NASA's Dawn Spacecraft Begins Trek to Asteroid Belt

A NASA probe blasted into space early Thursday, kicking off an unprecedented mission to explore the two largest asteroids in the solar system.

Riding atop a Delta 2 rocket, NASA's Dawn spacecraft launched toward the asteroids Vesta and Ceres at 7:34 a.m. EDT (1134 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

"In my view, we're going to be visiting some of the last unexplored worlds in the solar system," said Marc Rayman, Dawn director of system engineering at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.

Dawn's eight-year mission will carry the 2,685-pound (1,212-kilogram) probe across three billion miles (4.9 billion kilometers) on NASA's first sortie deep into the asteroid belt, a ring of space rocks that circles the Sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

By visiting the bright, rocky asteroid Vesta and the large, icy Ceres, researchers hope Dawn will shed new light on the formation of planets and solar system's early evolution.

Aside from a wayward ship, which delayed today's launch by 14 minutes when it encroached into the Atlantis Ocean splashdown zone for segments of Dawn's rocket, the liftoff went as planned, NASA launch director Omar Baez said.

Long journey ahead

Dawn is expected to rendezvous and orbit the 330-mile (530-kilometer) wide Vesta between August 2011 and May 2012, then move on to Texas-sized Ceres by February 2015. With its spherical shape and 585-mile (942-kilometer) diameter, Ceres is so large it is also considered a dwarf planet.

"It will be the first mission to journey to, and orbit around, two celestial bodies, and the first to visit a dwarf planet," said Dawn program manager Jim Adams, at NASA's Washington, D.C. headquarters, of the asteroid-bound flight.

Dawn carries an optical camera, gamma ray and neutron detector and a mapping spectrometer to study Vesta and Ceres. Some of those tools will get a trial run during a planned Mars flyby in 2009, researchers said.

To power those instruments, the spacecraft is also equipped with the most powerful solar arrays ever launched into deep space.

With a wingspan of nearly 65 feet (almost 20 meters), or about the distance from the pitcher's mound to home plate on a baseball field, the arrays will generate more than 10 kilowatts near Earth, though that output will decrease as the spacecraft moves further from the Sun.

NASA officials set Dawn's mission cost at $357.5 million excluding the cost of its Delta 2 rocket, according to a September update. In a July briefing, Dawn researchers said the asteroid-bound flight could cost a total of $449 million and incur an extra $25 million in overhead due to launch delays.

Attempts to launch the mission in July were thwarted first by poor weather and rocket glitches, then by difficulties arranging ship and aircraft tracking equipment in time for liftoff. NASA also canceled the mission outright in March 2006, only to reinstate the expedition a few weeks later.

"It has been quite an emotional rollercoaster," Chris Russell, Dawn's principal investigator at the University of California, Los Angeles, said of the mission. "And part of the emotional rollercoaster is the gratitude that we have for all of the people that defended Dawn in those times."

An asteroid trek on ion power

Built by Virginia-based Orbital Sciences, the Dawn spacecraft has been touted as the Prius of space probes because of the uncanny fuel efficiency of its three-engine ion drive.

Dawn carries 937 pounds (425 kilograms) of Xenon gas, to which it gives an electric charge to create ions that are then catapulted out of its engines at nearly 90,000 miles per hour (144,840 kph). Over time, the ion push builds up, and allows Dawn to change its flight path to first rendezvous, then orbit, multiple targets like Vesta and Ceres without requiring massive amounts of conventional rocket fuel.

"The first time I ever heard of ion propulsion was in a 'Star Trek' episode," said Rayman, adding that such engines are also touted to propel the TIE fighters – or Twin Ion Engine - of "Star Wars" fame. "Dawn does the TIE fighter one better because it has three ion engines."

While it will take Dawn four days to go from zero to 60 miles per hour (96 kph), the probe will gradually pick up speed as it fires its ion drive nonstop for the next six years, NASA has said, adding that the mission is the agency's first operational science expedition powered by ion propulsion.

"That would make it the longest powered flight in space history," said Keyur Patel, NASA's Dawn project manager at JPL, just before liftoff.

Each of the three ion engines weighs about 20 pounds (nine kilograms) and is about the size of a basketball.

"From such a little engine you can get this blue beam of rocket exhaust that shoots out at 89,000 miles per hour," Patel said before launch day. "It is a remarkable system."

