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Splash! NASA moon strikes found significant water

By ALICIA CHANG (AP) –

LOS ANGELES — It turns out there’s lots of water on the moon — at least near the lunar south pole.

The discovery announced Friday comes from an analysis of data from a spacecraft NASA intentionally crashed into the moon last month.

“Indeed, yes, we found water. And we didn’t find just a little bit, we found a significant amount,” said Anthony Colaprete, the mission’s principal investigator at NASA’s Ames Research Center.

The lunar impact kicked up at least 25 gallons of water and that’s only what scientists can see, Colaprete said.

Having an abundance of water on the moon would make it easier to set up a base camp for astronauts by providing drinking water and an ingredient for rocket fuel.

The latest finding is further evidence that the moon is not the dry, barren place it appears and could reinvigorate scientific interest.

“This is not your father’s moon,” said Greg Delory of the University of California, Berkeley, who was not part of the research. “Rather than a dead and unchanging world, it could in fact be a very dynamic and interesting one.”

Delory said the next focus should be to figure out where the water comes from and how much of it there is.

NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, last month slammed into one of moon’s permanently shadowed craters near the south pole to study whether ice was buried underneath.

The mission actually involved two moon shots. First, an empty rocket hull slammed into the Cabeus crater. A shepherding spacecraft recorded the drama live before it also crashed into the same spot four minutes later.

Though scientists were overjoyed with the plethora of data beamed back to Earth, the mission was a public relations dud. Space enthusiasts who stayed up all night to watch the spectacle did not see the promised debris plume in the initial images.

NASA scientists had predicted the twin impacts would spew six miles of dust into space. Instead, images revealed just a mile-high plume.

Scientists spent a month analyzing data from the spacecraft’s spectrometers, instruments that can detect strong signals of water molecules in the plume.

Previous spacecraft have detected the presence of hydrogen in lunar craters near the poles, which could be evidence of ice. In September, scientists reported finding tiny amounts of water mixed into the lunar soil all over the lunar surface.

“We’ve had hints that there is water. This was almost like tasting it,” said Peter Schultz, professor of geological sciences at Brown University and a co-investigator on the LCROSS mission.

Mission scientists said it would take more time to tease out what else was kicked up in the moon dust.

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Glee cast sings National Anthem

 

I’m not a huge baseball fan but I am huge Glee fan! Check this out:)

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Dinosaurs were warm-blooded, new study says

