With over 1800 extra-solar planets discovered in the past 30 years, the search for life beyond our Solar System has begun anew. Astronomers believe that every star in the galaxy has a planet, and that one fifth of these might harbor life. The greatest challenge, though, is in being able to spot these “Earth-like” exoplanets. Due to the fact that they emit very little light compared to their parent stars (usually less than one-millionth the level of radiance), direct imaging is extremely rare and difficult.
As such, astronomers rely predominantly on is what is known as Transit Detection – spotting the planet’s as they cross in front of the star’s disc. This too presents difficulties, because the transit method requires that part of the planet’s orbit intersect a line-of-sight between the host star and Earth. The probability that an exoplanet will be in a randomly oriented orbit that can allow for it be observed in front of its star is therefore somewhat small.
Luckily, engineers and astronomers at NASA and other federal space agencies are considering the possibility of evening these odds with new technology and equipment. Once such effort comes from Princeton’s High Contrast Imaging Laboratory, where Jeremy Kasdin and his team are working on a revolutionary space-based observatory known as a “starshade” – a flower petal-shaped device that allows a telescope to photograph planets from 50,000 kilometers away.
Essentially, the starshade blocks light from distant stars that ordinarily outshine their dim planets, making a clear view impossible. When paired with a space telescope, the starshade adds a new and powerful instrument to NASA’s cosmic detection toolkit. The flower-shaped petals are part of what makes the starshade so effective. The starshade is also unique in that, unlike most space-based instruments, it’s one part of a two-spacecraft observation system.
As Dr. Stuasrt Shaklan, NASA Jet Propulsion Labratory’s lead engineer on the starshade project, explaned:
The shape of the petals, when seen from far away, creates a softer edge that causes less bending of light waves. Less light bending means that the starshade shadow is very dark, so the telescope can take images of the planets without being overwhelmed by starlight… We can use a pre-existing space telescope to take the pictures. The starshade has thrusters that will allow it to move around in order to block the light from different stars.
This process presents a number of engineering challenges that Shaklan and his team are working hard to unravel, from positioning the starshade precisely in space, to ensuring that it can be deployed accurately. To address these, his research group will create a smaller scale starshade at Princeton to verify that the design blocks the light as predicted by the computer simulations. Concurrently, the JPL team will test the deployment of a near-full scale starshade system in the lab to measure its accuracy.
Despite these challenges, the starshade approach could offer planet-hunters many advantages, thanks in no small part to its simplicity. Light from the star never reaches the telescope because it’s blocked by the starshade, which allows the telescope system to be simpler. Another advantage of the starshade approach is that it can be used with a multi-purpose space telescope designed to make observations that could be useful to astronomers working in fields other than exoplanets.
As part of NASA’s New World’s Mission, the starshade engineers are optimistic that refining their technology could be the key to major exoplanet discoveries in the near future. And given that over 800 planets have been detected so far in 2014 – that’s almost half of the 1800 that have been detected in total – anything that can assist in their detection process at this point is likely to lead to an explosion in planetary discoveries.
And with one-fifth of these planets being a possible candidate for life… well, you don’t have to do the math to know that the outcome will be might exciting! In the meantime, enjoy this video from TED Talks, where Professor Jeremy Kasdin speaks about the starshade project:
Last month, the Hubble Space Telescope celebrated its 24th birthday. And in honor of this occasion, NASA has released a video entitled “Evaporating Peaks – Pillars in the Monkey Head Nebula”. This video, which showcases visible and infrared light views of a collection of pillars along one edge of the Monkey Head Nebula (also known as NGC 2174) is just the latest in series of simulations that attempt to recreate what it would be like to step into a major stellar body.
Like all nebulas, NGC 2174 is a star-forming region in which bright, newborn stars near the center of the nebula illuminate the surrounding gas, creating the brilliant images we see in the video. The radiation from these stars, combined with strong stellar winds, also erode areas of lower density gases, which in turn causes pockets of higher density gas to turn into visible formations. This is what leads to the creation of the pillars and peaks of gas that run along the inner edge of this roughly circular cloud.
The sequence begins with a view of the night sky near the constellation of Gemini and Orion and then zooms through observations from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 to reveal a Hubble Space Telescope visible light view of the top of this region of pillars.
For decades, scientists have dreamed of the day when cold fusion – and the clean, infinite energy it promises – could be made possible. And in recent years, many positive strides have been taken in that direction, to the point where scientists are now able to “break-even”. What this means is, it has become the norm for research labs to be able to produce as much energy from a cold fusion reaction as it takes in triggering that reaction in the first place.
And now, the world’s best fusion reactor – located in Oxfordshire, Engand – will become the first fusion power experiment to attempt to surpass it. This experiment, known as the Joint European Torus (JET), has held the world record for fusion reactor efficiency since 1997. If JET can reach break-even point, there’s a very good chance that the massive International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) currently being built in France will be able to finally achieve the dream of self-sustaining fusion.
Originally built in 1983, the JET project was conceived by the European Community (precursor to the EU) as a means of making fusion power a reality. After being unveiled the following year at a former Royal Navy airfield near Culham in Oxfordshire, with Queen Elizabeth II herself in attendance, experiments began on triggering a cold fusion reaction. By 1997, 16 megawatts of fusion power were produced from an input power of 24 megawatts, for a fusion energy gain factor of around 0.7.
Since that time, no one else has come close. The National Ignition Facility – the only other “large gain” fusion experiment on the planet, located in California – recently claimed to have broken the break-even point with their laser-powered process. However, these claims are apparently mitigated by the fact that their 500 terrawat process (that’s 500 trillion watts!) is highly inefficient when compared to what is being used in Europe.
