Another Webb milestone ...
Check out the unfolding from the 1:00 mark in the video ...
Gassho, J
STLah
Check out the unfolding from the 1:00 mark in the video ...
Gassho, J
STLah
Gassho, Tomás
Sat&LaH
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Absolutely mind-blowing. I am amazed at what humanity is capable of achieving when we coordinate properly
Gassho, Tomás
Sat&LaH -
Gassho, JIn a medical first, a man with terminal heart disease gets a transplant of genetically modified pig heart
A 57-year-old Maryland man is doing well three days after receiving a genetically modified pig heart in a first-of-its-kind transplant surgery, University of Maryland Medicine said in a news release Monday.
David Bennett had terminal heart disease, and the pig heart was "the only currently available option," according to the release. Bennett was deemed ineligible for a conventional heart transplant or an artificial heart pump after reviews of his medical records.
... Three genes that are responsible for rejection of pig organs by human immune systems were removed from the donor pig, and one gene was taken out to prevent excessive pig heart tissue growth. Six human genes responsible for immune acceptance were inserted.
Bennett's doctors will need to monitor him for days to weeks to see whether the transplant works to provide lifesaving benefits. He'll be monitored for immune system problems or other complications.
"There are simply not enough donor human hearts available to meet the long list of potential recipients," surgeon Dr. Bartley P. Griffith said in a statement. "We are proceeding cautiously, but we are also optimistic that this first-in-the-world surgery will provide an important new option for patients in the future."
Pig heart valves have been transplanted into humans for many years.
In October, surgeons successfully tested the transplant of a genetically modified pig kidney into a woman in New York who was brain-dead.
https://us.cnn.com/2022/01/10/health...ant/index.html
STLahLast edited by Jundo; 01-11-2022, 12:13 AM.Leave a comment:
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Another Webb milestone ...
Check out the unfolding from the 1:00 mark in the video ...After decades of planning, NASA's $10 billion space telescope has 'taken its final form'
All systems are go for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which deployed its full gold-plated, sunflower-shaped mirror display Saturday.
Now, the $10 billion successor to the Hubble telescope has five months of alignment and calibration procedures before it is expected to start sending images back to Earth, the space agency said Saturday.
"Two weeks after launch, @NASAWebb has hit its next biggest milestone: the mirrors have completed deployment and the next-generation telescope has taken its final form," NASA announced Saturday.
The news marked the completion of a "remarkable feat," said Gregory Robinson, NASA's Webb program director, in a statement.
Gassho, J
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Even the stars are not forever ...
Gassho, JGiant dying star explodes as scientists watch in real time — a first for astronomy
Ground-based telescopes provided the first real-time look at the death throes of a red supergiant star. While these aren't the brightest or most massive stars, they are the largest in terms of volume.
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... the star at the heart of this new research, located in the NGC 5731 galaxy about 120 million light-years away from Earth, was 10 times more massive than the sun before it exploded.
Before they go out in a blaze of glory, some stars experience violent eruptions or release glowing hot layers of gas. Until astronomers witnessed this event, they believed that red supergiants were relatively quiet before exploding into a supernova or collapsing into a dense neutron star. Instead, scientists watched the star self-destruct in dramatic fashion before collapsing in a type II supernova. This star death is the rapid collapse and violent explosion of a massive star after it has burned through the hydrogen, helium and other elements in its core.
All that remains is the star's iron, but iron can't fuse so the star will run out of energy. When that happens, the iron collapses and causes the supernova. A study detailing these findings published Thursday in The Astrophysical Journal.
"This is a breakthrough in our understanding of what massive stars do moments before they die," said lead study author Wynn Jacobson-Galán, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at University of California, Berkeley, in a statement.
https://us.cnn.com/2022/01/06/world/...scn/index.html
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We are even in the air.
It reminds me of this old calculation ...DNA can now be pulled from the very air we breathe. It could help track endangered animals
Scientists are now able to collect and analyze DNA pulled from thin air, and the groundbreaking new techniques used to do it could transform the way endangered animals and natural ecosystems are studied and protected.
