. Schierholz
Headquarters, Washington

Lori J. Rachul

Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio

CLEVELAND -- NASA's Glenn Research Center (GRC) in Cleveland will host a special event on March 2 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of John Glenn's first orbital flight by an American. NASA also will invite 100 people for a behind-the-scenes Tweetup at GRC in advance of the celebration event.

The Tweetup activities begin at 7:30 a.m. EST with a tour of Glenn's world-class flight research and ground test facilities that support aeronautics and space exploration. Participants will speak with scientists and engineers about technologies being investigated and developed.

Following the tours, the Tweetup will move to downtown Cleveland for the Glenn tribute event. "Celebrating John Glenn's Legacy: 50 years of Americans in Orbit," will be held at 1 p.m. at Cleveland State University's Wolstein Center. The program will include a video tribute and remarks by Glenn and agency and political officials. Tweetup participants also will meet astronaut Greg "Box" Johnson and other special guests.

On March 1, 1999, the Lewis Research Center was officially renamed the NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field in recognition of Glenn's contributions to science, space and the State of Ohio. As one of the original seven Mercury astronauts, Glenn trained in 1960 at Lewis in the Multiple Axis Space Test Inertia Facility.

Today, the center's research and technology development work focuses on air-breathing propulsion; communications; in-space propulsion and cryogenic fluids management; power, energy storage and conversion; materials and structures for extreme environments; and physical sciences and biomedical technologies in space.

Tweetup registration opens at noon on Friday, Feb. 3, and closes at noon on Monday, Feb. 6. NASA will select 100 total participants, including Twitter followers and their guests, by lottery from those who register online. Because Glenn is a government facility with restricted access, the event is open only to U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.

For more NASA Tweetup information and to sign up, visit http://www.nasa.gov/tweetup.

To follow Johnson on Twitter, visit http://www.twitter.com/Astro_Box.

For more information about John Glenn, visit http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/about/bios/john_glenn.html.

For more information about NASA's Glenn Research Center, visit http://www.nasa.gov/glenn.

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A Spider Web's Strength Lies in More Than its Silk

2012-02-02T15:00:00.000-08:00

While researchers have long known of the incredible strength of spider silk, the robust nature of the tiny filaments cannot alone explain how webs survive multiple tears and winds that exceed hurricane strength.

Now, a study that combines experimental observations of spider webs with complex computer simulations shows that web durability depends not only on silk strength, but on how the overall web design compensates for damage and the response of individual strands to continuously varying stresses.

Reporting in the cover story of the Feb. 2, 2012, issue of Nature, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Politecnico di Torino in Italy show how spider web-design localizes strain and damage, preserving the web as a whole.

"Multiple research groups have investigated the complex, hierarchical structure of spider silk and its amazing strength, extensibility and toughness," says Markus Buehler, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT. "But, while we understand the peculiar behavior of dragline silk from the 'nanoscale up'--initially stiff, then softening, then stiffening again--we have little insight into how the molecular structure of silk uniquely improves the performance of a web."

The spider webs found in gardens and garages are made from multiple silk types, but viscid silk and dragline silk are most critical to the integrity of the web. Viscid silk is stretchy, wet and sticky, and it is the silk that winds out in increasing spirals from the web center. Its primary function is to capture prey. Dragline silk is stiff and dry, and it serves as the threads that radiate out from a web's center, providing structural support. Dragline silk is crucial to the mechanical behavior of the web.

Some of Buehler's earlier work showed that dragline silk is composed of a suite of proteins with a unique molecular structure that lends both strength and flexibility. "While the strength and toughness of silk has been touted before--it is stronger than steel and tougher than Kevlar by weight--the advantages of silk within a web, beyond such measures, has been unknown," Buehler adds.

The common spiders represented in the recent study, including orb weavers (Nephila clavipes), garden spiders (Araneus diadematus) and others, craft familiar, spiraling web patterns atop a scaffolding of radiating filaments. Building each web takes energy the spider cannot afford to expend often, so durability is key to the arachnid's survival.

Through a series of computer models matched to laboratory experiments with spider webs, the researchers were able to tease apart what factors play what role in helping a web endure natural threats that are either localized, such as a twig falling on a filament, or distributed, such as high winds.

"For our models, we used a molecular dynamics framework in which we scaled up the molecular behavior of silk threads to the macroscopic world. This allowed us to investigate different load cases on the web, but more importantly, it also allowed us to trace and visualize how the web fractured under extreme loading conditions," says Anna Tarakanova, who developed the computer models along with Steven Cranford, both graduate students in Buehler's laboratory.

"Through computer modeling of the web," Cranford adds, "we were able to efficiently create 'synthetic' webs, constructed out of virtual silks that resembled more typical engineering materials such as those that are linear elastic, like many ceramics, and elastic-plastic materials, which behave like many metals. With the models, we could make comparisons between the modeled web's performance and the performance seen in the webs made from natural silk. In addition, we could analyze the web in terms of energy, and details of the local stress and strain," which are traits experiments were able to reveal.

The study showed that, as one might expect, when any part of a web is perturbed, the whole web reacts. Such sensitivity is what alerts a spider to the struggling of a trapped insect. However, the radial and spiral filaments each play different roles in attenuating motion, and when stresses are particularly harsh, they are sacrificed so that the entire web may survive.

"The concept of selective, localized failure for spider webs is interesting since it is a distinct departure from the structural principles that seem to be in play for many biological materials and components," adds Dennis Carter, the NSF program director for biomechanics and mechanobiology who helped support the study.

"For example, the distributed material components in bone spread stress broadly, adding strength. There is no 'wasted' material, minimizing the weight of the structure. While all of the bone is being used to resist force, bone everywhere along the structure tends to be damaged prior to failure."

In contrast, a spider's web is organized to sacrifice local areas so that failure will not prevent the remaining web from functioning, even if in a diminished capacity, says Carter. "This is a clever strategy when the alternative is having to make an entire, new web," he adds. "As Buehler suggests, engineers can learn from nature and adapt the design strategies that are most appropriate for specific applications."

Specifically, when a radial filament in a web is snagged, the web deforms more than when a relatively compliant spiral filament is caught. However, when either type fails--under great stress--it is the only filament to fail.

The unique nature of the spider-silk proteins enhances that effect. When a filament is pulled, the silk's unique molecular structure--a combination of amorphous proteins and ordered, nanoscale crystals--unfurls as stress increases, leading to a stretching effect that has four distinct phases: an initial, linear tugging; a drawn out stretching as the proteins unfold; a stiffening phase that absorbs the greatest amount of force; and then a final, stick-slip phase before the silk breaks.

According to the researchers' findings, the failure of silk threads occurs at points where the filament is disturbed by that external force, but after failure, the web returns to stability--even in simulations using broad forces, like hurricane-force winds.

"Engineered structures are typically designed to withstand large loads with limited damage, but extreme loads are more difficult to account for," says Cranford. "The spider has uniquely solved this problem by allowing a sacrificial member to fail under high load. One of the first questions a structural engineer must ask is ‘What is the design load?' For a spider web, however, it doesn't matter if the load is just strong enough to cause failure, or one hundred times higher--the net effect is the same. Allowing a sacrificial member to fail removes the unpredictability of 'extreme' loads from the design equation."

For detailed information on NSF-supported research elsewhere in Massachusetts, see results for Massachusetts on Research.gov.

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NASA Spacecraft Reveals New Observations of Interstellar Matter

2012-02-01T15:40:00.001-08:00

Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington

Susan Hendrix

Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) has captured the best and most complete glimpse yet of what lies beyond the solar system. The new measurements give clues about how and where our solar system formed, the forces that physically shape our solar system, and the history of other stars in the Milky Way.

The Earth-orbiting spacecraft observed four separate types of atoms including hydrogen, oxygen, neon and helium. These interstellar atoms are the byproducts of older stars, which spread across the galaxy and fill the vast space between stars. IBEX determined the distribution of these elements outside the solar system, which are flowing charged and neutral particles that blow through the galaxy, or the so-called interstellar wind.

"IBEX is a small Explorer mission and was built with a modest investment," said Barbara Giles, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The science achievements though have been truly remarkable and are a testament to what can be accomplished when we give our nation's scientists the freedom to innovate."

In a series of science papers appearing in the Astrophysics Journal on Jan. 31, scientists report finding 74 oxygen atoms for every 20 neon atoms in the interstellar wind. In our own solar system, there are 111 oxygen atoms for every 20 neon atoms. This translates to more oxygen in any part of the solar system than in nearby interstellar space.

"Our solar system is different than the space right outside it, suggesting two possibilities," says David McComas, IBEX principal investigator, at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "Either the solar system evolved in a separate, more oxygen-rich part of the galaxy than where we currently reside, or a great deal of critical, life-giving oxygen lies trapped in interstellar dust grains or ices, unable to move freely throughout space."

The new results hold clues about the history of material in the universe. While the big bang initially created hydrogen and helium, only the supernovae explosions at the end of a star's life can spread the heavier elements of oxygen and neon through the galaxy. Knowing the amounts of elements in space may help scientists map how our galaxy evolved and changed over time.

Scientists want to understand the composition of the boundary region that separates the nearest reaches of our galaxy, called the local interstellar medium, from our heliosphere. The heliosphere acts as a protective bubble that shields our solar system from most of the dangerous galactic cosmic radiation that otherwise would enter the solar system from interstellar space.

IBEX measured the interstellar wind traveling at a slower speed than previously measured by the Ulysses spacecraft, and from a different direction. The improved measurements from IBEX show a 20 percent difference in how much pressure the interstellar wind exerts on our heliosphere.

"Measuring the pressure on our heliosphere from the material in the galaxy and from the magnetic fields out there will help determine the size and shape of our solar system as it travels through the galaxy," says Eric Christian, IBEX mission scientist, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The IBEX spacecraft was launched in October 2008. Its science objective is to discover the nature of the interactions between the solar wind and the interstellar medium at the edge of our solar system.

The Southwest Research Institute developed and leads the IBEX mission with a team of national and international partners. The spacecraft is one of NASA's series of low-cost, rapidly developed missions in the Small Explorers Program. Goddard manages the program for the agency's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

For more information about IBEX, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ibex.

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NASA, University Of Maryland Invite Public To Astronauts' Discussion Of Recent International Space Station Missions

2012-02-01T15:38:00.000-08:00

Joshua Buck
Headquarters, Washington

Lee Tune

Office of Public Affairs
University of Maryland

WASHINGTON -- NASA and the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering invite the public to a discussion with three astronauts from recent International Space Station expedition missions at 5:30 p.m. EST on Tuesday, Feb. 14, in the Hoff Theater inside the Adele H. Stamp Student Union. The crew members will give a video presentation about their mission and answer questions from the audience.

Free tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Tickets can be picked up from the Stamp Union ticket office daily between noon and 10 p.m., starting Monday, Feb. 6. Reporters interested in covering the event should contact Missy Corley at 301-405-6501 or mcorley@umd.edu.

Mike Fossum served as a flight engineer for Expedition 28 and as commander for Expedition 29. During his stay, the station celebrated 11 years of continuous residence and work. Fossum returned to Earth on Nov. 21, 2011. He has logged more than 194 days in space, including more than 48 hours of extravehicular activity (EVA) in seven spacewalks. He is seventh on the all-time list of cumulative EVA time.

Ron Garan served as a flight engineer for Expeditions 27 and 28. While aboard the station, Garan continued work on a variety of microgravity experiments and welcomed two shuttle visits, including the last to the station. Garan landed on Sept. 15, 2011. He has logged more than 178 days in space, including 27 hours and 3 minutes outside the station during four spacewalks.

Cady Coleman served as a flight engineer for Expeditions 26 and 27. She was the lead robotics and science officer. While aboard, the station hosted a record number of visiting spacecraft: five vehicles from four space agencies. She returned to Earth on May 24, 2011. Coleman has logged over 4,330 hours in space aboard the station and space shuttle Columbia.

The trio also will give a presentation earlier in the day to NASA employees at 10:30 a.m. in NASA Headquarters' James E. Webb Auditorium, located at 300 E St. SW in Washington. The presentation will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website. The astronauts will be available for media interviews from 9 to 10 a.m. Journalists must call 202-358-1100 to attend the presentation or to schedule an interview.

For more information about Fossum, visit http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/fossum.html, http://www.twitter.com/astro_aggie.

For more information about Garan, visit http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/garan-rj.html, http://www.twitter.com/Astro_Ron.

