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The hunt for dark energy has gained a new weapon, with the first test of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) being completed recently. DESI is installed atop the Nicholas U. Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory outside Tucson, Arizona and will search for evidence of the mysterious energy which makes up 68% of the universe and speeds up its expansion.
“After a decade in planning and R&D, installation and assembly, we are delighted that DESI can soon begin its quest to unravel the mystery of dark energy,” DESI Director Michael Levi of the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory said in a statement. “Most of the universe’s matter and energy are dark and unknown, and next-generation experiments like DESI are our best bet for unraveling these mysteries. I am thrilled to see this new experiment come to life.”
To compile the first image shown above, DESI used its 5,000 spectroscopic “eyes” which peer out into the night sky. Each eye can focus on a single object to take in the light it produces. In this case, the instrument collected data from a small region in the Triangulum galaxy.
NASA is considering a return trip to the most hotly-contested body in our solar system and has awarded funding to the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) to study the cost and feasibility of an orbiter mission to Pluto.
Following the success of the New Horizons mission which visited Pluto in 2015 and then traveled on to visit Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) including the most distant object ever explored, Ultima Thule, scientists want to go back to the dwarf planet to learn more about it. New Horizons had a limited payload so it could only perform a cursory analysis of Pluto and its moons. The new mission would involve sending a craft into orbit around the dwarf planet to gather data and hopefully answer some of the questions raised by the earlier mission.
NASA is funding the study as part of the Planetary Science Decadal Survey, a document that explores key questions in planetary science and is published every 10 to 15 years. The study will form part of the next survey, which is set to begin in 2020.
This is amazing, it will save many lives!
A 14-year-old Pennsylvania girl has come up with an innovative way to get rid of blind spots before she can even legally get behind the wheel.
A Portland teen won second place in a national technology contest, taking home $2,500 that he can use to attend science camp next summer.
Rishab Jain, 14, is a freshman at Westview High School. His winning project, which he calls the Pancreas Detective, is an artificial intelligence tool that can help diagnose pancreatic cancer through gene sequencing. The algorithm helps doctors focus on the organ during examinations, which is often obscured because it moves around the abdominal area as patients breathe and other bodily functions shift other organs as well.
Last year, the same project netted $25,000 from 3M when he attended Stoller Middle School. He used that money to fund his nonprofit, Samyak Science Society, which promotes science, technology, engineering and math education for other children, Time Magazine reported.
Unlike chemotherapy or radiation, which attack cancer directly, CAR-T engineers patients’ immune cells so they can do it themselves. T-cells are removed from the blood and given new genes that produce receptors that let the T-cells recognize and bind to leukemia cells with a specific protein, CD19.
The genetically modified T-cells are then multiplied in the lab and infused back into the patient, where they ideally multiply even further and begin to target and kill cancer cells with CD19.
An Antares rocket from Northrop Grumman has successfully launched the Cygnus cargo spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station. The launch happened at 9:59AM from the Mid Atlantic Regional Spaceport as anticipated. Assuming nothing unusual happens, NASA says the cargo vessel will arrive at the ISS on Monday, November 4, carrying a huge load of supplies and scientific materials.
David Pearce — The Anatomy of Happiness
“While researching epilepsy, neuroscientist Itzhak Fried stumbled on a ‘mirth’ center in the brain — given this, what ought we be doing to combat extreme suffering and promote wellbeing?”