Currently, there are two competing approaches for the artificial creation of nuclear fusion. Whereas the NIF uses “inertial confinement” – which uses lasers to create enough heat and pressure to trigger nuclear fusion – the JET project uses a process known as “magnetic confinement”. This process, where deuterium and tritium fuel are fused within a doughnut-shaped device (a tokamak) and the resulting thermal and electrical energy that is released provides power.
Of the two, magnetic confinement is usually considered a better prospect for the limitless production of clean energy, and this is the process the 500-megawatt ITER fusion reactor once its up and running. And while JET itself is a fairly low-power experiment (38 megawatts), it’s still very exciting because it’s essentially a small-scale prototype of the larger ITER. For instance, JET has been upgraded in the past few years with features that are part of the ITER design.
These include a wall of solid beryllium that can withstand being bombarded by ultra-high-energy neutrons and temperatures in excess of 200 million degrees. This is a key part of achieving a sustained fusion reaction, which requires that a wall is in place to bounce all the hot neutrons created by the fusion of deuterium and tritium back into the reaction, rather than letting them escape. With this new wall in place, the scientists at JET are preparing to pump up the reaction and pray that more energy is created.
Here’s hoping they are successful! As it stands, there are still many who feel that fusion is a pipe-dream, and not just because previous experiments that claimed success turned out to be hoaxes. With so much riding on humanity’s ability to find a clean, alternative energy source, the prospects of a breakthrough do seem like the stuff of dreams. I sincerely hope those dreams become a reality within my own lifetime…
Happy (early) May the Fourth everyone! This year, I thought I’d get on this fandom anniversary early by passing on some franchise news that was just released from Lucasfilm and Disney regarding the upcoming relaunch of the Star Wars franchise. After months of speculation, the cast for the upcoming Star Wars movie has finally been announced! The news came this past week in a post on StarWars.com, where companies spelt it out for all the fans who have been eagerly awaiting the news.
In addition to Mark Hamil, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher – who will receive top billing as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia – Peter Mayhew, Anthony Daniels and Kenny Baker will also be reprising their roles as Chewbacca, C-3PO and R2-D2. Also, the movie will star several notable actors in new roles, including acting great Max von Sydow (The Tudors, Minority Report, Snow Falling on Cedars, Judge Dredd, Needful Things).
Also, Adam Driver (Girls, Lincoln), Oscar Isaac (Robin Hood, Sucker Punch, Drive), Andy Serkis (who brought Gollum to life in LOTR and the Hobbit franchises), Domhnall Gleeson (who played Bill Weasely in the Harry Potter series), and British television stars John Boyega and Daisy Ridley were announced, though has is not yet been announced what characters they will be playing. But since the upcoming movie will be taking place 30 years after Return of the Jedi, it’s fair to assume that the focus will be on these characters rather than on the original cast.
In a photo release this past Tuesday (seen below), director JJ Abrams is seen having a roundtable discussion with the cast at Pinewood Studios in the UK. Note the body of R2-D2 which sits unboxed behind them, having no doubt just been brought out of storage. JJ Abrams, identified by his spiky hair and glasses, can be seen sitting to the left of R2, with Harrison Ford to his right, Carrie Fisher two seats down, and Mark Hamil seated opposite to the far left of the photo.
When news of the cast was released, Abrams was quoted as saying:
We are so excited to finally share the cast of Star Wars: Episode VII. It is both thrilling and surreal to watch the beloved original cast and these brilliant new performers come together to bring this world to life, once again. We start shooting in a couple of weeks, and everyone is doing their best to make the fans proud.
This, the seventh film in the Star Wars franchise, and is slated for a December 18th, 2015, release. In addition to Abrams directing, he is also collaborating on the screenplay with Lawrence Kasdan, the man who co-wrote The Empire Strikes Back,Return of the Jedi and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Kathleen Kennedy, J.J. Abrams, and Bryan Burk are producing, and John Williams returns as the composer.
I think I speak for fans and geeks everywhere when I wish them all luck! Lord knows we could all use a really decent Star Wars sequel, especially when so many of us felt so utterly let down by the prequels! However, I think it is fair to say that Abrams and the rest should not be too concerned about what the fans and expect. If this latest installment is to be a success, it must not be overly aware of itself or its legacy. Such was part of what brought the prequels down in my estimation, and like everyone else, I just want to enjoy what comes next!
And we’re back with the third installment in the Williams’ Family Eurotrip 2014! As I’m sure I’ve said a few times now, this trip could hardly be summed up in a single post. Even with two posts – a sum total of 6000 words – I’ve managed to cover only the first five days. I might be able to cover the rest with an additional two, but I can’t promise a thing! Nevertheless, the next segment of our trip, which took us from Ypres to Dieppe, was a very interesting time.
Not only did we learn about some very interesting battles, which included a major victory for a Canada and a national tragedy, this part of our trip also served as a transitional point between the time was dedicated to World War I sites and those dedicated to World War II. In between all that, we also got to enjoy ourselves in the scenic Normandy countryside. Here’s how it all happened…
Monday, April 14th –The Vimy Memorial and Dieppe:
The Canadian National Vimy Memorial in the distance
Monday morning, we packed up, ate our last breakfast at the Albion Hotel, told them how much we enjoyed staying with them (my parents wrote a three page stellar review!), and prepared to head out again. This consisted of stopping by the market to get some sandwiches and bottles of water for the day, a necessity when you’re doing walking tours, and then see the Ypres Market, Cloth Museum and Cathedral one last time.
We then packed up the car and began driving for the French border, got on another toll highway, and drove through the sunny, canola flower-filled countryside. Eventually, we made it to The Vimy Monument, the last World War I site on our trip and the only stop along our way to Dieppe along the northern Normandy Coast. Long before we arrived, we could see the monument cresting the Ridge where it is located, not to mention the many slag heaps that mark the landscape.
