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Friday, February 1, 2013

Beer's bitter compounds could help brew new medicines

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Researchers employing a century-old observational technique have determined the precise configuration of humulones, substances derived from hops that give beer its distinctive flavor.

That might not sound like a big deal to the average brewmaster, but the findings overturn results reported in scientific literature in the last 40 years and could lead to new pharmaceuticals to treat diabetes, some types of cancer and other maladies.

"Now that we have the right results, what happens to the bitter hops in the beer-brewing process makes a lot more sense," said Werner Kaminsky, a University of Washington research associate professor of chemistry.

Kaminsky is the lead author of a paper describing the findings, published this month in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

There is documentation that beer and its bittering acids, in moderation, have beneficial effects on diabetes, some forms of cancer, inflammation and perhaps even weight loss.

Kaminsky used a process called X-ray crystallography to figure out the exact structure of those acids, humulone molecules and some of their derivatives, produced from hops in the brewing process. That structure is important to researchers looking for ways to incorporate those substances, and their health effects, into new pharmaceuticals.

Humulone molecules are rearranged during the brewing process to contain a ring with five carbon atoms instead of six. At the end of the process two side groups are formed that can be configured in four different ways ? both groups can be above the ring or below, or they can be on opposite sides.

Which of the forms the molecule takes determines its "handedness," Kaminsky said, and that is important for understanding how a particular humulone will react with another substance. If they are paired correctly, they will fit together like a nut and bolt.

If paired incorrectly, they might not fit together at all or it could be like placing a right hand into a left-handed glove. That could produce disastrous results in pharmaceuticals.

Kaminsky cited thalidomide, which has a number of safe uses but was famously used to treat morning sickness in pregnant women in the late 1950s and early 1960s before it was discovered to cause birth defects. Molecule "handedness" in one form of the drug was responsible for the birth defects, while the orientation of molecules in another form did not appear to have the negative effects.

To determine the configuration of humulones formed in the brewing process, coauthors Jan Urban, Clinton Dahlberg and Brian Carroll of KinDex Therapeutics, a Seattle pharmaceutical firm that funded the research, recovered acids from the brewing process and purified them.

They converted the humulones to salt crystals and sent them to Kaminsky, who used X-ray crystallography ? a technique developed in the early 20th century ? to determine the exact configuration of the molecules.

"Now that we know which hand belongs to which molecule, we can determine which molecule goes to which bitterness taste in beer," Kaminsky said.

The authors point out that while "excessive beer consumption cannot be recommended to propagate good health, isolated humulones and their derivatives can be prescribed with documented health benefits."

Some of the compounds have been shown to affect specific illnesses, Kaminsky said, while some with a slight difference in the arrangement of carbon atoms have been ineffective.

The new research sets the stage for finding which of those humulones might be useful in new compounds to be used as medical treatments.

###

University of Washington: http://www.uwnews.org

Thanks to University of Washington for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126532/Beer_s_bitter_compounds_could_help_brew_new_medicines

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Rocket carrying US satellite crashes into Pacific seconds after ...

Published: 01 February, 2013, 11:48

The rocket booster Zenit-3SL on the launch platform Odyssey in the Pacific (Image from yuzhnoye.com)

A Ukrainian-made Zenith-3SL rocket carrying a US-made Intelsat-27 satellite has crashed into the ocean seconds after being launched from a platform in the Pacific Ocean. Ground control lost contact with the rocket.

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Sea Launch, the international company overseeing the launch, wrote in an official statement on their website that, "approximately 40 seconds after liftoff of the launch of the Intelsat 27 spacecraft, all telemetry was lost indicating a loss of mission."

The spacecraft, built by Boeing Satellite Systems, was launched on a Zenit-3SL launch vehicle on the ocean-based Odyssey launch platform at the Earth?s equator.

Preliminary reports suggested the rocket?s engines stopped automatically because its trajectory was incorrect.

?The first stage of the rocket was supposed to detach two-and-a-half minutes into the flight, but did not. A search operation is underway for the downed rocket.

The rocket?s flight was controlled remotely by a vessel six kilometers from the platform.

The Zenith rocket is joint project between Russian and Ukrainian space companies. The first two stages of the launch vehicle were designed and built in Ukraine, and the third stage is Russian-made.

The Intelsat-27 satellite, made by Boeing, was designed to transmit communication signals over the US and Europe.

