The research developed by UB research group was supported also by the UB Science and Technology Centres (CCITUB) the Group of Rangers of the Government of Catalonia the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture Nutrition and Environment the Government of Andalusia and The french
#University students developing robotic gardening technologyfor more than a half-century NASA has made the stuff of science fiction into reality.
Researchers are continuing that tradition by designing robots to work in a deep-space habitat tending gardens and growing food for astronaut explorers.
As astronauts explore beyond Earth they will need to make their habitat as self-sustaining as possible.
and use it in future space missions said Tracy Gill NASA's technology strategy manager at the Kennedy space center in Florida.
The University of Colorado students demonstrated their X-Hab project at Kennedy's Space station Processing Facility on June 23 to a group of employees that included center director Bob Cabana.
It is a concept for producing edible plants during long-term missions to destinations such as Mars. Heather Hava who is working on a doctorate in aerospace engineering sciences explains that the goal is to have robots do much of the monotonous tasks saving time
for the astronauts. The'Plants Anywhere'approach is designed to help minimize astronaut workload said Hava whose degree will focus in bioastronautics.
This keeps them free to concentrate on more important tasks. A year ago the University of Colorado student team demonstrated a gardening system with plants robotically tended on a Lazy susan-like device.
In their new system a Remotely Operated Gardening Rover or ROGR travels around the habitat tending to a fleet of Smartpots or SPOTS
If an astronaut requests tomatoes for a salad the system decides which specific plants have the ripest tomatoes
We also want the plants to be in the astronauts'environment so they can see them smell them
Hava noted that the team has benefited from support from former NASA astronaut Joe Tanner who now is a senior instructor of aerospace engineering sciences at the University of Colorado and Nikolaus Correll assistant professor of computer science at the university.
Gill says involving students in ongoing NASA projects is crucial for the future. This is an opportunity to prepare the next generation of engineers scientists
and explorers for our space program he said. They tell us how their design for the system keeps evolving.
Gill added that Gioia Massa Ph d. of the International Space station Ground Processing and Research Project Office Morgan Simpson of NASA Ground Processing Directorate and Ray Wheeler Ph d. of the Surface Systems office in NASA's Engineering and Technology Directorate also provided guidance
for the University of Colorado team. They all also helped advise the students as they developed their project
NASA and the National Space Grant Foundation selected seven projects from six universities for the 2013-2014 X-Hab Academic Innovation Challenge.
In doing so they worked in close cooperation with members of the NASA Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Program's Deep-space Habitat Project team.
Participants are required to explore NASA's work on development of deep-space habitats and help the agency gather new ideas to complement its current research and development.
The University of Colorado Boulder also is among five universities selected by NASA for the 2015 X-Hab Academic Innovation Challenge.
The above story is provided based on materials by NASA. The original article was written by By Bob Granath NASA's Kennedy space center Florida.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length h
#From antibiotics to yeast: Latest student science heads for spaceastronauts on future missions may nibble on lettuce
and grow their own antibiotics depending on the results of research that student scientists plan to conduct on the International Space station.
Mission 5 of the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) is scheduled to launch to the space station on July 11.
A total of 1344 proposals yielded 15 selected investigations for the flight. These investigations represent a diversity of subject matter from bacteria to tadpole shrimp and locations from Massachusetts to Arizona.
Students from Cottage Lane Elementary in Rockland County New york and Hillsborough County Florida envisioned astronauts growing their own lettuce.
Onion cell mutations could have ramifications for other organisms including astronauts. The team at Academy at Shawnee in Kentucky wonders whether microgravity would increase the rate of yeast fermentation in honey.
Eighth graders at Pennsauken Phifer Middle school in New jersey will examine the growth rate in microgravity of penicillium which future astronauts could grow as an antibiotic to treat infections.
which could rust the interior and exterior of spacecraft. Milton L. Olive Middle school in New york evaluates the effectiveness of a commercial spray corrosion inhibitor Rust-Oleum's'Stops Rust'in microgravity.
This wide range of subjects illustrates the diversity of the space station as a microgravity research laboratory.
The space station offers students the ability to ask what system would I like to explore with gravity seemingly turned off
what NASA uses with the professional community. So far more than 30000 students have had the experience of designing experiments for microgravity through the SSEP program
A strategic partnership with Nanoracks LLC working with NASA under a Space Act Agreement makes the space station available as a student laboratory.
