SpaceX fixes spaceship glitch after launch

The arrival of SpaceX's Dragon cargo capsule at the International Space Station will be delayed due to a problem with its thrusters. NBC's Tom Costello reports.

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

The commercial SpaceX rocket venture launched its unmanned Dragon capsule on a cargo run to the International Space Station on Friday, and then spent hours addressing a gnarly problem with the Dragon's thruster system. The problem was solved, but not before it forced at least a day's delay in the cargo craft's space station rendezvous.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket made a problem-free ascent from its launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 10:10 a.m. ET to send the Dragon into space. But a half-hour after launch, SpaceX founder Elon Musk?said in a Twitter update that controllers encountered an issue involving the capsule's thrusters.

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"Issue with Dragon thruster pods," Musk wrote. "System inhibiting three of four [pods] from initializing. About to command inhibit override."

Each pod contains a grouping of thrusters that are used to guide the Dragon's course in orbit. In an email, SpaceX spokeswoman Christina Ra said the Dragon "experienced an issue with a propellant valve" after it achieved orbit. "One thruster pod is running," she said. "We are trying to bring up the remaining three. We did go ahead and get the solar arrays deployed.?Once we get at least two pods running, we will begin a series of burns to get to station."

SpaceX's controllers wrestled with the problem for hours. Just before 3 p.m. ET, Musk said that a second thruster pod was up and running. After another hour, he reported that the other two pods were working as well. "Thruster pods one through four are now operating nominally. Preparing to raise orbit. All systems green," Musk said on?Twitter. ?And an hour after that, he sent another tweet saying that the orbit-raising burn was successful. "Dragon back on track," he wrote.

During a teleconference with reporters, Musk speculated that there was a stuck valve or "potentially some blockage" in the lines for pressurizing the thrusters' oxidizer tank. Cycling the valves and releasing a blast of pressurized helium cleared the lines, he said. There was no indication that the blockage did any damage to the system, although SpaceX and NASA were taking a closer look at the cause of the problem and its aftermath.

Musk voiced relief that operations were getting back to normal. "It was a little frightening there," the 41-year-old billionaire coolly acknowledged.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, sending the Dragon capsule on a resupply mission to the International Space Station.

SpaceX

Hundreds of SpaceX employees gather around Dragon mission control at the company's headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., to watch the Falcon 9 liftoff. A flown Dragon capsule is suspended from the ceiling.

Checking the system
NASA said three operational thruster pods would be required for the Dragon's approach to the space station. The agency's space station manager, Mike Suffredini, said NASA's team would need some "added time to make sure this is working properly." That means the earliest opportunity for astronauts to grab the Dragon with the station's robotic arm and bring it in for a berthing will come early Sunday rather than on Saturday.

NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations, Bill Gerstenmaier, praised SpaceX for its handling of the problem. "They did everything exactly right about the vehicle," he said.?

This is the third Dragon flight to the station: The first one, which took place last May, was a demonstration flight aimed at proving that California-based SpaceX could safely reach the space station, get hooked up, and then descend again to a splashdown. Last October's second flight marked the first of what's expected to be 12 resupply missions to the station, under the terms of a $1.6 billion contract with NASA. At that rate, each Dragon mission costs NASA about $133 million.

If the Dragon is not able to hook up with the space station, SpaceX would receive only a partial payment for the flight, Musk said. He didn't say how much that payment would amount to.?

What's on the Dragon?
This Dragon contains more than 2,300 pounds (1,050 kilograms) of cargo, including experiments to study the growth of plants and mouse stem cells in zero-G. There are also spare parts for the station's air-recycling system, and?a research freezer for preserving biological samples.

A similar freezer was loaded up with ice cream treats for the crew for last October's resupply mission, but this time, the goodies packed on the Dragon were "a little bit healthier," SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said. Although she wasn't specific about what the space station's six residents would be getting, she said the treats were coming fresh from an orchard owned by the father of one of SpaceX's employees.

The astronauts are due to open the Dragon's hatch on the day after its arrival. It will take about three weeks to unload the craft, then load it up with more than 3,000 pounds (1,370 kilograms) of cargo for return to Earth. The original schedule called for the Dragon to be unberthed for a Pacific splashdown and recovery on March 25. Suffredini said that schedule would be adjusted, depending on the time frame for the Dragon's berthing.