The Battle of Vimy Ridge by Richard Jack
Again, a little background on this historic battle is in order. As part of the Battle of Arras (April 9th to May 16th, 1917), the Canadian assault on Vimy Ridge was part of an allied offensive against German positions around the town of Arras. The objective of the Canadian Corps was the high ground at the northernmost end of the front, an area which had remained in German hands despite previous offensives by both French and British forces.
By taking this position, the Canadians would ensure that the Germans would not be to observe the French and British advance further south, or direct artillery fire along the long axis of their advance. Supported by a creeping barrage, the Canadian attack would begin on April 9th and aimed to the fortified German positions along the ridge, as well as the strategic town of Thélus and Givenchy-en-Gohelle. Thanks to a combination of factors, the attack went off without a hitch.
Ultimately, the success of the assault was due to a combination of technical and tactical innovation, meticulous planning, powerful artillery support and extensive training. For weeks prior to the offensive, Canadian soldiers underwent training using models to represent the battlefield, and General’s Sir Julian Byng and Sir Arthur Currie made sure that every single soldier had a map of the ridge and knew exactly what would be needed of them.
The artillery support would rely on a relatively new tactic known as the creeping barrage, rather than the standard preparatory bombardment. In this latter case, artillery would shell the enemy line for days or weeks in advance of the attack, and then stop as the soldiers went “over the top” to charge the enemy positions. By contrast, a creeping barrage would begin shelling No Man’s Land to take out enemy barbed wire, and then crept forward to keep pace with the advance of the infantry.
In so doing, the Canadian’s artillery support was able to catch the German defenders as they were coming out of their dugouts to set up their machine guns and defenses. New methods and equipment were also used to triangulate the positions of the German artillery guns and take them out in advance of the attack. This way, the Germans had no reprieve from the bombardment, and no way to shell the Canadians as they moved up the ridge.
Within three days, the Canadians had secured the entire ridge and their objectives and forced the Germans to retreat to the Oppy–Méricourt line some five kilometers away. In addition, they took 4000 German prisoners and inflicted an estimated 20,000 killed or wounded, while suffering 3,598 dead and 7,004 wounded of their own. This too was a first, in that all previous offenses of the war involved the attacker sustaining far greater losses than the defender.
The Vimy Monument, as seen from the west end
In addition to being a victory for the Canadian Corps and the first successful Allied offensive of the war, the success of this assault – much their performance at the Second Battle of Ypres – was a defining moment for the fledgling nation of Canada. As Brigadier-General Alexander Ross would famously say of the battle: ” . . . in those few minutes I witnessed the birth of a nation.” The triumph at Vimy also led to Byng’s promotion out of the Corps, and to his replacement by Arthur Currie — the first Canadian commander of the Corps.
Another outcome of this victory was the reputation earned by the Canadian Corps as being the army that could get things done where others could not. This reputation would further be tested in ensuing battles – the foremost of which was the Battle of Passchendaele – and The Hundred Days Offensive, the last one hundred days of the war when the Canadian Corps led the advance against the crumbling German lines through France and Belgium.
The four of us together at the top of the monument
Anyhoo, we arrived National Memorial in the late morning and were immediately struck by its sheer size. It’s two pylons, shown above, reach 30 meters into the sky, one bearing the maple leaf of Canada and the other the fleur-de-lis of France, symbolizing the unity and sacrifice of both countries. At the top of the two pylons is a grouping of figures known collectively as the Chorus, the senior of which represent the figures of Justice and Peace. The figures of Hope, Charity, Honour and Faith, Truth and Knowledge are located beneath (as seen in the image below).
Between the two pylons is the Spirit of Sacrifice, a young dying soldier is gazing upward in a crucifixion-like pose, having thrown his torch to a comrade who holds it aloft behind him. A lightly veiled reference to the poem In Flanders Fields by John McCrae, the torch is passed from one comrade to another in an effort to keep alive the memory of the war dead. Other figures around the monument include Sympathy of the Canadians for the Helpless, as represented by a standing man surrounded by kneeling people stricken by hunger and disease.
The Two Pylons of the Monument
Two more representations, named the Breaking of the Swords and cannons covered in laurel, further symbolize the monument’s commitment to peace. Facing east from the monument is the saddened figure of Canada Bereft, also known as Mother Canada, which personifies the young nation of Canada mourning her dead. The Mourning Parents, one male and one female, are reclining on either side of the western steps on the reverse side of the monument.
Inscribed around the outside wall of the monument are the names of the 11,285 Canadians killed in France, and whose final resting place is unknown. Some 60,000 Canadians died in the First World War, but even after all these years, 11,169 still remain unfound. To see these names listed in a continuous band, and knowing that they represent only a fraction of all those who died, really serves to drive home the terrible reality of the Great War and its brutality.
View from the monument, with sheep grazing in the distance
Looking upon the field that surrounded the monment, we were also quick to notice how the land was gnarled and lumpy, similar to what we had seen at the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. Also like the Newfoundland Memorial, the land is surrounded by an electrified wire fence and warning signs that caution against venturing into it, and the only things allowed to walk freely there are grazing sheep. As someone who raised sheep as a child, my wife was naturally concerned about their safety.
However, the guides were quick to confirm that not a single sheep had died in the twenty years that they had been conducting tours. This was certainly a relief to hear, but it didn’t really detract from the reality of the war that this display drove home. As soon as the war ended, the farmers and their flocks returned; and over the course of the years, unexploded mines and munitions accounted for more than a few lives – human, bovine and ovine!
