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Friday, January 14, 2005

Huygens, the European built Titan exploration probe, ended its seven-year voyage today when it landed on the surface of the second largest moon in the solar system at 11:38 a.m. UTC. The probe, which the European Space Agency (ESA) began developing 17 years ago, has worked well with only minor system failures.

“This is a great achievement for Europe and its US partners inthis ambitious international endeavor to explore theSaturnian system”, said Jean-Jacques Dordain, the Director General of the ESA [1]

The first confirmation that Huygens had successfully entered Titan’s thick atmosphere was at 10:25 a.m. UTC when the Green Bank radio telescope in the United States directly received the faint carrier signal of its beacon. Due to the immense distance, the radio transmission took 67 minutes to arrive.

Huygens broadcast data to its Cassini mothership (the US probe which carried Huygens to Titan) throughout its descent and then from the surface. After Cassini dropped below the horizon of Titan (cutting the radio link), Cassini turned towards Earth to begin transmitting its recording of the Huygens data to the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany.

So far, ESA has released least three pictures—two from the probe’s descent through the atmosphere under parachutes and then a picture near the surface. The Huygens probe took a total of over 300 black and white photographs during its brief mission.

“The Huygens scientists are all delighted. This was worth the longwait,” says Dr Jean-Pierre Lebreton, ESA Huygens Mission Manager.[2]

The Cassini-Huygens mission is conducted by an alliance between NASA, the ESA, and ASI, the Italian space agency. The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.

Monday, April 25, 2005

With two space walks, 78 million miles and six months on board the International Space Station under their belts, Commander-Science Officer Leroy Chiao and Flight Engineer Salizhan Sharipov, the station’s 10th crew, landed in Kazakhstan in a Soyuz spacecraft at 6:08 p.m. EDT Sunday.

Also returning was European Space Agency Astronaut Roberto Vittori of Italy, who launched to the Station with the Expedition 11 crew and spent eight days doing experiments. He was aboard under a contract between ESA and the Russian Federal Space Agency.

The re-entry of the ISS Soyuz 9 spacecraft was perfect, returning the astronauts to Earth 53 miles northeast of the town of Arkalyk after 192 days, 19 hours and 2 minutes in space for the Expedition 10 crew. The recovery team reached the capsule in minutes.

They launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan last Oct. 13 at 11:06 p.m. EDT. During their increment they performed two spacewalks, continued station maintenance and did scientific experiments.

Notable accomplishments included replacing critical hardware in the Joint Quest Airlock; repairing U.S. spacesuits; and submitting a scientific research paper on ultrasound use in space. Chiao was also the first astronaut to vote in the U.S. Presidential election from space. The crew completed two spacewalks, including experiment installation and tasks to prepare the Station for the arrival of the new European Automated Transfer Vehicle next year.

Aboard the Station, Commander Sergei Krikalev and Flight Engineer and NASA Station Science Officer John Phillips, the Expedition 11 crew, are beginning a six-month mission. It will include the resumption of Space Shuttle flights and two spacewalks from the Station. Expedition 11 is scheduled to return to Earth on October 7, 2005. The two latest occupants of the station launched with Vittori from Baikonur April 14.

Krikalev and Phillips will have light duty for the next two days, as they rest after completing a busy handover period. For the past week, they have been learning about Station operations from the two men who called the ship home since October. Chiao and Sharipov briefed Krikalev and Phillips on day-to-day operations and gave them hands-on opportunities at Station maintenance. Chiao and Phillips restored the Quest airlock to working order for future spacewalks and practiced operating the Canadarm2 robotic arm.

Monday, February 21, 2005

Los Angeles, California —A simple saliva test can predict whether children will get cavities, how many cavities they will get and which teeth are most vulnerable.

Developed by researchers at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the test quantifies the genetic component of tooth decay, spotting the risk when something can be done about it.

“When we apply this to young children, it allows us to predict what might be their future caries history—the number of cavities that they’ll get by, say, their late 20s or early 30s,” says researcher Paul Denny.

Called the Caries Assessment and Risk Evaluation (CARE) test, the test measures the relative proportions in saliva of different types of sugar chains called oligosaccharides. The same sugar chains are present on tooth surfaces.

The effect of sugar chains on teeth’s resistance to disease is analogous to the effect of “good” and “bad” cholesterol on blood vessels. “Good” sugar chains tend to repel bacteria that cause cavities while “bad” allow bacteria to bond to teeth and start the decay process. Unlike cholesterol, however, sugar chain makeup in humans is 100% genetically determined.

Denny and colleagues have found that the sugar chain makeup in saliva can predict a child’s future cavity history to plus or minus one cavity with greater than 98% confidence.

The findings suggest that in developed areas of the modern era genes play a more significant role in tooth decay than in former times or third world nations where gross malnutrition and negligent oral hygiene held the greatest impact on dental health.

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Thursday, April 22, 2010

Belgian prime minister Yves Leterme has offered to resign amid a political dispute, the press office of the Belgian parliament reported on Thursday.

The Belgian king, King Albert II, has not yet accepted the prime minister’s offer. He and Leterme met on Thursday’s afternoon, the office said. The king said that the resulting political turbulence from the resignation “seriously threatens” the country’s standing in the European Union.

“[He] had no other choice than to inform us that he would go to the king immediately to tender the government’s resignation,” said Belgium’s health minister, Laurette Onkelinx.

The Belgian palace commented on the issue in a written statement. “The king and the prime minister jointly underlined that […] a political crisis would be inopportune and would seriously damage both the economic and social well-being of the citizens and the role of Belgium in Europe.”

Leterme also resigned as prime minister in late 2008 over a banking scandal. He returned to office last November when former PM Herman van Rompuy gave up the post to become the first, full-time head of the European Union.

This latest resignation is a fallout of Belgium’s long-term power struggle between the country’s French-speaking Walloons and Flemish-speaking majority.

The latest disagreement centers on special rights for Walloons living near Brussels; specifically, the location of electoral boundaries around the capital. A key coalition member, the Flemish liberal Open VLD Party, pulled out of the government, frustrated over the failure to resolve the dispute. Party chairman Alexander De Croo said that”[w]e have not agreed on a negotiated solution and therefore Open VLD no longer has confidence in the government.”

Without the VLD, the other four government parties have 76 of 150 lower house seats in the parliament, although governing with such a small majority would be hard, Al Jazeera says.