Tentative date set for Discovery launch
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Feb. 26 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency says it has set a tentative launch date for space shuttle Discovery's next mission to the International Space Station.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said liftoff is provisionally set for March 12 but an exact target launch date will be determined as work progresses with the shuttle's three gaseous hydrogen flow control valves.
NASA is attempting to identify what caused damage to a flow control valve on shuttle Endeavour during its November flight. The valves channel gaseous hydrogen between the main engines to the external tank.
Engineers are also analyzing the consequences of a valve piece breaking away and striking pressurization lines between the shuttle and its external fuel tank, the space agency said, noting hardware modifications might be made to the pressurization lines to add extra protection in the event debris is released.
Officials said if Discovery's tentative launch date holds, there will be no effect on the next two shuttle launches -- STS-125 to the Hubble Space Telescope and STS-127 to the International Space Station.
New metastasizing tumor test is created
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Feb. 26 (UPI) -- U.S. biomedical scientists say they have determined excessive dietary fat causes a 300 percent increase in metastasizing tumor cells in laboratory animals.
Purdue University researchers used an imaging technique to show how increased fat content causes tumor cells to undergo changes that are essential to metastasis. They then used another technique to count the number of cancer cells in the bloodstream of mice fed a high-fat diet and in animals fed a lean diet.
The scientists, led by Assistant Professor Ji-Xin Cheng, said their findings suggest the combined tools represent a possible new diagnostic technique to determine whether a patient's cancer is spreading.
"It is generally accepted that diet and obesity are accountable for 30 percent of preventable causes of cancer but nobody really knows why," Cheng said. "These findings demonstrate that an increase in lipids leads directly to a rise in cancer metastasis (and) open the possibility of an entirely new, relatively simple method for diagnosing whether cancer is metastasizing.
The research that included Thuc Le and Terry Huff appeared in the Jan. 30 issue of the journal BMC Cancer.
Global Seed Vault marks first anniversary
LONGYEARBYEN, Norway, Feb. 26 (UPI) -- Norway's Global Seed Vault, which protects humanity's existing food crops, celebrated its first anniversary by taking delivery of 4 tons of critical seeds.
The Thursday shipment -- consisting of nearly 90,000 samples of hundreds of crop species from Canada, Ireland, Switzerland, the United States, Syria, Mexico and Colombia -- was delivered to the repository near the village of Longyearbyen on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard.
During its first year the vault has amassed a collection of more than 400,000 unique seed samples -- some 200 million seeds, officials said.
"The vault was opened last year to ensure that one day all of humanity's existing food crop varieties would be safely protected from any threat to agricultural production, natural or man made," said Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which operates the vault in partnership with the Norwegian government and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center in Sweden. "It's amazing how far we have come toward accomplishing that goal."
New ALS gene mutation is discovered
BOSTON, Feb. 26 (UPI) -- A U.S.-led team of scientists says it has discovered a new gene mutation, ALS6, that might lead to new treatments for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a progressive, neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.
The researchers said their discovery provides important clues to the causes of inherited ALS, which accounts for 10 percent of all cases, and sporadic ALS, which accounts for the other 90 percent and occurs in individuals with no family history of the disease.
"This is a momentous discovery in furthering our understanding of ALS," said Lucie Bruijn, senior vice president of research and development at the ALS Association, which funded the study. "A new gene provides a new piece of the puzzle we can use to shed light on why ALS develops, and where to focus our efforts on creating new treatments and finding a cure."
The research was led by Drs. Tom Kwiatkowski at Massachusetts General Hospital and Robert Brown of the University of Massachusetts School of Medicine and included researchers Caroline Vance and Dr. Christopher Shaw of Kings College in London and a consortium of ALS researchers from around the world.
The study is reported in the Feb. 27 issue of the journal Science.
