How will future space suits differ from the current ones? Well, for one thing, the boots will be made for walking. Astronauts who wear space suits for extra-vehicular activities (EVAs) don't walk. They hover and float, or their feet are placed into foot restraints so they don't drift away. In the future, however, astronauts may go to Mars as part of NASA's new vision. And they'll need very different boots to walk on the planet's surface or drive a rover. Image to Right: Soft boots are the ...

Long-duration storage has a more significant impact on the nutritional value of space foods than does spaceflight, a NASA study has found. Results of the study point to the need to develop different packaging or other means to increase the shelf life of nutrients in the space food system for future multiyear exploration missions. These findings also highlight the importance of minimizing the time from food production to crew consumption. The status of certain vitamins in the human body is alt...

Trying to take pictures in the dark or through a window is difficult for professional photographers and everyday people alike. A group of researchers at MIT have proposed a camera that can take a perfect picture, no matter what the lighting contrast is. Called a “modulo camera,” this camera is designed to never overexpose an image, enabling high dynamic range photography. This achievement was awarded the best paper runner-up at the 2015 International Conference on Computational Photography. H...

Machines That Tell You When They're Sick During a test launch of the Orion Crew Vehicle in December 2014, the Inductive Monitoring System (IMS) that CEMSol later licensed was used to monitor electrical systems on the space capsule. Credits: NASA In the future, machines will monitor their own health and request help, themselves, when something’s wrong, predicts David Cirulli, engineering vice president and cofounder of CEMSol LLC. “There’s going to be an integrated s...

Cranfield University is developing the Nano Membrane Toilet which will be able to treat human waste on-site without external energy or water. The toilet is designed for single-household use (equivalent to 10 people) and will accept urine and faeces as a mixture. The toilet flush uses a unique rotating mechanism to transport the mixture into the toilet without demanding water whilst simultaneously blocking odour and the user’s view of the waste. Solids separation (faeces) is principally acc...

In July 1969, just days after Neil Armstrong become the first man to walk on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission , NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space Center ) honored Spacelabs Medical with a certificate of appreciation for its “outstanding” contributions to the Apollo Program—contributions which proved vital to successfully achieving the Nation’s goal of landing men on the Moon and returning them safely to Earth. Product Outcome After pioneering medical telemetry in the ...

Researchers at the MIT Media Lab have developed a new imaging device that consists of a loose bundle of optical fibers, with no need for lenses or a protective housing. The fibers are connected to an array of photosensors at one end; the other ends can be left to wave free, so they could pass individually through micrometer-scale gaps in a porous membrane, to image whatever is on the other side. Bundles of the fibers could be fed through pipes and immersed in fluids, to image oil fields, a...

Researchers from Northwestern Medicine and Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC) have made smartphone activity trackers smarter than ever; they have trained trackers to have the ability to detect the difference between fake and real activity. Insurance companies and health care providers base rewards to individuals who stay active and healthy on the results from wearable activity trackers, among them smartphones. They also rely on these devices to monitor a patient’s activity and determin...

Located on-site at the Johnson Space Center research facility, the Altitude Chamber Complex consists of eight experimental chambers designed to simulate characteristics of the space environment. Although the chambers were initially designed to test life support systems and other gear, they are also used to simulate confinement and other unique challenges associated with long-duration space flight. Two of the chambers are used primarily for human testing and can be modified to simulate differe...

Astronaut Scott Kelly Grew 2 Inches in Space and Aged Less Than People on Earth Image Credit: NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly Grew 2 Inches in Space and Aged Less Than People on Earth After 340 days on the International Space Station, Scott Kelly grew 2 inches taller than his twin brother who spent the time on Earth, CNBC reports. Gaining a couple inches is pretty common among astronauts who spend a significant amount of time in space. That's because the microgravity environment allows room ...

Telomere-lengthening procedure turns clock back years in human cells Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have developed a new procedure to increase the length of human telomeres. This increases the number of times cells are able to divide, essentially making the cells many years younger. This not only has useful applications for laboratory work, but may point the way to treating various age-related disorders – or even muscular dystrophy. The role of telomeres and telo...

Scifi movies are sometimes criticized when explosions in the void make noise.  As the old saying goes, “in space, no one can hear you scream.” Without air there is no sound. But if that’s true, what was space physicist Don Gurnett talking about when he stated at a NASA press conference in Sept. 2013 that he had heard "the sounds of interstellar space?" It turns out that space can make music … if you know how to listen. https://youtu.be/jgQ9THRckJ0 What does deep space sound like? A n...

Gene Therapy for Diseases Gene Therapy has made important medical advances in less than two decades. Within this short time span, it has moved from the conceptual stage to technology development and laboratory research to clinical translational trials for a variety of deadly diseases. Among the most notable advancements are the following: Gene Therapy for Genetic Disorders Severe Combined Immune Deficiency (ADA-SCID) ADA-SCID is also known as the bubble boy disease. Affected children are b...

The first gene identified for graying hair has been discovered by an international UCL-led study, confirming graying has a genetic component and is not just environmental. Published today in Nature Communications, the study analyzed a population of over 6,000 people with varied ancestry across Latin America to identify new genes associated with hair color, graying, density and shape - i.e. straight or curly. "We already know several genes involved in balding and hair color but this is the ...

Wind tunnels are machines for "flying" aircraft on the ground. They are tubelike structures or passages in which wind is produced, usually by a large fan, to flow over objects such as aircraft, engines, wings, rockets or models of these objects. A stationary object is placed in the test section of a tunnel and connected to instruments that measure and record airflow around the object and the aerodynamic forces that act upon it. From information gathered in these observations, engineers can deter...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the intelligence exhibited by machines or software. It is also the name of the academic field of study which studies how to create computers and computer software that are capable of intelligent behavior. Major AI researchers and textbooks define this field as "the study and design of intelligent agents", in which an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chances of success. NASA’s Quantum Artificial Int...

