Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter working again
PASADENA, Calif., March 4 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency says its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is working once again after an unexpected computer reboot last week.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., sent commands Monday to power up the spacecraft's science instruments. The scientists said Tuesday monitoring confirmed all instruments were working properly.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter unexpectedly rebooted its computer Feb. 23 and put itself into a limited-activity "safe" mode.
"We have proceeded cautiously, checking the health and performance of the spacecraft at each step as we brought it back to full, normal operations," said JPL's Dan Johnston, mission manager for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The team found the reboot might have resulted from a cosmic-ray hit causing an erroneous voltage reading.
Since the event, the spacecraft systems have continued to perform as expected, Johnston said.
Post-stroke blood flow monitor developed
PHILADELPHIA, March 4 (UPI) -- U.S. medical scientists say they have successfully demonstrated a non-invasive optical device that monitors cerebral blood flow in stroke patients.
University of Pennsylvania researchers said brain blood flow changes in patients with acute stroke are a leading cause of disability and death. The ultimate goal of the research, the scientists said, is to improve the management of patients with stroke and other brain disorders by providing continuous bedside monitoring of brain blood flow and metabolism.
"Our preliminary study demonstrates blood flow changes can be reliably detected from stroke patients and also suggests blood flow responses vary significantly from patient to patient," lead author Turgut Durduran said.
Researchers said the technology is a non-invasive system that uses lasers, photon-counting detectors, radio-frequency electronics, data processors and a computer monitor to display user-friendly images of functional information.
"What we have demonstrated is a working prototype of a non-invasive brain probe that uses diffusing light to detect physiological changes such as blood flow, blood-oxygen saturation and hemoglobin concentration to inform clinicians about their treatments," Professor Arjun Yodh, who led the study, said.
The research that included Rick Van Berg, John Detre, Joel Greenberg and Scott Kasner is part of a $2.8 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health and the University of Pennsylvania's Comprehensive Neuroscience Center.
Device kills bacteria in packaged foods
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., March 4 (UPI) -- A U.S. scientist says he's developed an ozone device that eliminates bacteria in packaged foods such as spinach and tomatoes.
Purdue University Associate Professor Kevin Keener said his device consists of a set of high-voltage coils attached to a small transformer that generates a room-temperature plasma field in a package, ionizing the gases inside. Keener said the process kills harmful bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella.
"Conceptually, we can put any kind of packaged food we want in there," said Keener. "So far, it has worked on spinach and tomatoes but it could work on any type of produce or other food."
He said ozone kills bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella and the longer the gas in the package remains ionized, the more bacteria are killed. Eventually, the ionized gas will revert back to its original composition.
The technology is outlined in the early online edition of the journal LWT -- Food Science and Technology.
Human bird flu vaccine closer to reality
MELBOURNE, March 4 (UPI) -- Australian scientists say a bird flu vaccine is closer to reality thanks to their finding that boosting T-cell immunity can protect humans from the disease.
"The 'Killer T cell' is the hit-man of the immune system," said University of Melbourne Professor Stephen Turner, lead author of the research. "It is able to locate and destroy virus-infected cells in our body helping rid us of infection. Unfortunately, current influenza vaccines are poor at inducing killer T cell immunity. Therefore, we wanted to see if we could improve the current vaccine formulation to induce killer T cells after vaccination."
Turner said he and his team added a compound known to increase immunity to the flu vaccine in an animal model. The addition of that compound promoted significant generation of potent killer T cell immunity and provided protection from infection.
"The significance of these findings is that rather than having to design a new vaccine altogether, we can improve current flu vaccines by adding this potent immune modulator. With appropriate clinical testing, we could see improvements to current vaccines within the next five years."
The study is reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