SpaceX's cargo flights are meant to fill the gap left by the retirement of NASA's space shuttle fleet in 2011. Another company, Orbital Science Corp., has a separate NASA contract to begin deliveries to the space station later this year. Cargo can also be delivered to the space station on Russian, Japanese and European transports, but only SpaceX currently has the capability to bring cargo back down.

SpaceX and two other companies, Sierra Nevada Corp. and the Boeing Co., are developing crew-capable spacecraft under a separate NASA program. Those spaceships could be ready for NASA's use as early as 2017. In the meantime, U.S. astronauts have to ride on Russian Soyuz capsules at a cost of about $60 million per seat.

More about SpaceX:

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Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the?Cosmic Log?community by "liking" the log's?Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space,?sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

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This story was originally published on Fri Mar 1, 2013 10:01 AM EST

Source: http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/01/17146712-spacex-fixes-glitch-on-its-dragon-craft-after-launch-to-space-station?lite

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Syria, Iran say Assad to remain in power till 2014

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, left, and his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi, shake hands, at the conclusion of their press conference, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, March 2, 2013. The Syrian and Iranian foreign ministers on Saturday accused the United States of double standards over the Obama administration's decision to provide aid to rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad, saying this will only prolong the conflict. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, left, and his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi, shake hands, at the conclusion of their press conference, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, March 2, 2013. The Syrian and Iranian foreign ministers on Saturday accused the United States of double standards over the Obama administration's decision to provide aid to rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad, saying this will only prolong the conflict. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, right, attends a joint news conference with his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi, unseen, as an Iranian Foreign Ministry official adjusts a Syrian flag, at left, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, March 2, 2013. The Syrian and Iranian foreign ministers on Saturday accused the United States of double standards over the Obama administration's decision to provide aid to rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad, saying this will only prolong the conflict. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi speaks during a joint news conference with his Syrian counterpart Walid al-Moallem,unseen, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, March 2, 2013. The Syrian and Iranian foreign ministers on Saturday accused the United States of double standards over the Obama administration's decision to provide aid to rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad, saying this will only prolong the conflict. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) ? Iran and Syria condemned a U.S. plan to assist rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad on Saturday and signaled the Syrian leader intends to stay in power at least until 2014 presidential elections.

The remarks came against the backdrop of a strategic victory for the regime as the military regained control over a string of villages along a key highway to open a potential supply route in Syria's heavily contested north.

The army command boasted of the achievement in a statement, saying it had eradicated the remnants of "terrorist agents and mercenaries" in the area that links the government-controlled central city of Hama with Aleppo's international airport.

The reversal of gains, confirmed by Syrian activists, has the potential to change the outcome of the battle in Aleppo, Syria's largest city where government troops and rebels have been locked in a stalemate for months.

Syrian rebels have long complained that they are hampered by the world's failure to provide heavier arms to help them battle Assad's better-equipped military. The international community is reluctant to send weapons partly because of fears they may fall into the hands of extremists who have been gaining influence among the rebels.

But U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced on Thursday that the Obama administration was giving an additional $60 million in assistance to Syria's political opposition and would, for the first time, provide non-lethal aid directly to the rebels.

In their first official statements on the U.S. decision, the Syrian and Iranian foreign ministers accused Washington of having double standards and warned it will only delay an end to the civil war.

Iran is a staunch ally of the Syrian regime and has stood by the embattled Assad throughout the conflict.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem and his Iranian counterpart, Ali Akbar Salehi, also set clear parameters for any future talks with the opposition, saying that whether Assad stays or goes will be decided in presidential elections scheduled for next year. Salehi went further to say Assad may run for another term.

"Assad is Syria's legal president until the next elections. Individuals have the freedom to run as candidates. Until that time, Assad is Syria's president," Salehi said at a joint news conference in Tehran. Al-Moallem said the Syrian people have the right to choose their leaders through the ballot box.

The remarks are likely to complicate already faltering diplomatic efforts to start a dialogue between the government and the opposition, which has offered to join talks with regime elements but insists that Assad must step down.

The U.N. estimates that 70,000 people have died since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011.

Syria's opposition chief has offered to sit down for talks with regime elements, but insists that Assad must step down.

Al-Moallem said it was inconceivable that Washington would allocate $60 million in assistance to Syrian opposition groups while it continues to "kill the Syrian people" through economic sanctions imposed against the country.

"If they truly wanted a political settlement, they wouldn't punish the Syrian people and finance (opposition) groups with so-called non-lethal aid," he said. "Who are they kidding?"

