Salon.com > Alicia Chang

Endeavour’s final journey lasts all night

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 11:48:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES (AP) — In thousands of Earth orbits, the space shuttle Endeavour traveled 123 million miles. But the last few miles of its final journey are proving hard to get through.

Endeavour's 12-mile crawl across Los Angeles to the California Science Museum hit repeated delays Saturday, leaving expectant crowds along city streets and at the destination slowly dwindling.

Officials estimated the shuttle, originally expected to finish the trip early Saturday evening, would not arrive until 6 a.m. PDT or later Sunday.

At times on Saturday it seemed the only thing moving was the shuttle's fast-changing ETA.

The day started off promising, with Endeavour 90 minutes ahead of schedule. But accumulated hurdles and hiccups caused it to run hours behind at day's end.

The problems included longer than expected maintenance of the rig carrying the shuttle and physical obstacles within the shuttle's wingspan including light posts, building edges, and most of all trees.

In a scene that repeated itself many times, a small tree on the narrowest section of the move brought the procession to a stop, forcing crews to find creative ways to dip a wing under or raise it over the tree without having to cut it down.

Touchdown: NASA rover Curiosity lands on Mars

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 10:35:00 +0000

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — In a show of technological wizardry, the robotic explorer Curiosity blazed through the pink skies of Mars, steering itself to a gentle landing inside a giant crater for the most ambitious dig yet into the red planet's past.

Cheers and applause echoed through the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory late Sunday after the most high-tech interplanetary rover ever built signaled it had survived a harrowing plunge through the thin Mars atmosphere.

"Touchdown confirmed," said engineer Allen Chen. "We're safe on Mars."

Minutes after the landing signal reached Earth at 10:32 p.m. PDT, Curiosity beamed back the first black-and-white pictures from inside the crater showing its wheel and its shadow, cast by the afternoon sun.

"We landed in a nice flat spot. Beautiful, really beautiful," said engineer Adam Steltzner, who led the team that devised the tricky landing routine.

It was NASA's seventh landing on Earth's neighbor; many other attempts by the U.S. and other countries to zip past, circle or set down on Mars have gone awry.

The arrival was an engineering tour de force, debuting never-before-tried acrobatics packed into "seven minutes of terror" as Curiosity sliced through the Martian atmosphere at 13,000 mph.

Potato chips are piling on the pounds, study finds

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 14:59:00 +0000

Blame the potato chip. It's the biggest demon behind that pound-a-year weight creep that plagues many of us, a major diet study found. Bigger than soda, candy and ice cream.

And the reason is partly that old advertising cliche: You can't eat just one.

"They're very tasty and they have a very good texture. People generally don't take one or two chips. They have a whole bag," said obesity expert Dr. F. Xavier Pi-Sunyer of the St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York.

What we eat and how much of it we consume has far more impact than exercise and most other habits do on long-term weight gain, according to the study by Harvard University scientists. It's the most comprehensive look yet at the effect of individual foods and lifestyle choices like sleep time and quitting smoking.

The results are in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Weight problems are epidemic. Two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese. Childhood obesity has tripled in the past three decades. Pounds often are packed on gradually over decades, and many people struggle to limit weight gain without realizing what's causing it.

Abortion does not harm mental health, study says

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 00:01:00 +0000

Having an abortion does not increase the risk of mental health problems, but having a baby does, one of the largest studies to compare the aftermath of both decisions suggests.

The research by Danish scientists further debunks the notion that terminating a pregnancy can trigger mental illness and shows postpartum depression to be much more of a factor.

Abortion in Denmark has been legal since 1973 -- the same year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade, which established a right to abortion.

The Danish study included 365,550 teenagers and women who had an abortion or first-time delivery between 1995 and 2007. None had a history of psychiatric problems that required hospitalization. Through various national registries, researchers were able to track mental health counseling at a hospital or outpatient facility before and after an abortion or delivery.

During the study period, 84,620 had an abortion while 280,930 gave birth.