The Mourning Mother, and more sheep grazing in the distance
After scaling the steps of the monument, we began placing Canadian flag pins here and there to pay our respects. We also snapped some photos of the monument, the surrounding landscape, and of ourselves as a family standing on it. After this, we ventured to the far end of the site to see the Grange Subway – a preserved underground tunnel and stretch of trenches – and the site’s museum. On the way, we saw plenty more trenches, shell holes, and one massive crater that had clearly been left by a mine.
We reached the Grange Subway and booked a tour, and a kindly guide gathered us and about ten others and brought us inside. I can tell with you with no trace of shame that the place was pretty claustrophobic and I might have had some trouble if we hadn’t kept moving. Still, it was extremely impressive to see this tunnel that the Allies had dug during the course of the war. In addition to the walls carved from the chalk and flint that make up the ridge, the tunnel was replete with dugouts, side tunnels, officers messes, and message stations.
The preserved German trenches and mortar position
And of course, the whole place stunk of mold, wet stone and chalky residue. Our guide then took us back outside, to where the tunnel ended in a recreated section of Canadian trench that overlooked another massive crater. Here too, a mine had been exploded just short of the German front lines, which also had a section of preserved trench that showed us how well dug in and fortified their positions were. Unlike the Allied lines, the Germans had had time to pour concrete and build outposts and “pillboxes” to both observe and shoot from.
After the tour finished, we headed back to the museum to take one last look around and then eat our lunch. On the way, we found some additional artifacts, which included a piece of chalk and flint (pieces of the Ridge) and a piece of what appeared to be ceramic with a letter B stamped on it. From its size, contoured shape, and the way it was marked, we could only guess what it was. But the prevalent theory was that it might have been an officers china cup.
The cliffs of Dieppe
And then it was to Dieppe for the night! Despite some problems with our GPS navigator – whom we named Betty since of the female voice – we made it to the hotel down by the beach. Kudos to my mother for her good job of booking the place! After getting into our rooms, we had a nice beer down at the hotel bar, and then decided to get in a beach walk before dinner. Now I should note that this walk, despite the lovely sand and stone beach, was not strictly for enjoyment. You see, a lot happened on that beach some seventy-years ago…
In 1942, this region of France was still firmly in the hands of Nazi Germany. In addition, the Germans were still occupying much of Russia and had the British tangled up in North Africa. The United States had just entered the war and was facing a fight on two fronts – Europe and the Pacific. And with Russian losses numbering in the millions, a great deal of pressure was on the Allies to open a “Second Front” on the Continent again.
To test the German’s coastal defenses, and evaluate the likelihood of making a successful amphibious assault, the Allies began making plans for a raid against the Atlantic coast. In what would come to be known as Operation Jubilee, a force of 6,000 infantrymen – predominantly Canadian and supported by a Canadian Armoured regiment and the Royal Navy and Air Force – the plan was to seize a port town, destroy the military facilities, and then evacuate before a German counter-attack could arrive.
Commander by Lord Louis Mountbatten, a British Admiral and 1st Earl of Burma, the attack was also intended to show that such an assault – which was the first step in liberating Europe – could be done. On August 9th at 5:00 am, the assault began as Canadian and British troops, as well as 100 US Rangers and Free French Commandos, began landing on the beach. By 10:50 a.m., the Allied commanders were forced to call a retreat.
The Dieppe Raid, or the Battle of Dieppe, would go down as one of the greatest blunders in military history, and is considered a national tragedy here in Canada. After less than 10 hours since the first landings, the last of the Allied troops had either killed, evacuated, or left behind and captured by the Germans. All told, a total of 3,623 of the 6,086 men who made it ashore were either killed, wounded, or captured, and demonstrated that the Allies could not hope to liberate Europe for some time.
There are several reasons why the raid was a failure. For starters, Allied fire support was grossly inadequate and failed to take out the German defenses. As a result, the advancing infantry was quickly trapped by machine gun fire, mortars and coastal batteries that sighted them as they tried to run up the rocky coastline. The Royal Air Force also failed to lure the Luftwaffe into open battle, and took some heavy losses themselves (96 aircraft compared to 48 lost by the Germans).
Dieppe Raid by Charles Comfort
What’s more, the operation was repeatedly downsized, reducing its troop strength several times before it was approved. The Allied commanders, most notably Mountbatten, claimed that this would not be a problem as the attacking force would have the element of surprise. However, this was immediately squandered due to the British government openly talking about the raid for weeks before it happened. In short, the Germans knew they were coming.
While a more recent interpretation of the raid – which claims it was done as part of a clandestine operation to seize a four-rotor Enigma machine – have reevaluated it’s purpose, the outcome of the operation was anything but successful. In the end, the only good to come of it lay in the fact that it taught the Allies precisely what not to do when staging a coastal assault. These lessons greatly influenced their preparations when drafting Operation Torch (the landings in North Africa) and Operation Overlord (the D-Day landings in Normandy).
Carla, my father and I taking our shoes off to walk into the surf. Photo by Rosemary Williams
While walking the beach, my father and I noted the way that it sloped upward and was covered in r0und stones. It wasn’t hard to see at all how tanks would be immobilized by these once they got stuck in their treads. What’s more, the thought of charging up the inclined beach with a rifle and sixty pounds on gear on our backs seemed like absolute folly. Especially if we knew there were machine guns and cannons aimed at us.
Such was our attempt to understand what it must have been like for the young Canucks, Brits, French and Americans who were expected to capture this town. And when we mounted the top near the breakwater, we came to a couple of monuments dedicated to the soldiers who fell on the morning of the 19th of August. This included the Red Beach Monument, which honors the members of the Essex and Kent Scottish Regiment, and all those who fell on the eastern sector of the beach.