The Damascus official called Syria's sovereignty a "red line."

He directly accused Turkey and Qatar and other countries he did not name of supporting and funding "armed terrorist groups" operating in Syria, using the regime's terminology for the rebels. Both countries are strong rebel backers and have offered logistical and other assistance to Syrian opposition groups.

His Iranian host, Salehi, said "double standards were being applied by certain countries that serve to prolong and deepen the Syrian crisis" and lead to more bloodshed.

Syrian rebels control large swaths of land in the country's northeast, including several neighborhoods of Aleppo.

For weeks they have been trying to storm the Aleppo airport, a major prize in the battle for Syria's commercial capital. The rebels ousted troops from several bases protecting the facility and cut off a major highway the army used to supply its troops inside the airport complex.

Syrian army officials said troops had secured the facility and regained control of several villages along the highway leading to the airport after days of fighting.

An opposition spokesman, Rami Abdul-Rahman, director the Britain-based anti-regime activist group the Observatory for Human Rights, confirmed the army's victory Saturday, calling it a "significant achievement."

"Securing these villages, assuming the regime can hang on to them, has the potential to turn around the direction of the conflict in Aleppo," Abdul-Rahman said.

In other violence Saturday, clashes broke out in the northeastern Raqqa province, and activists said dozens of people on both sides were reported dead or wounded.

Ahrar al-Sham Movement, a militant Islamic brigade fighting with the rebels, announced in an online video posted Saturday that it was starting a wide scale operation against military and infrastructure targets in the area along with other extremists including Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaida-affiliated group designated by the U.S. as a terrorist group.

Sporadic clashes also continued near Syria's Rabiya border crossing with Iraq. Syrian fighter jets fired at least two missiles and rebels on the ground fired at the jets, according to a witness on the Iraqi side of the border.

The fighting comes a day after Iraqi officials said a Russian-made rocket fired from Syria slammed into Iraqi territory, intensifying concerns that violence from Syria's civil war could spill across the border. No one was injured in the strike.

A police officer at the Iraqi Rabiya border crossing said five Syrian soldiers and one officer fled the clashes into Iraqi territory. Three of the soldiers were wounded and evacuated to a hospital in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, he said. A doctor confirmed the figure.

Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release information to the media. They didn't say what happened to the other three who fled.

The chief of Syrian rebel forces, Salim Idris, accused Iraqi soldiers of firing at rebel positions inside Syrian territory and claimed Iraq's government was backing Assad's regime.

Iraq's Defense Ministry denied that Iraqi forces were backing the Syrian army during clashes with rebels. A statement said Iraqi forces are deployed in the border regions only for routine duties and one Iraqi soldier was wounded during the exchange of fire.

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Karam reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Barbara Surk in Beirut, Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran and Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-03-02-Syria/id-33c47fdb876148a397c0d11d299d6cbe

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'Defective' virus surprisingly plays major role in spread of disease

Feb. 28, 2013 ? Defective viruses, thought for decades to be essentially garbage unrelated to the transmission of normal viruses, now appear able to play an important role in the spread of disease, new research by UCLA life scientists indicates.

Defective viruses have genetic mutations or deletions that eliminate their essential viral functions. They have been observed for many human pathogens and are generated frequently for viruses that have high mutation rates. However, for some 40 years, it was believed that they were unimportant in natural settings.

In findings published Feb. 28 in the journal PLoS Pathogens, UCLA scientists and their colleagues report for the first time a significant link between a defective virus and an increased rate of transmission of a major disease.

"The idea has always been that defective viruses are either meaningless or detrimental," said James O. Lloyd-Smith, a UCLA assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and the senior author of the research. "We have found the opposite of that -- that the defective virus is actually helping the normal, functional virus. This finding is bizarre and hard to believe, but the data are the data."

"We have shown that the defective virus not only transmits with the virus but increases the transmission of the functional virus," said Ruian Ke, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology and the lead author of the study.

Defective viruses cannot complete their life cycle on their own, but if they're able to get into the same cell with a non-defective virus, they can "hitchhike" with the normal virus and propagate, Lloyd-Smith said. Biologists had thought that defective viruses interfered with normal versions of the virus, "clogging up the gears of viral replication," he said.