For more information about Coleman, visit http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/coleman.html, http://www.twitter.com/astro_cady.

For more information about the A. James Clark School of Engineering, visit http://www.eng.umd.edu/impact/space .

For a map of the University of Maryland campus and location of the Stamp Student Union (Building 163), visit http://bit.ly/zku8ht.

For NASA TV schedule information and links to streaming video, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

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Understanding Basic Concepts in Spatial Measurement

2012-02-01T15:21:00.000-08:00

In a first or second grade classroom, a teacher asks students to take a ruler and measure (in inches) the length of a rectangular block. A student aligns the "0 inch" mark of the ruler with the end of the block, and counts the number of inches from the end of the ruler to where the block ends.

"It's three inches," the student says.

In reality, the block is two inches. The student counted the 0 inch mark as part of the measurement, instead of starting at the 1 inch mark. The child moved from one end of the object to the other, but counted the inch marks on the ruler, instead of the intervals of space between them.

This is just one of common misconceptions that elementary-school-aged children make when learning how to measure various objects.

To help prevent students from having these misconceptions, Jack Smith and his colleagues at Michigan State University (MSU) are analyzing curricula that elementary school teachers and children currently use in schools to learn spatial measurement--length, area and volume.

Smith explained the goal of their research is to inform the revision of curriculum materials, guide the design and implementation of professional development, pre-service education to improve the use of existing curriculum materials and enrich the nation's research capacity to build usable knowledge in this specific area of need in mathematics education.

To achieve this, Smith and his team are examining three elementary mathematics curricula, "Everyday Mathematics," "Scott-Foresman-Addison Wesley Mathematics (Michigan edition)" and "Saxon Math," and applying what they have learned about teacher professional development with state-wide partners in Michigan, teacher education at MSU and research with partners at other universities. They also are working with curriculum authors to revise measurement content to align with the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics and support stronger learning opportunities for students.

"Current curriculum materials generally focus on teaching students how to measure, but attend little to why those procedures work," said Smith. "The result is that what is not understood in the first place is easily forgotten. This procedural focus also means that students have a much harder time adapting to measurement situations that they have not seen and practiced in school. That's because they have learned the steps in standard, practiced situations but they don't know why those are there or how to adapt them."

Teaching children about spatial measurement is crucial in understanding the physical world and for practical application, such as being able to measure objects accurately.

"There are two kinds of quantities in the world that mathematics and numbers represent," said Smith. "There are collections of objects (discrete quantity) and there are measurable objects (continuous quantity). Currently, in U.S. classrooms we focus mostly on the former and avoid the latter. This means that less attention to measurement fails to prepare students to deal practically with the physical--that is, to measure things and think about measurement in their everyday world. That's the immediate impact."

Smith added that learning about these foundations of measurement further prepares students to comprehend more advanced mathematics and science. "A lot of math and science is not easily accessible without understanding the basics of measurement, which in this country and most others is learned in the study of spatial measurement," said Smith.

To better teach measurement, Smith outlines a variety of techniques.

"First, using length as an example, children need to be able to see, think about and talk about length as an attribute of objects and distance," said Smith. "That is, they have to be able to 'see' length. This is not a step that can be taken for granted."

For instance, Smith provides the following example (see image in the right side-bar): A student is asked to find the perimeter--the length of the continuous line forming the boundary of a closed geometric figure--of a 2-D rectangle. The student is told that the perimeter of the rectangle can be found by surrounding the rectangle with square tiles, including tiles at each of the four corners. The student claims that the perimeter of the rectangle is 22 tiles. However, the actual perimeter is 18 tiles. The student is not distinguishing the edges of the tiles as length units from the square tiles that are area units--the ability to visualize the difference is crucial in understanding what one is measuring.

Smith explained additional characteristics of effective instruction and curricula for elementary school that include "attention to core conceptual principles that underlie and justify measurement procedures; specific attention to understanding how measurement tools and formulas work, as many of the nation's fourth graders do not understand how rulers work; consistently asking kids to present what they did to solve problems and why those methods worked or not; tracing common conceptual principles across the measurement of different physical quantities (spatial and non-spatial); and attention to the importance of motion in measurement."

Another key in helping elementary-school-aged children learn, is making sure that they have a strong mathematics foundation in pre-school. Smith explained, "For spatial measurement, a strong pre-school focus on qualitative comparisons of spatial quantities as attributes of everyday objects, e.g., is the coat rack taller than the door? How can we tell?, lays the groundwork for exploring measurement issues in more exact ways, e.g., how much taller is the coat rack than the door?"

Smith suggests that ultimately, measurement plays a large role in how children understand the foundations of mathematics. "It has been an axiom for some time that counting and numbers, and operations on numbers is the heart of elementary mathematics education," said Smith. "But there is evidence that this is a historical choice rather than a clearly justified application of knowledge of human development."

-- Ellen Ferrante, (703) 292-2204 emferran@nsf.gov

NASA Announces Awards for 2012 Space Frontier Business Plan Competition

2012-01-31T20:05:00.000-08:00

Huong Nguyen
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- NASA’s Ames Research Center, in conjunction with NASA’s Office of the Chief Technologist’s Emerging Space Office, is continuing its support for the Space Frontier Foundation’s annual Business Plan Competition by funding this year’s awards totaling $110,000.

The Space Frontier Foundation Business Plan Competition will be held during a three-day event at NASA Ames in July 2012. The NASA supported Emerging Space Grand Prize will include an award of $100,000 for the best business plan with the potential to contribute to space development. NASA also is supporting a second prize of $10,000.

“As NASA’s Silicon Valley center, we’re continuing our tradition of supporting entrepreneurs and encouraging the venture capital community to become familiar with the new opportunities that are emerging in space,” said NASA Ames Research Center Director Pete Worden. “Part of our role is to encourage economic growth and development and at NASA, we look to build on some of the nation’s strongest assets to do so – including our skilled technical workforce, our commercial creativity and our entrepreneurial spirit.”

The Business Plan Competition is designed for new, independent companies in the seed, start-up, or early growth stages. The competition simulates the real-world process of entrepreneurs soliciting for start-up funds from early stage investors and venture capital firms.

The competition traditionally includes a review of business plan submissions by space industry experts and investors and a ‘Boot Camp’ where the finalist teams will receive expert training in promoting and developing business plans.

In order to be eligible, competing companies should have technologies or products that potentially could contribute to the expansion of economic activity in space. Competition finalists will pitch their business plans publicly and be judged by a panel of world-class entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and finance professionals.

The Space Frontier Foundation is an organization dedicated to opening the space frontier to human settlement as rapidly as possible. Its goals include protecting Earth's fragile biosphere, creating a freer and more prosperous life for each generation by using the unlimited energy and material resources of space, and unleashing the power of free enterprise to establish a permanent human presence in space.

For more information about NASA's Office of the Chief Technologist, visit http://www.nasa.gov/oct.

For more information about the Space Frontier Foundation Business Plan Competition and how to participate, visit http://newspacebpc.com.

For more information about Space Frontier Foundation, visit http://spacefrontier.org.

For more information about Ames, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ames.

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NSWC PCD Employee Earns Federal Laboratory Consortium Award for Technology Transfer

2012-01-31T20:01:00.000-08:00

By By Jacqui L. Barker, Public Affairs Specialist, NSWC PCD Public Affairs

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (NNS) -- For offering a clearer vision for U.S. Navy divers, a Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division (NSWC PCD) employee was named the Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) 2012 Excellence in Technology Transfer award recipient, Jan. 23.

Dennis Gallagher, lead project engineer and inventor of the Advanced Diver's Mask-Mounted Display System in the NSWC PCD Underwater Systems Development and Acquisition branch, earned the award for his work on the Advanced Diver's Mask-Mounted Display System.

The display system was made available for commercial and military use in December 2011.

NSWCPCD initiated a technology partnership with Sound Metrics Corporation through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) agreement, and partially exclusive licensing agreement between NSWC PCD and Sound Metrics Corporation, based in Lake Forest Park, Wash.

Gallagher initiated the system's patent for which the government now owns. After the system was patented, the CRADA was reached then a license agreement and then the technology transitioned to production manufacturing.

Gallagher said the original idea for this mounted display system came from simply listening to the customer.

"The original idea for the diver mask mounted display came many years ago from a test with several underwater sonars and a very rudimentary underwater display monocle that was being used," Gallagher said. "After a test dive with the sonar and monocle, we were reviewing the sonar images the diver had recorded during the dive. When looking at the images on the computer the diver remarked, 'Man, if I could have seen the images with this resolution down underwater, I would have known what the items were.' That's when I knew we had to develop an underwater diver display equal in quality, color, and resolution to a computer laptop screen. It wasn't an easy task, but we did it."

NSWC PCD and FLC representative Edward Linsenmeyer and Underwater Systems Development and Acquisition Branch Head Karen Borel both agree that Gallagher's work to successfully transition the mask to Sound Metrics, who is now manufacturing the Navy design as a commercial product and is available to military and civilian divers, is nothing short of transformational. Linsenmeyer endorsed Borel's nomination of Gallagher for the 2012 FLC award.

"Until now, divers working in dark, murky waters haven't been able to effectively survey and assess their surroundings, but with the Advanced Diver's Mask-Mounted Display System, it's a new underwater world," Borel said. "The transformational flip-up, flip-down device is like an "underwater night vision" system that allows divers to see what they're doing; whether they're looking for mines, scanning for intruders, inspecting ship hulls, recovering a body, searching for evidence, or studying fish behavior."

Gallagher, a native of Phoenixville, Pa. who also calls Tallahassee, Fla., home, joined NSWC PCD after he graduated in 1984 from Florida Atlantic University with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. A diver himself, Gallagher brought his technical expertise and experience to conceptualize, deliver, and ultimately manage the successful transition of a mask's mounted system able to withstand depths of 300 feet, and quickly transition it for use.

"The 800 x 600 super video graphics array (SVGA) screen incorporates organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays that are color-balanced and contrast-matched, giving the diver an astonishingly clear and actionable view," Borel said. "The mask-mounted display system is a whole new ballgame when compared to anything previously available, offering higher contrast, brighter color, smaller size, lighter weight, larger eye relief, lower cost, and lower power consumption. In addition, a low-magnetic version will be available for use by Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal divers."

Federal technology transfers are the movements of technology, knowledge, facilities, or capabilities from one sector to another to promote and strengthen technology transfer nationwide. That transfer may occur between government entities or government and private sector. The results of these technology transfers can result in commercialization of new products in commerce, and perhaps even enhance laboratories or agency mission objectives.

"This technology transfer achieves the "grand slam" of technology transfers, also known as T2. U.S. Navy technology is embedded in a new commercial product, which has both military and non-military application, and the Navy can turn around and purchase that manufactured good economically," said Linsenmeyer. "Thanks to Gallagher's innovative thinking and perseverance, and the NSWCPCD team, the Advanced Diver's Mask-Mounted Display System has literally changed the outlook for divers-and for military mission readiness. With this groundbreaking technology, the future looks clear."

The FLC was organized in 1974 and Congress passed the Federal Technology Transfer Act in 1986, which officially chartered the FLCs. Today, the FLC is comprised of technology transfer professionals from more than 300 federal laboratories, their respective agencies, and affiliated organizations. Several mechanisms exist in which government technology may transfer to another sector, such as Cooperative Research and Development Agreements, or CRADAs, collegiate interchanges, or technical assists.

Gallagher will accept the 2012 Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC) award during a ceremony at the FLC national meeting scheduled to be held in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Thursday, May 3, 2012.

NASA Releases Sector 33 Air Traffic Control Educational Game App

2012-01-31T19:58:00.000-08:00

Beth Dickey
Headquarters, Washington

WASHINGTON -- NASA has released a new educational game with an air traffic control theme for Apple iPhone and iPad devices. The Sector 33 application is designed to challenge students in middle school and above to use basic math and problem-solving skills.

The application may be downloaded free of charge at http://www.nasa.gov/sector33.

An Android version of the app is in development and will be made available in the Android Marketplace in the coming months.

In the game the player acts as an air traffic controller guiding airplanes through a sector of airspace spanning Nevada and California. The player can adjust the planes' path and speed to safely reach certain spots in the sky in the fastest time possible while keeping the planes a specific distance from each other.