Replacement of skin has been one of the most challenging aims for surgeons ever since the introduction of skin grafts in 1871. It took more than one century until the breakthrough of Rheinwald and Green in 1975 that opened new possibilities of skin replacement. The combination of cell culture and polymer chemistry finally led to the field of tissue engineering. Many researchers all over the world have been fascinated by the chance of creating a skin-like substitute ex vivo without any further ha...

Space/orbital debris/junk/waste is the collection of defunct man-made objects in space – old satellites, spent rocket stages, and fragments from disintegration, erosion, and collisions – including those caused by debris itself. More than 500,000 pieces of debris, or “space junk,” are tracked as they orbit the Earth. They all travel at speeds up to 17,500 mph, fast enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft. The rising population of space deb...

NASA is developing the capabilities needed to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars in the 2030s – goals outlined in the bipartisan NASA Authorization Act of 2010 and in the U.S. National Space Policy, also issued in 2010. Mars is a rich destination for scientific discovery and robotic and human exploration as we expand our presence into the solar system. Its formation and evolution are comparable to Earth, helping us learn more about our own planet’s history and future. Mars had condit...

In mathematics, four-dimensional space ("4D") is a geometric space with four dimensions. It typically is more specifically four-dimensional Euclidean space, generalizing the rules of three-dimensional Euclidean space. It has been studied by mathematicians and philosophers for over two centuries, both for its own interest and for the insights it offered into mathematics and related fields. Algebraically, it is generated by applying the rules of vectors and coordinate geometry to a space with f...

There are three phases to falling in love and different hormones are involved at each stage. Events occurring in the brain when we are in love have similarities with mental illness. When we are attracted to somebody, it could be because subconsciously we like their genes. Smell could be as important as looks when it comes to the fanciability factor. We like the look and smell of people who are most like our parents. Science can help determine whether a relationship will last. In the attrac...

Zika is a flavivirus, which is pronounced a bit a like flavor. Flay-v-virus. Most viruses in this family are carried by arthropods — mosquitoes and ticks. We’ve known about Zika virus since at least 1947, when researchers from the Rockefeller Foundation put a rhesus monkey in a cage in the middle of Zika Forest of Uganda. The team was conducting surveillance for yellow fever. But “Rhesus 766” would ultimately become the first known carrier of Zika virus. Symptoms are mild — a fever, joint pai...

Scientists in Britain have applied for permission to genetically modify human embryos as part of a research project into the earliest stages of human development. The work marks a controversial first for the UK and comes only months after Chinese researchers became the only team in the world to announce they had altered the DNA of human embryos. Kathy Niakan, a stem cell scientist at the Francis Crick Institute in London, has asked the government’s fertility regulator for a licence to perf...

Human memory is an important concept in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Our brain is actively engaged in functions of learning and memorization. Generally, human memory has been classified into 2 groups: short-term/working memory, and long-term memory. Using different memory paradigms and brain mapping techniques, psychologists and neuroscientists have identified 3 memory processes: encoding, retention, and recall. These processes have been studied using EEG and functional MRI (fMRI) in c...

The Aquarius Reef Base is an underwater habitat located 5.4 miles (9 kilometers) off Key Largo in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. It is deployed on the ocean floor 62 feet (19 meters) below the surface and next to a deep coral reef named Conch Reef. Aquarius is the only undersea laboratory in the world dedicated to science and education. It was owned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and operated by the University of North Carolina–Wilmington[1] until 2...

Since their discovery in the 1920s, antibiotics have transformed our ability to treat infections. As antibiotic resistance increases, these lifesaving drugs do not work as well as they once did, and successfully treating common infections becomes more difficult. Antibiotic resistance is a growing problem, both in the United States and across the world. The main driving factors behind antibiotic resistance are the overuse and misuse of antibiotics. Learn more below about when antibiotics are a...

Genetic engineering is a process in which recombinant DNA (rDNA) technology is used to introduce desirable traits into organisms. A genetically engineered (GE) animal is one that contains a recombinant DNA (rDNA) construct producing a new trait. While conventional breeding methods have long been used to produce more desirable traits in animals, genetic engineering is a much more targeted and powerful method of introducing desirable traits into animals. FDA issued guidance for industry on the ...

Photons — the bulk of the internet and telecommunications backbone consists of photons traveling down fiber optic cables. Rather than single photons, though, these signals consist of carrier light waves of millions of photons, with the wave being modulated by binary data. These pulses are never stored, either; when they reach a router, they’re converted into electrical signals, and then stored in RAM before being converted back into light. Quantum networks form an important element of quantum...

  Drosophila Motility, Behaviour and Ageing The main scientific objectives of the experiment are to study in more detail the mechanisms of the abnormal motility response encountered in space by young flies with consequences on the posterior aging response of the flies. For this purpose, three different fly strains with different phenotypes are used, in four configurations. The three strains are a long-lived strain, a short-lived strain and a strain showing an abnormal gravitropic resp...

Automatic stereotyping Most of us sincerely believe that we aren’t prejudiced, Psychologists have studied automatic stereotyping — the fact that just having knowledge of a stereotype automatically triggers prejudiced thoughts and behaviors when we see a person from a stereotyped group. They suggest that these stereotypes have become so well learned that they have become unconscious. However, on the hopeful side, some researchers believe that conscious cognitive effort to inhibit stereotypes may...