UPI NewsTrack Health and Science News

Hubble spots possible asteroid collision

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 (UPI) -- NASA says its Hubble Space Telescope has observed a mysterious X-shaped debris pattern and trailing streamers of dust suggesting a collision of two asteroids.

Although astronomers have long thought the asteroid belt is being reduced through collisions, such a smashup has never been seen before.

Asteroid collisions are energetic, NASA astronomers said, with an average impact speed of more than 11,000 miles per hour -- five times faster than a rifle bullet. The comet-like object imaged by Hubble, called P/2010 A2, was first discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research sky survey Jan. 6. Space agency officials said new Hubble images taken Jan. 25 and 29 show a complex X-pattern of filamentary structures near the nucleus, which is estimated to be 460 feet in diameter.

"This is quite different from the smooth dust envelopes of normal comets," said principal investigator David Jewitt of the University of California-Los Angeles. "The filaments are made of dust and gravel, presumably recently thrown out of the nucleus. Some are swept back by radiation pressure from sunlight to create straight dust streaks. Embedded in the filaments are co-moving blobs of dust that likely originated from tiny unseen parent bodies."

At the time of the Hubble observations, the object was approximately 180 million miles from the sun and 90 million miles from Earth, NASA said.

The Lancet retracts autism/vaccine study

LONDON, Feb. 2 (UPI) -- The Lancet, a British medical journal, retracted a 1998 study that linked the childhood measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism.

The retraction follows an investigation by the General Medical Council, which oversees doctors in Britain, that found the study's lead author Dr. Andrew Wakefield acted unethically and dishonestly conducting the research, CNN reported.

"There was a biased selection of patients in The Lancet paper" and Wakefield's "conduct in this regard was dishonest and irresponsible," the council said.

The General Medical Council said Wakefield paid children for blood samples for his research at his son's birthday party. He also subjected some children in the study to various invasive medical procedures such as colonoscopies and magnetic resonance imaging scans.

The claims in the 1998 study that children were not randomly chosen and that investigations were approved by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false, The Lancet said. The study resulted in some parents refusing to vaccinate their children. Since the paper's publication in 1998, Wakefield's study has been criticized for being so flawed it should not be regarded as scientific. Subsequent studies have found no evidence that the vaccine had a link to either autism or gastrointestinal disorders. Wakefield had theorized that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine given to toddlers caused gastrointestinal problems and these problems led to autism.

NASA prepares for a space shuttle launch

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Feb. 2 (UPI) -- NASA says Kennedy Space Center crews in Florida pressurized space shuttle Endeavour's main propulsion system Tuesday and readied Launch Pad 39A.

The STS-130 astronauts were to fly to Kennedy late Tuesday in Shuttle Training Aircraft. NASA TV is to telecast their arrival live on the Web about 10:30 p.m. EST at www.nasa.gov/ntv.

Liftoff of Endeavour on its mission to the International Space Station is set for Sunday at 4:39 a.m. EST, with the launch countdown to begin at 2 a.m. Thursday.

STS-130 will be commanded by astronaut George Zamka, with Terry Virts serving as the pilot. NASA said the mission's specialists will be astronauts Nicholas Patrick, Robert Behnken, Stephen Robinson and Kathryn Hire. Virts will be making his first trip into space.

Endeavour and its crew will deliver a third connecting module to the space station -- the Italian-built Tranquility node -- and a seven-windowed cupola that will be used as a control room for robotics. The mission will feature three spacewalks.

Anesthetic blocks pain, not motor function

BOSTON, Feb. 2 (UPI) -- Children's Hospital Boston scientists say they've discovered a local anesthetic that provides long-lasting pain relief without affecting motor function.

The researchers, led by Dr. Daniel Kohane, said if the nerve-blocking anesthetic works as well on humans as it did laboratory rats, it could be useful in a variety of medical applications, "providing, for example, a local anesthetic for childbirth that would block pain without interfering with the mother's ability to push, or for musculoskeletal disorders in which it is important to maintain mobility."

The research is reported in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.