Eighty-five communities across the U s. and Canada have participated in SSEP 19 of them in multiple flights.
when they grow up the astronauts of the future will be grateful for their hard work now.
The above story is provided based on materials by NASA. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length h
The results allow them to learn more about the flight pattern of this insect which is threatening palm trees all over the world in order to set new preventive and curative measures against the pest.
The work team analysed the insect behaviour with a camera fitted with a flight mill connected to a computer.
They tested parameters such as the distance covered the flight length and average and maximum speed.
With regard to the sex they determined that it does not affect the flight potential of the insect.
In the laboratory they obtained a much larger flight potential almost 20 kilometres. Story Source:
The findings of the study led by Edwin van Leeuwen of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in The netherlands are published in Springer's journal Animal Cognition.
In 2010 van Leeuwen first noticed how a female chimp named Julie repeatedly put a stiff strawlike blade of grass for no apparent reason in one or both of her ears.
On subsequent visits van Leeuwen saw that other chimpanzees in her group had started to do the same.
Van Leeuwen suggests that those animals that find a specific behavior somehow rewarding will continue to do
in order to obtain biologically relevant information says van Leeuwen. The fact that these behaviors can be arbitrary
Manta rays are a highly mobile species that can travel across many different parts of the ocean.
what drivers make the fish come and go from Palmyra's lagoons. Very heavily used by mobile animals as breeding grounds
and bamboo researchers have found that by gradually changing the internal structure of metals they can make stronger tougher materials that can be customized for a wide variety of applications--from body armor to automobile parts.
and sea urchin--the area's two main grazers--has in fact been the key driver of coral decline in the region.
Reefs protected from overfishing as well as other threats such as excessive coastal pollution tourism and coastal development are more resilient to pressures from climate change according to the authors.
They generate more than US$ 3 billion annually from tourism and fisheries and over a hundred times more in other goods and services on
The decline in corals started long before climate change began to affect reefs says Terry Hughes author of the 1994 study that predicted the current problems due to parrotfish removal.
The observations were made by the Microwave Instrument for Rosetta Orbiter (MIRO) aboard the European space agency's Rosetta spacecraft on June 6 2014.
not only for cometary science but also for mission planning as the Rosetta team prepares the spacecraft to become the first ever to orbit a comet (planned for August)
but we were surprised at how early we detected it said Sam Gulkis principal investigator of the MIRO instrument at NASA's Jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena California.
MIRO first detected water vapor from the comet when the Rosetta spacecraft was about 217000 miles (350000 kilometers) away from it.
and then away from the sun. The gas production rate is also important to the Rosetta navigation team controlling the spacecraft as this flowing gas can alter the trajectory of spacecraft.
and beginning to put on a show for Rosetta's science instruments said Matt Taylor Rosetta's project scientist from the European space agency's Science and Technology Centre in Noordwijk The netherlands.
MIRO is one of three U s. instruments aboard the Rosetta spacecraft. The other two are an ultraviolet spectrometer called Alice and the Ion and Electron Sensor (IES.
NASA also provided part of the electronics package for the Double Focusing Mass spectrometer which is built part of The swiss Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis (ROSINA) instrument.
NASA's Deep space Network is supporting ESA's Ground Station Network for spacecraft tracking and navigation.
The Microwave Instrument for Rosetta Orbiter (MIRO) was built at JPL. Hardware subsystems for MIRO were provided by the Max-Planck Institute for Solar system Research
d'Instrumentation en Astrophysique of the Observatoire de Paris Rosetta is an ESA mission with contributions from its member states and NASA.
Rosetta's Philae lander is provided by a consortium led by the German Aerospace Center Cologne; Max Planck Institute for Solar system Research Go?
