Gizmorama - January 7, 2015

Good Morning,

Talk about Space Cowboys! NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive spacecraft is going to measure moisture in the Earth's soil thanks to a 19 foot lasso. Yeehaw, science!

Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*- NASA launching spacecraft with 19 foot lasso -*
PASADENA, Calif. (UPI) - NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive, SMAP, will measure moisture in the Earth's soil, which will help farmers combat the effects of drought.

Set to launch on Jan. 29 in California, SMAP will orbit the Earth every three days or less to measure moisture in the top two inches of soil with the highest accuracy and resolution, NASA said in a press release.

The spacecraft is equipped with radar to transmit and receive microwaves it sends toward Earth, a radiometer to measure microwaves caused by water in soil and a 19.7 foot rotating mesh antenna, the largest ever deployed in space.

The almost 20 foot antenna will spin at about 14 revolutions per minute, one per four seconds, and was designed to fit into a one-by-four-foot space by engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California.

"We call it the spinning lasso," NASA instrument manager Wendy Edelstein said.

SMAP will help scientists and farmers by giving them earlier warnings of droughts and providing more detailed moisture maps.

"SMAP can assist in predicting how dramatic drought will be, and then its data can help farmers plan their recovery from drought," Narendra Das, a water and carbon cycle scientist for NASA, said.


*-- Researchers find protein capable of editing other proteins --*
SALT LAKE CITY (UPI) - New evidence suggests a human protein can build and edit other proteins. It's the first time the process has been observed by scientists.

If the human system were a bee colony, proteins would be the worker bees -- industrious and versatile, capable of producing the body's vital materials. And if proteins are the worker bees, then DNA is the queen, offering the instructions for where to go and what to build.

The work orders are delivered via messenger RNA (mRNA) to amino acids inside human cells called ribosomes. The ribosomes spawn the specialized proteins that then venture out into the human body to do their job -- fight disease, rebuild muscle, trigger hormone production.

Previously, it was assumed only DNA and mRNA could specify the ingredients (amino acids) that form a new protein. But a new study has shown that one unique protein can deliver instructions to form and augment a new protein on its own, without the assistance of messenger RNA.

"This surprising discovery reflects how incomplete our understanding of biology is," study author Peter Shen, a biochemistry researcher at the University of Utah, said in a recent press release. "Nature is capable of more than we realize."

The protein-building protein, called Rqc2, doesn't flex its muscles willy-nilly. Its unique abilities are only called into action when there is a mistake in the protein-building assembly line. Occasionally, the ribosome malfunctions and can't process the protein-building instructions delivered by the mRNA. In these instances, Rqc2 steps in and delivers filler instructions, ordering the ribosome to slap on a random sequence of two amino acids (alanine and threonine) -- a stopgap measure until the proper instructions are resumed.

"In this case, we have a protein playing a role similar to that filled by mRNA," explained study co-author Adam Frost, M.D., a biochemistry professor at both the University of California, San Francisco and the University of Utah.

Researchers say the unique process is like a quality control mechanism, the uniform insert a possible signal that the faulty protein needs to be destroyed. Because a range of disorders, including Alzheimer's and Huntington's, are believed to -- at least in part -- derive from problems with the body's protein-construction processes, better understanding Rqc2 could eventually lead to improved treatments for such diseases.

The new study was published this week in the journal Science.

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