The James Webb Space Telescope reached a mission-readiness landmark today when its first primary mirror segment was cryo-polished to its required prescription as measured at operational cryogenic temperatures. This achievement sets the stage for a successful polishing process for the remaining 18 flight mirror segments. Northrop Grumman Corporation is leading Webb's design and development effort for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "Many predicted it would take us multiple iterations to successfully polish these mirror segments to achieve the correct optical prescription at the telescope's operating temperatures, but we did it on our first try," said Scott Willoughby, Webb telescope Program

New technology that enables aerial vehicles to plan and verify missions could mean there is less need for military personnel to conduct dangerous surveillance operations in war zones. Developed for use in multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (MUAVs), the sophisticated autonomous computer framework - the first of its kind - allows one operator to control a number of vehicles from a safe position on the ground. It would also make surveillance missions significantly cheaper. The EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) research project has been developed by scientists from Cranfield University, based at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom. They are

Study suggests future portable prosthetic devices for movement-impaired Washington, DC — Researchers have successfully reconstructed 3-D hand motions from brain signals recorded in a non-invasive way, according to a study in the March 3 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. This finding uses a technique that may open new doors for portable brain-computer interface systems. Such a non-invasive system could potentially operate a robotic arm or motorized wheelchair — a huge advance for people with disabilities or paralysis. Until now, to reconstruct hand motions, researchers have used non-portable and invasive methods that place sensors inside the brain. In this study, a team

Heat helps in low power data storage scheme Random thermal fluctuations in magnetic memory can be harnessed to reduce the energy required to store information, according to an experiment reported in the current issue of Physical Review Letters. The development could lead to computer memory that operates at significantly lower power than conventional devices. Markus Münzenberg of Universität Göttingen and Jagadeesh Moodera of MIT describe the potential route to greener magnetic memory in a Viewpoint in the latest issue of APS Physics (physics.aps.org). Heat is usually a problem when it comes to storing digital data. At the microscopic level, the molecules and

Nitrogen is vital for all plant life, but increasingly the planet is paying a heavy price for the escalating use of nitrogen fertilizer. Excess nitrogen from fertilizer runoff into rivers and lakes causes algal blooms that create oxygen-depleted dead zones, such as the 6,000 to 7,000 square mile zone in the Gulf of Mexico, and nitrogen in the form of nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas. But new findings by Stanford researchers that reveal the inner workings of nitrogen-producing bacteria living inside legumes such as soybeans could enable researchers to blunt those negative effects and aid efforts to make agriculture more

Dr. Lalana Kagal and fellow researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are developing a standard policy language to achieve flexible and dynamic Web security when information is shared between agencies, countries and organizations. The research, funded under the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Program, supports recent Ph.D. graduates and encourages basic research like that of Kagal and her team members, Fatih Turkmen and Matt Cherian. This research aims to help the Air Force share resources and data with other agencies, both domestic and international, allowing them to dynamically adapt to new or changed policy on either side without

Poor air quality apparently affects the running times of women in marathons, according to a study by Virginia Tech civil and environmental engineer Linsey Marr. Marr's findings come from a comprehensive study that evaluated marathon race results, weather data, and air pollutant concentrations in seven marathons over a period of eight to 28 years. The top three male and female finishing times were compared with the course record and contrasted with air pollutant levels, taking high temperatures that were detrimental to performance into consideration. Higher levels of particles in the air were associated with slower running times for women, while men were

Scientists have automated the measurement of a vital part of the knee in images with a computer program that performs much faster and just as reliably as humans who interpret the same images. Having more precise information about wear and tear on this portion of the knee – a blend of fibrous tissue and cartilage called the meniscus – could lead to its use as a biomarker in predicting who is at risk for developing osteoarthritis, researchers say. Continue reading...

X-rays can do a lot of useful things -- detect broken bones, tumors and dental cavities, analyze atoms in diverse materials and screen luggage at airports -- but who knew they could cause crystals to form? A team of Northwestern University researchers has discovered that X-rays can trigger the formation of a new type of crystal: charged cylindrical filaments ordered like a bundle of pencils experiencing repulsive forces, which is unknown in crystals. Similar phenomena may occur naturally in biology, such as in the cytoskeleton filaments of cells, which control cell division and migration in cancer metastasis and many other processes. The

A team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, in Germany, led by the Spanish physicist Rubén Fernández-Busnadiego, has managed to obtain 3D images of the vesicles and filaments involved in communication between neurons. The method is based on a novel technique in electron microscopy, which cools cells so quickly that their biological structures can be frozen while fully active. "We used electron cryotomography, a new technique in microscopy based on ultra-fast freezing of cells, in order to study and obtain three-dimensional images of synapsis, the cellular structure in which the communication between neurons takes place in the brains