French National Space agency Paris; and the Italian Space agency Rome. JPL a Division of the California Institute of technology Pasadena manages the U s. contribution of the Rosetta mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
JPL also built the MIRO and hosts its principal investigator Samuel Gulkis. The Southwest Research Institute (San antonio and Boulder) developed the Rosetta orbiter's IES
and Alice instruments and hosts their principal investigators James Burch (IES) and Alan Stern (Alice). For more information on the U s. instruments aboard Rosetta visit:
http://rosetta. jpl. nasa. govmore information about Rosetta is available at: http://www. esa. int/rosettafor more information on the DSN visit:
http://deepspace. jpl. nasa. gov/dsnstory Source: The above story is provided based on materials by NASA/Jet propulsion laboratory.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length h
#Foodborne bacteria can cause disease in some breeds of chickens after allcontrary to popular belief the foodborne pathogen Campylobacter jejuni is not a harmless commensal in chickens
but can cause disease in some breeds of poultry according to research published in mbioâ the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.
The main implication is that Campylobacter is not always harmless to chickens. This rather changes our view of the biology of this nasty little bug says Paul Wigley of Institute for Infection and Global Health at the University of Liverpool an author on the study.
and potential benefits associated with short-run changes in cultural practices such as transport distance postharvest activities fertilization rates and plant mortality.
However postharvest costs such as transportation transplanting take down and disposal costs added another $33. 78 in labor costs and $27. 08 in equipment costs yielding a total cost from seedling to end-of-life of $98. 60.
The researchers fired pellets of randomly oriented multiwalled carbon nanotubes from a light gas gun built by the Rice lab of materials scientist Enrique Barrera with funding from NASA.
Hypervelocity impact tests are used mostly to simulate the impact of different projectiles on shields spacecraft
along with rising gasoline prices has led to the world's largest fleet of flex-fuel vehicles fueled by the over 36 million tonnes of sugar cane currently grown in the country.
In a paper published recently in the SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical systems authors Kristen Harley Peter van Heijster Robert Marangell Graeme Pettet
agriculture river floods coasts tourism energy droughts forest fires transport infrastructure and human health. The report also includes a pilot study on habitat suitability of forest tree species. Connie Hedegaard European Commissioner for Climate Action said:
Expected biophysical impacts (such as agriculture yields river floods transport infrastructure losses) have been integrated into an economic model
#Small produce farmers may need guidance, affordable strategies to meet new postharvest sanitation standardsmany small and medium produce growers in the United states neither have the funding nor the expertise to optimally sanitize postharvest operations to prevent the spread of potentially dangerous pathogens according to a panel discussion
Contamination can occur during the planting growing harvesting washing storage and/or transportation of produce.
and guidance that will ensure public safety without driving small and mid-size producers out of business.
and synthesize them into clean green and renewable transportation fuels. Glycosyltransferases (GTS) are enzymes that catalyze the connection of simple monosaccharide sugars into the complex polysaccharide sugars that are essential to a wide range of plant cell structures and processes.
The JBEI pbullets are constructed with markers for the plant endomembrane system the collection of membranes that separates a cell's functional and structural compartments.
Pests and pathogens currently not in the United states could be imported with Dracaena plant materials said Ariena H. C. van Bruggen corresponding author of the study published in Hortscience.
bamboo's destinations. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by American Society for Horticultural Science.
We could even harness milk's ability as a'carrier'to develop new forms of drug delivery Dr Salentinig said.
It is led by principal investigator Irva Hertz-Picciotto a MIND Institute researcher and professor and vice chair of the Department of public health Sciences at UC Davis. The majority of study participants live in the Sacramento Valley Central Valley and the greater San francisco bay Area.
and how much was applied Hertz-Picciotto said. What we saw were several classes of pesticides more commonly applied near residences of mothers
and may well be where these pesticides are operating and affecting neurotransmission Hertz-Picciotto said.
While it's impossible to entirely eliminate risks due to environmental exposures Hertz-Picciotto said that finding ways to reduce exposures to chemical pesticides particularly for the very young is important.
The Sanyangzhuang site known today as China's Pompeii was buried slowly beneath five meters of sediment during a massive flood circa A d. 14-17 leading to exceptional preservation of its buildings fields roads
The researchers could establish that the altered genomic region--a so-called cis-regulatory module--is linked to the observed loss of Patched1 receptors and digit asymmetry in cattle embryos.
and have the potential to generate substantial amounts of tourism-driven revenue. Sylvain Nyandwi of the Great apes Trust of Iowa (the organisation currently charged with conserving the forest) said that 19 chimps had been identified
Though individual pollen grains occasionally travel hundreds of miles previous studies have demonstrated that more than 90 percent of pollen grains travel less than 100 meters from the source plant.
