Seeing the aurora in a new light: Sounding rocket to help scientists study Northern Lights

Feb. 1, 2013 ? On a cold February night in Poker Flat, Alaska, a team of scientists will wait patiently for the exotic red and green glow of an aurora to illuminate the sky. Instead of simply admiring the view, this group from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center of Greenbelt, Md., and The Aerospace Corporation of El Segundo, Calif. will launch a sounding rocket up through the Northern Lights. The rocket could launch as early as the night of Feb. 2, 2013, but the team has a two-week window in order to find the perfect launch conditions.

Armed with a series of instruments developed specifically for this mission, the VISIONS (VISualizing Ion Outflow via Neutral atom imaging during a Substorm) rocket will soar high through the arctic sky to study the auroral wind, which is a strong but intermittent stream of oxygen atoms from Earth's atmosphere into outer space. Although the rocket will survive only fifteen minutes before splashing down in the Arctic Ocean, the information it obtains will provide answers to some long-standing questions, says Doug Rowland, who is the VISIONS principal investigator at Goddard.

VISIONS will study how oxygen atoms leave Earth's atmosphere under the influence of the aurora. Most of the atmosphere is bound by Earth's gravity, but a small portion of it gets heated enough by the aurora that it can break free, flowing outwards until it reaches near-Earth space. The atoms that form this wind initially travel at about 300 miles per hour -- only one percent of the speed needed to overcome gravity and leave Earth's atmosphere.

"This oxygen would normally never gain enough energy to leave the atmosphere," says Rowland. "On the other hand, at very high altitudes, satellite experiments have measured oxygen atoms moving faster than 50 miles per second. These experiments have shown that if oxygen can reach these high altitudes, there are plenty of ways for it to gain even more energy, in which case the oxygen atoms can escape near-Earth space entirely. What we don't know is how the oxygen gets enough energy to fight against gravity and reach the higher altitudes where these slingshots are active."

To find out what is doing the heavy lifting to kick start the oxygen, Rowland and his team are waiting to launch the rocket during the active phase of an aurora, which only lasts from 20 to 30 minutes. Auroras indicate a dramatic increase in the energy input to the upper atmosphere, creating a golden opportunity for the rocket to study the escaping oxygen, and learn more about what gives the oxygen the energy it needs to escape from Earth.

The VISIONS mission will highlight the advantages of using a sounding rocket instead of a satellite to gather the new information. In addition to being smaller and less expensive, sounding rockets provide vertical profiles of the auroral environment, on both the upleg and downleg portions of their parabolic trajectory, with speeds much less than those of orbiting satellites. Further, rockets can be launched from the right place at just the right time to study the aurora -- unlike a satellite that can only encounter an aurora when it flies through it by chance.

To solve the mystery behind the auroral wind, the sounding rocket will use four unique instruments. The key instrument is Goddard's MIniaturized Low-energy Energetic Neutral Atom imager, known as MILENA, which will directly observe the oxygen flowing out of the atmosphere.

In the past, scientists have only been able to study the up-flowing oxygen on a small scale -- because the oxygen is electrically charged, it is confined by Earth's magnetic field, and instruments can only measure the oxygen close to its source region. The revolutionary MILENA instrument, however, contains twin imagers that can observe the oxygen further along on its journey, after it has stolen an electron from a neutral gas atom in the atmosphere. This allows the oxygen to break free from its magnetic prison and travel a long distance, where it can be detected remotely. By mapping the oxygen, MILENA acts as a type of camera that builds up a picture of the auroral wind using oxygen atoms instead of light.

Although the MILENA instrument itself is new, it already has a successful history. The instrument was modeled after a similar imager known as MINI-ME (for Miniature Imager for Neutral Ionospheric Atoms and Magnetospheric Electrons) that flew on the NASA/U.S. Dept. of Defense FASTSAT (Fast Affordable Science and Technology Satellite) mission, which ended in Nov., 2012, after two years on-orbit.