Two groups of researchers working independently, one based in Denmark and the other in the UK and Canada, tested whether airborne DNA could be used to detect different animal species by collecting samples at Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark and Hamerton Zoo Park in the UK.
All living organisms, including humans, leach genetic material known as eDNA into the environment when they excrete waste, bleed, and shed skin or fur. In recent years, conservation scientists have sequenced waterborne eDNA to track certain species, such as the UK's great crested newt population, in aquatic environments.
However, monitoring airborne eDNA was more of a challenge because it's more diluted in air than it is in water.
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"In just 40 samples, we detected 49 species spanning mammal, bird, amphibian, reptile and fish," Bohmann said. "In the Rainforest House (at the Copenhagen Zoo) we even detected the guppies in the pond, the two-toed sloth and the boa. When sampling air in just one outdoor site, we detected many of the animals with access to an outdoor enclosure in that part of the zoo, for example kea, ostrich and rhino."
https://us.cnn.com/2022/01/06/europe...scn/index.html
Gassho, JThe story goes that in 44 BC in Rome, Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of his own senators, crumpling to the floor with a final gasp. This last breath contained around 25 sextillion (that’s 25 followed by 21 zeroes) air molecules, which would have spread around the globe within a couple of years. A breath seems like such a small thing compared to the Earth’s atmosphere, but remarkably, if you do the math, you’ll find that roughly one molecule of Caesar’s air will appear in your next breath.
And it doesn’t stop there. In the same way, you might currently be inhaling Cleopatra’s perfume, German mustard gas and even particles exhaled by dinosaurs.
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At standard room temperature and pressure, you’re breathing in roughly 25 sextillion molecules every time you take a breath. That’s 25 with 21 zeroes behind it. That’s a gargantuan number! If you took every human being alive today on the planet—all 7 billion of us—and imagined each one having 7 billion descendants, 7 billion times 7 billion, you’d still be 500 times short of that number. And you inhale that every time you take a breath.
When Caesar exhaled that last breath, all those molecules got spread across the Earth, first in a band of prevailing winds around the same latitude as Italy, then over the northern hemisphere. In the course of about two years, given air currents and circulation, it would probably have spread across the entire world.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/s...reath-sam-kean
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So far, all systems go with Webb ...
Here is a time lapse film of when they tested the sunshield deployment on earth, very different conditions from in space, of course ...Webb telescope successfully unfurls its tennis court-size sunshield in space
The James Webb Space Telescope, which launched on Christmas Day, successfully completed the deployment of its 70-foot (21-meter) sunshield on Tuesday. This critical milestone is one of several that must occur for the NASA observatory to function properly in space, and having achieved it was a big relief for the Webb team.
"Unfolding Webb's sunshield in space is an incredible milestone, crucial to the success of the mission," said Gregory L. Robinson, Webb's program director at NASA Headquarters, in a statement. "Thousands of parts had to work with precision for this marvel of engineering to fully unfurl. The team has accomplished an audacious feat with the complexity of this deployment -- one of the boldest undertakings yet for Webb."
The massive five-layer sunshield will protect Webb's giant mirror and instruments from the sun's heat. Both the mirror and instruments need to be kept at a very frigid negative 370 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 188 degrees Celsius) to be able to observe the universe as designed. Each of the five sheets is as thin as a human hair and is coated with reflective metal.
When Webb launched, the sunshield was folded up to fit inside the Ariane 5 rocket that carried the telescope into space. The eight-day process to unfold and tighten the protective shield began on December 28. This included unfolding the support structure for the shield over the course of multiple days before the tensioning, or tightening, of each layer could begin.
https://us.cnn.com/2022/01/04/world/...scn/index.html
Gassho, J
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Such amazing technology! I am deeply grateful to all the people involved in the project and I'm looking forward to all the beauty in the universe it will capture.
Gassho
Seibu
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Incredible stuff, even though I do not understand half of what I read, the news regarding this telescope is very exciting
! Thanks for sharing
Gassho, Tomás
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More on the Webb Telescope ... one of humankind's greatest achievements in history, by the way ... if it all works ...
