Making A Thread To Help You Educate All The "name One Thing Women Invented" "women Can't Do Science"

Living and Working Aboard Station

 Join us on Facebook Live for a conversation with astronaut Kate Rubins and the director of the National Institutes for Health on Tuesday, October 18 at 11:15 a.m. ET.

Astronaut Kate Rubins has conducted out of this world research aboard Earth’s only orbiting laboratory. During her time aboard the International Space Station, she became the first person to sequence DNA in space. On Tuesday, she’ll be live on Facebook with National Institute of Health director Francis Collins, who led the effort to map the human genome. You can submit questions for Kate using the hashtag #SpaceChat on Twitter, or during the live event. Here’s a primer on the science this PhD astronaut has been conducting to help inspire your questions: 

Kate has a background in genomics (a branch of molecular genetics that deals with the study of genomes,specifically the identification and sequencing of their constituent genes and the application of this knowledge in medicine, pharmacy,agriculture, and other fields). When she began her tenure on the station, zero base pairs of DNA had been sequenced in space. Within just a few weeks, she and the Biomolecule Sequencer team had sequenced their one billionth base of DNA aboard the orbital platform.

“I [have a] genomics background, [so] I get really excited about that kind of stuff,” Rubins said in a downlink shortly after reaching the one billion base pairs sequenced goal.

Learn more about this achievement:

+First DNA Sequencing in Space a Game Changer

+Science in Short: One Billion Base Pairs Sequenced

Why is DNA Sequencing in Space a Big Deal?

A space-based DNA sequencer could identify microbes, diagnose diseases and understand crew member health, and potentially help detect DNA-based life elsewhere in the solar system.

+Why Sequencing DNA in Space is a Big Deal

https://youtu.be/1N0qm8HcFRI 

Miss the Reddit AMA on the subject? Here’s a transcript:

+NASA AMA: We just sequenced DNA in space for the first time. Ask us anything! 

NASA and Its Partnerships

We’re not doing this alone. Just like the DNA sequencing was a collaborative project with industry, so is the Eli Lilly Hard to Wet Surfaces investigation, which is a partnership between CASIS and Eli Lilly Co. In this experiment aboard the station, astronauts will study how certain materials used in the pharmaceutical industry dissolve in water while in microgravity. Results from this investigation could help improve the design of tablets that dissolve in the body to deliver drugs, thereby improving drug design for medicines used in space and on Earth. Learn more about what we and our partners are doing:

+Eli Lilly Hard to Wet Surfaces – been happening the last week and a half or so

Researchers to Test How Solids Dissolve in Space to Design Better Tablets and Pills on Earth

With our colleagues at the Stanford University School of Medicine, we’re also investigating the effects of spaceflight on stem cell-derived heart cells, specifically how heart muscle tissue, contracts, grows and changes  in microgravity and how those changes vary between subjects. Understanding how heart muscle cells change in space improves efforts for studying disease, screening drugs and conducting cell replacement therapy for future space missions. Learn more:

+Heart Cells

+Weekly Recap From the Expedition Lead Scientist for Aug. 18, 2016 

It’s Not Just Medicine

Kate and her crew mates have also worked on the combustion experiments.

Kate has also worked on the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), an experimental expandable capsule that docks with the station. As we work on our Journey to Mars, future space habitats  are a necessity. BEAM, designed for Mars or other destinations, is a lightweight and relatively simple to construct solution. Kate has recently examined BEAM, currently attached to the station, to take measurements and install sensors.

Kate recently performed a harvest of the Plant RNA Regulation experiment, by removing seed cassettes and stowing them in cold stowage.

The Plant RNA Regulation investigation studies the first steps of gene expression involved in development of roots and shoots. Scientists expect to find new molecules that play a role in how plants adapt and respond to the microgravity environment of space, which provides new insight into growing plants for food and oxygen supplies on long-duration missions. Read more about the experiment:

+Plant RNA Harvest

NASA Astronaut Kate Rubins is participating in several investigations examining changes in her body as a result of living in space. Some of these changes are similar to issues experienced by our elderly on Earth; for example, bone loss (osteoporosis), cardiovascular deconditioning, immune dysfunction, and muscle atrophy. Understanding these changes and how to prevent them in astronauts off the Earth may help improve health for all of us on the Earth. In additional, the crew aboard station is also working on more generalized studies of aging.

+ Study of the effects of aging on C. elegans, a model organism for a range of biological studies.

There’s only one way to clean the inside of your hood. Here we see our rotation student, Cam, demonstrating the effectiveness of the technique;)

Mission Possible: Redirecting an Asteroid

As part of our Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), we plan to send a robotic spacecraft to an asteroid tens of millions of miles away from Earth, capture a multi-ton boulder and bring it to an orbit near the moon for future crew exploration.

This mission to visit a large near-Earth asteroid is part of our plan to advance the new technologies and spaceflight experience needed for a human mission to the Martian system in the 2030s.