NASA will hold a post-launch briefing on Dawn's asteroid-bound mission at 1:00 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT) on NASA TV

Source : The Space

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Burma's Generals Strike Back

"You should get closer," the Burmese woman, a medical student, told two foreigners ahead of her in the crowd. "If you are there they won't shoot." She was terribly wrong.

A group of protesters, thousands strong, massed on the corner of Anawratha and Sule Pagoda Roads. Facing them were dozens of soldiers and riot police. It was just after 1 p.m.

There were only a handful of monks in the crowd. On any other recent day, thousand of their brethren would be streaming from the Shwedagon Pagoda some 2 miles to the north, on their march into downtown Rangoon. But this morning the Shwedagon was closed and its approach roads guarded by soldiers and riot police. And last night, according to reports, many monasteries had been raided and hundreds of monks arrested.

The protesters were peaceful and buoyant. They chanted religious sutras, meant to express the Buddhist notion of metta, or loving kindness. These have been chanted at every rally, every march, and even those who do not speak Burmese will know their melodies by now. The protesters sing,

Let everyone be free from danger
Let everyone be free from anger
Let everyone be free from hardship

"You should get closer," the student had said. But everyone was close enough, perhaps a hundred yards from the barricades. The courage of the protesters was inspiring but the news had been grim. That morning a Burmese source said that 30 bodies had been dumped at Rangoon General Hospital the night before. The report is unconfirmed but, having seen the Burmese junta and its troops in action, western observers do not find it difficult to believe.

Emotions passed through the dense crowds as if passing through a single body. Suddenly, over hundreds of heads, more trucks pulled up at the intersection, filled with soldiers. The protesters close by must have seen something — perhaps the expression of men who would not hesitate to open fire, perhaps already preparing to shoot.

There was no warning from the soldiers, just from the crowd. It tensed as one.

There was one, perhaps two explosions — smoke bombs, meant to shock and disorient — and then gunfire, but by then everyone was scattering and running. Seconds later, more gunfire. "Were they firing over our heads? Impossible to tell," one foreigner told TIME. But at a spot barely 10 meters from where everyone had been standing, lay the body of a foreigner on the road.

"I still don't know his name," the same foreigner told TIME "I had seen him moments before, photographing the crowd and the soldiers, absorbed and — like Burma's democrats — utterly fearless. I still don't know if he is dead, but it seems almost certain he was shot in the back as we all ran." Later a witness at a nearby tall building saw him lying on the ground. "I saw him lift one of arms up for help, but the soldiers just ran past him," she said. "Then he stopped moving." He was a big man: 6 soldiers lugged him away "like a sack of hammers," another witness said.

The rest of the crowd dispersed. "We ran along the pavements, keeping low, desperately seeking shelter, chased by gunfire and explosions," said one breathless participant. "The nearest side street was 33rd Street, narrow like so many in the downtown area, and it was a seething bottleneck of people: sitting ducks. So we ran on and ran north up 34th Street, and were still running by the time we reached the end of it."

"People said the soldiers had used tear gas," another person who was at the gathering said. "I know for a fact they didn't, because we never felt its sting in our eyes."

Source : TheTime


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Ahmadinejad says Iran, U.S. not headed for war: CBS

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran did not need nuclear weapons and his country was not heading for war with the United States, according to a television interview to be broadcast Sunday.

Asked whether Iran's goal was to obtain a nuclear bomb, he said the answer was a "firm no," according to a transcript of his interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" recorded on Thursday in Tehran.

"You have to appreciate we don't need a nuclear bomb. We don't need that. What need do we have for a bomb?" he said.

The United States accuses Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of its civil nuclear program. Iran denies both allegations.

Asked whether Iran and the United States were heading toward conflict over Tehran's nuclear ambitions, he said: "It's wrong to think that Iran and the U.S. are walking toward war. Who says so? Why should we go to war? There is no war in the offing."

Officials of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany met on Friday for what they called "serious and constructive" talks about new U.N. Security Council sanctions aimed at trying to force Iran to halt its uranium enrichment activities.

Ahmadinejad, who was due to arrive in New York on Sunday for the U.N. General Assembly, reiterated Iran's position that its nuclear program is purely peaceful.