Because pollen grains can travel long distances sometimes people make the mistake of assuming that it usually does travel long distances he said.
Dwomoh has received a NASA Earth and Space science Fellowship to support his research on deforestation in West Africa.
and information from NASA tropical rainfall and fire data to analyze the impact of fires on the region.
A team of computer scientists from the University of Lincoln UK is co-organising an international workshop on recent advances in agricultural robotics.
The above story is provided based on materials by University of Lincoln. The original article was written by Marie Daniels. Note:
#Famine fear wont sway minds on GM cropsa sack-hauling time traveler from the 21st century lands in an Irish potato field in 1849 just before a terrible famine and asks:
cadmium-free cropswith news reports of toxic cadmium-tainted rice in China a new study describes a protein that transports metals in certain plants
and are interchangeably taken up by iron transporters in plants. Pollution and heavy fertilizer use have increased soil cadmium levels in China for example.
The Cornell-led study published in The Plant Cell describes an important role of a protein that transports nutrients â#OPT3 â#in maintaining balance of the essential micronutrient iron in Arabidopsis small plants related to cabbage
The new work finds that OPT3 transports iron and is involved in signaling iron concentrations â#from leaves to roots â#to regulate how much iron from the soil is needed by the plant.
â#oeone would hope that this transporter can be used to produce iron-fortified rice and other grain crops one dayâ#said Olena Vatamaniuk associate professor of crop
Hanson a faculty member with UF's Institute of food and agricultural sciences likens the new tool to models aeronautical engineers use
They don't build a brand new jet every time they want to test a new material
and West Nile virus. One approach to controlling mosquitoes is to apply pesticides by spraying from planes or trucks over a large area.
and her colleagues have been using data from NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite to track changes in land use in Mato grosso.
or slope or proximity to roads--that promoted either clearing new land or intensifying on existing agricultural land Spera said.
Those characteristics included soil quality the degree of slope of the land average temperature in the area the proximity to roads that could deliver goods to market and other factors.
They found that the land initially converted to agriculture tended to be flat low elevation and close to roads.
This is the first time bees have been found to use this ability for something other than navigation. Like many other insect pollinators bees find their way around by using a polarization sensitive area in their eyes to'see'skylight polarization patterns.
and find food a non-navigation function for polarization vision has never been identified in bees--until now.
#Drones give farmers an eye in the sky to check on crop progressthis growing season crop researchers at the University of Illinois are experimenting with the use of drones--unmanned aerial vehicles--on the university's South Farms.
Both drones Bowman is using are multirotor helicopters or quadricopters. Bowman bought the first drone last fall.
This spring he bought a second aircraft an A r. Drone 2. 0 with GPS produced by The french wireless electronics manufacturer Parrot.
Using rechargeable lithium polymer batteries each drone can make flights of about 10 to 15 minutes.
and the flight control system runs through a one-to two-minute process of locating and locking on to GPS satellites to establish the drone's home position.
If launched properly by allowing the flight control system to orient itself with the satellites the Phantom drone will return to within 1 meter of its home position
and waits for you to take over flying it. Standard pictures and video taken with drones can tell us a lot Bowman said.
Commercial use of unmanned aerial vehicles in U s. airspace was banned by the Federal Aviation Administration in 2007
and cavities. â#¢Seeking guidance from registered dietitian nutritionists about healthy food choices and regular oral health care can help improve nutritional and oral health status. The paper is online at:
In some cases different drivers reinforce one another increasing their impacts on forests. A big implication is that it's going to be harder to predict future changes to ecosystems
if they're being affected by several environmental drivers said Lovejoy. The researchers expect such changes to increase in the future.
Recently three NGOS--Birdlife Europe European Environment Bureau and Transport and Environment--contracted EFI along with the International Institute for Sustainability Analysis and Strategy (IINAS) and Joanneum Research to conduct a study
In this case meeting climate and energy targets would be the main driver. The negative environmental effects of intensified use of forest resources would be weighed against
Most teens aren't thinking about chronic disease 30 years down the road reminding them that the foods they choose now have an impact on their appearance athletic performance
The structure has been created by academics from the University of Lincoln UK taking its inspiration from the University's Digital Capabilities garden which won Gold at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2013.