Nov. 11, 2009 — Were dinosaurs “warm-blooded” like present-day mammals and birds, or “cold-blooded” like present day lizards? The implications of this simple-sounding question go beyond deciding whether or not you’d snuggle up to a dinosaur on a cold winter’s evening. In a study published Nov. 10 in the journal PLoS ONE, a team of researchers, including Herman Pontzer, Ph.D., assistant professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has found strong evidence that many dinosaur species were probably warm-blooded. If dinosaurs were endothermic (warm-blooded) they would have had the potential for athletic abilities rivalling those of present day birds and mammals, and possibly similar quick thinking and complicated behaviors as well. Their internal furnace would have enabled them to live in colder habitats, such as high mountain ranges and the polar regions, that would kill ectotherms (cold-blooded animals), allowing them to cover the entire Mesozoic landscape. These advantages would have come at a cost, however; endothermic animals require much more food than their ectothermic counterparts because their rapid metabolisms fatally malfunction if they cool down too much, and so a constant supply of fuel is required. Pontzer worked with colleagues John R. Hutchinson and Vivian Allen from the Structure and Motion Laboratory at the Royal Veterinary College in England to bring a combination of simple measurements, rigorous computer modeling techniques and their knowledge of physiology in present-day animals to bear in a new study on this topic. Using their combined experience, the authors set out to determine whether a variety of dinosaurs and closely related extinct animals were endothermic or ectothermic, and when, where and how often in the dinosaur family tree this important trait may have evolved. “It’s exciting to apply our studies of living animals back to the fossil record to test different evolutionary scenarios,” Pontzer said. “I work on the evolution of human locomotion, using studies of living humans and other animals to figure out the gait and efficiency of our earliest fossil ancestors. When I realized this approach could be applied to the dinosaur record, I contacted John Hutchinson, an expert on dinosaur locomotion, and suggested we collaborate on this project. Our results provide strong evidence that many dinosaur species were probably warm-blooded. The debate on this issue will no doubt continue, but we hope our study will add a useful new line of evidence.” Studies of present-day animals have shown that endothermic animals are able to sustain much higher rates of energy use (that is, they have a higher “VO2max”) than ectothermic animals can. Following this observation, the researchers reasoned that if the energy cost of walking and running could be estimated in dinosaurs, the results might show whether these extinct species were warm- or cold-blooded. If walking and running burned more energy than a cold-blooded physiology can supply, these dinosaurs were probably warm-blooded. But metabolism and energy use are complex biological processes, and all that remains of extinct dinosaurs are their bones. So, the authors made use of a recent work by Pontzer showing that the energy cost of walking and running is strongly associated with leg length — so much so that hip height (the distance from the hip joint to the ground) can predict the observed cost of locomotion with 98 percent accuracy for a wide variety of land animals. As hip height can be simply estimated from the length of fossilized leg bones, Pontzer and colleagues were able to use this to obtain simple but reliable estimates of locomotor cost for dinosaurs. To back up these estimates, the authors used a more complex method based on estimating the actual volume of leg muscle dinosaurs would have had to activate in order to move, using methods Hutchinson and Pontzer had previously developed. Activating more muscle leads to greater energy demands, which may in turn require an endothermic metabolism to fuel. Estimating active muscle volume in an extinct animal is a great deal more complicated than measuring the length of the legs, however, and so the authors went back to basic principles of locomotion. First, how large would the forces required from the legs have to be to move the animal? In present-day animals, this is mainly determined by how much the animal weighs and what sort of leg posture it uses — straight-legged like a human or bent-legged like a bird, for example. Second, how much muscle would be needed to supply these forces? Experiments in biological mechanics have shown that this depends mainly on the limb muscles’ mechanical advantage, which in turn depends strongly on the size of the bony levers they are attached to. To apply these principles to extinct dinosaurs, Pontzer and colleagues examined recent anatomical models of 13 extinct dinosaur species, using detailed measurements of the fossilized bony levers that limb muscles attached to. From this, the authors were able to reconstruct the mechanical advantage of the limb muscles and calculate the active muscle volume required for each dinosaur to walk or run at different speeds. The cost of activating this muscle was then compared to similar costs in present-day endothermic and ectothermic animals. The results of both the simple and complex method were in very close agreement: based on the energy they consumed when moving, many dinosaurs were probably endothermic, athletic animals because their energy requirements during walking and running were too high for cold-blooded animals to produce. Interestingly, when the results for each dinosaur were arranged into an evolutionary family tree, the authors found that endothermy might be the ancestral condition for all dinosaurs. This pushes the evolution of endothermy further back into the ancient past than many researchers expected, suggesting that dinosaurs were athletic, endothermic animals throughout the Mesozoic era. This early adoption of high metabolic rates may be one of the key factors in the massive evolutionary success that dinosaurs enjoyed during the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, and continue to enjoy now in feathery, flying form. Their methods add to the many lines of evidence, from bone histology to lung ventilation and insulatory “protofeathers,” that are all beginning to support the fundamental conclusion that dinosaurs were generally endothermic. Ironically, indirect anatomical evidence for active locomotion in dinosaurs was originally some of the first evidence used by researchers John Ostrom and Robert Bakker in the 1960s to infer that dinosaurs were endothermic. Pontzer and his colleagues provide a new perspective on dinosaur anatomy, linking limb design to energetics and metabolic strategies. The authors think the debate over dinosaur physiology will continue to evolve, and while the physiology of long-extinct species will always remain a bit speculative, they hope the methods developed in this study provide a new tool for researchers in the field. source:http://news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/15053.html?emailID=26395

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DocRock cheeses up flu prevention

If this doesn't make you want to wash your hands (and scrub your memory clean), I don't know what will.

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Online Express Check-in will save time at H1N1 clinics

 In an effort to save time for people attending the Oklahoma City-County Health Department H1N1 flu clinics, the health department has posted the necessary forms in both English and Spanish on the agency web site.  There will be a separate, “Easy Check In” line for those with completed registration forms.