Financed by members of the Windsor community in Ontario, this monument was erected at town’s edge overlooking the beach and was carved from black granite with the cutout of a maple leaf in it. This cutout is aligned so that when the sun shines at 1 p.m. on Aug. 19 — the exact hour that the regiment stormed the beach — it will cast a perfect shadow of a maple leaf on the ground below. Farther down, we found another monuments commemorating the units that fell in other sectors of the beach. At both, we laid a Canadian flag pin and paid our respects.
Then it was back to the hotel for some much needed grub and some sleep. It had been quite a long day, as you can no doubt tell from the lengthy recap. And we certainly needed plenty of rest, because what came on the next day would test us both physically and emotionally. But more on that later, as it deserves a separate post for sure. Thanks for reading, more to follow, and stay tuned!
For over two years now, Elon Musk and his private space company (SpaceX) have been working towards the creation of a reusable rocket system. Known as the Falcon 9 Reusable Development Vehicle (F9R Dev) – or “Grasshopper” – this system may prove to be the greatest development in space travel since the invention of the multistage rocket. After multiple tests that reached greater and greater altitudes, the latest attempt at a takeoff and soft landing took place this past month.
Timed to coincide with SpaceX’s launch to the International Space Station (which took place on Friday April, 18th) the landing was apparently a success. Several days after the launch, Elon Musk tweeted that the “[d]ata upload from tracking plane shows landing in Atlantic was good!” This update came on April 22nd, and as of yet, no definitive data of whether the first stage landed correctly, or whether it was still in one piece by the time the recovery boats got to it.
Presumably SpaceX will provide another update in due course. In the meantime, they took the opportunity to release a rather awesome video of what the Falcon 9 Reusable should look like when successfully performing a vertical takeoff and vertical landing (VTVL). The video has accumulated an astonishing 3,598,143 views in the last two weeks, which is indicative of the level of interest this project and its impications have garnered over the past few years.
Meanwhile, the resupply mission went off without a hitch. Officially designated as CRS-3, this mission was even more significant due to the fact that its Falcon 9 launch vehicle featured the same retractable landing legs and the ability to soft land as the Grasshopper test rocket. However, in the case of the ISS mission, it was the first time where a Falcon 9 was tested in a real-world scenario where the rocket would return to Earth after reaching Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
Though the rocket was successfully picked up by the ISS, the jury is still out on whether or not the soft landing was a success or not. To minimize any risk, the first stage of the Falcon 9 attempted to “soft land” in the Atlantic. Unfortunately, according to Elon Musk, due to “13- to 20-foot waves… It’s unlikely that the rocket was able to splash down successfully.” Using telemetry data gathered from a SpaceX spotter plane, it appears that everything else went to plan, though.
Because of the rough seas, though, the retrieval boats couldn’t make it to the landing site, and thus the rocket is unlikely to be recovered. In the meantime, SpaceX will spend the following days and weeks analyzing more detailed data from the launch, and then update the Falcon 9 design and launch protocol accordingly. However, it is clear at this point that these latest tests are not being considered a failure, or reason to cease in their efforts.
As Musk himself explained in a series of public statements and interviews after the launch:
I would consider it a success in the sense that we were able to control the boost stage to a zero roll rate, which is previously what has destroyed the stage — an uncontrolled roll…I think we’re really starting to connect the dots of what’s needed [to bring the rocket back to the launch site]. I think that we’ve got a decent chance of bringing a stage back this year, which would be wonderful.
Considering the benefits of cheap, reusable rockets, and all the things they will make possible – space-based solar power, the construction of a Moon settlement, missions to Mars, the construction of a Space Elevator – there’s simply no way that a single unsuccessful rocket recovery will deter them. In the meantime, be sure to check out this video of what a successful Falcon 9 VTVL test looks like. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing a real-world example of this happening soon:
Though I am a week late in expressing this sentiment, I feel I must acknowledge this rather interesting of events. As it stands, this past April 22nd was the sixty-first anniversary of the molecular structure of DNA being revealed to the world. What began as a publication in the magazine Nature has now become emblematic of the programming language of life, and our understanding of DNA has grown by leaps and bounds over the past six decades.
To commemorate such an important landmark in the history of humanity, a look back at some of the more recent developments in the field of genetic research would seem to be in order. For example, it was on April 22nd of this year that a rather interesting study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The lead on this study was none other than Svante Pääbo – the world’s foremost expert in Neanderthal genetics.
Based on the genomes of three neanderthals that were found in disparate locations in Eurasia, Pääbo and his colleagues have concluded that the genetic diversity in Neanderthals is significantly less when compared to present-day Homo sapiens. It also appears as if the Neanderthal populations were relatively isolated and tiny, so gene flow was extremely limited for these groups. In short, our homonid cousins didn’t get around and interbreed quite as much as we’ve done, which may shed some light on their disappearance.
On the very same day, an article was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B that proposed that skin cancer from the sun’s damaging UV rays was actually a driving force in the national selection for dark skin in early humans. In the article, Mel Greaves delivers a compelling argument that the deadliness of skin cancer in young albino children in Africa and Central America demonstrates just how vital it was for early humans to develop dark skin.
And on April 25th, National Geographic and Family Tree DNA teamed up to announce the release of a brand new version of the human Y-DNA tree. This new tree of Y chromosome mutations has over 1,200 branches — almost double the number of branches that the Genographic Project was displaying before. With this much refinement, it’s now even easier to track the historical migrations of your distant ancestors.
To celebrate this monumental roll-out, Family Tree DNA offered a 20% discount on the 37-marker Y-DNA test and all individual Y-DNA SNP (single-nucleotide polymorphism) tests, an offer which sadly expired on April 27th. However, interested parties can still have this cutting-edge anthropological genetic test performed for $200. And it’s something to keep in mind for next year certainly. What better way to celebrate DNA day than to have a full genetic profile of yourself made?
