3-D Printer Makes Structures with Lunar-Like Material

A proof-of-concept 3-D printing job using lunarlike material shows that quick-and-dirty tools or spare parts could be manufactured on the moon. John Matson reports

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Imagine that you?re stationed at a lunar colony, some decades in the future, when your moon monkey wrench breaks. You have two choices: wait for a replacement tool in the next cargo shipment a month away, or just make one on the spot. The do-it-yourself option recently got a boost, when researchers demonstrated the feasibility of 3-D custom parts printing using raw materials available on the moon.

The team, which included researchers from NASA and Washington State University, worked with a 3-D printer that melts powdered feedstock with lasers and then layers the melted powder into solid structures. Real lunar regolith is too precious to melt down, so they fed the printer with imitation lunar soil?a close chemical match to the real thing.

In the demo, the researchers produced cylinders of various sizes and reported that the melted regolith was free of cracks. The research appears in the Rapid Prototyping Journal. [Vamsi Krishna Balla et al., First demonstration on direct laser fabrication of lunar regolith parts]

The printed parts are still a bit rough around the edges, though?they resemble rusty lengths of iron. One of the team members remarked that ?It doesn?t look fantastic, but you can make something out of it.?

?John Matson

[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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Fire in clothing factory in south China kills 14

BEIJING (AP) ? A fire in a clothing factory apparently caused by arson killed 14 people in southern China on Tuesday, officials and state media said.

The 14 were killed and one other person was seriously injured in the fire, which broke out at 3:30 p.m. in Shantou city in Guangdong province and was put out in half an hour, the provincial emergency department said on its microblog.

The Nanfang Daily said 84 firefighters battled the blaze.

The Southern Metropolis Daily said in an online report that the victims were all women aged 18-20.

It said the cause of the fire was arson, according to an initial police and fire investigation.

A photo accompanying its report showed a four-story building, lined with windows on each floor, its front completely blackened. The fire had not spread to an adjacent building.

Senior provincial officials set up a team to investigate the cause of the fire and step up safety measures to avoid similar fatal fires, Guangdong's emergency department said. The factory made underwear, it said.

Last month, a fire at a clothing factory in Bangladesh killed 112 people and highlighted dangerous workplace conditions. Workers who survived the fire said exit doors were locked.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fire-clothing-factory-south-china-kills-14-141531066--finance.html

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2012 Flash Fiction shortlist: Digital Eyes

Tiffany O?Callaghan, CultureLab editor

It has been an extraordinary year for science, with news of the Higgs boson, the arrival of the Curiosity rover on Mars?and recent changes to our understanding of our own origins, to name just a few major developments. In the pages of New Scientist we have explored these and many other fascinating stories - from the inner workings of memory to the very nature of reality.

From such a bumper crop of fascinating science, we asked our readers to explore further in the realm of fiction. And there was no shortage of inspired imaginings: nearly 130 readers submitted works to this year?s science-inspired flash fiction competition. Our judge, Wellcome Trust prize-winning author Alice LaPlante, certainly had her work cut out for her whittling it down to the shortlisted five.

Each day this week we will run one of the shortlisted stories, and you can look for the winning piece in our end-of-year issue - on news stands 22 December. Below is the first of the five.

What the judge had to say:

A sinister commentary on how we have submitted our personal lives as candidates for observation - frequently quite voluntarily and happily - by persons unknown.

Digital Eyes

By Tamara Rogers

I watch them walking in the street [pan right], arms around each other - his hand slipped into the waistband of her jeans. Subtle squeeze. In closer, alcohol glazes their eyes, shared spittle glistens their lips from previous happy engagement.

I flex my hands through the city infrastructure, knuckles cracking through intersects and power-stops, ease into her living room.

She steps through the threshold first, him behind. Giggling, swaying. Soft light sneaks through the house. Web cam [digital zoom, pixel enhancement] focuses pert breasts.

The other side of town [fibre optic cable path under their town hall], larger breasts jiggle on the dance floor. Speed fuels the dancers onwards, circling through the night round Gucci bags. Bearded men line the walls, eyeing their prey, rating their chances. Sober bartenders smile dryly, accepting notes and change, waiting for the long night to come to its inevitably messy end.

Outside a grainy image outlines a man recently de-blanketed, arms covering his head as young boots tenderise his stomach. A light flicks on above them; mother comes to the window, baby cries. She shouts at the group below before slamming the shutters closed.

Late night city traders click signals into the network, create a shoal of emails; one "Kind regards", two "Apologies for the delay" followed by a "Formal written warning". The man at the end of the email queue stands on the edge of the high rise block, looking down past his shoes to cars lining the street [switch to record mode, push feed to news-net]. He looks up, wind tugging his jacket - steps into nothing.

In the street a policeman looks away, winces at the wet crack on the pavement. He nods to his partner who radios for the ambulance crew [static crackles along spine]. They stand together, blue lights strobing their faces. Burning coffee, 65p from the cafe's vending machine, waits for them on their jam sandwich dashboard.