Researchers compared the rate of mental health treatment among women before and after a first abortion. Within the first year after an abortion, 15 per 1,000 women needed psychiatric counseling -- similar to the rate seeking help nine months before an abortion.

Giffords taken off ventilator, breathing on her own

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 21:50:00 +0000

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords no longer needs a ventilator after doctors replaced her breathing tube with a different one.

Hospital officials say that Giffords underwent a procedure Saturday morning to have a tracheotomy tube inserted in her windpipe to protect her airways, freeing her from the ventilator. She had been breathing on her own since she was shot in the head Jan. 8, but doctors had left the tube in as a precaution.

Doctors also inserted a feeding tube to provide nutrition. These procedures are not out of the ordinary for brain-injured patients.

Giffords, who was wounded in last weekend's attack that killed six people, remains in critical condition.

Her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, has remained by her bedside.

One patient was discharged Saturday while two others remain in good condition.

At Giffords’ bedside, good news keeps coming

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 18:08:00 +0000

Even Gabrielle Giffords' doctors are starting to call her recovery a miracle.

Few people who take a bullet to the brain -- just 10 percent -- survive such a devastating wound.

Yet doctors say the critically injured congresswoman has been making steady progress each day since the assassination attempt on Saturday. Six people were shot and killed.

Giffords is moving both legs and both arms, has opened both eyes and is responding to friends and family, doctors said Thursday. They've helped her sit up and dangle her legs from the bed, and she is able to lift her legs.

With her closest friends from Congress holding her hand Wednesday evening, Giffords opened her left eye and tried to focus on loved ones for the first time.

"It was raw courage. It was raw strength. It was so beautiful and so moving," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. "She wanted us to know that she was with us a hundred percent and understood everything we were saying."

Giffords' neurosurgeon, Dr. Michael Lemole, called it "a major milestone," and said the congresswoman was clearly responding to the gathering of friends and family.

After five days of pushing for caution, Lemole said: "We're wise to acknowledge miracles."

Giffords is “one of the lucky ones,” say doctors

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 12:03:00 +0000

It looks like Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is one of the lucky ones.

Few people who take a bullet to the brain -- just 10 percent -- survive such a devastating wound.

Yet doctors have reported the critically injured woman has been making steady progress each day since she was wounded last weekend.

Then Wednesday night, President Barack Obama made the dramatic announcement that the congresswoman had opened her eyes for the first time.

If all goes well, she may be "out of the woods" on Friday, said Dr. Peter Rhee, trauma chief at University Medical Center, who has treated soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It's a far cry from Saturday when a shocked nation braced for the worst for the 40-year-old Arizona congresswoman. Several news outlets erroneously declared her dead soon after the shooting rampage that killed six. Stunned by the day's events, crowds held candlelight vigils outside the hospital and Giffords' Tucson office.

After her surgery, Dr. Richard Carmona, the former surgeon general and family friend who looked at Giffords' brain scans, gave a bleak outlook.

"With guarded optimism, I hope she will survive, but this is a very devastating wound," he said.

Doctor: Giffords breathing on her own after attack

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 18:26:00 +0000

Doctors say an Arizona congresswoman is breathing on her own after being shot in the head.

Dr. Michael Lemole, Giffords' neurosurgeon, says they've left a breathing tube in Rep. Gabrielle Giffords to protect her airway, but the congresswoman is drawing breaths on her own. She's alert and responding to doctors.

Doctors also now think that Giffords may have been shot in the front of the head, not the back.

After she was wounded last weekend, doctors said the bullet traveled the length of the left side of the congresswoman's brain, entering the back of the skull and exiting the front.

At a briefing Tuesday, Dr. Peter Rhee said it now looks like she was probably shot in the front, with the bullet going out the back, although they can't say for certain.

He said that's based on consultations with two specialists who came to Tucson, Ariz.

Six people are still hospitalized after the shooting Saturday at a Tucson grocery store. The attack killed six and injured 14 others.

Giffords, a three-term Democrat, was gravely wounded. A federal judge was among those killed.