Gassho, J'29 days on the edge:' What's next for NASA's newly launched James Webb Space Telescope
"The Webb observatory has 50 major deployments … and 178 release mechanisms to deploy those 50 parts," Webb Mission Systems Engineer Mike Menzel, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a deployment-explaining video called "29 Days on the Edge" that the agency posted in October.
"Every single one of them must work," Menzel said. "Unfolding Webb is hands-down the most complicated spacecraft activity we’ve ever done."
Webb has notched a few major milestones already. About half an hour after liftoff, for example, it deployed its solar panels and started soaking up energy from the sun. And last night, the big telescope performed a crucial 65-minute engine burn that put it on course for L2.
The following is a brief rundown of the big steps yet to come.
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One day after launch, Webb will rotate its high-gain antenna toward Earth to further facilitate communications with its handlers. A day after that, the spacecraft will perform another engine burn to refine its trajectory toward L2. And three days after launch, the pallet holding Webb's huge sunshield — a five-layer structure designed to keep the infrared telescope and its instruments cool — will be lowered.
Each of the shield's five sheets is about the size of a tennis court when fully extended, far too wide to fit inside the payload fairing of any currently operational rocket. So the sunshield launched in a compact configuration and must be unfurled.
This is an incredibly complex process. The sunshield structure has 140 release mechanisms, 70 hinge assemblies, 400 pulleys, 90 cables and eight deployment motors, all of which have to work properly for the five layers to deploy as planned, NASA officials said in the video.
... more here:
https://www.livescience.com/nasa-jam...ope-next-steps
STLahLast edited by Jundo; 12-29-2021, 01:19 AM.Leave a comment:
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Gassho, JBaby Fitz was born without an immune system. His treatment offers hope for curing rare diseases.
Fitz Kettler was born June 21, 2019, without a functioning immune system.
Babies with his condition, commonly known as "bubble boy disease," rarely survive to toddlerhood. Normal colds and germs prove lethal.
But Fitz was seemingly cured before his first sniffle.
... He became one of the first babies anywhere to get a specific diagnosis within days of birth and an experimental therapy several months later that appears to have worked. ...
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On Aug. 4, the family drove to the University of California, San Francisco, where they would live, again in isolation, for four months, as Fitz became the seventh child to participate in a gene therapy clinical trial for Artemis SCID.
Doctors harvested his bone marrow. In a lab, scientists corrected the genetic mistakes in his stem cells.
Fitz was cranky, but nothing worse during his two days of chemo on Aug. 27 and 28. The toxic chemicals were meant to make room for the treated cells to become established and build an immune system.
The next day, a milky white liquid containing these corrected cells was infused into his tiny body. It took all of 20 minutes. "The transplant itself feels a little anticlimactic," Christina Kettler said.
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He is now building up a genetic database of at least 10,000 babies with rare diseases, sequencing samples from the sickest children in 70 hospitals across the U.S. and Canada. The “Tipping Point 10,000” project aims to train providers to use genetic information and build evidence to persuade payors that rapid whole genome sequencing should be standard-of-care for newborns hospitalized with diseases of unknown cause.
Getting kids out of intensive care units and home faster saves money as well as families' emotional distress. Rady has been charging $8,500 per child for the sequencing, but is trying to get the price below $5,000, Kingsmore said. In the next year or two, he hopes to develop a $200 test that could be used by hospitals around the world to rapidly diagnose 600 known rare diseases in newborns.
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Russell Kirby, an epidemiologist specializing in maternal and child health, said he's optimistic about the idea of fetal gene therapy over the long-term, but skeptical at the moment. He and several colleagues wrote a critique of the approach earlier this year.
Even after fetal surgery, children born with spina bifida have lingering health problems, Kirby said, probably because scientists don't fully understand the condition and all its ramifications. Most research tracks whether a fetus who had heart surgery lived or died, not the long-term outcomes of children with congenital heart defects.
"We need to let our scientific and clinical trials processes play out and make sure we really understand both," said Kirby, a professor at the University of South Florida School of Public Health.