"Our plan and program is very transparent," he said. "In political relations right now, the nuclear bomb is of no use. If it was useful, it would have prevented the downfall of the Soviet Union. If it was useful, it would resolved the problem the Americans have in Iraq.

"The time of the bomb is passed.

Shanghai faces direct hit from Typhoon Wipha

Shanghai: Tens of thousands of boats and ships returned to harbour in Zhejiang, where beach resorts and sea farms were evacuated and ferry services suspended as Typhoon Wipha - potentially the most destructive storm in a decade - bore down on China's financial capital Shanghai.

Some 365 workers were also pulled off the Pinghu oil rig in the East China Sea.

"This is the first time in 10 years that the eye of the storm will probably make landfall in Shanghai," said Ding Ruoyang, a meteorologist at the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau.

Up to 200 millimetres of rain was expected to pelt the city, while winds could gust above 102 kilometres per hour, prompting officials to begin an evacuation of 200,000 people.

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"The evacuation includes residents who live in old and dangerous houses, workers who live in temporary construction site structures as well as workers living near the shore," Ding said. "Wipha will hit our province head on and the areas affected would be the most economically developed and densely populated," the Zhejiang provincial government warned. "Strong winds will come with heavy rainfall ... The relief work will be complicated and grave," it said in a statement on its website (www.zj.gov.cn).

Some streets were blocked and traffic slowed to a crawl in older areas of the city centre late yesterday as flooding in some places reached levels of nearly a metre, and underground car parks were inundated.

The edge of Wipha grazed northern Taiwan yesterday, bringing downpours and prompting closure of schools, offices and markets. State television footage showed huge waves hitting eastern shores while soldiers helped local residents move to temporary shelters amid pouring rains.

Source : GulfNews

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Unknown virus kills billions of honeybees in USA

The scientists report uScientific sleuths have a new suspect for a mysterious affliction that has killed off honeybeesby the billions: a virus previously unknown in the United States.sing a novel genetic technique and old-fashioned statistics to identify Israeli acute paralysis virus as the latest potential culprit in the widespread deaths of worker bees, a phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder.

Next up are attempts to infect honeybees with the virus to see if it indeed is a killer

"At least we have a lead now we can begin to follow. We can use it as a marker and we can use it to investigate whether it does in fact cause disease," said Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, a Columbia University epidemiologist and co-author of the study. Details appear this week in Science Express, the online edition of the journal Science.

Experts stressed that parasitic mites, pesticides and poor nutrition all remain suspects, as does the stress of travel. Beekeepers shuffle bees around the United States throughout the year so the bees can pollinate crops as they come into bloom, contributing about $15 billion (EUR 11 billion) a year to U.S. agriculture.

The newfound virus may prove to have added nothing more than insult to the injuries bees already suffer, said several experts unconnected to the study.

"This may be a piece or a couple of pieces of the puzzle, but I certainly don't think it is the whole thing," said Jerry Hayes, chief of the apiary section of Florida's Agriculture Department.

Still, surveys of honey bees from decimated colonies turned up traces of the virus nearly every time. Bees untouched by the phenomenon were virtually free of it. That means finding the virus should be a red flag that a hive is at risk and merits a quarantine, scientists said.

Source : Pravda




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Disney backs star after nude scandal

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Vanessa Hudgens, the star of the wholesome, made-for-kids TV movie hit High School Musical, has apologised for a nude photo of her on the web and the Walt Disney studio said it was sticking by the performer.

Some parents of her young fans voiced dismay over the photo, which shows Hudgens, 18, smiling and standing naked directly in front of the camera.

"I want to apologise to my fans, whose support and trust means the world to me," Hudgens said in a statement issued today after the photo surfaced.

"I am embarrassed over this situation and regret having ever taken these photos. I am thankful for the support of my family and friends."

In a statement, Disney said it hoped Hudgens had learned a valuable lesson. "Vanessa has apologised for what was obviously a lapse in judgment."

A Disney representative said the photo would not affect its decision to cast Hudgens in the third film of the High School Musical franchise and that negotiations for the cast and creative team were continuing.

Earlier today, a representative for Hudgens confirmed the image was of Hudgens but said it "was taken privately".

"It is a personal matter and it is unfortunate that this has become public," the representative said in a statement.