The life scientists studied DENV-1, one of four known types of the dengue virus that infect humans. Dengue viruses are transmitted by several species of mosquitoes and cause dengue fever, which is characterized by fever, joint pain and a skin rash similar to measles. Dengue hemorrhagic fever, a more severe form of dengue infection, can cause death. The dengue virus infects between 50 million and 100 million people each year in Southeast Asia, South America, parts of the United States and elsewhere.

The life sciences team -- which also included John Aaskov, a virologist and professor of health at Australia's Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, and Edward Holmes, a professor of biological sciences at Australia's University of Sydney -- found that the presence of a defective DENV-1 virus may have led to large increases in dengue fever cases in Myanmar in 2001 and 2002, when that country experienced its most severe dengue epidemics on record.

The scientists describe when and how the defective "lineage," or series of very closely related defective DENV-1 viruses, emerged and was transmitted between humans and mosquitoes in Myanmar, as well as what the public health implications are.

For the study, Ke designed a mathematical model to analyze the data to learn how the defective DENV-1 virus interacted with the normal virus. Aaskov and Holmes collected genetic sequences from from 15 people in Myanmar sampled over an 18-month period, all of whom were infected with the DENV-1 virus and nine of whom were also infected with the defective version.

Ke discovered that the lineage of defective viruses emerged between June 1998 and February 2001 and that it was spreading in the population until at least 2002. (The following year, the lineage appeared on the South Pacific island of New Caledonia, carried there by either a mosquito or a person.) The scientists analyzed the genetic sequences of both the defective and normal dengue viruses to estimate how long the defective virus had been transmitting in the human population.

"We can see from the gene sequence of the defective version that it is the same lineage and is a continued propagation of the virus," said Lloyd-Smith, who holds UCLA's De Logi Chair in Biological Sciences. "From 2001 to 2002, it went from being quite rare to being in all nine people we sampled that year; everybody sampled who was getting dengue fever was getting the defective version along with the functional virus. It rose from being rare to being very common in just one year."

Most surprisingly, Lloyd-Smith said, the combination of the defective virus with the normal virus was "more fit" than the normal dengue virus alone.

"What we have shown is that this defective virus, which everyone had thought was useless or even detrimental to the fitness of the functional virus, actually appears to have made it better able to spread," he said. "Ruian [Ke] calculated that the defective virus makes it at least 10 percent more transmissible, which is a lot. It was spreading better with its weird, defective cousin tagging along than on its own.

"This study has shown that the functional virus and defective virus travel in unison. The two transmit together in an unbroken chain, and that's not just a matter of getting into the same human or the same mosquito -- they need to get into the same cell inside that human or mosquito in order to share their genes and for the defective version to continue 'hitchhiking.' We are gaining insights into the cellular-level biology of how dengue is infecting hosts. It must be the case that frequently there are multiple infections of single cells.

"Ruian showed the defective virus appeared one to three years before these major epidemics," Lloyd-Smith added. "One could imagine that if you build an understanding of this mechanism, you could measure it, see it coming and potentially get ahead of it."

Might defective viruses play a role in the transmission of influenza, measles and other diseases?

"There are a few signs that this phenomenon may be happening for other viruses," Lloyd-Smith said. "We may be cracking open the book on the possible interactions between the normal, functional viruses and the defective ones that people thought were just dead-ends. These supposedly meaningless viruses may be having a positive impact -- positive for the virus, not for us. There is great variation, year to year, in how large dengue epidemics are in various locations, and we don't understand why. This is a possible mechanism for why there are large epidemics in some years in some places. We need to keep studying this question."

The research points to implications for how mutations might allow a new non-human virus to become a human virus.

"Different strains of a virus with different genetic properties may be interacting more frequently than we thought," said Lloyd-Smith, who studies how ecology, evolution and epidemiology merge to drive the emergence of new pathogens, including new strains with important properties like drug resistance.

Why would a defective virus increase transmission of a disease?

Lloyd-Smith offers two hypotheses. One is that the presence of the defective virus with the functional virus in the same cell makes the functional virus replicate better within the cell by some unknown mechanism. "It might give the virus a bit of flexibility in how it expresses its genes and may make it a bit more fit, a bit better able to reproduce under some circumstances," he said.

A second idea is that the defective virus may be interfering with the disease-causing virus, making the disease less intense; people then have a milder infection, and because they don't feel as sick, they are more likely to go out and spread the disease.

"Normally, biologists test for how well a virus can replicate in a cell, but what we have shown here is even a genotype that cannot replicate in a cell can have an impact on transmission," Ke said.

