June 27, 2011

Good Morning,

Scientists are looking to build a new kind of brain chip that could potentially utilize brain signals to control prosthetic limbs. Check out the third article for all the details on this exciting new development.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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Astronomers study 'soccer ball' nebula

TENERIFE, Spain - A distant nebula dubbed the "Soccer Ball" may help astronomers understand such phenomena, created by the death throes of stars, U.S. researchers say. Scientists announced the existence of the planetary nebula named Kronberger 61, discovered by an amateur astronomer, at a symposium Monday in Tenerife, Spain, SPACE.com reported. Astronomers say the round planetary nebula resembles a soccer ball in deep space and could give clues about such nebulae, like how their formation may be shaped by companions like stars or alien planets. More than 3,000 planetary nebulae have been observed in our region of the Milky Way galaxy."Explaining the puffs left behind when medium-size stars like our sun expel their last breaths is a source of heated debate among astronomers, especially the part that companions might play," Orsola De Marco of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, said. Planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets but got their name from their superficial resemblance to giant planets when they were first observed from Earth through early primitive telescopes. "Planetary nebulae present a profound mystery," De Marco said. "Some recent theories suggest that planetary nebulae form only in close binary or even planetary systems. "On the other hand, the conventional textbook explanation is that most stars, even solo stars like our sun, will meet this fate. That might just be too simple."


U.S. research sees hints of Higgs particle

BATAVIA, Ill. - A U.S. particle accelerator may have seen hints of the elusive Higgs boson after recent reports of similar glimpses at Europe's Large Hadron Collider lab. Researchers have been analyzing data from the Tevatron machine at Fermilab near Chicago in a search for the sub-atomic particle considered a cornerstone of modern particle physics theory, the BBC reported Monday. The possible results seen at the Tevatron are weaker than those reported at the collider at CERN in Switzerland, but occur in the same "search region," researchers said. When the U.S. and European results are examine together the lead to "intriguing" possibilities, researchers said, although they caution these "hints" could disappear with further analysis. The European collider, housed in a 16.7-mile-long circular tunnel below the French-Swiss border, has two detectors looking for the Higgs, while the Tevatron has a similar arrangement of two detectors. On Friday, the CERN teams reported finding what physicists call an "excess" of interesting particle events at a certain energy level, while U.S. researchers have also seen hints of something at about the same energies. The existence of the Higgs boson was first proposed in the 1960s and thought to help confer the property of mass on all other particles. Scientists are searching for evidence of the Higgs as the last missing piece in the Standard Model, the most widely accepted theory of particle physics that explains how the known sub-atomic particles interact with each other. If the Higgs boson does not exist, physicists would have to modify the theory to propose some other mechanism to explain where particles get their mass.


Brain chip sought to drive paralyzed limbs

SAN DIEGO - Three U.S. universities were given grants to study sensorimotor neural engineering that would allow the brain to communicate with prosthetic or paralyzed limbs. San Diego State University is one of the schools sharing an $18.5 million National Science Foundation grant to research chips that could be implanted in the brain to send signals to a prosthetic or paralyzed limb, giving it the full dexterity of an undamaged hand or leg, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported Sunday. Sensors in the limbs would return signals to the brain, sending sensations of heat and cold or recognizing changes in texture, researchers said. The five-year grant will be shared between SDSU, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Washington. "NSF always pursues research at the leading edge," foundation spokesman Josh Chamot said. "We're taking proposals that look forward, that could lead to entirely new concepts and technology, entirely new fields. But the fact is that the people who built up this team already have research that shows they can accomplish these goals." Scientists say the research could lead to commercial products to help wounded veterans, people with spinal cord injuries and those with neurological disorders. "It's like the Six Million Dollar Man, the bionic man," said Kee Moon, a mechanical engineering professor who will lead SDSU's team. "We hope, at the end of 10 years, to be able to implant a device on the brain to drive a prosthetic device in a way that the information goes both ways -- from the brain to the device and the device to the brain," he said.


NASA, SpaceX agree on space station flight

WASHINGTON - NASA and SpaceX, based in California, have agreed on the private spacecraft company's first date with the International Space Station, the space agency says. The SpaceX Dragon capsule will launch aboard a Falcon 9 rocket Nov. 30, and will rendezvous and dock with the space station Dec. 7, NewScientist.com reported Tuesday. The original plan had been for two missions, one for a rendezvous and a second for the actual docking, but after a successful test flight SpaceX requested that NASA combine the two missions. "We technically have agreed with SpaceX that we want to combine those flights," William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations, said. "We are doing all the planning to go ahead and have those missions combined, but we haven't given them formal approval yet." The U.S. shuttle program has ended but the space station still requires regular resupply, with many seeing commercial, private space flight as the answer. However, even if the Dragon mission is successful, U.S. astronauts will still depend on launches aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft until the private vehicle is human-rated by NASA.

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