 

People planning on attending the H1N1 clinics can go to the health department website, www.occhd.org, visit the “Where do I get an H1N1 flu shot?” section and click the Express Check In button.  The vaccine registration forms can be downloaded, printed, and completed by hand.  Simply bring the completed forms to the next flu clinic. 

 

According to Gary Cox, Director of the health department, “This is a way of reducing the amount of time the public must wait to get the H1N1 vaccine.  We want to encourage everyone to get the vaccine when the vaccine becomes available to them.”

 

The dates, times, and locations of upcoming clinics are as follows:

 

Saturday November 14^th          Star Spencer High School, 3001 N. Spencer Rd, Spencer

                                                Douglass Mid-High School, 900 M.L. King, Oklahoma City

 

Saturday November 21^st           Northwest Classen High School, 2801 NW 27^th, Oklahoma City

 

All clinics will be held from 10 am to 3 pm.

 

Following new Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Oklahoma State Department of Health guidelines, these clinics will be open ONLY to the following priority groups:

 

• Pregnant women
• Children, adolescents and young adults ages 6 months – 24 years
• All healthcare and emergency medical services personnel
• Any person who lives with, or provides care for, infants aged less than 6 months (e.g., parents, siblings, grandparents and daycare providers)
• Persons 25-64 years who have medical conditions that put them at higher risk for influenza-related complications.

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OKC County Health Department announces H1N1 immunization clinic

 

 H1N1 Influenza Immunization Clinic

When:         Saturday, November 7^th, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

 Where:       John Marshall High School, 12201 N. Portland, Oklahoma City

 Why:           Everyone who meets the CDC and Oklahoma State Health Department guidelines should receive the vaccine. 

 

Background:  ONLY the following priority groups:

• Pregnant women
• All children ages 6 months to 18 years
• Custodial parents of infants less 6 months of age
• Frontline healthcare workers who have direct patient contact with acutely ill persons
• Adults 19 to 64 years of age with chronic disease

 

 

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Killers slay audiences with live show experience

NEW YORK (AP) — When the Killers started out, they wanted to raise a ruckus like their favorite rock stars did on the road: Frontman Brandon Flowers heard of the legendary exploits of Led Zeppelin and David Bowie and wanted to emulate those experiences.

But Flowers says the Killers’ indulgence in the stereotypical rock star lifestyle is now in the wind.

“When we got away from cliches, our shows started really getting better,” Flowers points out.

“You become mindful that people are coming to see a band that’s well-rehearsed,” added drummer Ronnie Vannucci. “Burning the candle at both ends could hinder performance.”

By no means, however, are the Mormon-raised Flowers and the rest of the quartet choirboys.

“I think we smartened up and were a little bit more selective of when we were going to go paint the town red,” Flowers says with a smile.

Now on their fourth album, the band’s impressive live show is coming to a screen near you.

“The Killers: Live From The Royal Albert Hall” was recorded earlier this year in London at the prestigious 138-year old venue. The CD/DVD set, to be released on Tuesday, also features extra footage, including backstage interviews, and excerpts from their performances at the Oxygen and V Festivals as well as a Hyde Park concert, also in London.

Flowers credits London as the place where their success began.

“We wanted to capture that and thank them,” Flowers says. “The energy is different (there). It’s not a part of our culture to celebrate music here the way they do across the Atlantic.”

The soft-spoken Flowers is fearless. He commands the stage like a modern-day crooner, except that he fronts a rock band instead of an orchestra, and wears “guyliner” and feather epaulettes on his blazer (at other times, he opts for a gilded suit).

Despite the boldness of his stage attire, the Killers lead singer doesn’t see himself as a style icon.

“I’m just trying not to look stupid and apparently some people don’t think I’m doing a very good job,” Flowers says, then breaks into a gentle laugh.

They’ve been touring for their latest album, “Day & Age,” for more than a year, and expect to be on the road for a good part of 2010. Spreading their flamboyant brand of pop around the world is a highlight for the band, but they’re also cognizant of its drawbacks.

Vanucci reduces the dilemma to a single word: “Airports.” Then Flowers chimes, “To take off in the sky — not natural. I’d rather be on the bus on the ground.” Immediately, Vannucci interjects, “Somebody’s scared to fly,” before both break out in laughter.