"Our hope is that Sector 33 will give students a sense of the importance of math in managing our nation's air traffic and, at the same time, interest them in pursuing a career in aeronautics," said Jaiwon Shin, NASA's associate administrator for aeronautics research in Washington.

The math-focused game also aligns with the NASA Office of Education's mission to engage students in activities related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

"Today's students respond positively to experiential learning," said Leland Melvin, NASA's associate administrator for education. "Using an interactive game to spark their interest, while at the same time teaching them fundamental math concepts, is a win-win scenario. It is a perfect way to help cultivate the next generation of engineers and technologists."

Sector 33 is based on Smart Skies Line Up With Math, an educational software title developed under the direction of NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate and distributed in cooperation with the Federal Aviation Administration and National Air Traffic Controllers Association. Smart Skies has been used in middle school classrooms across the United States since 2005.

For more information about aeronautics research at NASA, visit http://www.aeronautics.nasa.gov.

For more information about NASA's education programs, visit http://www.nasa.gov/education.

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Pine Island Glacier

2012-01-31T16:20:00.001-08:00

In mid-October 2011, NASA scientists working in Antarctica discovered a massive crack across the Pine Island Glacier, a major ice stream that drains the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Extending for 19 miles (30 kilometers), the crack was 260 feet (80 meters) wide and 195 feet (60 meters) deep. Eventually, the crack will extend all the way across the glacier, and calve a giant iceberg that will cover about 350 square miles (900 square kilometers). This image from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NAS's Terra spacecraft was acquired Nov. 13, 2011, and covers an area of 27 by 32 miles (44 by 52 kilometers), and is located near 74.9 degrees south latitude, 101.1 degrees west longitude.

Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

Making Nature's Best Better to Produce Biofuels

2012-01-31T16:16:00.000-08:00

If a tree falls in the forest and there are no enzymes to digest it, does it break down?

It's a question that has important ramifications for the renewable energy industry. Engineers are studying methods to transform non-food plant material into transportation fuel. Think alfalfa stalks or wood-chips (which have energy contained in a molecule humans can't digest called cellulose), as opposed to the edible corn grains that are used in the production of ethanol for biofuels.

"Cellulose in the biosphere can last for years," said Gregg Beckham, a scientist in the National Bioenergy Center at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). "It's really tough, and we want to know why at the molecular scale."

Despite the strength of plant cell walls made of this tough molecule cellulose, over eons, fungi and bacteria have evolved enzymes to convert abundant cellulosic plant matter into sugars to use as an energy source to sustain life.

Breaking down in the lab

Unfortunately, these particular enzymes don't work fast enough to break down cellulose at a pace (and price) that is competitive with fossil fuels … yet. So, computational scientists at NREL set about trying to understand and create enhanced, "designer" enzymes to speed up biofuel production and lower the cost of biomass-derived fuel to serve the global population.

"It's a Goldilocks problem," Beckham said. "The enzymes have to be 'just right,' and we're trying to find out what 'just right' is, why, and how to make mutations to the enzymes to make them most efficient."

Supercomputed proteins

In a series of linked projects, researchers used the National Science Foundation-supported Ranger supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center and Energy Laboratory's Red Mesa system to simulate the world of enzymes. The researchers explored enzymes from the prodigiously plant-digesting fungus Trichoderma reesei and the cellulose-eating bacteria Clostridium thermocellum. Both of these organisms are effective at converting biomass to energy, though they use different strategies.

"Nature cleverly designed machinery for single-cell organisms to locate cellulose, then secrete large enzyme complexes that hold the cells near biomass while the enzymes degrade it," Beckham said.

The bacteria forms scaffolds for its enzymes, which work together to break apart the plant. The fungal enzymes, on the other hand, are not tethered to a large complex, but act independently.

It isn't clear how the enzyme scaffolds form, so the researchers created a computational model of the active molecules and set them into motion in a virtual environment. Contrary to expectations, the larger, slower-moving enzymes lingered near the scaffold longer, allowing them to bind to the frame more frequently; the smaller ones moved faster and more freely through the solution, but bound less often.

The results of the study, led by NREL researchers Yannick Bomble and Mike Crowley, were reported in the Journal of Biological Chemistry in February 2011. The insights are being used in the creation of designer enzymes to make biomass conversion faster, more efficient and less expensive.

Unexplored enzyme function

The scientists also studied parts of the enzyme called the carbohydrate binding molecule--a sticky "foot" that helps the enzymes find and guide the cellulose into their active site--and the linker region, which joins the foot to the main body of the enzyme. The carbohydrate binding molecule and linker region were long thought to play a minor role in enzyme function; yet without them, the enzyme can't convert cellulose to glucose effectively. The researchers wondered why that is.

Using the Ranger supercomputer, the researchers made several important discoveries. First, they found that the cellulose surface has energy wells that are set 1 nanometer apart, a perfect fit for the binding module. They also found that the linker region, previously believed to contain both stiff and flexible regions, behaves more like a highly flexible tether. Those insights would have been difficult to determine experimentally, but, now hypothesized and backed up with advanced computing simulations, they can be tested in the laboratory.

"It's a very messy problem for the experimentalists," said Crowley, a principal scientist at the Energy Laboratory and Beckham's colleague. "We're using rational design to understand how the enzyme works, and then to predict the best place to change something and test it."

The research addresses the enzymatic activity bottlenecks that prevent renewable energy from cellulose containing biomass from being competitive with fossil fuels. "If we can help industry understand and improve these processes for renewable fuel production, we'll be able to offset a significant fraction of fossil fuel use in the long term," Beckham said.

-- Aaron Dubrow, Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), aarondubrow@tacc.utexas.edu

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.

Investigators

Gregg Beckham
Yannick Bomble
Lintao Bu
Michael Crowley
Antti-Pekka Hynninen
James Matthews
Mark Nimlos
Christy Payne
Deanne Sammond

Related Institutions/Organizations

University of Texas at Austin

Locations
Colorado
Texas

Related Programs

Petascale Computing Resource Allocations

Related Awards

#0622780 World-Class Science Through World Leadership in HPC

Total Grants

$64,733,304

Related Agencies

Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory

National Science Board to Meet February 2-3 at NSF Headquarters

2012-01-31T16:10:00.001-08:00

The National Science Board (NSB) will meet on February 2 and 3, 2012, to address science and engineering, as well as science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education issues of interest to the National Science Foundation (NSF). The meeting will be webcast as well.

Members of the media and the public are invited to open portions of the meeting. Please go to the NSB website for the webcast link and full agenda.

Some of the scheduled meeting highlights are listed below.

Highlights include:

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2012

8:20 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. - Committee on Strategy and Budget and Committee on Programs and Plans Joint Session

The NSB will discuss NSF's Annual Facilities Plan.

9:45 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. - Committee on Programs and Plans

The NSB will discuss the status of CPP's Program Portfolio Planning.

The NSB will receive information on the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA).

1:00 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. - Committee on Strategy and Budget, Subcommittee on Facilities

There will be a discussion of NSF's Facilities Plan and the upcoming May Portfolio Review.

1:45 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. - Committee on Programs and Plans, Subcommittee on Polar Issues

There will be a discussion of the U.S. Antarctic Program Blue Ribbon Panel Review and the report from the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council Study on Future Research Opportunities in Antarctica.

3:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. - Committee on Strategy and Budget Task Force on Data Policies

The Task Force will discuss public comments on its report Digital Research Data Sharing and Management and future work of the Task Force.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2012

7:45 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. - Committee on Education and Human Resources

The Subcommittee will discuss Effective K-12 STEM Education and Research in Mathematics Education.

9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. - Committee on Strategy and Budget

CSB will have a presentation on NSF's Merit Review Working Group, receive an update from NSF on Cost Sharing, and discuss strategic planning.

11:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. - Committee on Science and Engineering Indicators

The Committee will discuss the rollout of Indicators 2012, the status of Indicators companions, and the Inventory of Government Programs: Trade, Export and Competitiveness.

Visit the National Science Board's website for the full meeting agenda.

The NSB is the 25-member policymaking body for NSF and advisory body to the president and Congress on science and engineering issues. Drawn from industry and universities, and representing a variety of science and engineering disciplines and geographic areas, NSB members are selected for their eminence in research, education or public service, and records of distinguished service. NSB members are appointed for six-year terms. The NSF director is an ex officio member of the NSB. Learn more about the NSB and its current composition on the NSB website.

Note: Reporters are invited to attend all open sessions, subject to provisions of the Government in the Sunshine Act. All sessions will be held at the NSF headquarters, 4201 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, Va. Journalists interested in attending and covering the meeting and/or interviewing NSF or NSB officials should contact Dana Topousis at 703-292-7750 or dtopousi@nsf.gov by 1:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 1, 2012, to make arrangements.

-NSF-

Asymmetric Division of a Polarized Artificial Cell (Image 2)

2012-01-30T18:46:00.000-08:00

Asymmetric division of a polarized artificial cell results in daughter cells that differ in membrane and interior compositions. In this, the final panel, one of the daughter cells has polarized. Scale bar indicates 10 microns.

In this asymmetric division of a primitive model cell, the cell is composed of a lipid membrane that encapsulates a polymer solution. Two coexisting lipid membrane phase domains are labeled red and green, and a protein that concentrates into the dextran-rich aqueous phase domain is labeled in blue. Sucrose was added from left to right to draw water out of the vesicle by osmosis. After the division event, one of the daughter vesicles contains only red membrane and encapsulates the dextran-rich aqueous phase along with most of the protein molecules, while the other vesicle inherits both red and green membrane encapsulating the PEG-rich aqueous phase. The scale bar indicates ten microns. [Research supported by the National Science Foundation Chemistry Division (grant CHE 07-50196) and by the Molecular and Cellular Biosciences Division.] (Date of Image: 2011)

Credit: Meghan Andes-Koback and Christine Keating, Chemistry Department, Penn State University

Asymmetric Division of a Polarized Artificial Cell (Image 1)

2012-01-30T18:43:00.000-08:00

Asymmetric division of a polarized artificial cell results in daughter cells that differ in their membrane and interior compositions. Scale bar indicates 10 microns.

Credit: Meghan Andes-Koback and Christine Keating, Chemistry Department, Penn State University

Brazilian Youth Ambassadors Visit NASA Headquarters

2012-01-30T15:37:00.000-08:00

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden played host to 45 Brazilian Youth Ambassadors on Friday, Jan. 27, in the NASA Headquarters auditorium, where he delivered an educational outreach presentation. The Brazilians are participating in a three-week U.S. Department of State youth exchange program for outstanding Brazilian public school students.

The Department of State requested this special presentation for the Brazilian students as a follow on to the Administrator’s successful outreach activities during his trip to Brazil in October 2011. His presentation to students at the National Institute of Space Research facilities in São José dos Campos was simulcast by the U.S. Embassy and viewed by nearly 3,000 people throughout the country.

The Youth Ambassadors are young people in pursuit of academic and professional success who make a difference in their communities through their leadership and volunteer work. As ambassadors, the students also have an opportunity to fulfill a very important mission - to introduce a little bit of Brazil to the United States. Since 2002, the program has benefited some 250 young Brazilians. The Youth Ambassadors Program has now expanded to more than 20 countries in the Western Hemisphere.

During the students first week in the United States, Youth Ambassadors visited Washington, D.C. and took part in meetings with government officials, visiting schools and social projects. The young Brazilians strengthened their leadership skills through workshops and lectures during these visits.

They then traveled to host states, where they stayed with volunteer families. They attended classes at local schools, took part in volunteer activities, gave presentations about Brazil, and interacted with the community. The program offered a unique opportunity to learn about the U.S. culture and practice English. After their return home, the students will implement community service projects they developed during their exchange program.

Image Credit: NASA/Paul Alers

NASA Releases First Multi-Player Facebook Game

2012-01-30T13:11:00.000-08:00

Brian Dunbar
Headquarters, Washington

WASHINGTON -- NASA has launched its first multi-player online game to test players' knowledge of the space program. Who was the first American to walk in space? Who launched the first liquid-fueled rocket? These are only a few of the questions players can answer in Space Race Blastoff.

Available on Facebook, Space Race Blastoff tests players' knowledge of NASA history, technology, science and pop culture. Players who correctly answer questions earn virtual badges depicting NASA astronauts, spacecraft and celestial objects. Players also earn points they can use to obtain additional badges to complete sets and earn premium badges.

"Space Race Blastoff opens NASA's history and research to a wide new audience of people accustomed to using social media," said David Weaver, NASA's associate administrator for communications. "Space experts and novices will learn new things about how exploration continues to impact our world."