How exactly will it work?

The robotic spacecraft, powered by the most advanced solar electric propulsion system, will travel for about 18 months to the target asteroid.

After the spacecraft arrives and the multi-ton boulder is collected from the surface, the spacecraft will hover near the asteroid to create a gravitational attraction that will slightly change the asteroid’s trajectory.

After the enhanced gravity tractor demonstration is compete, the robotic vehicle will deliver the boulder into a stable orbit near the moon. During the transit, the boulder will be further imaged and studied by the spacecraft.

Astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft will launch on the Space Launch System rocket to explore the returned boulder.

Orion will dock with the robotic vehicle that still has the boulder in its grasp. 

While docked, two crew members on spacewalks will explore the boulder and collect samples to bring back to Earth for further study.

The astronauts and collected samples will return to Earth in the Orion spacecraft.

How will ARM help us send humans to Mars in the 2030s?

This mission will demonstrate future Mars-level exploration missions closer to home and will fly a mission with technologies and real life operational constraints that we’ll encounter on the way to the Red Planet. A few of the capabilities it will help us test include: 

Solar Electric Propulsion – Using advanced Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) technologies is an important part of future missions to send larger payloads into deep space and to the Mars system. Unlike chemical propulsion, which uses combustion and a nozzle to generate thrust, SEP uses electricity from solar arrays to create electromagnetic fields to accelerate and expel charged atoms (ions) to create a very low thrust with a very efficient use of propellant.

Trajectory and Navigation – When we move the massive asteroid boulder using low-thrust propulsion and leveraging the gravity fields of Earth and the moon, we’ll validate critical technologies for the future Mars missions. 

Advances in Spacesuits – Spacesuits designed to operate in deep space and for the Mars surface will require upgrades to the portable life support system (PLSS). We are working on advanced PLSS that will protect astronauts on Mars or in deep space by improving carbon dioxide removal, humidity control and oxygen regulation. We are also improving mobility by evaluating advances in gloves to improve thermal capacity and dexterity. 

Sample Collection and Containment Techniques – This experience will help us prepare to return samples from Mars through the development of new techniques for safe sample collection and containment. These techniques will ensure that humans do not contaminate the samples with microbes from Earth, while protecting our planet from any potential hazards in the samples that are returned. 

Rendezvous and Docking Capabilities – Future human missions to Mars will require new capabilities to rendezvous and dock spacecraft in deep space. We will advance the current system we’ve developed with the international partners aboard the International Space Station. 

Moving from spaceflight a couple hundred miles off Earth to the proving ground environment (40,000 miles beyond the moon) will allow us to start accumulating experience farther than humans have ever traveled in space.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

TODAY IN HISTORY: The retired Space Shuttle Endeavour makes its way to the California Science Center in Los Angeles, October 12, 2012. (The Atlantic)

Charlie Rose interviews…a robot?

What happens when Charlie Rose attempts to interview a robot named "Sophia" for his 60 Minutes report on artificial intelligence

“Sophia means wisdom,” Hanson explains, “and she is intended to evolve eventually to human-level wisdom and beyond.”

She still has a long way to go.

“Sometimes she can figure things out in a way that’s sort of spooky and human-like,” Hanson says. “And other ways, she just doesn’t get it.”

During Sophia’s interview, Rose asks her if she’s been programmed, but she responds only with silence. At times, her replies were nonsensical. But at other moments 60 Minutes producers were surprised by her ability to converse with one of the great conversationalists in journalism.

Scientific Women You Haven’t Heard of (Yet): Louise Pearce

Louise Pearce is best known for her work that lead to a cure for sleeping sickness. Pearce traveled to what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo to test the arsenic based cure, tryparsamide, in cooperation with a hospital in Léopoldville that was coping with an outbreak of sleeping sickness. This trip helped establish parameters for treatment (such as safe and optimum dosages) of sleeping sickness with tryparsamide. Pearce also used rabbit colonies to study syphilis and cancer over generations.  Pearce was lesbian and a feminist and lived with Sara Josephine Baker and Ida A.R. Wylie. Pearce’s curriculum vitae is impressive and lists Standford University, Boston University and Johns Hopkins University as her alma maters.

Learn more: (x) (x) (x)

Previous Installments:  Lynn Conway, Noella Marcellino, Tu Youyou

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This really is how starting ballroom felt like, and still feels like sometimes.

That frame needs work though.

Let Me Show You the World

"The sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a giant nuclear furnace. Where HYDROGEN is built into HELIUM..." Main reason I remember that, thank you They Might Be Giants

I started stoichiometry today and began with the difference between nuclear and chemical reactions. I drew this equation on the board and asked where this reaction takes place and why it’s important to life and the universe. Blank stares and crickets…the entire class of 45 first-year college students had no clue WTF I was talking about.

Do they even teach earth space science in high school anymore?

I think it's Java? Just really, really bad Java

Edgley Design builds family home around 100-year-old pear tree in south London »