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Resistance To Flu Drug Widespread In U.S.: Study

admin — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 05:00:00 +0000

A flu shot is prepared in Chicago, Illinois. US President Barack Obama has vowed to fight for his budget proposals that include investments in clean energy and healthcare as he faces a tough battle moving the measures through Congress. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Tim Boyle)

From Yahoo News/Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Virtually all cases of the most common strain of flu circulating in the United States now resist the main drug used to treat it, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Monday.

CDC researchers said 98 percent of all flu samples from the H1N1 strain were resistant to Roche AG's Tamiflu, a pill that can both treat flu and prevent infection. Four patients infected with the resistant strain have died, including two children.

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NASA Says Climate Satellite Fails To Launch

admin — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:00:00 +0000

From Yahoo News/Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A mission carrying a climate satellite into orbit failed on Tuesday when the satellite was not able to separate from the rocket, NASA said.

"The vehicle ... landed just sort of Antarctica in the ocean," John Brunschwyler of Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp, which made the rocket told a news conference.

The $278 million Orbiting Carbon Observatory was going to measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and to determine what happens to the climate-changing pollutant.

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Update: Nasa's first CO2 satellite crashes into ocean after launch failure -- Times Online

New Atlas Shows Dying Languages Around The World

admin — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:59:00 +0000

Click On The Image To Enlarge (Image from Thinking Shift)

From Yahoo News/AP:

PARIS – Only one native speaker of Livonian remains on Earth, in Latvia. The Alaskan language Eyak went extinct last year when its last surviving speaker passed away.

Those are just two of the nearly 2,500 languages that UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, says are in danger of becoming extinct or have recently disappeared. That's out of a total of 6,000 world languages.

In a presentation Thursday of a new world atlas of endangered languages, linguists stressed the list is not restricted to small or far-flung countries. They also sought to encourage immigrants to treasure their native languages.

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Crash Of US, Russian Satellites A Threat In Space

admin — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 02:00:00 +0000

NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office has counted about 17,000 objects larger than 10 centimeters, and it estimates that there are more than 200,000 particles between one and 10 centimeters. The debris objects shown here are an artist's impression based on actual density data. The objects are shown at an exaggerated size to make them visible at the scale shown. (European Space Agency)

From Yahoo News/AP:

MOSCOW – U.S. and Russian officials traded shots Thursday over who was to blame for a huge satellite collision this week that spewed speeding clouds of debris into space, threatening other unmanned spacecraft in nearby orbits.

The smashup 500 miles (800 kilometers) over Siberia on Tuesday involved a derelict Russian spacecraft designed for military communications and a working satellite owned by U.S.-based Iridium, which served commercial customers as well as the U.S. Department of Defense.

A prominent Russian space expert suggested NASA fell down on the job by not warning of the collision. But U.S. space experts said the Russian has the wrong agency.

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More News On The U.S./Russian Satellite Collision

Satellite collision highlights space-junk threat -- Christian Science Monitor
PHOTOS: Satellite Collision Creates Dangerous Debris -- National Geographic
Pentagon fails to anticipate satellite collision -- AFP
Space-collision debris poses risk to satellites, experts say -- CBC
U.S. warns of space "dodgeball" after satellite crash -- Reuters
U.S. to release update regarding satellite debris in 72 hours: spokeswoman -- China View

2 Satellites Collide In Space: A First For The Space Program

admin — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Image from Scientific American

2 Big Satellites Collide 500 Miles Over Siberia -- Yahoo News/AP

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Two big communications satellites collided in the first-ever crash of two intact spacecraft in orbit, shooting out a pair of massive debris clouds and posing a slight risk to the international space station.

NASA said it will take weeks to determine the full magnitude of the crash, which occurred nearly 500 miles over Siberia on Tuesday.

"We knew this was going to happen eventually," said Mark Matney, an orbital debris scientist at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

NASA believes any risk to the space station and its three astronauts should be low. It orbits about 270 miles below the collision course. There also should be no danger to the space shuttle set to launch with seven astronauts on Feb. 22, officials said, but that will be re-evaluated in the coming days.