NASA chose to make the game available through Facebook to take advantage of the social media site's large audience and enable players to compete against others. Individuals also can play solo games.

Once in the game, players choose an avatar and answer 10 multiple-choice questions. Each correct answer earns 100 points, with a 20-point bonus to the player who answers first. The winner advances to the bonus round to answer one additional question for more points.

Correctly answering the bonus question earns the player a badge.

Space Race Blastoff was developed by Scott Hanger, Todd Powell and Jamie Noguchi of NASA's Internet Services Group in the Office of Communications. Play the game now at http://apps.facebook.com/spacerace.

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Electronic Tattoo Monitors Brain, Heart and Muscles

2012-01-30T13:08:00.001-08:00

Elastic electronics offer less invasive, more convenient medical treatment

Imagine if there were electronics able to prevent epileptic seizures before they happen. Or electronics that could be placed on the surface of a beating heart to monitor its functions. The problem is that such devices are a tough fit. Body tissue is soft and pliable while conventional circuits can be hard and brittle--at least until now.

"We're trying to bridge that gap, from silicon, wafer-based electronics to biological, 'tissue-like' electronics, to really blur the distinction between electronics and the body," says materials scientist John Rogers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), he's developing elastic electronics. The innovation builds upon years of collaboration between Rogers and Northwestern University engineer Yonggang Huang, who had earlier partnered with Rogers to develop flexible electronics for hemispherical camera sensors and other devices that conform to complex shapes.

This is circuitry with a real twist that's able to monitor and deliver electrical impulses into living tissue. Elastic electronics are made of tiny, wavy silicon structures containing circuits that are thinner than a human hair, and bend and stretch with the body. "As the skin moves and deforms, the circuit can follow those deformations in a completely noninvasive way," says Rogers. He hopes elastic electronics will open a door to a whole range of what he calls "bio-integrated" medical devices.

One example is what Rogers calls, an "electronic sock"--in this case, elastic electronics are wrapped around a model of a rabbit heart like a stocking. "It's designed to accommodate the motion of the heart but at the same time keep active electronics into contact with the tissue," explains Rogers.

Using animal models, Rogers has developed a version of the sock that can inject current into the heart tissue to detect and stop certain forms of arrhythmia.

Rogers also demonstrates prototypes of a catheter that can be inserted through the arteries and into the chambers of the heart to map electrical activity and provide similar types of therapies.

He believes that one day this technology will lead to devices like an implantable circuit that diagnoses and perhaps even treats seizures by injecting current into the brain.

The device might detect differences in brainwave activity that occur just before a seizure sets in, and could automatically counteract any electrical abnormalities. Prototypes of the circuits are being tested that can detect muscle movement, heart activity and brain waves just by being placed on the surface of the skin like temporary tattoos. The prototypes can detect the body's electrical activity nearly as well as conventional, rigid electrode devices in use currently.

Rogers says their size could offer benefits in many important cases, such as monitoring the health and wellness of premature babies. "They are such tiny humans that this epidermal form of electronics could really be valuable in the monitoring of these babies in a manner that is completely noninvasive and mechanically 'invisible'," he points out.

Miles O'Brien, Science Nation Correspondent

Jon Baime, Science Nation Producer

GPS Technology Provides Assistance in Case Against Fitchburg Bank Robber

2012-01-30T12:50:00.001-08:00

BOSTON—A Fitchburg man was sentenced to prison today for his role in five bank robberies across Central Massachusetts. The case against Keith D. Cormier was made with the assistance of GPS technology.

U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor, IV sentenced Cormier to 56 months in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release. Cormier, 45, was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $11,485, the money which he stole from the banks. In September 2011, Cormier pleaded guilty to committing five bank robberies; between October and June 2010, Cormier robbed banks in Shrewsbury, Leominster (two), Worcester, and Gardner.

In each case, Cormier entered the bank wearing a disguise, with his face wrapped in gauze, and passed the teller a note demanding money. He retrieved the note and fled the bank with the proceeds of the robbery. The most compelling evidence against Cormier was derived from two separate GPS devices. One GPS device was installed by his employer in the company truck which Cormier drove to and from the robberies. The data from the GPS device indicated that Cormier’s work truck was within blocks of each of the banks at the time of the robbery and departed the area within minutes after Cormier fled the banks.

The second GPS device was secreted in a stack of bills by an alert teller during the robbery of a Citizen’s Bank on Oct. 28, 2010. This GPS device resulted in the police tracking Cormier’s van and arresting him a short distance away from the bank, with the proceeds from the robbery and his disguise inside the truck.

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and Richard DesLauriers, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division, made the announcement today. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as detectives from the Shrewsbury, Leominster, Worcester, and Gardner Police Departments. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Cory Flashner of Ortiz’s Worcester Branch Office.

Fort Campbell Makes Advances in TBI Evaluation

2012-01-30T12:49:00.000-08:00

By Kathy Helmick, DCoE deputy director for traumatic brain injury

In December, I had the opportunity to visit Fort Campbell, Ky., to learn more about their Military Functional Assessment Program. Maj. Sarah Goldman, Army Office of the Surgeon General, traumatic brain injury (TBI) program manager, and I were invited to see this comprehensive, advanced five-day assessment, which is part of a 12-week program designed to treat service members with TBIs.

This evaluation does not rely on a pen and paper test or a computer assessment. It takes place on post and in the program’s simulation lab, exposing service members to realistic combat scenarios while allowing a team of medical and rehabilitation providers the opportunity to evaluate their responses. Service members are observed on camera while combat-related decision-making functions are tested, such as how long it takes a service member to come to the aid of a fallen comrade, identify a threat, plan a course of action, or radio call into a command center. If they perform tasks in simulated combat situations in accordance to Army standards, then this information helps guide return-to-duty decision-making.

Additionally, the lab tests how the service member performs under environmental stressors, such as lack of light or loud sounds, to approximate scenarios encountered in combat zones.

One of the program’s best practices relates to integrating the expertise of a non-commissioned officer (NCO) to evaluate the ability of the soldier to perform the tasks to established Army standards. In the assessment we saw, the NCO was instrumental in educating medical providers about Army standards and describing combat scenarios. Leveraging the knowledge of a qualified NCO helps the medical provider offer a comprehensive evaluation of the service member’s impairments associated with TBI and the injury’s effects on their ability to perform military duties on the battlefield to standard.

I was also impressed with how this program focused on function; instead of clicking a dot on a computer test or circling a multiple choice question, service members with TBI are put in an environment to test their performance and capabilities. Some service members may perform well in a controlled rehabilitation environment, but may not be able to perform as well when multitasking during a high-pressure combat scenario. It was clear that the service members appreciated this type of evaluation and gained more confidence, whether they transitioned back to duty, or out of the military into civilian life.

In continuing to follow this advanced program, I hope that we can identify key outcomes that predict return-to-duty success, or help service members return back home.

Western Europe at Night

2012-01-30T12:21:00.001-08:00

With hardware from the Earth-orbiting International Space Station appearing in the near foreground, a night time European panorama reveals city lights from Belgium and the Netherlands at bottom center. the British Isles partially obscured by solar array panels at left, the North Sea at left center, and Scandinavia at right center beneath the end effector of the Space Station Remote Manipulator System or Canadarm2. This image was taken by the station crew on Jan. 22, 2012.

Image Credit: NASA

Biodiversity of Earth's Richest Plant Kingdom Under

2012-01-30T12:20:00.000-08:00

Climate change is on your porch and in your backyard and living room--anywhere you bedeck with flowering plants.

Global warming affects favorite flowers of garden and vase. This is true of plants around the world, including the proteas and the pelargoniums native to South Africa.

Pelargoniums are wild ancestors of common geraniums. Proteas, with their vase-shaped bracts surrounding pencil-thin flowers, look like brightly-colored sea anemones.

During the Northern Hemisphere's winter, summer comes to South Africa and proteas and pelargoniums bloom in riotous color. On steep, rocky slopes, their red and pink flowers dot the hillsides.

"As one of the most diverse plant groups in South Africa, the pelargoniums have a variety well beyond what's available at even the largest U.S. nursery," says Carl Schlichting, an ecologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Connecticut who specializes in these flowering plants.

But pelargoniums and proteas such as the king protea, which measures 12 inches across and is the national flower of South Africa, are under fire. Some will become extinct. Some already have.

In a region where average temperatures have significantly warmed over the past 30 years, South Africa's--if not the world's--most unusual flowers are besieged.

In response, they're moving uphill to cooler or wetter spots. When will they run out of room? No one knows for sure. But time is of the essence in learning about this ecosystem, says Schlichting.

Despite centuries of discovery, most of the planet's biodiversity remains unknown. The scale of that unrecognized biodiversity is a vital question, scientists believe, given its rapid and permanent loss around the globe.

To respond to the need for more knowledge and a better understanding of Earth's biodiversity, the National Science Foundation (NSF) recently awarded 25 grants in its Dimensions of Biodiversity campaign.

The effort is part of NSF's Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability (SEES) initiative.

Schlichting and colleagues comprise one of the research teams funded.

"By establishing networks of interdisciplinary, globally-engaged scientists, Dimensions of Biodiversity will have a lasting effect on biodiversity science," says John Wingfield, NSF assistant director for Biological Sciences. "It has the potential to transform the way we conduct biological research in this arena."

The Dimensions of Biodiversity campaign is important, believes Wingfield, because assessing the living diversity of Earth is not as straightforward as simply listing species.

The campaign is transforming how the role and scope of life on Earth is described and understood, he says.

It promotes novel, integrated approaches to identifying and comprehending the evolutionary and ecological significance of biodiversity in today's changing environment and in the geologic past.

"Dimensions of Biodiversity is accelerating the pace of biodiversity research and discovery, and it enables scientists to think at grand scales," says Joann Roskoski, NSF deputy assistant director for Biological Sciences.

"Collaborative teams have formed to tackle some of the big questions using novel and integrative techniques," she says. "Taxonomists are talking to geneticists; geneticists to ecologists; and ecologists to taxonomists. This is not business as usual."

With the loss of Earth's biodiversity, biologists have found, links in the web of life that provide ecosystem services are being lost; an understanding of the history and future of the living world is being forfeited; and beneficial discoveries in the domains of food, fiber, fuel, pharmaceuticals and bio-inspired innovation are being eliminated.

That reality has stimulated the NSF awards, co-funded by NSF's Directorates for Biological Sciences and Geosciences.

"Dimensions may accomplish in 10 years what, with a piecemeal approach, would have taken 50 years--a half-century we can no longer wait," says Roskoski.

Proteas are the keystone species of South Africa's Cape Floral Kingdom, the smallest but, biologists say, the richest of Earth's six plant kingdoms.

The Cape Floral Kingdom is the size of a postage stamp, comparatively speaking. It has the highest plant biodiversity, however, of anywhere on the planet.

About 9,000 plant species, 70 percent of which live nowhere else, are found there in what's called the fynbos ecosystem. Just to the north lies another, yet more diverse, desert-like ecosystem, the succulent karoo.

Near South Africa's Cape of Good Hope, leathery-leaved fynbos plants cover the mountains, valleys and coastal plains. Proteas and pelargoniums thrive despite nutrient-poor soils and high winds.

Schlichting's research focuses on how proteas and pelargoniums have diversified over the last 15 million years during periods of climate change in southern Africa.

"Contemporary climate change will drive responses at all levels of biodiversity, from the traits of individuals to distributions of species and biomes," says Schlichting.

"Our team hopes to combine an understanding of past evolutionary patterns with an assessment of modern diversity to make predictions about the future of plant communities."

Some pelargonium plants, for example, may be drought-avoiders, while others are drought-tolerators. Schlichting is discovering which ones are which.

These traits may be linked with the environment, he and others have found, and may indicate patterns of local adaptation.

"This study looks at one of the most diverse floras of the world," says Sam Scheiner, program director in NSF's Division of Environmental Biology, "and connects plant physiology with the evolutionary processes driving diversification. It is one of the most comprehensive views of this process, and promises to greatly expand our knowledge."

As Earth's climate warms, species like proteas and pelargoniums will try to keep pace by adapting to new conditions or by moving to their preferred temperature and rainfall ranges.

Fire

Protea seeds, for example, are carried on the wind to new locations. Those that become rooted in cooler or wetter areas will survive.