Many birth defects, probably more than half, remain poorly understood. Some genetic diseases are evident in only some of the cells, which would make it harder to diagnose and correct before birth, or even to know if they need correcting, he said.
But it's now feasible to identify genetic disorders early in pregnancy, simply by analyzing the mother's blood.
Stephen Quake, a professor of bioengineering and applied physics at Stanford University, developed the technology that finds fetal DNA in the bloodstream of the mother – a proverbial needle in a haystack.
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The medical advance doesn't mean an end to all rare diseases. Not every one of the 7,000 known childhood conditions is caused by a simple glitch in a gene. And even if a genetic fluke can be reversed shortly after birth, the child might already have lost brain or muscle cells, requiring extensive, ongoing therapy to participate in daily activities.
In the coming years, scientists hope to end a number of illnesses that have caused misery for generations – sickle cell disease, cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, PKU and a host of lesser known conditions – at least in places and among people who can afford state-of-the-art care.
"It's a wonderful time in gene therapy," said Harvard geneticist George Church, a pioneer in genetic sequencing and editing.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ba...ses/ar-AAS9wfj
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This headline today ...
Virginia family gets keys to Habitat for Humanity's first 3D-printed home in the US
One Virginia family received the keys to their new 3D-printed home in time for Christmas.
The home is Habitat for Humanity's [a charity in the USA that builds houses for low income families] first 3D-printed home in the nation, according to a Habitat news release.
Janet V. Green, CEO of Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg, told CNN it partnered with Alquist, a 3D printing company, earlier this year to begin the process.
The technology allowed the home to be built in just 12 hours, which saves about four weeks of construction time for a typical home.
April Stringfield purchased the home through the Habitat Homebuyer Program. She will move in with her 13-year-old son just in time for the holidays.
Gassho, J
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And on this day there way born ... the Webb Space Telescope ... following the stars ... real time travel ...
In a historic launch, the Webb Telescope blasts off into space
Heads up, Hubble — another massive space telescope just launched on a historic mission to observe the faintest, oldest objects in the universe in unprecedented detail.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a school-bus-size satellite observatory weighing about 14,000 pounds (6,350 kilograms), lifted off the launch pad on Saturday (Dec. 25) at 7:20 a.m. ET ...
Building the telescope cost nearly $10 billion — almost doubling the estimated cost since 2009, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office — and that very expensive observatory is now headed for a destination that's nearly 1 million miles (1,600,000 kilometers) from Earth.
... Six months from now, when JWST is up and running, it's going to be very, very busy. Its sensitive imaging and spectroscopy instruments will enable researchers to penetrate dense clouds of cosmic dust and collect data from objects that are so faint they are almost undetectable by other telescopes, and JWST's infrared "eyes" are the most powerful ever sent into space, said astrophysicist Jackie Faherty, a senior scientist in the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
... Infrared instruments will also enable JWST to detect and look through cosmic dust clouds surrounding starburst galaxies, which are hotbeds of star formation. Other researchers will use JWST to investigate dust shrouds enveloping energetic baby stars, known as Herbig-Haro objects, and to create and test models of the explosion that created the spectacular Crab Nebula. Astrophysicists are also lining up to investigate the atmospheres of exoplanets in the Trappist-1 system about 39 light-years from Earth, and to peer backward in time to discover the earliest galaxies. Because star birth begins in cosmic dust clouds, using JWST to "follow the dust" will offer new insights into the birth of stars, planets and galaxies that make up our universe, Faherty said.
Gassho, J
STLahLast edited by Jundo; 12-25-2021, 02:47 PM.Leave a comment:
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Is it a bird? ... No, it is a dinosaur perfectly preserved in an egg ... a mere 66 million years old ... in position, like a bird, to peck out of its shell ...
Blue Cliff Record, Case 16 ...
A monk asked Kyôsei, "I, your student, am picking from inside the shell. I beg you,
Master, please peck from outside." Kyôsei said, "But will you be alive or not?" The monk
said, "If I were not alive, people would all laugh." Kyôsei said, "You useless fool!"
Gassho, J
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