The Odyssey floating platform is owned by the Sea Launch corporation. Previous launches at the platform have been successful. In April 2012, a similar Zenith-3SL rocket sent the Eutelsat W5A satellite into space.

Source: http://rt.com/news/satellite-rocket-pacific-ocean-222/

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Motorola Job Listing Hints at Moto-Google X-Phone

It looks like Motorola's finally about to prove its worth to Google, with the existence of the previously rumoured Android "X-Phone" confirmed by a job listing. Motorola's hiring someone to manage this "Next Generation Smartphone Platform." More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/PehEnEhr_9Y/motorola-job-listing-hints-at-moto+google-x+phone

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NASA to Launch World's Largest Solar Sail in 2014

The largest solar sail ever constructed is headed for the launch pad in 2014 on a mission to demonstrate the value of "propellantless propulsion"? the act of using photons from the sun to push a craft through space.

Dubbed Sunjammer, the giant?solar sail measures about 124 feet (38 meters) on a side and boasts a total surface area of nearly 13,000 square feet (1,208 square m, or one-third of an acre). The project is under the wing of NASA's Space Technology Program, within the agency's Office of the Chief Technologist.

NASA has contracted with a team of high-tech "solar sailors" at L'Garde Inc. of Tustin, Calif., to build Sunjammer.

L'Garde is no newcomer to novel space structures. The company has worked with the space agency on several projects, including the creation of inflatable structures for radio frequency antennas and solar arrays. In 1996, the company flew the Inflatable Antenna Experiment (IAE) aboard the space shuttle Endeavour's STS-77 mission. [Photos: Solar Sail Evolution for Space Travel]

Programmatic milestone

"We took the name Sunjammer from an Arthur C. Clarke short story, a fictional yacht race in the heavens using solar sails," said Nathan Barnes, L'Garde's chief operating officer and executive vice president, as well as Sunjammer's project manager. Permission to use the name came from the Clarke estate, he told SPACE.com.

Work on Sunjammer this year includes a programmatic milestone ? a critical design review ? along with a variety of ground demonstration tests and qualification of components, Barnes said. The flight of the solar sail, he said, is set for the end of 2014, to be sent spaceward atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

"With this sail, we?re targeting our end goal somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,864,114 miles (3 million kilometers) distance from the Earth," Barnes said.

A number of test objectives are to be checked off within the first couple months of flight, he added. These include deployment of the sail, demonstration of vector control using sail-tipped vanes, navigation with accuracy and, finally, maintenance of the spacecraft's position at a gravitationally stable location called Earth-Sun Lagrange Point 1.

Sunjammer won't be the world's first solar sail mission. NASA launched NanoSail-D, whose sail covered just 100 square feet (9.3 square m), in November 2010. And Japan's Ikaros probe deployed?its solar sail in June 2010, becoming the first craft ever to cruise through space propelled only by sunlight.

Neat, clever, exotic orbits

Sunjammer is potentially applicable to an advanced space weather warning system, which could provide more timely and accurate notice of solar flare activity.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is collaborating with NASA and L?Garde on the upcoming demonstration flight, which will cruise to a spot that provides an interesting view of the sun.

"It will be us flying to a place that a customer actually wants to fly a solar sail to," Barnes said. "There are neat, clever, exotic orbits you can do with the solar sail that would permit viewing different portions of the sun that we can?t normally." [The Sun's Wrath: Worst Solar Storms in History]

One-quarter the size of a football field, Sunjammer will produce a whopping maximum thrust of approximately 0.01 newton, Barnes said ? roughly equivalent to the weight of a sugar packet.

Thinner sail

Kapton is the solar sail material of choice. The mission team worked with chemical company DuPont to produce a special layer of Kapton for Sunjammer just 5 microns thick.

"Thinner is always better," Barnes said.

When collapsed, the Sunjammer solar sail is the size of a dishwasher and weighs just 70 pounds (32 kilograms).

There are a number of control techniques involved in successfully unfurling the sail, said Billy Derbes, L?Garde?s chief engineer for Sunjammer.

"The highest risk is in the deployment," Derbes said. A camera attached to the sail will capture the unfurling process.

Game-changing capabilities

NASA is keen to infuse solar sail technology into other potential game-changing mission capabilities.