"We may not have much time to understand why there is such a rich diversity of pelargoniums and proteas," says Cynthia Jones, a University of Connecticut scientist working on the project, "before they begin to disappear."

From porches, backyards and living rooms. And from fynbos and succulent karoo.

-- Cheryl Dybas, NSF (703) 292-7734 cdybas@nsf.gov

Simulated Observation of a Massive Star

2012-01-29T16:36:00.000-08:00

A simulated observation of a massive star viewed along the plane of the disk. This visualization of dust emission traces the density and temperature of the gas cloud that surrounds the star. The regions that are currently ionized (in red) and have been ionized in the past (blue structures) show how the nebula flickers.

Simulations by researchers show that as the gas cloud collapses, it forms dense filamentary structures that absorb the star's radiation when it passes through them. Stars form when huge clouds of gas collapse. Once the central density and temperature are high enough, hydrogen begins to fuse into helium and the star begins to shine. The most massive stars, though, begin to shine while the clouds are still collapsing. Their ultraviolet light ionizes the surrounding gas, forming a nebula with a temperature of 10,000 degrees Celsius. This suggests that the growth of a massive star should taper off or even cease because the surrounding gas should be blown away by the heating.

The simulations were run on supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and at the Leibniz and Jxlich Computing Centers in Germany. The research was funded in part by the NSF Astronomy Division (grant AST 08-35734). To learn more about this research, see the American Museum of Natural History news story Simulations Solve a 20-year-old-Riddle About Why Nebulae Around Massive Stars Don't Disappear. (Date of Image: 2010)

Credit: T. Peters et al.

Obama Praises DOD’s Energy Leadership, Stewardship

2012-01-29T16:26:00.000-08:00

By Donna Miles, American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama traveled to Buckley Air Force Base near Denver today to praise the military for “doing its part” – not just in the nation’s defense, but also as leaders in energy conservation.

Obama delivered his message at the home of the 460th Space Wing in Aurora, Colo., calling the “green” initiatives being advanced here indicative of the Defense Department’s clean-energy focus.

The Air Force has installed a 1-megawatt solar array on the base, and last year test piloted jets there that run on advanced biofuels, demonstrating a key technology that reduces U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

Joined today by Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, and Sharon Burke, assistant secretary of defense for operational energy, Obama praised them for their work with Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta “to keep our military the strongest in the world, and to make our military more energy efficient.”

“Now, it’s important for the military to do its part because … our military is the largest energy consumer in the world,” the president said. “So we can set a good example, and help create an additional market for clean energy.”

Obama noted that the Navy plans to buy enough clean energy to power 250,000 homes a year, through an effort that won’t cost taxpayers a dime.

“What does it mean?” he asked the crowd, a mix of military members, students in clean energy programs and local energy stakeholders. “It means that the world’s largest consumer of energy, the Department of Defense, is making one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history.”

That commitment will grow the clean-energy market and ultimately strengthen U.S. energy security, he said.

Obama recognized that DOD isn’t embracing clean energy simply because “it feels good,” but also because it makes economic sense.

“Our number one priority is always the security of this nation,” he emphasized. And “what our military understands is that if we’re smart on energy that saves DOD budgets that allow them to do a whole bunch of other things.”

Alternatives to fossil fuels also are important to national security, the president told the crowd. “The less we depend on foreign oil, the more secure we become as a nation,” he said.

The president noted Mabus’ point that the U.S. dependence on foreign fossil fuels creates a vulnerability that could affect its ability to operate its military ships, aircraft and vehicles.

That’s why, Obama explained, the Navy in December made the government’s largest-ever purchase of biofuel. ”This summer, that fuel will power ships and subs during the world’s largest naval exercise,” he said, a reference to the biennial Rim of the Pacific exercise.

Obama also noted that the Navy’s F/A-18 Green Hornet is powered by a 50/50 biofuel blend. And last year, the Air Force flew an A-10 Thunderbolt entirely on alternative fuels – a first for the military.

“Overall, the Air Force is on track to save $500 million in fuel costs over the next five years because you guys have changed the way you operate. Think about that: half a billion dollars,” he told the audience, drawing big applause.

Obama also expounded on the plan he introduced during his Jan. 24 State of the Union address to reduce America’s fuel dependency, make it more secure, improve the environment and create jobs. In addition to promoting more green programs in the military, it includes opening public lands for private clean-energy investments and providing tax incentives to the domestic clean-energy sector.

As he delivered his message, the president praised the 460th Space Wing and other military members at Buckley and thanked them for their service.

“During a decade of war, these folks — so many of you – exhibited the very best of America: courage, selflessness, teamwork,” he said.

Reiterating his remarks during his State of the Union address, he told them, “You’ve exceeded all expectations, because you focus on your mission; you work together; you get the job done.”

This article first appeared on Defense.gov.

NASA's Kepler Announces 11 Planetary Systems Hosting 26 Planets

2012-01-28T20:01:00.000-08:00

Trent J. Perrotto
Headquarters, Washington

Michele Johnson

Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.

MOFFET FIELD, Calif. -- NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, the star. Such systems will help astronomers better understand how planets form.

The planets orbit close to their host stars and range in size from 1.5 times the radius of Earth to larger than Jupiter. Fifteen are between Earth and Neptune in size. Further observations will be required to determine which are rocky like Earth and which have thick gaseous atmospheres like Neptune. The planets orbit their host star once every six to 143 days. All are closer to their host star than Venus is to our sun.

"Prior to the Kepler mission, we knew of perhaps 500 exoplanets across the whole sky," said Doug Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Now, in just two years staring at a patch of sky not much bigger than your fist, Kepler has discovered more than 60 planets and more than 2,300 planet candidates. This tells us that our galaxy is positively loaded with planets of all sizes and orbits."

Kepler identifies planet candidates by repeatedly measuring the change in brightness of more than 150,000 stars to detect when a planet passes in front of the star. That passage casts a small shadow toward Earth and the Kepler spacecraft.

Each of the new confirmed planetary systems contains two to five closely spaced transiting planets. In tightly packed planetary systems, the gravitational pull of the planets on each other causes some planets to accelerate and some to decelerate along their orbits. The acceleration causes the orbital period of each planet to change. Kepler detects this effect by measuring the changes, or so-called Transit Timing Variations (TTVs

Planetary systems with TTVs can be verified without requiring extensive ground-based observations, accelerating confirmation of planet candidates. The TTV detection technique also increases Kepler's ability to confirm planetary systems around fainter and more distant stars.

Five of the systems (Kepler-25, Kepler-27, Kepler-30, Kepler-31 and Kepler-33) contain a pair of planets where the inner planet orbits the star twice during each orbit of the outer planet. Four of the systems (Kepler-23, Kepler-24, Kepler-28 and Kepler-32) contain a pairing where the outer planet circles the star twice for every three times the inner planet orbits its star.

"These configurations help to amplify the gravitational interactions between the planets, similar to how my sons kick their legs on a swing at the right time to go higher," said Jason Steffen, the Brinson postdoctoral fellow at Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics in Batavia, Ill., and lead author of a paper confirming four of the systems.

Kepler-33, a star that is older and more massive than our sun, had the most planets. The system hosts five planets, ranging in size from 1.5 to 5 times that of Earth. All of the planets are located closer to their star than any planet is to our sun.

The properties of a star provide clues for planet detection. The decrease in the star's brightness and duration of a planet transit, combined with the properties of its host star, present a recognizable signature. When astronomers detect planet candidates that exhibit similar signatures around the same star, the likelihood of any of these planet candidates being a false positive is very low.

"The approach used to verify the Kepler-33 planets shows the overall reliability is quite high," said Jack Lissauer, planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., and lead author of the paper on Kepler-33. "This is a validation by multiplicity."

These discoveries are published in four different papers in the Astrophysical Journal and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Ames manages Kepler's ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., managed the Kepler mission's development.

For more information about the Kepler mission and to view the digital press kit, visit http://www.nasa.gov/kepler.

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NASA Day of Remembrance Wreath Laying Ceremony

2012-01-28T19:57:00.000-08:00

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, NASA personnel, and others, participate in a wreath laying ceremony as part of NASA's Day of Remembrance, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012, at Arlington National Cemetery. Wreathes were laid in memory of those men and women who lost their lives in the quest for space exploration.

Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Simulation From High-resolution Forest-wind Model (Image 10)

2012-01-28T19:53:00.000-08:00

This is one of a series of illustrations that are the result of a high-resolution wind model. The model calculates the speed and direction of wind flow in and above the forest and also includes the effects of the forest itself on the wind. By forming an obstacle to the flow, the leaves and stems of trees in the forest slow down the wind and break large wind gusts to smaller eddies. Leaves also emit heat and water vapor that mix with the air as the wind blows past the leaves and change the air properties.

The images in the series illustrate a sub-section of a virtual forest, roughly 100x100x100 m^3 large. The trees in the forest were generated using a computer model, and the tree-tops are visualized as a green sheet in the picture. Leaves fill the space between the tree-tops and the ground (green floor) but are not illustrated. The white stream lines of wind inside the forest canopy illustrate the directions of the wind flow. The side walls illustrate humidity (moist is white, dry- blue) and the back wall shows the patterns of air temperature (hot is red, cold blue). The movie clip runs for 80 seconds. It illustrates a special pattern of wind in the forest called "momentum ejection." It is caused by wind being pushed from above into the canopy which in turn, pushes moist and warm air upward, outside of the canopy and into the atmosphere above. "Momentum ejections" are the major way in which moisture and heat that are released from the leaves into the canopy air are mixed with the atmosphere above the forest, and also the major way to provide fresh carbon dioxide supply into the canopy air where plants can breathe it during the photosynthesis process. Using this computer model, Gil Bohrer in the department of civil and environmental engineering and geodetic science at Ohio State University discovered that the structure of the forest and the location of gaps within it change the locations and strength at which those momentum ejections happen.

The model used for these simulations was developed with National Science Foundation (NSF) funding (grant DEB 04-53665) and the study--the results of which are depicted in these images--was supported by NSF grants DEB 09-18869 and DEB 09-11461.

Credit: Gil Bohrer, The Ohio State University

Simulation From High-resolution Forest-wind Model (Image 9)

2012-01-28T19:51:00.000-08:00

Credit: Gil Bohrer, The Ohio State University

Remembering Apollo 1

2012-01-27T15:58:00.001-08:00

On January 27, 1967, Apollo 1's crew--Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White II and Roger B. Chaffee--was killed when a fire erupted in their capsule during testing. Apollo 1 was originally designated AS-204 but following the fire, the astronauts' widows requested that the mission be remembered as Apollo 1 and following missions would be numbered subsequent to the flight that never made it into space.

Image credit: NASA

Atom-level View of Nanoscale Interface

2012-01-27T15:57:00.000-08:00

An atom-level view of the nanoscale--mere billionths of a meter--interface between amorphous carbon and diamond. At such a small scale, the surfaces are rough, although researchers have been treating them as smooth. A team of engineers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, used computer simulations to demonstrate that friction at the atomic level behaves similarly to friction generated between large objects. They found that friction is proportional to the number of atoms that interact between two nanoscale surfaces. The researchers' simulations showed that, at the nanoscale, materials in contact behave more like large, rough objects rubbing against each other, rather than as two perfectly smooth surfaces, as was previously imagined. The research was supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Further information is available in the UW news story Models present a new view of nanoscale friction. (Date of Image: 2009)

Credit: Courtesy University of Wisconsin

Researchers Show How New Viruses Evolve, and in Some Cases, Become Deadly

2012-01-27T15:54:00.001-08:00

Researchers at Michigan State University (MSU) have demonstrated how a new virus evolves, shedding light on how easy it can be for diseases to gain dangerous mutations. The findings appear in the current issue of the journal Science.

The scientists showed for the first time how the virus called "Lambda" evolved to find a new way to attack host cells, an innovation that took four mutations to accomplish. This virus infects bacteria, in particular the common E. coli bacterium. Lambda isn't dangerous to humans, but this research demonstrated how viruses evolve complex and potentially deadly new traits, noted Justin Meyer, MSU graduate student, who co-authored the paper with Richard Lenski, MSU Hannah Distinguished Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics.

"We were surprised at first to see Lambda evolve this new function, this ability to attack and enter the cell through a new receptor--and it happened so fast," Meyer said. "But when we re-ran the evolution experiment, we saw the same thing happen over and over."