In conducting the research, Lloyd-Smith and Ke combined genetic sequence analysis with sophisticated mathematical models and bioinformatics.

Genetic sequencing technology has "exploded," Lloyd-Smith said, providing a wealth of data on genetic sequences of pathogens and the evolution of viruses, leading to major new insights into the transmission of viruses.

"We were able to show that this defective virus transmitted in an unbroken chain across this population for a year-and-a-half," Lloyd-Smith said. "Without gene sequencing, we would not have been able to establish that."

The research was federally funded by the National Science Foundation.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Los Angeles. The original article was written by Stuart Wolpert.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Ruian Ke, John Aaskov, Edward C. Holmes, James O. Lloyd-Smith. Phylodynamic Analysis of the Emergence and Epidemiological Impact of Transmissible Defective Dengue Viruses. PLoS Pathogens, 2013; 9 (2): e1003193 DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1003193

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/8434IMLqMWM/130301123310.htm

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Having Sons Can Shorten a Woman's Life Expectancy

Each boy raises the risk of death by 7 percent. They may be energetically more demanding to breastfeed

By Zoe Cormier

Image: Melinda Brookshire Photography/Flickr

From Nature magazine.

Women who bear sons can have slightly shorter lives than those who bear daughters, researchers have found. Their study showed that a woman?s risk of death increased by 7% per year for each son born ? a small but statistically robust effect, at least for the individuals the team looked at ? Finnish villagers in pre-Industrial Scandinavia.

?Previous investigations into the effect of the gender of a baby on its mother?s lifespan have been mixed, so our new analysis really is just another brick in the wall,? says Samuli Helle of the University of Turku in Finland, the study's lead author. ?I?m not surprised the results have been mixed, because the previous studies have involved different societies, cultural practices and so on.?

A litany of factors could influence a woman?s lifespan, such as affluence and nutrition, as well as the number of children she has. The impact of having a boy compared with a girl is likely to be most pronounced in settings where resources such as food and health care are poor.

Helle and his co-author, Virpi Lummaafound, investigated parish records for individuals in eight parishes who lived during the seventeenth to mid-twentieth centuries. They found that if a woman in these communities was 37 years old at the time of having her last child, her life expectancy would vary depending on the sex of her children. She would live for another 33.1 years if she had no sons, another 32.7 years if she had three and another 32.4 years if she had six.

The study, which appears in Biology Letters, builds on previous research published by the same team in the journal Science more than ten years ago, which found that for every son she had, a woman's life would be shortened by an average of 34 weeks. By contrast, daughters actually lengthened their mother's lifespan very slightly (though not statistically significantly). In both studies, the life-shortening effects were experienced only by mothers, not fathers.

Biological factors
But the reason behind this small difference is the big puzzle. ?The relative importance of biological versus cultural factors remains an open question,? says Helle, who speculates that it could be that girls are more likely to help their parents in household duties. ?We need more data, such as how many sons versus daughters helped in everyday tasks, what age they actually started to work outside the home and so on.?

Erik Lindqvist of the Research Institute of Industrial Economics in Stockholm, who has looked at lifespan and births in Sweden, is not convinced. ?We have never been able to replicate their results," he says.

But Grazyna Jasienska, who studies longevity and reproductive health at Jagiellonian University Medical College in Cracow, Poland, believes that the effects of sons on a woman's lifespan are certainly real ? and are probably due to biological factors, such as breastfeeding.

Other studies have found that boys can take more of a toll on their mother biologically because they tend to be slightly heavier at birth than girls. And a few studies have found that women expend more energy in producing breast milk for boys ? although the results of such studies have been mixed.

?I think the costs of having boys over girls are more social than biological," she says. "But we still ultimately don?t know."

This story is reprinted with permission from Nature magazine. It was first published on February 27, 2013.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=6543e4dd9a684a9b0f1facf599e97ed2

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Easy Things To Do To Make Your House Elegant - Home improvement

If you are the type of person who like doing things yourself, you are likely to be interested in doing some home improvement. You are also likely to be interested in discovering new methods to do home improvement projects. The piece that follows includes great tips for those who want to add value to their home through their own hard work.

There are two main ways that you can make your ceiling look like it is higher than it actually is. You can get a floor lamp that is tall, or paint strips on the wall. This will make an optical illusion that any eyes will follow. Your eyes naturally focus on following lines, making ceilings appear higher.