The other instruments aboard VISIONS, including the Rocket-borne Auroral Imager (RAI), the Fields and Thermal Plasma (FTP) instrument, and the Energetic Electron Analyzer/Energetic Ion Analyzer (EEA/EIA), will work with MILENA to detect where the auroral activity occurs and measure the auroral energy that heats the oxygen. Goddard is providing MILENA and the FTP, while the RAI and EEA/EIA instruments are provided by The Aerospace Corporation of El Segundo, Calif.

NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Va., including the NASA Sounding Rocket Operations Contract (NSROC), is providing the rocket and payload support systems. The Poker Flat launch range is operated by the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, under contract to NASA.

Although the VISIONS mission will last only 15 minutes, Michael Collier, a planetary scientist at Goddard who is the MILENA instrument lead, said the information gathered in its short trip will be crucial.

"What we're doing is launching into a specific period of intense geomagnetic activity," Collier said. "With VISIONS, it may be the case we're not getting a whole lot of data, but we get the data we want."

All they have to do is wait.

For more information about NASA's Sounding Rocket program, visit: www.nasa.gov/soundingrockets

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Free Guided Meditation Tool | Care2 Healthy Living

Former monk-turned-meditation-guru Andy Puddicombe wants everyone to learn the power of meditation, and his Headspace project is all about helping people learn how to meditate. His Headspace app for iPhone or Android is a powerful tool for anyone looking to learn the basics of meditation and start a regular practice.

If you?re not familiar with Puddicombe, check out his inspiring TED Talk above about the power of taking 10 minutes to meditate each day. Or, as he calls it ?doing nothing.?

I just started using the app recently, and I?m already loving it! The basic program is a series of ten ten-minute meditation practices, which you go through in order. Each day builds on the previous day?s practice. After that, there are a couple hundred other meditations that you can try in any order that you like, though the additional programs are not free.

Related Reading: Distance Running: Meditation in Motion

Before you do your first meditation, he also walks you through a short series of videos to help you get in the right headspace for your practice. He emphasizes that meditation is a skill, and that you shouldn?t force it. One of the things I?m digging most about this program is that he frequently reminds you that it?s OK if your mind wanders and it?s OK to have conscious thoughts while you?re meditating. The key is noticing when that happens and observing those things without letting them effect you.

I also love the tone of the program. There is no new-agey music, creepy whispering narrator, or strange sound- or voice-effects. He just calmly walks you through each day?s exercise. If you prefer more of a new-age spin on meditation, this app might not be for you.

To give you an idea of what you can expect, check out Day 1 of the ten-part series on the next page!

Image Credit: Creative Commons photo by Moyan_Brenn

Source: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/free-guided-meditation-tool.html

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PBS explores the world of people who get paid to play video games

From LAN parties to MLG, the history of competitive gaming has been a fascinating one. Following up on similarly themed episodes, like the one back in October that explored the indie gaming community, PBS's Off Book is tackling the world of competition, cramming as much info as it can into a seven and a half minute piece, including the move from entertainment into an industry, including the growing pains associated with its push into the pop-culture. It's an interesting look, with plenty of input from MIT sociologist T.L. Taylor. And it offers up a good glimpse for those of us who don't possess the chops to get handed one of of those giant novelty checks in front of a room full of excited spectators. Live vicariously through the video after the break.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/01/pbs-competitive-gaming/

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Hormones can change the breast's genetic material, study finds

Jan. 31, 2013 ? Melbourne scientists have discovered how female steroid hormones can make dramatic changes to the genetic material in breast cells, changes that could potentially lead to breast cancer.

Researchers from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute have identified how pregnancy hormones send signals to critical molecules on the DNA to make changes in the epigenome. The epigenome is a series of chemical tags that modify DNA, controlling which genes are switched on and off.

Professor Jane Visvader, Dr Bhupinder Pal, Professor Geoff Lindeman and colleagues from the institute's breast cancer laboratory led the study, which was published today in Cell Reports.

Professor Visvader said the researchers had created a roadmap of the epigenomes of different breast cell types. In collaboration with Professor Gordon Smyth and colleagues from the institute's Bioinformatics division they determined how the epigenomes changed in response to ovarian hormones such as progesterone.