And let’s not forget, 2012 was also the year that the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) Consortium – an international collaboration of research groups funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) – released the world’s most complete report on the human genome to date. Unlike the Human Genome Project, which released the first catalog of human DNA back in 2003, ENCODE was not only able to catalog the human genome’s various parts, but also what those components actually do.
Among the initiative’s many findings was that so-called “junk DNA” – outlier DNA sequences that do not encode for protein sequences – are not junk at all, and are in fact responsible for such things as gene regulation, disease onset, and even human height. As I’ve said before, these findings will go a long way towards developing gene therapy, biotechnology that seeks to create artificial DNA and self-assembling structures, and even cloning.
Yes, it’s an exciting time for the field of DNA research, and not just because of the many doors its likely to open. Beyond medical and bioresearch, it helps us to understand of ourselves as a species, our collective origins, and may perhaps help us to see just how interconnected we all truly are. For centuries now, a great many evils and prejudices have been committed in the name of “racial superiority” or racial differences.
Armed with this new knowledge, we might just come to realize that this great organism known as humanity is all fruit of the same tree.
NASA released this animation of a mission to capture a boulder from the surface of an asteroid. A NASA spacecraft, called an asteroid redirect vehicle, would use robotic arms to pluck a 3-meter boulder off the asteroid. The spacecraft would then enter a stable lunar orbit with the boulder where astronauts could then visit it and take samples. Take a look:
At last, I am finally caught up with GOT and the many episodes which took place while I was either overseas or in transit. And while I’m pleased with that fact, I have to say this past week’s episode was kind of a disappointment. And there are a few reasons for that. For starters, it was loaded up with stuff that didn’t even appear in the original books. And I don’t mean they changed some things for the sake of adapting to a TV format, as they’ve done countless times in the past. No, this week, they had whole segments that were entirely made up.
Second, there was the way they explained every single aspect of the conspiracy surrounding Joffrey’s death. They’ve done this a lot in the shows, being explicit about things that were implicit in the novels. But this time around, they really spelt it out for us! And last, but not least, there was the whole mutineers at Craster’s Keep thread and the way they turned up the ugliness factor. Forget Oathkeeper, the episode should have been called “C*nt” – as in, how many times can we say it in one scene!
However, there were some parts of it that were interesting and even intriguing, mainly the ending…
Oathkeeper: The episode opens with Daenerys’ attempt to take Mereen, which consists of Grey Worm and other Unsullied sneaking into the city through its sewers. Disguised as slaves, they made their way inside to where the city’s slaves are holding congress and discussing open revolt. Upon their arrival, Grey Worm and the others distribute weapons and tell them that Daenerys is there to free them, and that they outnumber the masters three to one.
The next day, the masters see Daenerys’ banner flying from the tallest of the city’s pyramid and find graffiti denouncing the masters. One such master is caught in an alleyway between dozens of armed slaves and is killed. The slave uprising neutralizes the defenses, and Daenerys enters into the city and is hailed as a liberator. She then orders that the slave masters be publicly crucified in the same fashion as the children that they saw along the road.
Back in King’s Landing, Jaime meets with Tyrion for the first time and asks him if he is guilty of Joffrey’s death. He denies it, and Jaime believes him, which puts him at odds with Cersei who continues to hold him responsible. After asking him if he would find and kill Sansa for her, Jaime calls Brienne to him. Giving her a new suit of armor and his sword, he tasks her with fulfilling her duty to Lady Caitlyn and finding her daughter. She names the sword Oathkeeper, and sets out with Pod to find Sansa.
Lady Olenna Redwyne meets with Margaery and tells her in no subtle fashion to begin ingratiating herself to Tommen so she can defuse any attempts Cersei has at poisoning him against her. In the course of their talk, she admits that she is the one who poisoned Joffrey. Out to sea, while traveling to the Eyrie to marry her aunt, Lord Pyter Baelish admits the same to Sansa, and intimates that he did it to please the Tyrells – his new ally.
At the Wall, Locke has arrived and begins to befriend Jon Snow, who is there to kill – on Lord Bolton’s orders. Amidst training the new recruits, Jon comes to learn from Sam that Bran and the Reeds are travelling north of the Wall and suspects they may find their way to Craster’s Keep. He then is told by the acting Lord Commander that he has leave to go there and kill the mutineers before they can fall into Mance’s hands.
Locke and a handful of other Brothers agree to go with him, and they set out. Meanwhile, at Crasters Keep, where Karl Tanner (one of the mutineers) is running things as his own private fiefdom. When a newborn baby boy is presented to him, he is told that Craster sacrificed them to “the gods” (aka. the White Walkers). He orders one of his men to take the baby out, who then leaves it in the snow and goes to a cage where (surprise!) Ghost is being kept.
Just then, a cold wind blows in, signalling the approach of the Walkers, and he runs away. Not far off, Bran, Hodor and the Reeds are camped and sense the approach as well. They hear the baby crying, and Bran changes skin with Summer, who then wanders off in search of the baby. His wolf hears howling as well, sees Ghost in his cage, and then falls into a trap. The next day, they approach the Keep and see what’s become of it.
They begin planning on freeing Summer, but are captured by the mutineers. Hodor is chained up so the mutineers taunt and abuse him, and one stabs him in the leg with his spear. Bran and the Reeds are taken inside the keep where Karl comes to them and demands to know who they are. He threatens to kill them and Jojen begins to have a seizure, at which point Bran tells them his true identity. At this point, Karl means to ransom them or hold them hostage.
The episode ends out in the frozen wastes, where the White Walker who was seen assaulting the Fist of the First Men is riding his dead horse and carrying the baby with him. After arriving at the foot of a mountain, the Walker comes to a sort of shrine made of ice and places the baby down on an altar. Another Walker comes forward from a large circle of them and touches the baby’s face. It’s eyes turn blue, indicating that it has become an Other.
