UPI NewsTrack Health and Science News

Atlantis docks with the Hubble telescope

HOUSTON, May 13 (UPI) -- U.S. space shuttle Atlantis docked with the Hubble Space Telescope Wednesday about 350 statute miles above the Australian coast.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said contact between the space telescope and the shuttle's robotic arm occurred at 1:14 p.m. EDT. The telescope was latched to a high-tech, "lazy Susan" device known as the Flight Support System for the duration of the servicing work.

The STS-125 shuttle crew will perform five spacewalks to refurbish the Hubble Space Telescope, making it 100 times more powerful than it was when it went into orbit in April 1990 and enabling it to continue operating until at least 2014.

. The first spacewalk is scheduled Thursday.

The space agency said its engineers were still examining the images captured during Tuesday's post-launch inspection of Atlantis' thermal protection system and exterior surfaces. Officials noted one area of damage on the forward part of the spacecraft where the wing blends into the fuselage. However, NASA said initial views of the damage suggest it is very minor and no concern for the mission.

Herschel, Planck ready for Thursday launch

KOUROU, French Guiana, May 13 (UPI) -- The European Space Agency says the Ariane 5 rocket that will carry the Herschel and Planck satellites into space has been declared ready for launch.

The Arianespace declaration followed a Saturday launch readiness review and a final close-out review conducted Tuesday.

Liftoff is scheduled for 9:12 a.m. EDT Thursday from the French spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Herschel Science Center at the California Institute of Technology and U.S. and European Planck scientists will work together to analyze the satellites' data.

NASA said Herschel's telescope mirror -- about 11.5 feet in diameter -- is the largest ever launched into space. The mirror will collect longer-wavelength light in the infrared and sub-millimeter range -- light never before investigated by an astronomy mission.

Planck will look back in time to 400,000 years after the universe began 14 billion years ago in the big bang. The mission will spend at least 15 months making the most precise measurements yet of light at microwave wavelengths.

The ESA said it will provide live Web streaming of the launch of the space observatories at: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/herschelplanck/SEM9V3ZVNUF_0.html.

New hypertension genes are identified

BALTIMORE, May 13 (UPI) -- A U.S.-led team of scientists says it has identified genes associated with blood pressure and hypertension, possibly leading to new hypertension therapy.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and collaborators focused on common genetic changes associated with blood pressure and hypertension.

"Strikingly, none of the genes we identified as having common variation are part of the system we know about that regulates blood pressure -- the genes identified are not the ones targeted by current prescription drugs to control hypertension," said Aravinda Chakravarti, director of the university's Center for Complex Disease Genomics. "If we can increase the number of genes implicated in blood pressure maintenance from the current 12 to the expected 50 in the next year, our understanding of the biology will change completely."

He said the study supports the idea that changes in many genes contribute to high blood pressure and hypertension, which are difficult to study since hypertension "is a trait, not a disease per se unless left untreated, and many things contribute to it."

The research is reported in the online early edition of the journal Nature Genetics.

Optometrists create custom contact lenses

HOUSTON, May 13 (UPI) -- Researchers at the University of Houston's College of Optometry say they have created custom-made contact lenses for people with highly aberrated vision.

While the majority of patients with common vision problems can find glasses or contact lenses fairly easily, the researchers said others who suffer from eye diseases that affect the focus of light have more limited options and might have to learn to live with poor vision.

"The lenses we make are made for (the specific patient)," Assistant Professor Jason Marsack said. "It's like putting a fingerprint in the optics … it would not work for another individual with the same disease. It's a custom fit, a designer lens."

Marsack's team is supported by a National Eye Institute grant of $1.25 million, which researchers said will help translate the results the team has realized in laboratory trials into products that will be available for widespread clinical use.

Marsack said the new lenses not only incorporate sphere and cylinder, which are commonly corrected in glasses and contact lenses, they also correct an entire other family of aberrations, which are induced by disease, trauma or surgical interventions.

Professor Raymond Applegate said the team ultimately would like to see custom lenses become the standard of care.