"We found the epigenome was very sensitive to hormonal regulation," Professor Visvader said. "This reveals another way in which female hormones can influence breast cancer risk -- by altering the epigenome through modifications on the DNA."

The epigenome is where the DNA and the environment intersect, communicating signals from the outside world to the DNA. The epigenome doesn't alter the genetic code, but is a layer of proteins or tags that decorates the DNA and provides instructions on whether DNA should be read and 'switched on' to produce proteins.

The research team found that pregnancy hormones activate a molecule called EZH2, which is an important modifier of the epigenome. "We found that hormones including progesterone activate EZH2 to modify the epigenome, leading to global changes in the expression of a huge number of genes," Professor Visvader said.

"In normal tissue, EZH2 is essential for the development of breast tissue including ducts and milk-producing cells, and for maintaining the activity of breast stem cells and their daughter progenitor cells. However, life-long exposure to hormones could lead to breast tumour initiation through increased levels of EZH2 and the changes that it orchestrates in the epigenome."

Breast cancer is the most common cause of cancer in women, accounting for almost 30 per cent of all cancers affecting women. One in nine women in Australia will develop breast cancer by the age of 85.

High levels of EZH2 are a marker of poor prognosis in breast cancer and have been frequently observed in basal-like breast cancers, the most aggressive types of breast cancer. "The link between progesterone, EZH2 and the epigenome, could be crucially important in the very early stages of breast cancer development," Professor Visvader said.

Professor Lindeman said there were decades of evidence linking hormone exposure with breast cancer, but the hormones' influence on the epigenome was not known. "Our discovery points to a role for hormone-induced changes in the epigenome in the early stages of breast cancer initiation, and could lead to new therapeutics for treating breast cancer," Professor Lindeman said. "Inhibitors against EZH2 are being developed by others, but it will be several years before we know the outcome of these on cancer."

This project was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, the Victorian Government through funding of the Victorian Breast Cancer Research Consortium, the National Breast Cancer Foundation, and the Australian Cancer Research Foundation.

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Journal Reference:

1. Bhupinder Pal, Toula Bouras, Wei Shi, Fran?ois Vaillant, Julie?M. Sheridan, Naiyang Fu, Kelsey Breslin, Kun Jiang, Matthew?E. Ritchie, Matthew Young, Geoffrey?J. Lindeman, Gordon?K. Smyth, Jane?E. Visvader. Global Changes in the Mammary Epigenome Are Induced by Hormonal Cues and Coordinated by Ezh2. Cell Reports, 2013; DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2012.12.020

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/top_news/top_health/~3/Zj_B9S61CXE/130131144446.htm

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'Hungry twin' stars gobble their first meals

Jan. 31, 2013 ? Just-forming stars, like growing babies, are always hungry and must "feed" on huge amounts of gas and dust from dense envelopes surrounding them at birth. Now a team of astronomers including Robert Gutermuth, a University of Massachusetts Amherst expert in imaging data from the Spitzer Space Telescope, reports observing an unusual "baby" star that periodically emits infrared light bursts, suggesting it may be twins, that is, a binary star. The discovery is reported this month in Nature.

The extremely young object, dubbed LRLL 54361, is about 100,000 years old and is located about 950 light years away toward the Perseus constellation. Years of monitoring its infrared with the Spitzer instrument reveal that it becomes 10 times brighter every 25.34 days, Gutermuth and colleagues say. This periodicity suggests that a companion to the central forming star is likely inhibiting the infall of gas and dust until its closest orbital approach, when matter eventually comes crashing down onto the protostellar "twins."

Gutermuth, who surveys star-forming molecular clouds with Spitzer to search for protostars, says, "The idea that this object is a baby binary system fits our data, so, twins fit our data. In single protostars, we would still see matter dumping onto the star non-uniformly, but never with the regularity or intensity of the bursts we observe in LRLL 54361. The 25.43-day period is consistent with the orbital period we would expect from a very close binary star."