Summary: So… where to start? I’m guessing with the stuff I didn’t like since the ending was the big exception to all that. Let’s see if I can’t break it down in sequential order. First off, the sack of Mereen, which was very quick and involved some changes from the original story. As I mentioned last time, the way the show chose to write Strong Belwas and the fact that Ser Barristan Selmy was originally hiding his identity from Daenerys out of the show. As I might have also said, this would come up this week as Daenerys’ forced sacked the city.
Basically, Daenerys learned the truth as she sat outside Mereen’s walls and tried to think of a way to breach its defenses. Not only did she learn that Whitebeard was actually Selmy and in the employ of Robert – the man who usurped the throne from her father and tried to have her killed. His confession also raised the fact that Ser Jorah Mormont was working for Robert as well. At least he was, until he chose to switch sides and prevent her from being poisoned.
Incensed, Daenerys chose to send them on a dangerous mission, which involved sneaking into the city’s sewers at night and opening it’s gates. This was the only weakness they could discern of Mereen’s defenses, and Mormont and Selmy happened to be successful. By contrast, the way they did this in this week’s episode happened so fast and quickly, it kind of made it seem like taking the city was a piece of cake. But it still worked, so no real complaints there. And the way they rendered the city was very beautiful and accurate to the text.
However, the whole storyline in the North is something that I found rather annoying. For starters, Jon Snow never asked to go off and kill the mutineers at Crasters Keep, mainly because they had their hands full with the Wildling party that coming up from the south, and Mance coming down from the north. As Jon knew, Ygritte and Tormund’s whole purpose was to take Castle Black so that they could open the gates and let Mance and his army through without a fight.
Jon knew that the only advantage the Night’s Watch had was the fact that the Wall would be very difficult for Mance’s army to overcome. But that advantage would be lost if the Wildlings managed to seize Castle Black, which seemed likely given how outnumbered the Night’s Watch was at this point. Faced with attack coming from two directions, both of which were practically upon them, Jon’s only thought was preparing their defenses. He gave no thought to the mutineers whatsoever, since they were all believed to be dead anyway.
And speaking of giving something no though, Bolton never ordered Locke to go Castle Black to find and assassinate Jon. While it is true that he was concerned with cementing his family’s rule over the North, this involved him sending his bastard son (after he was made a full Bolton) to Winterfell where he was to marry Jeyne Poole (Sansa’s friend in King’s Landing who was now being forced to pretend to be Arya Stark). This show-wedding would have made the Bolton’s rule over the North legitimate by law.
At no point in the story did Bolton learn that Bran and Rickon were still alive, not for certain anyway. And as for Jon Snow, Bolton never concerned himself with him since, as a bastard, he had no claim to Winterfell. And to top that off, the mutineers never captured Ghost, and Bran, Hodor and the Reeds never traveled to Craster’s Keep to be captured and interrogated. All of this stuff was made-up and filler, and the way they turned Karl Tanner from a background character into Evil the Cat seemed especially overdone.
And while I get that they need to come up with things to keep certain characters and threads engaged, I would think they could do what they have been doing with Theon, who also didn’t appear again in the story until A Dance with Dragons (book five). Here, they simply used what Martin wrote about his intervening time to keep him in the story. With Bran and Jon now, they are making stuff up and diverging wildly from the text.
But at least this week, Cersei and Jaime’s strained relationship seems to have some merit. In fact, it was their disagreement over Tyrion that caused their split in the first place, not to mention Cersei’s growing paranoia and vindictiveness. That whole “you took too long” thing was pure nonsense, and the rape scene of last week was as wrong as it was unnecessary. Not in the books, didn’t fit with their characters, so I liked that this week, they ironed that out.
And of course, the ending! What can I say about that? No, really, what can I say? I ask because it wasn’t in the books either, not in A Storm of Swords (which provides the material for this season) or the two others that have come since. This means that this final scene, which was very cool and cryptic, was also providing hints as to the larger plot, stuff that George RR Martin hasn’t even revealed yet to his loyal readers. What can you say about that? Other than COOOOOOL!
Anyhoo, midseason is coming up, and we’ve got some rather major events in the works before the season ends. These would include Tyrion’s trial – which is going to have its own share of big surprises and consequences! – and of course, Mance’s assault on the Wall, which I am looking forward to with some high zest. No matter what else they’ve done this season, fight scenes and major battles are two thing they’ve consistently managed to do well!
One of the greatest benefits of additive manufacturing (aka. 3-D printing) is the way it is making everything – from finished goods to electronic devices – cheaper and more accessible. Modern medicine is also a beneficiary of this field of technology, with new tests and possibilities being produced all the time. In recent weeks, researchers have announced ways in which it might even help lead to a cure for cancer and combat one of the greatest health epidemics of the world.
When it comes to testing cancer drugs, researchers rely on the traditional two-dimensional method of seeing how they work on cancer cells within the confines of a Petri dish. If the drug works well, they move onto the next stage where they see how the drug deals with 3-D tumors in animals. If that goes well, then, finally, researchers start clinical trials on humans. But if it were possible to test these drugs in a 3-D scenario right away, time and money could be saved and effective treatments made available sooner.
And now, thanks to a team led by Dr. Wei Sun of Philadelphia’s Drexel University, this may be possible. Using the techniques of 3-D printing and biofabrication, the research team was able to manufacture tumors by squirting out a mixture of cancerous and healthy biomaterial, dollop by dollop, and create a three-dimensional replica of a living tumor. Because of this, the field of cancer research could be revolutionized.
According to Sun, there’s just as huge a disconnect between what works in two versus three dimensions as there is between what works in animals versus humans. These disconnects are what make developing new cancer drugs so time consuming and expensive. You can’t just rely on a formula when switching to each new environment, testing takes time, results must be documented along the way, and adjustments made at every step.