Barnes said that possibilities include the collection and removal of orbital debris, deorbiting spent satellites, providing a direct communications link to Earth?s south pole, as well as for deep space propulsion.

Barnes said nongovernment, entertainment-oriented uses of solar sails are also being explored by L?Garde.

"All space travel right now is limited by expendables," Derbes said. "If you show a technology not limited by expendables ? and Kapton is a long-lasting film material ? what new applications will people think up? We?re opening up a whole new kind of thinking about how you do things in space."

'Star Trek' passengers

Also to fly onboard Sunjammer are the cremated remains of individuals, a service provided by Celestis, Inc., an affiliate company of Space Services, Inc., a Houston-based aerospace firm.

Celestis flight capsules and modules will be carried by Sunjammer on its voyage through deep space. Already part of that payload are the ashes of "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry and his wife Majel Barrett Roddenberry, often called the "first lady" of the sci-fi series.

"Celestis is pleased to offer our first-ever Voyager deep space memorial spaceflight aboard the Sunjammer mission," said Celestis CEO Charles Chafer.

"Since 1997, Celestis has conducted a dozen memorial spaceflights, and this solar sail mission will mark our most ambitious flight ever. We are excited to be a part of the Sunjammer team," Chafer told SPACE.com.

'Green' space propulsion

Sunjammer?s success is the key to enabling several science and exploration missions that can only be accomplished with a solar sail, said Les Johnson, deputy manager of the Advanced Concepts Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

Along with better sun-watching and warning tasks, NASA recently studied the use of a solar-sail-propelled spacecraft for visiting multiple near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), Johnson said.

"We found that a Sunjammer-derived sail could visit up to six NEAs within six years of being launched. This would be impossible with chemical rockets and might not be achievable by electric propulsion. And it?s all because the sail uses no propellant ? deriving its thrust from sunlight, making it a very ?green? space propulsion system," he said.

Johnson is co-editor with Jack McDevitt of "Going Interstellar" (Baen Books, 2012), a unique blend of science fact and science-fiction writings on interstellar voyaging.

"For me, I?m most excited about using a solar sail unfurled close to the sun, inside the orbit of Mercury, and using the increased solar pressure there to accelerate a large solar sail to speeds that will allow it to reach well beyond the edge of the solar system and into interstellar space within my lifetime," Johnson said.?

Doing so, Johnson said, "would be the first ?baby step? in a series of increasingly large sails that might one day enable us to reach the stars. This is one of the few ways nature has provided for us to travel between the stars."

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is former director of research for the National Commission on Space and a past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines. He has written for SPACE.com since 1999.?Follow SPACE.com on Twitter?@Spacedotcom. We're also on?Facebook?&?Google+.?

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-launch-worlds-largest-solar-sail-2014-193058903.html

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GOP's Plan to Split Electoral Votes Not Getting GOP Gov. Snyder's Support

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder rejected a proposal to split the state?s electoral votes by congressional district, a plan that would potentially give Republicans a chance to pick up ground in presidential elections in a state that has gone Democratic for a generation.

Source: http://www.governing.com/news/state/GOPs-Plan-to-Split-Electoral-Votes-Not-Getting-GOP-Gov-Snyders-Support.html

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NASA's Cassini watches Saturn storm choke on its own tail

Jan. 31, 2013 ? Call it a Saturnian version of the Ouroboros, the mythical serpent that bites its own tail. In a new paper that provides the most detail yet about the life and death of a monstrous thunder-and-lightning storm on Saturn, scientists from NASA's Cassini mission describe how the massive storm churned around the planet until it encountered its own tail and sputtered out. It is the first time scientists have observed a storm consume itself in this way anywhere in the solar system.

"This Saturn storm behaved like a terrestrial hurricane -- but with a twist unique to Saturn," said Andrew Ingersoll, a Cassini imaging team member based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, who is a co-author on the new paper in the journal Icarus. "Even the giant storms at Jupiter don't consume themselves like this, which goes to show that nature can play many awe-inspiring variations on a theme and surprise us again and again."

Earth's hurricanes feed off the energy of warm water and leave a cold-water wake. This storm in Saturn's northern hemisphere also feasted off warm "air" in the gas giant's atmosphere. The storm, first detected on Dec. 5, 2010, and tracked by Cassini's radio and plasma wave subsystem and imaging cameras, erupted around 33 degrees north latitude. Shortly after the bright, turbulent head of the storm emerged and started moving west, it spawned a clockwise-spinning vortex that drifted much more slowly. Within months, the storm wrapped around the planet at that latitude, stretching about 190,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) in circumference, thundering and throwing lightning along the way.

