UPI NewsTrack Health and Science News

NASA tests new Ares I rocket motor

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency said it has completed first-round testing of a critical motor for the new Ares I rocket.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said the ullage motor tested last week is a small, solid rocket motor serving two roles during the launch of the Ares I rocket -- designed to launch astronauts into space by 2020.

"During first stage separation, which occurs 125.8 seconds into flight, the motor will fire for 4 seconds, producing the forward thrust needed to push the second, or upper, stage away from the first stage," NASA said. "This forward thrust also ensures the rocket's liquid fuel is properly pushed to the bottom of the upper stage fuel tank prior to ignition of the J-2X engine that powers the upper stage."

NASA said the word "ullage" comes from the French term "ouillage," used in winemaking to describe the space between wine and the top of a storage container. In this case, it refers to the space at the top of the first stage fuel tank and the need to push the fuel to the bottom of the tank.

The first Ares I test flight is scheduled for 2009.

Gastrointestinal bleeding test created

ROME, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- Italian medical scientists say they've developed a clinical scoring system to indicate when urgent treatment of upper gastrointestinal bleeding is indicated.

It's currently accepted that an urgent endoscopy for gastrointestinal bleeding patients should be performed within 24 hours from admission to a hospital. But it remains unclear whether the procedure should be performed within two hours or in a more delayed interval.

With the goal of refining timing for urgent endoscopy in gastrointestinal bleeding patients, a research team led by Professor Leonardo Tammaro at San Giovanni Addolorata Hospital in Rome developed a clinical scoring procedure to suggest when urgent endoscopy is necessary. When classifying 436 patients according to the scoring procedure, active bleeding or signs of recent hemorrhage was detected in 85 percent of the most severe patients and only in 5 percent or fewer patients suffering less severe bleeding.

The researchers said their findings show timing of urgent endoscopy following a gastrointestinal bleeding episode can differentiated according to a simple score that reflects the clinical conditions of the patients.

The research appeared in the Aug. 28 issue of the World Journal of Gastroenterology.

Study: Miami Fort not a fort, but a dam

CINCINNATI, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists have refuted a long-accepted historical theory: Miami Fort near Cincinnati was not really a fort but rather an ancient water works and dam.

University of Cincinnati researchers discovered the 2,000-year-old site is much larger than previously believed -- one dam was nearly 200 feet high -- and its berms stretch nearly 4 miles in length making it twice as large as any other American Indian earthworks in Ohio, and one of the largest in the nation.

"This site was originally described by William Henry Harrison as a great military fort. What we've discovered this summer is that it is not in any way, shape or form a military fort," said Assistant Professor Ken Tankersley who led the study.

And physical evidence says it was probably the women of the Shawnees who constructed the earthworks.

"It amazes me that when you think of some of the great engineering feats in prehistory, we've always had this male bias that guys must have been doing this," Tankersley added. "But the evidence we have at hand turns this around and suggests that it actually must have been the women who were doing this work."

Kidney disease gene variants found

BETHESDA, Md., Sept. 15 (UPI) -- U.S. medical scientists say they have discovered gene variants that account for kidney diseases among African-Americans.

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health and Johns Hopkins University said they have, for the first time, identified variations in a single gene that are strongly associated with kidney diseases disproportionately affecting blacks.

"These two breakthrough genomic studies on kidney disease illustrate the importance of collaborations between scientists at NIH and NIH-funded investigators at Johns Hopkins," said Dr. Elias Zerhouni, the institutes' director. "This type of government-academic collaboration moves translational research forward and provides the knowledge base for developing new therapies for these chronic health disorders."

Using a type of genome association that relies on differences in the frequency of gene variants between populations, the researchers identified several variations in the MYH9 gene as major contributors to excess risk of kidney disease among African-Americans. The NIH researchers shared their discovery with the Johns Hopkins scientists, who replicated the findings in participants from earlier studies of kidney disease.

The studies will appear in the October print issue of the journal Nature Genetics and are now available online at the journal's Web site.