With Sun’s 3-D printing technology, a living tumor can be printed just as easily as cancer cells grow in a Petri dish. The machinery used is capable of printing with extraordinarily high resolution, which allows cells to be placed with incredible precision. The average cell is 20 microns, where as Sun’s system can place individual cells within two to three microns. That means Sun can print out extraordinarily specific, spheroid-shaped tumors in a multitude of different shapes and sizes.
But testing cancer drugs more easily is only one of the many uses of Sun’s technology. Since each tumor is different, there’s the possibility that the technology could be used to simulate individual patients’ cancers in the lab and see which drugs work most effectively on them. What’s more, Dr. Sun indicates that cancer testing is really just the beginning:
Doctors want to be able to print tissue, to make organ on the cheap. This kind of technology is what will make that happen. In 10 years, every lab and hospital will have a 3-D printing machine that can print living cells.
On another front, 3-D printing technology is offering new possibilities in the treatment of diabetes. Often referred to as a “rich man’s disease”, this condition is actually very prevalent in the developing world where nutrition is often poor and exercise habits are not always up to snuff. To make matters worse, in these parts of the world, the disease is not considered a serious health problem and proper means and facilities are not always available.
Enter the Reach, a cheap new diabetes test developed by a group of students from the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto. Relying on 3-D printing technology, the device is aimed at urban “slum-dwellers” who may be threatened with diabetes, but very likely haven’t been checked for it. It’s one of six finalists for this year’s Hult Prize, which challenges students to create social good enterprises.
This year’s goal, which was set by Bill Clinton, is to reduce rates of non-communicable diseases among the urban poor. As part of their Social Enterprise Challenge, the 2014 Hult Prize is intended to address the challenge of building “a social health care enterprise that serves the needs of 25 million slum dwellers suffering from chronic diseases by 2019.” And as Dhaman Rakhra, one of the students on the York research team, put it:
We saw that diabetes is growing at the fastest rate among the slum population. It is also a disease that can be addressed, and where you can have an immediate impact. A lot of it is about a lifestyle change, if it’s detected early.
Roughly the size of a postage stamp, the Reach is similar to a home pregnancy test, in that it tests a patient’s urine. If someone’s urine has a certain level of glucose in it – indicating propensity for diabetes – the test changes color. Most importantly of all, the test can be printing out on a normal 3-D printer, making it unbelievably cheap (just two cents a pop!) The students plan to distribute the Square using the Avon business model, where local people will sell on the enterprise’s behalf.
The Schulich students, who are all undergraduates, plan to refine the idea over the summer, first spending time with a Hult accelerator in Cambridge, Massachusetts, then during a month-long pilot test at a large slum in Mumbai. If they should win the Hult Prize, they will be awarded one million dollars to further develop, refine and finance it. But as Rakhra claimed, the real fun comes in the form of bright minds coming together to come up with solutions to modern issues:
It’s exciting to really show that young people really can make a difference by creating a social enterprise that’s self-sustaining. It’s not something that many young business students really think about as a career path. But it’s definitely something we hope to influence.
The on-site manufacturing of cheap, effective drugs, prosthetics, and medical devices are undoubtedly one of the most exciting aspect of the revolution taking place with additive manufacturing. For starters, it is creating more cost effective ways to address health problems, which is a saving grace for patients and medical systems that are strapped for cash.. At the same time, it shows the potential that new technologies have to address social and economic inequality, rather than perpetuating it.
With over 1800 extra-solar planets discovered in the past 30 years, the search for life beyond our Solar System has begun anew. Astronomers believe that every star in the galaxy has a planet, and that one fifth of these might harbor life. The greatest challenge, though, is in being able to spot these “Earth-like” exoplanets. Due to the fact that they emit very little light compared to their parent stars (usually less than one-millionth the level of radiance), direct imaging is extremely rare and difficult.
Luckily, engineers and astronomers at NASA and other federal space agencies are considering the possibility of evening these odds with new technology and equipment. Once such effort comes from Princeton’s High Contrast Imaging Laboratory, where Jeremy Kasdin and his team are working on a revolutionary space-based observatory known as a “starshade” – a flower petal-shaped device that allows a telescope to photograph planets from 50,000 kilometers away.
As Dr. Stuasrt Shaklan, NASA Jet Propulsion Labratory’s lead engineer on the starshade project, explaned:
Despite these challenges, the starshade approach could offer planet-hunters many advantages, thanks in no small part to its simplicity. Light from the star never reaches the telescope because it’s blocked by the starshade, which allows the telescope system to be simpler. Another advantage of the starshade approach is that it can be used with a multi-purpose space telescope designed to make observations that could be useful to astronomers working in fields other than exoplanets.
When news of the cast was released, Abrams was quoted as saying:
Ultimately, the success of the assault was due to a combination of technical and tactical innovation, meticulous planning, powerful artillery support and extensive training. For weeks prior to the offensive, Canadian soldiers underwent training using models to represent the battlefield, and General’s Sir Julian Byng and Sir Arthur Currie made sure that every single soldier had a map of the ridge and knew exactly what would be needed of them.
In so doing, the Canadian’s artillery support was able to catch the German defenders as they were coming out of their dugouts to set up their machine guns and defenses. New methods and equipment were also used to triangulate the positions of the German artillery guns and take them out in advance of the attack. This way, the Germans had no reprieve from the bombardment, and no way to shell the Canadians as they moved up the ridge.
Presumably SpaceX will provide another update in due course. In the meantime, they took the opportunity to release a rather awesome video of 
As Musk himself explained in a series of public statements and interviews after the launch:
Stories by Williams 