This paper follows recent news that scientists in the United States and the Netherlands produced a deadly version of bird flu. Even though bird flu is a mere five mutations away from becoming transmissible between humans, it's highly unlikely the virus could naturally obtain all of the beneficial mutations at once. However, it might evolve sequentially, gaining benefits one-by-one, if conditions are favorable at each step, Meyer added.

Through research conducted at BEACON, MSU's National Science Foundation Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, Meyer and his colleagues' ability to duplicate the results implied that adaptation by natural selection, or survival of the fittest, had an important role in the virus' evolution.

Funding for the research was provided in part by NSF and MSU AgBioResearch.

-NSF-

Simulation From High-resolution Forest-wind Model (Image 8)

2012-01-27T11:24:00.000-08:00

Credit: Gil Bohrer, The Ohio State University

NASA Renames Earth-Observing Mission in Honor of Satellite Pioneer

2012-01-26T22:14:00.000-08:00

Steve Cole
Headquarters, Washington

Rani Gran

Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

WASHINGTON -- NASA has renamed its newest Earth-observing satellite in honor of the late Verner E. Suomi, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin who is recognized widely as "the father of satellite meteorology." The announcement was made Jan. 24 at the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society in New Orleans.

NASA launched the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project, or NPP, on Oct. 28, 2011, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. NPP was renamed Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership, or Suomi NPP. The satellite is the first designed to collect critical data to improve short-term weather forecasts and increase understanding of long-term climate change.

"Verner Suomi's many scientific and engineering contributions were fundamental to our current ability to learn about Earth's weather and climate from space," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington." Suomi NPP not only will extend more than four decades of NASA satellite observations of our planet, it also will usher in a new era of climate change discovery and weather forecasting."

The Suomi NPP mission is a bridge between NASA's Earth Observing System satellites to the next-generation Joint Polar Satellite System, or JPSS, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) program. JPSS is the civilian component of the former National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), which was reorganized by the Obama Administration in 2010.

"The new name now accurately describes the mission," said Michael Freilich, director of the Earth Science Division in NASA's Science Mission Directorate. "Suomi NPP will advance our scientific knowledge of Earth and improve the lives of Americans by enabling more accurate forecasts of weather, ocean conditions and the terrestrial biosphere. The mission is the product of a partnership between NASA, NOAA, the Department of Defense, the private sector and academic researchers."

Verner Suomi pioneered remote sensing of Earth from satellites in polar orbits a few hundred miles above the surface with Explorer 7 in 1959, and geostationary orbits thousands of miles high with ATS-1 in 1966. He was best known for his invention of the "spin-scan" camera which enabled geostationary weather satellites to continuously image Earth, yielding the satellite pictures commonly used on television weather broadcasts. He also was involved in planning interplanetary spacecraft missions to Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Suomi spent nearly his entire career at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where in 1965 he founded the university's Space Science and Engineering Center with funding from NASA. The center is known for Earth-observing satellite research and development. In 1964, Suomi served as chief scientist of the U.S. Weather Bureau for one year. He received the National Medal of Science in 1977. He died in 1995 at the age of 79.

"It is fitting that such an important and innovative partnership pays tribute to a pioneer like Verner Suomi," said Mary Kicza, assistant administrator for NOAA's Satellite and Information Service. "Suomi NPP is an extremely important mission for NOAA. Its advanced instruments will improve our weather forecasts and understanding of the climate and pave the way for JPSS, our next generation of weather satellites."

Suomi NPP currently is in its initial checkout phase before starting regular observations with all of its five instruments. Commissioning activities are expected to be completed by March. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the Suomi NPP mission for the Earth Science Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The JPSS program provides the satellite ground system and NOAA provides operational support.

For more information about Verner Suomi's career, visit http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Suomi/.

For more information about the Suomi NPP mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/npp.

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NBC News, NBC Sports and National Science Foundation Launch "Science of NHL Hockey"

2012-01-26T22:09:00.000-08:00

NBC News' educational arm, NBC Learn, and the NBC Sports Group recently teamed up with the National Hockey League (NHL) and National Science Foundation (NSF) to release "Science of NHL Hockey"--an informative 10-part video series exploring the science behind the fastest game on ice.

Made especially for students and teachers to use in the classroom, the videos will be aligned to lesson plans and national state education standards, and are available to the public cost-free on NBCLearn.com, NBCSports.com and Science360.gov. NBC News' Lester Holt narrates the series. NBCUniversal will distribute the videos across several platforms.

The "Science of NHL Hockey" videos will debut during NBC Sports Network's all-encompassing coverage of the 2012 NHL All-Star Weekend from Ottawa January 26-29, including a select number of videos airing throughout the Honda SuperSkills Competition on Saturday, January 28, from 7-9:30 p.m. ET. The NHL will feature the videos on NHL.com, NHL Network in the United States and Canada and in a number of arenas throughout the league. The series will also appear in retail venues across the country, on American Airlines in-flight entertainment and on NBC's affiliate stations.

This collaboration between NBC Learn, NBC Sports and NSF uses the universal appeal of hockey to drive an understanding of complicated scientific concepts. Students and teachers see how the principles of science enable players to perform actions such as quickly stopping on ice, passing the puck to a teammate, shooting a slap shot and making a great save.

The science is broken down by capturing the athletes' movements with a state-of-the-art, high-speed Phantom camera, which has the ability to capture movement at rates of up to 10,000 frames per second. These dynamic visuals allow for frame-by-frame illustrations of specific scientific principles such as Newton's Three Laws of Motion, kinematics and velocity. Other video episodes analyze the hockey science behind reflexes and reaction time, statistics, vectors, linear motion, geometry and more.

NBC Sports Group oversaw the Phantom video shoot in September 2011 during the yearly media tour sponsored by the NHL and its players association. NBC Sports Group also provided research and technical support throughout the project.

Current NHL players who participated in the video series include:

•Jaroslav Halak, Goaltender, St. Louis Blues

•Erik Johnson, Defenseman, Colorado Avalanche
•Brenden Morrow, Left Wing, Dallas Stars
•Matt Moulson, Left Wing, New York Islanders
•Pekka Rinne, Goaltender, Nashville Predators

In each video, an NSF-supported scientist explains a selected scientific principle, while NHL athletes describe how the principle applies to their respective positions. Series scientists supported by NSF are: Edward Burger, Williams College; Irene Fonseca, Carnegie Mellon; Jim Gates, University of Maryland; Robert Gehrz, University of Minnesota; and Patricia Shewokis, Drexel University. The videos also include actual game footage provided by the NHL, and the lesson plans that accompany the videos will be provided by the National Science Teachers Association.

"Science of NHL Hockey" follows in the footsteps of the "Science of NFL Football" and "Science of the Olympic Winter Games" collections, which are part of an ongoing "Science of Sports" collaboration with the NSF that was awarded a 2010 Sports Emmy for "Outstanding New Approaches Sports Programming."

"Wayne Gretzky once said, 'The only way a kid is going to practice is if it's total fun for him ... and it was for me,'" said Morris Aizenman, Senior Scientist for NSF's Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences. "'Science of NHL Hockey' is an NSF and NBC Learn project that continues our effort to make science total fun for students. We hope, after watching these videos that students will also want to learn and practice science."

"Building on the innovative partnership that NBC Learn has with NSF and NBC Sports, we are thrilled to expand the 'Science of Sports' franchise to include hockey," said Soraya Gage, Executive Producer of NBC Learn. "These one-of-a-kind videos have set a new precedent for teaching science in the classroom, by literally breaking down concepts and illustrating their real life application through sports."

"The NHL is excited to partner with NBC and the National Science Foundation on this special project," said Charles Coplin, Executive Vice President of Content for the NHL. "Students, teachers and NHL fans everywhere will experience hockey in a unique way through the spectacular footage captured during filming with the players."

"It was exciting to be part of a unique project that utilizes hockey to help educate students on science and physics," said Brenden Morrow of the Dallas Stars. "It was fun to participate in and was very interesting. I learned a lot myself."

-NSF-

Simulation From High-resolution Forest-wind Model (Image 7)

2012-01-26T22:03:00.001-08:00

Credit: Gil Bohrer, The Ohio State University

Simulation From High-resolution Forest-wind Model (Image 6)

2012-01-26T21:59:00.001-08:00

Credit: Gil Bohrer, The Ohio State University

Simulation From High-resolution Forest-wind Model (Image 5)

2012-01-26T17:02:00.000-08:00

Credit: Gil Bohrer, The Ohio State University

Blue Marble

2012-01-26T17:00:00.000-08:00

A 'Blue Marble' image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA's most recently launched Earth-observing satellite - Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth's surface taken on January 4, 2012. The NPP satellite was renamed 'Suomi NPP' on January 24, 2012 to honor the late Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin.

Suomi NPP is NASA's next Earth-observing research satellite. It is the first of a new generation of satellites that will observe many facets of our changing Earth.

Suomi NPP is carrying five instruments on board. The biggest and most important instrument is The Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite or VIIRS.

Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

Simulation From High-resolution Forest-wind Model (Image 4)

2012-01-26T16:58:00.000-08:00

Credit: Gil Bohrer, The Ohio State University

Simulation From High-resolution Forest-wind Model (Image 3)

2012-01-26T16:56:00.000-08:00

Credit: Gil Bohrer, The Ohio State University

NASA Renames Earth-Observing Mission in Honor of Satellite Pioneer

2012-01-25T19:51:00.000-08:00

Steve Cole
Headquarters, Washington

Rani Gran

For more information about Verner Suomi's career, visit http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Suomi/.

For more information about the Suomi NPP mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/npp.

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Simulation From High-resolution Forest-wind Model (Image 2)

2012-01-25T19:46:00.000-08:00

Simulation From High-resolution Forest-wind Model (Image 1)

2012-01-25T19:44:00.000-08:00

PhET Simulations Provide Interactive Learning Tools

2012-01-25T14:58:00.000-08:00

What causes a balloon to stick to a sweater? How do microwaves heat coffee? How is electricity generated from a bar magnet?

The physical world poses a number of questions. The PhET Interactive Simulations project at the University of Colorado Boulder helps students discover the answers and go beyond, while improving their scientific literacy.

The PhET project, founded by Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and others, provides free, interactive, research-based simulations of physical phenomena for elementary through university students. NSF's Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) provides primary support through its Transforming Undergraduate Education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics program (and its predecessor the Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement Program) and the Discovery Research K-12 program.

The simulations are presented as individual exploratory environments rather than courses, so each computer simulation can be integrated into various classroom activities. They're also readily accessible--with a simple "click," these simulations, written in Java and Flash, open up an engaging science playground.

"PhET allows students to simulate experiments," said Zeke Kossover, a 2011-2012 NSF Einstein Fellow and a high school physics teacher. "This allows them to do experiments with equipment that might not normally be available to them. It lets students play around in a physics sandbox where they can't break anything and they can try everything. It also can let them do experiments in such a way that they can explore just the idea being tested without having too many real world complications going on at once."

Don Millard, program director in EHR's Division of Undergraduate Education, said "PhET gives students the ability to put a context around formulas and theories, etc., and helps students to explore 'what if' questions that arise in science."

PhET simulations are developed using extensive research to help make the simulations as effective as possible. Katherine Perkins, director of PhET, explained that PhET simulations draw from and are aligned with published research in a variety of disciplines, including cognitive science, multimedia and computer interface design, and general and discipline-based education research.

"In addition, we conduct a series of individual interviews on every simulation to examine whether the simulation is engaging students in scientist-like exploration, whether the interface is intuitive, whether students are correctly interpreting the representations and feedback provided by the simulation to advance their understanding, and whether students are able to achieve the learning goals of the simulation through their interaction and investigation," said Perkins. "Finally, we conduct observations and research in classroom environments."

PhET's learning tools and simple design have caught on around the world. PhET simulations have been used over 60 million times, and are available in 65 languages with 22 full website translations.

PhET in action

"I use PhET in three ways," said Kossover. "In the first way, the students are given a playground to explore a topic. In the second way, I give the students a structured lab and tell them what to do. This is relatively rare. The third way is I find an applet that is very similar to an activity we did in class. Students who were absent can repeat the activity. Students that had more questions can poke around and explore on their own time. Students who were confused or made some sort of mistake can redo the work at home."

Ultimately, PhET can help students develop skills to use beyond the classroom and create their own new innovations. "Students are able to get fundamentals and apply them to create new products," said Millard. "Interactive simulations, such as PhET, allow students to integrate knowledge to help better identify problems we might be facing, and use this knowledge to develop innovative solutions."