The protostar twins, embedded in a gas "cocoon" many times larger than our solar system, offer an unusual chance to study what looks like a developing binary star system, he adds. Because dense envelopes of gas and dust surround embryonic stars, the only detectable light to escape is at longer, infrared wavelengths. "Spitzer's infrared camera is perfect for penetrating this cool dust to detect emission from the warm center," says Gutermuth.

"When you have two young stars feeding from the same circumstellar disk, the gravitational influence of the secondary companion can cause hiccups, an inhibition of infalling material from the disk. But when the orbital paths approach closely, that material can rush in, triggering feeding pulses for both stars and releasing a bright burst of light. The flash moves out from the center, reflecting off the disk and cavities in the envelope like an echo reverberating out from cave walls. We've seen the light flashes with Spitzer and have imaged the echo-tracing cavities in its envelope with the Hubble Space Telescope."

The light echo to which Gutermuth refers is seen in images taken at the near-infrared limit of the Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 instrument. The lead investigator for this work and the Spitzer study is UMass Amherst alumnus James Muzerolle, now of the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore. The investigators are careful to point out that they're not sure what is at the center of object LRLL 54361, but if it is an embryonic binary star, the prospects are exciting.

Scientists have shown that close binary low mass stars are a somewhat rare outcome of the star formation process. But understanding their formation is critical to address some of the fundamental open questions in star and planet formation, such as how protostars form, how they accumulate their mass and how planets form from their circumstellar disks, Gutermuth points out. It's believed that most of a central star's mass is assembled early, whereas planet formation in spinning outer gaseous disks may take several million years to complete.

Another reason this object is so interesting, he says, is that it provides a new demonstration of the impact of time-domain astronomy. "By analyzing the variability of this object's light over time, we have obtained a unique set of constraints on its physical nature. This system offers us a rare chance to observe the evolution of the disk and envelope around a binary star in almost real time."

"Looking ahead, we'll characterize this system further at millimeter wavelengths with the aid of the Large Millimeter Telescope now becoming operational under a partnership between UMass Amherst and Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Astrof?sica, ?ptica y Electr?nica. Studying millimeter variability over time will be part of our approach."

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Journal Reference:

1. James Muzerolle, Elise Furlan, Kevin Flaherty, Zoltan Balog, Robert Gutermuth. Pulsed accretion in a variable protostar. Nature, 2013; 493 (7432): 378 DOI: 10.1038/nature11746

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/u0Dtg2h2WA8/130131095228.htm

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pasta and white beans with garlic-rosemary oil | smitten kitchen

If you have a thing for chocolate, the world is your oyster. On this very site, 86 of the just over 800 recipes boast a significant chocolate component and entire sections of bookstores will be happy to fill in any cravings I missed. If you have a thing for bacon, the internet would be overjoyed to find you places to put it, a couple. But if you have a thing for something slightly less of a prom king/queen ingredient, say, tiny white beans, well, it can be tough. It?s not there are no uses for them, it?s just that when you?re very much in love, there are never enough ways to be together. And if you?re me ? someone who sometimes ups and makes a mega-pot of white beans just because you feel like it, presuming you?ll find things to do with them later ? you sometimes end up scrambling, yanking down nearly every cookbook in your collection but still coming up bereft of uses outside the well-trodden soup-and-salad territory.

So tell me: What are you favorite uses for beans outside the ever-popular realm of chili, tacos, soup and salad? Really, I?m hankering for more inspiration. I ended up finding some ? but never enough ? in this month?s Bon Appetit, in a stack of pasta recipes you will find it impossible to choose among from Sara Jenkins of Porchetta and Porsena (and green bean salad, sigh) fame. I was so charmed by the short tubes of pasta with chickpeas, I made it almost immediately but maybe it was because I?ve overdone it on chickpeas this month, but I kept thinking it would be nice with something? daintier. And considering that it is an established fact (um, in Italy, where I suspect both my white bean and artichoke obsessions could roam free) that white beans, garlic, rosemary and olive oil are a combination sent from above, I had a hunch they?d be happy here too.