That spirit among Killers translates on stage — and that’s where it really matters.

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‘Real Cougar’ on the prowl to redefine stereotype

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Sexy ‘3SOME’ ‘Gossip Girl’ episode draws criticism, speculation

So, Gossip Girl has done it again. As if their “Chuck Kisses a Dude” story line wasn’t controversial enough, now the show is promoting a Nov. 9 episode in which three of the main characters have a threesome.  The storyline has parent groups in a tizzy and die-hard fans dying to know which three characters will be involved in the tryst. Michael Ausiello of EW blogs that his mole won’t tell him which characters it will be but offers nine possible combinations.

I’m not a fan, but I can easily understand why parent groups are up in arms. Though the show claims it isn’t geared toward teens, it clearly is.

Here’s an AP story about the Parents Television Council’s objections:

AP–On-air promos for a sexual threesome on an upcoming episode of “Gossip Girl” have spurred the Parents Television Council to ask affiliates of the CW network to pre-empt the show.

Airing the teen tryst, which is being teased in an ad as a “3SOME,” is “reckless and irresponsible,” said PTC president Tim Winter in a statement Wednesday. The threesome involves three main characters in the show but they are not identified in the promos.

The PTC has urged CW affiliate stations not to air the episode, scheduled for Nov. 9.

In a letter to the affiliates, Winter asked: “Will you now be complicit in establishing a precedent and expectation that teenagers should engage in behaviors heretofore associated primarily with adult films?”

This is not the first time the PTC has complained about the sexy prep-school soap, which Winter said is “expressly targeted to impressionable teenagers.”

In July 2008, the organization spoke out against a racy marketing campaign for its new season. Ads showed intimate moments between the show’s characters (on a couch, in the sack or apparently skinny-dipping), accompanied by headlines like “A Nasty Piece of Work” and “Mind-Blowingly Inappropriate.”

“CW has been defending graphic content on ‘Gossip Girl’ by asserting that they don’t target teenagers,” Winters said Wednesday. “Such a claim doesn’t even pass the ‘laugh test.“’

CW spokesman Paul McGuire said the target audience for “Gossip Girl” is the 18-to-34 demographic, with a median viewer age of 27 years old. The network had no comment on PTC’s complaint, he said.

The Parents Television Council describes itself as a nonpartisan education group advocating responsible entertainment.

 

What do you think? Leave your comments…

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‘Extreme Makeover’ star inspires column

Only 49 days to go before my baby is due. Thank goodness! Pregnancy is miraculous and I am thrilled to be able to experience it but, like I’ve said before, it’s not my favorite state of being. When I wrote previously about some of the problems that come with pregnancy, I got an e-mail from a reader chastising me and saying that “fewer whiny pregnancy and parenting clichés would make you and your column more credible and much more thought provoking.”

I wrote back thanking her for her constructive criticism but said that I am just trying to write honestly about what pregnancy and parenting have been like for me — they’re different for everyone.

Last week, I interviewed Paige Hemmis, from “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.” She will be in town tomorrow talking about her struggle with depression. At the risk of sounding whiny and making pregnancy clichés, I thought this might be a good time for me to write about the depression that I and many other women have experienced during pregnancy.

Paige admitted that she’d struggled with depression for years before really knowing what she was dealing with. I’ve dealt with it on and off since I was a child.

According to the March of Dimes, as many as 20 percent of women have symptoms of depression during pregnancy and those who have had previous bouts of depression are at much higher risk.

For me, it was the worst during the first trimester but has again reared its ugly head now that I am in the third trimester. Bless my husband and daughter for their patience in dealing with my mood swings. It hasn’t been easy.

The hormonal roller coaster of pregnancy is mostly to blame for pregnancy depression. I’ve researched it as much as possible but found that there is very little information out there beyond the basic definition of depression and the fact that pregnant women dealing with it should talk to their doctors.

I’ve found the biggest help on Internet chat boards where women in similar situations discuss what they’re going through. It’s always good to know that you’re not alone. Depression in pregnancy is a real thing that many women deal with but it doesn’t mean that we love our children any less. Maybe if more people talked openly about it, it would be better understood.

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