A Mini-lesson using a PhET simulation on waves

Many PhET simulations help students make mental models of things that are too small to see.

In the Wave Interference Simulation, students can experiment with making waves using a faucet, an audio speaker and a laser. Students can control the frequency and amplitude of each of the waves (for light, the amplitude and the wavelength) as well as control other variables.

Kossover gives a mini-lesson on waves using the audio speaker/sound-wave model:

After running the Wave Interference Simulation, switch to the "Sound" tab, and then press the green "plus" on the upper right corner of the wave simulation to enlarge the simulation. Then, on the middle right side of the simulation, switch from "Grayscale" to "Particles."

"You can see right away how the motion of the speaker moves particles back and forth and how they collide with other particles and send them moving," said Kossover. "You can increase the frequency and see the speaker vibrate more times per second. You can raise the amplitude and see the distance moved by the speaker get larger and the particles become more compressed with fewer particles in between the compressed spots."

A user can also add a second speaker to the simulation.

"Then, you can see that there are some parts where the particles move more and some places where the particles move less, showing constructive and destructive interference," said Kossover.

"While the visualization factor itself is great, the students' ability to adjust the frequency and the amplitude makes it easier for them to get a feel for what's happening in such a way that they can make a mental model of what's happening," said Kossover. "Imagine how challenging it is to explain this model to students in another way."

"Understanding waves is part of most state physics standards but learning more about waves and sound is a hook that helps students, especially if they are musicians or listen to music," said Kossover.

"It helps students understand that much of their everyday lives has hidden beauty and complexity that can be described by physics models. The scientific process of making mental models of how the world works and using them to make predictions about the world are the first steps to becoming a scientist or at least thinking like one. The PhET simulations help students make these mental models and see scientific principles in action."

PhET selected as a 2011 Tech Award laureate

Last September, PhET was selected as a 2011 Tech Award laureate, and the recipient of the Microsoft Education Tech Award $50,000 cash prize. The Tech Award is a signature program of The Tech Museum in San Jose, Calif. that recognizes and honors technical solutions that benefit humanity and address crucial issues in our world today. PhET was selected as one of 15 laureates, out of over 600 nominations representing 54 countries. Watch PhET's Tech Award Laureate video to learn more.

-- Ellen Ferrante, (703) 292-2204 emferran@nsf.gov

Investigators

Carl Wieman
Robert Parson
Michael Dubson
Daniel Schwartz
Noah Podolefsky
Noah Finkelstein
Katherine Perkins

Related Institutions/Organizations

University of Colorado at Boulder

NASA Chief Technologist Mason Peck Visits Wallops

2012-01-25T14:53:00.001-08:00

NASA Chief Technologist Mason Peck, left, and Robin Heard, Manager of Antares Upper Stage Ground Operations, Orbital Sciences Corp., view the Antares rocket at Wallops on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. The visit to Wallops was Peck's first visit to an agency center since becoming NASA's Chief Technologist.

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Zero Robotics Challenge Winners Decided in High-Tech Competition

2012-01-25T14:00:00.001-08:00

Ann Marie Trotta
Headquarters, Washington

WASHINGTON -- Two hundred high school students packed an auditorium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on Monday, Jan. 23, for a competition to program miniature satellites aboard the International Space Station. Alliance Rocket from the United States and virtual participants Alliance CyberAvo from Europe were named the winners in the third annual NASA-sponsored Zero Robotics SPHERES Challenge.

Student teams wrote programming code for two small NASA robotic satellites aboard the station. Astronauts Don Pettit and Andre Kuipers, who currently live aboard the International Space Station, presided over the event and gathered data from the student-controlled SPHERES flight programs after each phase of the competition. Current and former astronauts were on hand at MIT to share their experiences in space with the student audience, including Greg Chamitoff, Leland Melvin, John Grunsfeld and Jeff Hoffman. Spaceflight participant Richard Garriott, who traveled to the space station about a Soyuz, also attended.

Both winning efforts consisted of three teams. The teams that made up Alliance Rocket were Team Rocket, River Hill High School, Clarksville, Md.; Defending Champions, Storming Robots, Branchburg, N.J.; and SPHEREZ of Influence, Rockledge High School/Brevard County, Fla. Alliance CyberAvo consisted of CyberAvo, I.T.I.S. Amedeo Avogrado, Turin, Italy; Ultima, Kaethe Kollwitz Oberschule, Berlin, Germany; and Lazy, Heinrich Hertz Gymnasium, Berlin, Germany. A total of 36 teams participated in the SPHERES event.

"It is just amazing to me what these high school students have accomplished," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "To program a robotic spacecraft with the precision of a NASA flight controller is quite a feat, but to have that ability, talent and discipline at such a young age is remarkable. Our future is in good hands."

NASA sponsors the Zero Robotics SPHERES Challenge in partnership with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and MIT. The competition aligns with the agency’s goal of encouraging students to study and pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM.

The SPHERES National Laboratory is operated by NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

For more about the Zero Robotics program, visit http://go.nasa.gov/zero-robotics.

For more information about SPHERES, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/SPHERES.html.

For more information about the space station, visit http://www.nasa.gov/station.

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"Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology" Initiative Charts New Path for College-level Biology

2012-01-25T13:57:00.000-08:00

According to a rising chorus of biology educators, major changes in the teaching of undergraduate biology are needed to bring undergraduate biology courses into the 21st century. Such changes, these educators say, are necessary because modern biology has, in recent years, undergone major transformations. For example, biologists have used emerging technologies and interdisciplinary collaborations to rapidly open new areas of biological research and pioneer new approaches that enhance our understanding of living systems.

Associated advancements in biology are helping society better address urgent problems involving climate, energy, food and health. At the same time, a communications revolution has created a hyper-connected world in which information flows fast and freely. Because of these trends, the ways in which we discover, understand and learn about biology have profoundly changed.

In response to these new realities, biology educators are considering ways to better prepare college students for careers in the life sciences and to promote biological literacy in our citizenry. In doing so, they have increasingly recognized that traditional undergraduate teaching approaches that aim to "cover it all" cannot accommodate the ongoing explosion of new information in biology.

A call to action

To help biology educators modernize undergraduate biology education, the National Science Foundation (NSF)--in partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)--launched a national initiative in 2007 called Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology. This initiative was designed to distill a set of cutting-edge, 21st century approaches to undergraduate biology education from decades of conversations, reports and calls for change. Steadily gaining momentum, the initiative has, thus far, culminated in:

1.A national conference, entitled "Transforming Undergraduate Biology Education: Mobilizing the Community for Change," that was held in 2009 and attended by more than 500 biology faculty members, administrators, students and other stakeholders. The conference was hosted by AAAS with support from the NSF and input from HHMI and NIH.

2.The release in 2011 of a final report, entitled "Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action", which--based on the diverse insights expressed at the conference--provides a roadmap for the future of undergraduate biology education.

The final report's findings were summarized by a quote from Carol Brewer, professor emeritus of biological sciences at the University of Montana and the conference co-chair, that was included in a summary of the final report. Brewer said, "We all have work ahead of us to ensure that the transformations we make in biology classrooms around the country reflect the biology we do in the 21st Century."

To help guide this transformative effort, the final report identifies:

•Core concepts that students must understand in order to become biologically literate. These concepts are: 1) evolution (the diversity of life-forms that have evolved over time through mutations, selection, and genetic change; 2) structure and function (the basic units of biological structures that define the functions of all living things); 3) information flow, exchange and storage (the influence of genetics on the control of the growth and behavior of organisms); 4) pathways and transformations of energy and matter (the ways in which chemical transformation pathways and the laws of thermodynamics govern the growth and change of biological systems); and 5) systems (the ways in which living things are interconnected and interact with one another).

•Core competencies--beyond the concepts identified above--that students must experience in order to become biologically literate and practice science. These competencies are: 1) the ability to apply the process of science; 2) the ability to use quantitative reasoning; 3) the ability to use modeling and simulation; 4) the ability to tap into the interdisciplinary nature of science; 5) the ability to communicate and collaborate with other disciplines; and 6) the ability to understand relationships between science and society.

Facilitating change in the biology classroom

Another critical aspect of the report is its emphasis on the importance of developing student-centered teaching approaches that actively engage students in interactive, inquiry-driven, cooperative and collaborative activities. According to the report, these approaches should convey to students the wonder of the natural world and the passion and curiosity of scientists, involve students in authentic research experiences and teach students how to evaluate complex biological problems from varied perspectives without just reciting facts and terminology.

To promote the development of student-centered approaches, the report directs readers to practical resources to help them integrate student-centered learning throughout biology curriculums, relevant examples of successful models and approaches to student-centered learning, and practical advice on using assessment tools.

In addition, the report recommends designing and revising undergraduate biology courses to incorporate clearly defined, measurable goals, the latest insights into how people learn, and successful best practices in teaching that have been identified by science education researchers and practitioners.

The report also cites the need for institutions--including colleges, universities, professional societies and federal and private funding sources--to create environments that promote advances in biology education. The report advises institutions to do so by preparing and training future faculty members to create student-centered classrooms, offering professional development in teaching to all of biology faculty members, hiring biologists who have education specialties, and devoting funds and resources to improving biology education.

Gaining momentum

To further energize biology educators, the next phases of the Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Initiative are currently being planned. These steps will involve engaging the biology community in the identification and dissemination of strategies for curricular reform at the departmental and institutional levels, and developing, in partnership with professional societies, a Web portal that features curricular resources for undergraduate biology courses that are based on the latest developments in scientific teaching.

What's next? A large national meeting is currently being planned for 2013. This meeting will focus on updates to the initiative's progress and on methods used to achieve such progress. In addition, vision and change fellows will be identified who will work together to draft an implementation framework that is expected to help institutionalize the adoption of the recommendations across various types of institutions.

-- Cynthia Wei, Former AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow at NSF Cynthia3wei@gmail.com

NASA Administrator Visits Morgan State University

2012-01-25T13:53:00.000-08:00

Sarah Ramsey
Headquarters, Washington

Highlights Importance of Science, Math in Creating Economy That Works for All

WASHINGTON -- NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will visit Morgan State University in Baltimore on Jan. 25 to meet with students in the engineering and science programs, and highlight the importance of science, engineering and mathematics in creating and sustaining the American economy. Bolden’s visit will come the day after President Obama delivers his State of the Union speech.

Bolden will visit the Richard N. Dixon Science Research Center School of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences and the Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. School of Engineering. Morgan State University is one of NASA’s University Research Centers, studying next generation aviation safety, aerospace systems engineering and Earth science.

While visiting the Engineering Visualization Research Laboratory, Bolden and Morgan State University President David Wilson will be available to speak with news media at 12:45 p.m. EDT.

Media representatives should call Sarah Ramsey at 202.358.1694 or email her at sarah.ramsey@nasa.gov to attend the tour and press event.

Founded in 1867, Morgan State University is one of the nation’s historically black colleges and universities. For more information about Morgan State University, visit http://www.morgan.edu.

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit http://www.nasa.gov.

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Next-Generation Space Flight

2012-01-24T21:10:00.001-08:00

The Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV), or Orion, being assembled and tested at Lockheed Martin's Vertical Testing Facility in Colorado.

Drawing from more than 50 years of spaceflight research and development, Orion is designed to meet the evolving needs of our nation's space program for decades to come.

As the flagship of our nation's next-generation space fleet, Orion will push the envelope of human spaceflight far beyond low Earth orbit.

Orion may resemble its Apollo-era predecessors, but its technology and capability are light years apart. Orion features dozens of technology advancements and innovations that have been incorporated into the spacecraft's subsystem and component design.

A test version of the Orion spacecraft makes a stop at the Science Museum Oklahoma in Oklahoma City today, giving residents the chance to see a full scale test version of the vehicle that will take humans into deep space.

Image Credit: Lockheed Martin

Young Adults Responded Well to Swine Flu

2012-01-24T21:09:00.000-08:00

About one in five young adults in their late 30's received a flu shot during the 2009-2010 swine flu epidemic, a University of Michigan (U-M) study released today says.

But about 65 percent were at least moderately concerned about the flu, and nearly 60 percent said they were following the issue very or moderately closely.

Using survey data collected from approximately 3,000 young adults during the 2009-2010 H1N1 influenza epidemic, this second of three parts in a U-M Generation X Report explores the first serious infectious disease Americans ages 36-39 ever experienced. It describes how the group kept abreast of the issue and what actions they eventually took to protect themselves and their families.