Terrestrial storms have never run into their own wakes -- they encounter topographic features like mountains first and expend themselves. But Saturn has no land to stop its hurricanes. The bright, turbulent storm head was able to chomp all the way around the planet. It was only when the head of the storm ran into the vortex in June 2011 that the massive, convective storm faded away. Why the encounter would shut down the storm is still a mystery.

By Aug. 28, after 267 days, the Saturn storm stopped thundering for good. While Cassini's infrared detectors continue to track some lingering effects in higher layers of Saturn's atmosphere, the troposphere -- which is the weather-producing layer, lower in the atmosphere -- has been quiet at that latitude.

"This thunder-and-lightning storm on Saturn was a beast," said Kunio Sayanagi, the paper's lead author and a Cassini imaging team associate at Hampton University in Virginia. "The storm maintained its intensity for an unusually long time. The storm head itself thrashed for 201 days, and its updraft erupted with an intensity that would have sucked out the entire volume of Earth's atmosphere in 150 days. And it also created the largest vortex ever observed in the troposphere of Saturn, expanding up to 7,500 miles [12,000 kilometers] across."

The vortex grew to be as large as the giant storm known as Oval BA on Jupiter. But Oval BA and Jupiter's more famous storm -- the Great Red Spot -- are not thunder-and-lightning storms. Jupiter's storms also have a quiet center, unlike the violence at the center of Saturn's storms.

"Cassini's stay in the Saturn system has enabled us to marvel at the power of this storm," said Scott Edgington, Cassini's deputy project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We had front-row seats to a wonderful adventure movie and got to watch the whole plot from start to finish. These kinds of data help scientists compare weather patterns around our solar system and learn what sustains and extinguishes them."

This storm was the longest running of the massive storms that appear to break out in Saturn's northern hemisphere once every Saturn year (30 Earth years). The longest storm of any size ever detected on Saturn actually unfolded over 334 days in 2009 in an area known as "Storm Alley" in the southern hemisphere, but it was about 100 times smaller in area than the latest northern storm.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team consists of scientists from the U.S., England, France and Germany. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/GcxJjn6Go80/130131145455.htm

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17-BIT?s new ?Skulls of the Shogun? bridges Windows 8, Windows Phone, Xbox 360

More than three years in the making, the new Skulls of the Shogun video game from Seattle-based indie game developer 17-BIT is a standout in the category of turn-based strategy games. The game has distinctive graphics, addictive gameplay, a wonderfully twisted storyline and a catchy musical score. I was up until the early morning hours playing today ? not because I was planning to write about its release today, but because I couldn?t put it down.

17-BIT?s Borut Pfeifer (lead engineer/designer), Jake Kazdal (founder/CEO/creative director) and Ben Vance (engineer/designer/lead writer.)

But the larger reason this game deserves attention is the fact that it?s being released simultaneously for Windows 8, Windows RT, Windows Phone, and Xbox Live ? with the ability for gamers across all of those platforms to compete against one another asynchronously, regardless of which device they?re using. That?s a first.

Microsoft, which is publishing the game, wants it to serve as an example for other developers. It?s also hoping that the broad release across the platforms will give Skulls of the Shogun enough critical mass to avoid the fate of Draw Something and other turn-based games for that tend to fade away as a segment of users lose interest over time.

?It is literally the same game? across the different devices, says?Jake Kazdal, 17-BIT?s CEO and founder.

The game was originally slated to be developed for the iPhone, but 17-BIT saw an opportunity to make an impact by targeting Microsoft?s platforms.

Kazdal?acknowledged that it was ?a considerable challenge,? particularly at the beginning as the development tools were still in their early stages. But now that the tools are more mature, and 17-BIT has blazed a trail, others are more likely to follow suit.

One catch: This is not a 99 cent app. The list price is $14.99 on Windows 8 and Surface?(discounted to $9.99 for launch); and $6.99 for Windows Phone (discounted to $4.99 at launch). The Xbox Live version sells for 1200 Microsoft Points, or the equivalent of $15, in the Xbox Live Marketplace.