#Insect repellents more important than ever as tropical tourism increasesholidaymakers are being urged to use insect repellent to protect themselves against bites
and the diseases they can spread as trends show travel to tropical countries is rising among Britons.
According to separate analysis by experts from the School of overseas travel the number of visits by Britons to tropical countries went up by two million between 2002 and 2012 (4. 02m to 6. 03m.
or tourists going on a two-week holiday. Brazil for example has dengue fever--a viral infection that is transmitted to humans by Aedes mosquitoes
but football fans travelling to the country are advised still to apply effective repellent frequently. Insect repellent Awareness Day aims to dispel myths
and tropical trips--we don't want them ruined by illness so we want to do all we can to help inform
and we also teach courses on all aspects of biting insects vector-borne diseases and travel health.
Dr Ron Behrens Consultant in Travel Medicine and Senior Lecturer at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said:
Travellers often underestimate the need for and application of repellents. I always encourage them to take along enough supplies of repellent
#Decomposing logs show local factors undervalued in climate change predictionsa new Yale-led study challenges the long-held assumption that climate is the primary driver of how quickly organic matter decomposes in different regions
Since those local factors likely are the primary drivers of decomposition rates Bradford said they should be documented better
For parents who wish to encourage healthy eating in their children our research offers some valuable guidance.
The wasps had the choice of flying towards methyl salicylate or to a control odor such as limonene another compound produced by citrus trees.
Hertel and doctoral student Uris Baldos developed a combination of economic models--one that captures the main drivers of crop supply
Income is also set to eclipse population as the dominant driver of food security a historical first said Baldos.
We expect that the population driver will diminish relative to per capita income in the coming decades especially in the developing world he said.
The models show that climate change is a less influential driver of global food security than income population
The original article was written by Natalie van Hoose. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Before reaching the consumer organic produce may travel long distances which involves some level of environmental footprint.
Somewhere between 2003 and 2010 the upward trend in childhood obesity started to stall leveling off around 2007 said lead study author Christopher Ford M p h. of the department of nutrition at the University of North carolina at Chapel hill.
Ford and his co-authors examined food and beverage purchase data between 2000 and 2011 from nearly 43000 U s. households with a preschool-age child.
which there might have been less waste notes Ford the team identified the top 20 foods and beverages purchased per capita during that 11-year period.
and child-care centers Ford said. Hispanic households saw the smallest decrease in total calories purchased possibly due to less access to stores with bar-coded products and greater proportional spending on fruits and vegetables.
On the side of the wing that predators saw when the wings were closed the eyespots could have served as camouflage from a distance
But this directed the attack toward the tips of less-important wings and not the more vulnerable head or body of the insect.
But just as important Oliver said the study indicates how through continued mutation these eyespots moved to a completely different place--the other side of the wing.
Alternative sustainable fuels are needed urgently in the marine transport sector due to stringent upcoming regulations demanding reduced sulphur
The most promising fuels will then be tested engine to assess their quality and use for potential marine transport.
This project will establish a knowledge platform for cost-effective production of all new sustainable fuels which have the potential to completely alter marine travel.
Global trade unintentionally moves living species around the world in packing materials ballast water and on live nursery plants.
Oldani and other student team members recently traveled to Washington D c. to showcase their project at the EPA's 10th annual National Sustainable Design Expo for the People Prosperity and the Planet competition.
when the Antarctic Geological Drilling Program (ANDRILL) sent a remotely operated submersible vehicle into holes that had been drilled into the ice.
Found in rooms where spacecraft are assembled this microbial species could potentially contaminate other planets that the spacecraft visit.
Costa rica The tiny size and delicately fringed wings of the parasitoid wasp family Mymaridae led to their common name:
Researchers suspect these small snails measuring only 2 millimeters in length (0. 08 inch) travel in water currents
or hitchhike on other cave animals such as bats or crickets to travel longer distances. Why inventory mattersi have been participating in the top 10 since its beginning in 2008 and
At some point that space traveler would begin pining for the flowers and animals of home the smell of spring and the sound of running water.
and Carol Hughes MLST Director Strategic Content and Media Office of Public relations and Communications Depaul University.
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011