The data is part of the Longitudinal Study of American Youth conducted by the Institute for Social Research at University of Michigan and directed by Jon D. Miller, author of the report. The study, funded by the National Science Foundation since 1986, now includes responses from approximately 4,000 Gen Xers--those born between 1961 and 1981.

"These results suggest that young adults in Generation X did reasonably well in their first encounter with a major epidemic," says Miller. "Those with minor children at home were at the greatest risk, and they responded accordingly with higher levels of awareness and concern."

According to Miller, understanding GenX reactions to this recent threat may help public health officials manage future epidemics more effectively.

"This nationally-representative study helps us understand young adults' knowledge of viral infections and the ways they sought information on the H1N1 epidemic," says Gavin Fulmer, associate program director in NSF's Division of Research on Learning. "The findings can inform public health officials about the relationships among health knowledge, accessible sources of health information and preventive behaviors. This may help us address future epidemics or other potential health emergencies."

The results also show that even though a majority of Generation X young adults felt that they were "well informed" or "very well informed" about the issue, overall they scored only moderately well on an Index of Influenza Knowledge, a series of five items designed to test the level of knowledge about viral infections generally and about the swine flu epidemic specifically.

Among the other findings:

•Young adults with minor children at home were most likely to follow the news about influenza closely and were most concerned about the swine flu epidemic.

•Young adults were most likely to report getting information about the epidemic from friends, co-workers and family members. In the month before the survey, they reported having about nine such conversations, compared to getting news about the flu less than three times via print or broadcast media and about five times from searching the internet.

•The most trusted sources of information about the influenza epidemic were physicians, followed by the National Institutes of Health, pharmacists at local drug stores and nurses from county health departments. The least trusted sources were YouTube videos, drug company commercials and Wikipedia articles.

"In the decades ahead, the young adults in Generation X will encounter numerous other crises--some biomedical, some environmental, and others yet to be imagined," says Miller. "They will have to acquire, organize and make sense of emerging scientific and technical information, and the experience of coping with the swine flu epidemic suggests how they will meet that challenge."

A third Generation X Report on the topic of food and cooking will be issued in April 2012. Subsequent reports will cover climate, space exploration, citizenship and voting.

-NSF-

U.S., Coalition Nations Form Wideband Global Satellite Partnership

2012-01-23T16:51:00.000-08:00

By Tech. Sgt. Chris Powell, Defense Media Activity

Senior defense officials from six countries announced a multilateral partnership in wideband global satellite (WGS) communication, which is valued at more than $10 billion, Jan. 17 here.

The officials from Canada, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the U.S. held an initial WGS partnership steering committee meeting prior to the announcement.

“This new WGS partnership provides an example of how the U.S. plans to continue exploring opportunities to strengthen our existing cooperative relationship and to build new partnerships,” said Heidi Grant, the Deputy Under Secretary of the Air Force for International Affairs. “These activities will bolster our mutual trust, help to achieve further interoperability for our warfighters, and will increase the capabilities and capacity of all partners.”

Currently, there are three WGS satellites in orbit, with six additional satellites scheduled for launches from 2012 through 2018, including a ninth satellite that is enabled by the new partnership.

“With this arrangement, each partner’s unique level of requirement will be accommodated corresponding to each partner’s level of contribution,” Grant said. “The United States’ contribution to the agreement includes the development, fielding and operation of eight satellites, and the launch services and operations for a ninth satellite.”

According to Grant, the multilateral partners contributed $620 million of the approximate $1 billion cost to expand the WGS System with a ninth satellite.

“This is a model of a good way to do business,” said Maj. Gen. John Hyten, the director of Space Programs in the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition. “From an Air Force acquisition perspective, it improves our ability to acquire the constellation in an efficient manner because it keeps an active production line going, it allows us to achieve efficiencies in the production line (and) it saves us money in the long term by having a very efficient program.

“From an operational perspective for our Air Force operators, it puts (them) on the same system as the coalition partners,” he said.

The general explained that Air Force operators receive air tasking orders via wideband communications, and now each partner nation has access to the system and can receive ATOs through that same system.

This article first appeared on AF.mil.

Astronaut Application Deadline Approaching

2012-01-23T16:48:00.000-08:00

Joshua Buck
Headquarters, Washington

Nicole Cloutier-Lemasters

Johnson Space Center, Houston

HOUSTON -- Individuals interested in becoming America's future space explorers have until Friday to submit their applications. The deadline to apply for the next class of NASA astronauts is Jan. 27.

The agency typically receives as many as 3,500 applicants for each astronaut class. Thus far, NASA has received more than 3,000 applications since November for this class.

"We are excited about the response we have received, and we want to encourage anyone contemplating this dynamic and exciting career to apply," said Peggy Whitson, chief of the Astronaut Office. "We are entering a new phase in human spaceflight with amazing opportunities to live and work in space. We want the best, the brightest and the most talented mix of professionals to join our team."

Those interested in applying for the astronaut corps can submit their applications through the federal government's USAJobs.gov website. Qualifications include a bachelor's degree in engineering, science or math and three years of relevant professional experience. Educators teaching kindergarten through 12th grade also are encouraged to apply.

NASA expects to announce the final selections in 2013 with initial training to begin that summer.

For more information about the astronaut application and selection process and to follow the latest news via NASA accounts on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, visit http://www.nasa.gov/flynasa.

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8th Annual Blast Injury Conference Discusses New Technology, Continuum of Care

2012-01-23T13:51:00.000-08:00

By Robyn Mincher, DCoE Strategic Communications

Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC), a center of Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury (DCoE), hosted the 8th Annual Blast Injury Conference Dec. 14, 2011, in Tampa, Fla. The event covered topics such as current care efforts of blast injury, new technology to improve treatment of traumatic brain injury (TBI), blast testing methods and how families can be affected by TBI.

Dr. Steven Scott, medical director of James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital’s Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center in Tampa, gave opening remarks and helped organize the conference. Scott has been integral to the annual event since it began as a session at the Special Operations Medical Association conference in 2004. It has since grown to a full-day event, bringing together TBI and psychological health care experts from around the world, as well as those invested in TBI and psychological care and treatment in the military community.

“When the conference first originated eight years ago, we were seeing injuries from the wars, but recognized that the community and providers often didn’t really know what blast injury was,” he said. “Realizing the uniqueness of this injury, we made the conference a one-day event so we can educate our people working in care settings on advanced knowledge on blast injury.”

In her presentation “Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: Continuum of Care,” Army Col. Jamie Grimes, DVBIC director, discussed pre-deployment prevention and education training for service members on concussion, such as an Army campaign to teach soldiers and units how to identify, care for and track cases of mild TBI, which includes mandatory classes on the basics of the injury.

New technology was the focus of the presentation “Improving Function through Use of the Functional Electrical Stimulation Hand Glove 200.” Scott and a team of researchers from Haley Veterans’ Hospital discussed how the electrical glove delivered electrical stimulation to finger extensors and flexors attached to parts of the hand. The glove, invented by a scientist who spent 10 years as a robotic engineer for films, strengthened muscle, reduced spasticity, pain and swelling in hands that have decreased function as a result of TBI.

Dr. Jeanette Betancourt, vice president of outreach and educational practices with Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind Sesame Street, discussed the impact of TBI on military families. She listed their resources to help military families communicate when there is a psychological health care issue, such as their website www.familiesnearandfar.org.

The conference marked another year where top minds in TBI furthered knowledge on the many concerns surrounding the injury in the military.

“There’s a lot we’re learning every day about blast injuries. This injury has a significant effect on the whole person and their family, and it needs a whole team community behind rehabilitation,” said Scott.

Bionic Leg Makes Amputee Faster on His Feet

2012-01-23T13:49:00.000-08:00

This powered prosthetic is better at anticipating the next move

Craig Hutto considers himself part bionic man. In 2005, doctors amputated his leg after a shark attacked him during a fishing trip off the Florida Gulf Coast.

"I was 16 years old at the time," recalls Hutto. "My brother heard me yell: 'What was that?' He saw something take me under; he saw the back fin of the shark. There was so much tissue damage and so much flesh gone that it was just irreparable."

Two years later and game for a challenge, Hutto became the test pilot for a unique and powerful new prosthetic leg being developed by mechanical engineer Michael Goldfarb and his team at Vanderbilt University. The effort was kick-started by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

"We were able to develop an early prototype that demonstrated that you could have a leg that was light enough and could deliver biomechanical levels of torque and power," says Goldfarb.

Version 1.0 evolved into a more streamlined version 2.0, which is computer controlled, with advanced range of motion in the joints. Version 2.0 was funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the National Institutes of Health.

"This is a battery that powers everything," explains Goldfarb, holding up the latest version and pointing to the various components. "You have a motor that drives the knee joint, another motor that drives the ankle joint. There is a whole computer board that essentially tells the motors what to do with the joints."

In Goldfarb's lab, Hutto straps on the prosthetic and "walks the walk" on a treadmill--each step recorded by an array of cameras to help engineers improve the mechanics, electronics and software.

Brian Lawson, a mechanical engineer and member of Goldfarb's team, says what makes this prosthetic stand out is the on-board computer. "What I think makes people think that it's bionic is the computing capability that infers what the user is trying to do and works synergistically with the user to provide the torque at the right time."

The prosthetic leg is designed to respond to cues from the wearer. For example, when Hutto goes from walking to climbing stairs, he gives a signal and the bionic leg responds. "I kind of kick my thigh back just a little bit," says Hutto, "and just that little movement tells it, 'Hey you're about to walk upstairs,' and it switches mode into the stair ascent."

To reduce the risk of injury, Goldfarb's team has intentionally programmed a slight delay into the leg's computer to make sure the wearer and the prosthetic stay in perfect step with each other, and to make walking easier. "The leg can move with you," says Goldfarb.

Hutto confirms it takes less effort to walk compared to the prosthetic he currently wears. "With my leg, it's harder because it's always a step behind. I'm having to use my hip to swing my leg through, whereas the Vanderbilt Powered Prosthetic, when it toes off, the power swings the leg through and so I'm not having to use my hip to swing it through."

Goldfarb says after years of work, they have sold their technology to a major prosthetic manufacturer. "We'll know in the next few years if these are going to come onto the market and really gain a lot of traction," he says.

Meanwhile, Hutto, inspired by the three nurses who saved him from bleeding to death, is studying to become a nurse and looking forward to one day walking tall on the bionic leg that he helped make a reality.

Miles O'Brien, Science Nation Correspondent

Ann Kellan, Science Nation Producer

Virginia Students to Speak Live With Space Station Astronauts

2012-01-23T12:22:00.001-08:00

Ann Marie Trotta
Headquarters, Washington

Rachel Kraft

Johnson Space Center, Houston

WASHINGTON -- Students gathered at The University of Virginia College at Wise will speak with Expedition 30 Commander Dan Burbank and Flight Engineer Don Pettit aboard the International Space Station at 9:20 a.m. EST on Thursday, Jan. 26. Media representatives are invited to attend.

Approximately 2,500 students from southwestern Virginia will ask questions about life, work and research aboard the space station. NASA Associate Administrator for Education and former astronaut Leland Melvin will attend, and Gov. Robert McDonnell and U.S. Sen. Mark Warner will connect virtually with the event. It will be broadcast live on NASA Television.

To attend the event, news media must contact Jennifer Maggard at jennifer@courtbar.org or 276-328-6111 no later than noon on Wednesday, Jan. 25. The university is located at One College Avenue in Wise.

Students from Wise County Public Schools will participate in science, technology, engineering and mathematics learning activities before and after the event. A temporary space museum set up at the university Jan. 25 - 26 will display a moon rock, a spacesuit like those worn by Apollo astronauts and an inflatable replica of NASA's Curiosity rover currently en route to the Red Planet.

This in-flight education downlink is one in a series with educational organizations in the United States and abroad to improve STEM teaching and learning. It is an integral component of NASA's Teaching From Space program, which promotes learning opportunities and builds partnerships with the education community using the unique environment of space and NASA's human spaceflight program.

For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv.

For information about NASA's education programs, visit http://www.nasa.gov/education.

For information about the International Space Station, visit http://www.nasa.gov/station.

To follow Twitter updates from Burbank and Pettit, visit http://twitter.com/AstroCoastie and http://twitter.com/Astro_Pettit.

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