A home with a nice view is usually slightly more valuable. While creating a nice view might be an investment to you, it is sometimes considered an added cost for your own enjoyment. Future home buyers might not be as impressed by the view and might not be interested in paying a higher price for it.

You can create custom walls by stenciling designs on your interior walls. Stencils can be purchase in the store, online, or you can make your own. Get some copies of your pattern laminated, and simply cut them out with a utility knife. Use painter?s tape to put the stencil against the wall, then roll on the paint of your choice. Next, put the new stencil underneath the old stencil, alternating as you go around your room.

Have fun while you are repairing or upgrading your home. Invite others friends or family to work with you, and have a little fun with it. A shared sense of accomplishment adds to the overall satisfaction that comes with the completion of a project.

With these tips, you can work smarter-not harder. Soon your home will be a stunning showplace. In no time, you will be tearing through advanced home improvement projects that are sure to improve your home greatly in ways you never dreamed possible.

San Diego Construction Company|San Diego General Construction Company| San Diego, California Construction Company

Source: http://dehamerspace.com/2013/02/28/easy-things-to-do-to-make-your-house-elegant/

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Antarctic scientists discover 18-kilogram meteorite

Feb. 28, 2013 ? An international team of scientists, working at Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research station, have discovered a meteorite with a mass of 18 kilograms embedded in the East Antarctic ice sheet, the largest such meteorite found in the region since 1988.

The eight members of the SAMBA project, from Universit? Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Japan's National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR) and Tokyo University were searching for meteorites scattered across the Nansen Ice Field on January 28, when they found the 18kg ordinary chondrite. The team discovered a total of 425 meteorites, with a total weight of 75kg during the 40 day expedition, at an altitude of 2,900m, 140km south of Belgium's Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research base.

"This meteorite was a very unexpected find for us, not only due to its weight, but because we don't normally find such large meteorites in Antarctica," said Vinciane Debaille, a geologist from Universit? Libre de Bruxelles, who led the Belgian part of the team during the expedition. "This is the biggest meteorite found in East Antarctica for 25 years, so it's a very special discovery for us, only made possible by the existence and location of Princess Elisabeth Antarctica."

The SAMBA project contributes to the US and Japan-led global collection of Antarctic meteorites, and is an initiative of VUB and ULB, in collaboration with the Japanese Institute of Polar Research. SAMBA is supported by the Belgian Science Policy (BELSPO) and the International Polar Foundation.

Initial field analysis by the scientists suggests that the 18kg meteorite is an ordinary chondrite, the most abundant kind of meteorite. The fusion crust -- the meteorite's outer casing -- was eroded, allowing the scientists to inspect the rock underneath. The meteorite is currently undergoing a special thawing process in Japan -- to ensure water doesn't get inside the rock.

"We study meteorites in order to better understand how the solar system formed, how it evolved, how the Earth became such a unique planet in our solar system," said Debaille. "This season's SAMBA mission was a success both in terms of the number and weight of the meteorites we found. Two years ago, we found less than 10kg. This year, we found so much that we had to call the travel agency -- because we had 75kg of meteorites to take home."

Princess Elisabeth Antarctica is the world's first zero emission polar research station, and is operated by the International Polar Foundation, in partnership with the Belgian Polar Secretariat. Princess Elisabeth Antarctica's design and construction seamlessly integrates passive building technologies, renewable wind and solar energy, water treatment facilities, continuously monitored power demand and a smart grid for maximising energy efficiency. Located in East Antarctica's S?r Rondane Mountains, Princess Elisabeth Antarctica welcomes scientists from around the world to conduct research in this little-studied and pristine environment.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by International Polar Foundation.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130228113401.htm

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IELTS Writing Task 2: 'money' topic - ielts-simon.com

Following on from yesterday's video, let's look at a writing task 2 question:

After leaving school or university, young people should choose a job or career that they love, rather than one that pays the best salary. To what extent do you agree with this statement?

Don't attempt this question without spending some time planning first:

• Decide on your overall point of view: agree or disagree (or maybe 'partly agree').
• Plan your 4-paragraph essay structure: what will each paragraph be about?
• Note some ideas for each main paragraph: think about how you will explain your ideas in detail, and what real-life examples you could use.

Source: http://ielts-simon.com/ielts-help-and-english-pr/2013/02/ielts-writing-task-2-money-topic.html

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