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More News On This Satellite Collision

U.S. And Russian Satellites Collide -- CBS News
U.S., Russian satellites collide in space -- Reuters
U.S. Satellite Destroyed in Space Collision -- Space.com
Space crash: Commercial and Russian satellites collide in orbit -- Scientific American
Two satellites collide in orbit -- Spaceflight Now
2 big satellites collide 500 miles over Siberia -- Houston Chronicle
Russian satellite collides with Iridium phone comm satellite, debris effects unknown -- Examiner.com

Senate Passes Stimulus Bill Containing $1.3 Billion for NASA

admin — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:00:00 +0000

From Yahoo News/Space.com:

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Senate passed an $838 billion economic stimulus package Tuesday that includes $1.3 billion for NASA – more than double the amount the House approved Jan. 28 for the U.S. space agency in its version of the bill.

The Senate voted 61-37 on its version of the bill, which proposes spending $450 million to narrow the five-year gap between the scheduled 2010 retirement of the space shuttle and 2015 debut of its successor. The House place no money into addressing the gap.

Big Particle Collider To Restart In September

admin — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 07:59:00 +0000

CERN Large Hadron Collider: Photo from Curious Cat

From Yahoo News/AP:

GENEVA – Additional safety features being added to the world's largest atom smasher will postpone its startup until the end of September, a year after the $10 billion machine was sidelined by a simple electrical fault, the operator said Tuesday.

The cost of the repairs and added safety features has yet to be determined, but it will be covered by the regular budget of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, spokeswoman Christine Sutton said.

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Mummies Found In Newly Discovered Tomb In Egypt

admin — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 02:00:00 +0000

In this photo released Monday, Feb. 9, 2009 by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, the remains of a newly-discovered Egyptian mummy and sarcophagus are seen in a tomb at Saqqara, south of Cairo, in Egypt, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2009. A storeroom housing about two dozen ancient Egyptian mummies has been unearthed inside a 2,600-year-old tomb during the latest round of excavations at the vast necropolis of Saqqara south of Cairo, archaeologists said Monday. (AP Photo/Supreme Council of Antiquities)

From Yahoo News/AP:

CAIRO – A storeroom housing about two dozen ancient Egyptian mummies has been unearthed inside a 2,600-year-old tomb during the latest round of excavations at the vast necropolis of Saqqara south of Cairo, archaeologists said Monday.

The tomb was located at the bottom of a 36-foot deep shaft, said Egypt's top archaeologist, Zahi Hawass. Twenty-two mummies were found in niches along the tomb's walls, he said.

Eight sarcophagi were also found in the tomb. Archaeologists so far have opened only one of the sarcophagi — and found a mummy inside of it, said Hawass' assistant Abdel Hakim Karar. Mummies are believed to be inside the other seven, he said.

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Valve Concerns Delay February Space Shuttle Launch

admin — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 11:00:00 +0000

Space shuttle Discovery atop the crawler transporter nears the end of it's 3.4 mile journey to pad 39A to prepare for the next launch at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2009. Discovery is scheduled to launch on Feb. 12. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

From Yahoo News/Space.com:

NASA has delayed the planned Feb. 12 launch of the space shuttle Discovery by least a week to allow extra time to evaluate vital fuel valves on the spacecraft, agency officials said late Tuesday.

Discovery was slated to launch toward the International Space Station on Feb. 12 to deliver the last set of U.S.-built solar arrays to the orbiting laboratory. The mission is now scheduled to blast off no earlier than Feb. 19 at about 4:41 a.m. EST (0941 GMT), but an official launch target will be determined at a later date.

"By looking at it right now, we think it's about a week delay, but we're not going to put pressure on the team," said John Shannon, NASA's space shuttle program manager, in a briefing at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "We'll just let the information drive us."

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Global Warming ‘Irreversible’ For Next 1000 Years: Study

admin — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 05:00:00 +0000

The Department of Water and Power (DWP) San Fernando Valley Generating Station is seen in Sun Valley, California, 2008. Climate change is "largely irreversible" for the next 1,000 years even if carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions could be abruptly halted, according to a new study led by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). (AFP/Getty Images/File/David Mcnew)

From Yahoo News/AFP:

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Climate change is "largely irreversible" for the next 1,000 years even if carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions could be abruptly halted, according to a new study led by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The study's authors said there was "no going back" after the report showed that changes in surface temperature, rainfall and sea level are "largely irreversible for more than 1,000 years after CO2 emissions are completely stopped."

NOAA senior scientist Susan Solomon said the study, published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, showed that current human choices on carbon dioxide emissions are set to "irreversibly change the planet."

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