2010′s total lunar eclipse is tonight

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 15:57:00 +0000

'Twill be nights before Christmas and high overhead, the moon will turn brown or maybe deep red. The Earth and the sun with celestial scripts will conspire to make a lunar eclipse.

Weather permitting, sky gazers in North and Central America and a tiny sliver of South America will boast the best seats to this year's only total eclipse of the moon.

The eclipse will happen Monday night on the West Coast and during the wee hours Tuesday on the East Coast. Western Europe will only see the start of the spectacle while western Asia will catch the tail end.

The moon is normally illuminated by the sun. During a total lunar eclipse, the full moon passes through the shadow created by the Earth blocking the sun's light. Some indirect sunlight will still manage to pierce through and give the moon a ghostly color.

Since the eclipse coincides with winter solstice, the moon will appear high in the sky -- a boon for skywatchers. With recent volcanic eruptions around the globe dumping tons of dust into the atmosphere, scientists predict the moon may appear darker than usual during the eclipse, glowing an eerie red or brown instead of the usual orange-yellow tinge.

Stem cells reverse blindness caused by burns

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 21:30:00 +0000

Dozens of people who were blinded or otherwise suffered severe eye damage when they were splashed with caustic chemicals had their sight restored with transplants of their own stem cells -- a stunning success for the burgeoning cell-therapy field, Italian researchers reported Wednesday.

The treatment worked completely in 82 of 107 eyes and partially in 14 others, with benefits lasting up to a decade so far. One man whose eyes were severely damaged more than 60 years ago now has near-normal vision.

"This is a roaring success," said ophthalmologist Dr. Ivan Schwab of the University of California, Davis, who had no role in the study -- the longest and largest of its kind.

Stem cell transplants offer hope to the thousands of people worldwide every year who suffer chemical burns on their corneas from heavy-duty cleansers or other substances at work or at home.

The approach would not help people with damage to the optic nerve or macular degeneration, which involves the retina. Nor would it work in people who are completely blind in both eyes, because doctors need at least some healthy tissue that they can transplant.

Northwest at risk of earthquake like one in Chile

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:34:00 +0000

The disaster in Chile has brought new attention to an undersea fault along the Pacific Northwest capable of producing the same type of mega earthquake and inflicting heavy damage on bustling cities like Seattle, Portland and Vancouver.

The fault has been dormant for more than 300 years, but when it awakens -- tomorrow or decades from now -- the consequences could be devastating.

The last rupture unleashed the largest known quake to hit the Lower 48 -- a magnitude-9 that sent tsunami waves crashing into Japanese coastal villages.

Recent computer simulations of a hypothetical magnitude-9 quake found that shaking could last 2 to 5 minutes -- strong enough to potentially cause poorly constructed buildings from British Columbia to Northern California to collapse and severely damaging highways and bridges.

Such a quake would also send powerful waves rushing to shore in minutes. While big cities such as Portland and Seattle would be protected from severe flooding, low-lying seaside communities may not be as lucky.

The Pacific Northwest "has a long geological history of doing exactly what happened in Chile," said Brian Atwater, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and University of Washington. "It's not a matter of if but when the next one will happen."

Chile quake similar to 2004 Indian Ocean temblor

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 20:07:00 +0000

Scientists say the major earthquake that struck off the coast of Chile was a "megathrust" -- similar to the 2004 Indian Ocean temblor that spawned a catastrophic tsunami.

Megathrust earthquakes occur in subduction zones where plates of the Earth's crust grind and dive. Saturday's jolt occurred when the Nazca plate dove beneath the South American plate, releasing tremendous energy.

The U.S. Geological Survey says 13 temblors of magnitude-7 or larger have hit coastal Chile since 1973.

The latest quake occurred about 140 miles north of the largest earthquake ever recorded. The magnitude-9.5 struck southern Chile in 1960, killing some 1,600 people and generating a tsunami that killed another 200 people in Japan, Hawaii and the Philippines.