The result is a great pasta for this time of year, deeply comforting and hearty but not overly decadent. There?s no heavy cream or cheese, or dairy at all; there?s no bacon (I?m sorry) or even a pinch of meat. And you won?t miss any of these things because, like a certain soup I have missed immensely since last week, it?s the finish that makes the dish ? in this case, a sizzling oil with not just garlic but freshly minced rosemary too. If you finish that with a few pinches of sea salt, oh boy. You?ll see. It?ll make a convert out of you too.

One year ago: Shortly!

Book Tour II: Just in case your missed the announcement a couple weeks ago, The Smitten Kitchen Book Tour marches on in February and March, with eight cities (hello, Atlanta/St.Louis/Minneapolis/Salt Lake/Denver/Raleigh/Montreal! plus an additional, awesome event in Brooklyn). I hope this means we finally get to meet.

Pasta and White Beans with Sizzling Garlic-Rosemary Oil
Adapted, barely, from Sara Jenkins via Bon Appetit

For the pasta, I used pennete, because I thought it nicely matched the little white beans (Rancho Gordo?s Alubia Blanca). Sara Jenkins called for ditalini to go with chickpeas. You can use whatever you?d like ? short tubes, even elbows, and canned beans are just fine here.

I streamlined the recipe a bit to reduce the number of bowls and pots used, because I?m having the kind of week where if I see another dirty dish, I?ma run far away ahem, to make things easier.

This makes a lot of pasta, because you?re using a whole pound plus two cans of beans, so it?s a great recipe to consider halving if you wish to finish it before spring comes.

1 medium onion, cut into big chunks
1 medium carrot, in big chunks
1 celery stalk, in big chunks
6 garlic cloves, 4 left whole, 2 finely chopped
1/2 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (or to taste)
1/2 cup olive oil, divided
Coarse or kosh salt
2 to 3 tablespoons tomato paste
3 1/2 cups cooked, drained beans (save cooking liquid for water in recipe, if desired) or 2 15-ounce cans small white beans, rinsed
1 pound short tube pasta (see suggestions above)
1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary

Pulse onion, carrot, celery, whole garlic cloves, parsley, and red pepper flakes (to taste) in a food processor until finely chopped. Heat 1/4 cup oil in a large, heavy pot over medium heat and add vegetable mixture to pot. (Quickly rinse, but no need to fully wash, food processor as you?ll use it again shortly.) Season generously with salt. Cook, stirring from time to time, until vegetables take on a bit of color, about 10 minutes. Add tomato paste (original recipe calls for 2T but we enjoyed it with 3) and cook it into the vegetables for another minute. Add 1 cup water or bean cooking liquid and use it to scrape up any bits stuck to the pot. Let simmer until liquid has almost disappeared, about 5 to 8 minutes.

Add beans and 2 more cups of water (or bean cooking liquid) to the pot and simmer until the flavors meld, about another 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook pasta until al dente, or still a little firm inside. I know you didn?t ask for one, but can I insert an argument for al dente pasta here? The thing is, you don?t want your pasta to fully cook in the water. If you do, it won?t have any absorbency left to drink up and become with that delicious sauce. I have really found that finishing pasta in its sauce is the single thing that most swiftly improved the quality of my pasta dishes.

Reserve 1 1/2 cups cooking water from your drained pasta.

Transfer one cup of the bean mixture to your rinsed food processor and pur?e it until smooth, then stir it back into the sauce to thicken it. Add drained pasta and 1/2 cup cooking liquid to bean sauce and cook the mixture together, adding more pasta cooking liquid as needed, until the sauce coats the pasta, about 1 to 2 more minutes.

To serve: Heat remaining 1/4 cup olive oil in a tiny saucepan over medium-low heat with garlic and rosemary, until sizzling stops. Divide pasta between serving bowls and drizzle garlic-rosemary oil over each. If you?re us, you?ll finish this with a few flakes of sea salt. Eat at once.

See more: Beans, Budget, Italian, Pasta, Photo, Vegetarian, Winter

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Source: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2013/01/pasta-and-white-beans-with-garlic-rosemary-oil/

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