Hudgens has starred in High School Musical and High School Musical 2 as Gabriella, the sweet, innocent science geek whose romance with athlete Troy, played by Zac Efron, is chronicled in the two hugely popular made-for-television movies on the squeaky-clean Disney Channel.

Hudgens and Efron, who date in real life, were so chaste on screen they did not even kiss until the end of the second film, a climactic moment marked by fireworks going off behind them.

The two movies form the cornerstone of one of Disney's most lucrative franchises for preteen girls and a third is planned for release to theatres next year. The second film debuts on Disney Channels in other countries this weekend.

In a Teen magazine interview released earlier this week, Hudgens described herself as "a very private person" with "very good morals" who enjoyed serving as a role model.

"I've been brought up with very good morals and I'm not going to go out and do something I don't want other kids to do," she said in the article.

But some parents of young fans were outraged by the photo, saying it tarnished Hudgens' image.

"She's damaged," said Renee Rollins-Greenberg, a Los Angeles mother of two. "She's got this teeny-bop audience, young preteens and younger, who are admiring her and thinking she's this wonderful, pure innocent person. Eighteen is awfully young for this kind of display."

"I'm devastated because I have an eight-year-old for which I now have to have an explanation," said another Los Angeles-area mother, Rosie Konkel. "She's always looked at this character as a very smart and proper young lady."

High School Musical 2 debuted on Disney Channel last month to a record audience of 17.2 million viewers to become the most-watched individual program in US cable TV history.

The show's soundtrack debuted at No. 1 on national album sales charts, where it has remained for the past three weeks, selling nearly 1.2 million copies.

Reuters

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Bipolar Disorder Diagnosis Up In Children

CHICAGO (eCanadaNow) - The estimated number of youth with office visits with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder substantially increased between 1994 and 2003, while adult visits with a bipolar disorder diagnoses appeared to almost double, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Bipolar disorder is a psychiatric illness that typically involves periods of mania (an abnormally elevated mood) and depression. �Although bipolar disorder may have its onset during childhood, little is known about national trends in the diagnosis and management of bipolar disorder in young people,� the authors write as background information in the article.

Carmen Moreno, M.D., of the Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Maranon, Servicio de Psiquiatria, Madrid, Spain, and colleagues analyzed data from a national survey of office-based physicians designed to represent all such clinicians in the United States. The physicians provided information about demographic, clinical and treatment aspects of each patient visit for a one-week time period. The researchers compared the rate of growth in bipolar disorder diagnoses among individuals age 19 and under to that of individuals age 20 and older from 1994 to 1995 through 2002 to 2003. They also compared demographic information and prescribed treatments between the two groups during the years 1999 to 2003.

The annual number of office-based visits with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder in youth was estimated to increase from 25 per 100,000 youth in 1994 to 1995 to 1,003 per 100,000 youth in 2002 to 2003. In the same time, outpatient visits with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder in adults increased from 905 to 1,679 per 100,000 population. As a percentage of total office-based visits, visits with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder increased among youth from 0.01 percent (1994 to 1995) to 0.44 percent (2002 to 2003), and among adults, from 0.31 percent to 0.5 percent in the same time periods.

Between 1999 and 2003, most young people diagnosed with bipolar disorder were male (66.5 percent), while 67.6 percent of diagnosed adults were females. Young people were more likely than adults to receive diagnoses of both bipolar disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (32.2 percent vs. 3 percent).

�The impressive increase in the diagnosis of childhood and adolescent bipolar disorder in U.S. office-based practice indicates a shift in clinical diagnostic practices,� the authors write. �In broad terms, either bipolar disorder was historically underdiagnosed in children and adolescents and that problem has now been rectified, or bipolar disorder is currently being overdiagnosed in this age group. Without independent systematic diagnostic assessments, we cannot confidently select between these two competing hypotheses.�

Most youth (90.6 percent) and adults (86.4 percent) were prescribed medications to treat bipolar disorder, including mood stabilizers, antipsychotics and antidepressants. These similarities occurred despite the fact that the condition and treatments may affect adults and children differently, the authors note. �There is an urgent need to study the reliability and validity using multiple informant strategies of the diagnosis of child and adolescent bipolar disorder in community practice and to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of pharmacological treatment regimens commonly used to treat youth diagnosed with bipolar disorder,� they conclude.

Source : ecanadanow

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