The machinations of another city night unfold on endless repeat.

They made me to watch for them. I call myself Peeping Tom; their very own voyeur.

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Researchers discover master regulator of skin development

Monday, December 3, 2012

The surface of your skin, called the epidermis, is a complex mixture of many different cell types ? each with a very specific job. The production, or differentiation, of such a sophisticated tissue requires an immense amount of coordination at the cellular level, and glitches in the process can have disastrous consequences. Now, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have identified a master regulator of this differentiation process.

"Disorders of epidermal differentiation, from skin cancer to eczema, will affect roughly one-half of Americans at some point in their lifetimes," said Paul Khavari, MD, PhD. "Understanding how this differentiation occurs has enormous implications, not just for the treatment of disease, but also for studies of tissue regeneration and even stem cell science." Khavari is the Carl J. Herzog Professor and chair of the Department of Dermatology.

Khavari and his colleagues have found that, like a traffic cop motioning cars to specific parking spaces in a large, busy lot, a newly identified molecule called TINCR is required to direct precursor cells down pathways toward particular developmental fates. It does so by binding to and stabilizing differentiation-specific genetic messages called messenger RNAs. Blocking TINCR activity, the researchers found, stopped the differentiation of all epidermal cells.

"This is an entirely unique mechanism, which sheds light on a previously invisible portion of the regulation of this process," said Khavari, who is also a member of the Stanford Cancer Institute and chief of the dermatology service at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. He is the senior author of the research, which will be published online Dec. 2 in Nature. Former Stanford postdoctoral scholar Markus Kretz, PhD, is the first author. Kretz is now an assistant professor of biology at the University of Regensburg in Germany.

Surprisingly, this coordinator extraordinaire is not a protein. (Proteins have traditionally been thought to be the primary movers and shakers in a cell, although that view is now changing somewhat.) Instead, it belongs to a relatively new, and increasingly influential, class of regulatory molecules called long, non-coding RNAs, or lncRNAs. These molecules are so named because they do not carry instructions to make proteins. They are also longer than other regulatory RNAs known as microRNAs.

But even among lncRNAs, TINCR, and its role in epidermal differentiation, is unique.

"This work revealed a new role for regulatory RNAs in gene activation ? by stabilizing select messenger RNA transcripts," said co-author Howard Chang, MD, PhD, professor of dermatology. "This finding highlights the ability of regulatory RNAs to fine-tune gene expression."

The researchers identified the molecule by looking for RNAs that are more highly expressed in differentiating epidermal cells called keratinocytes than in progenitor cells. They found that levels of TINCR (short for "terminal differentiation-induced non-coding RNA") expression were 150 times greater in the keratinocytes. But to figure out what TINCR was doing, they had to develop two new assays: one to help researchers identify interactions between RNA molecules, and another to suss out interactions between a regulatory RNA and its protein partners. Such techniques will become increasingly important as researchers continue to identify the critical regulatory roles played by RNA molecules.

"These long, non-coding RNAs don't have recognizable, classic motifs like proteins do," said Khavari. "And yet, we really need to know with what other molecules they may be physically interacting to truly understand their biological roles."

The first approach, which the researchers termed RIA-Seq, couples an RNA interaction assay with a deep-sequencing technique to identify RNA partners of TINCR. Using RIA-Seq, the researchers found that TINCR and its RNA partners ? many of which encode instructions for proteins essential to the differentiation process ? share a common, short sequence that mediates their binding.

"These conserved, complementary motifs may help TINCR pair up with and stabilize its partner messenger RNAs," said Khavari. "In this way, TINCR may serve as a scaffold for many mRNAs involved in epidermal differentiation."

The second approach used a grid, or microarray, of 9,400 human proteins to which the researchers exposed TINCR. One of the proteins, termed STAU1, bound strongly to TINCR. STAU1 had not previously been implicated in epidermal differentiation, but the researchers found that blocking its activity prevented differentiation in a manner similar to blocking TINCR.

"This effect is quite specific for epidermal tissue," said Khavari, "and it suggests that nature has evolved a simple mechanism to control the tissue-specific expression of a large number of genes. We'd like to understand more about this TINCR-STAU1 complex to get a better idea of how it acts at a biochemical level."

In addition to identifying a unique role for a new lncRNA in epidermal differentiation, Khavari and Chang said they are excited to have developed new tools to understand how these regulatory RNAs function in the cells. "This really helps substantially expand our tool kit that we can use to analyze how RNAs and proteins interact," said Khavari.

###

Stanford University Medical Center: http://med-www.stanford.edu/MedCenter/MedSchool

Thanks to Stanford University Medical Center for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Scientists Discover Children s Cells Living in Mothers Brains

The connection between mother and child is ever deeper than thought

By Robert Martone

A living connection Image: ock / ????????? ??????

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The link between a mother and child is profound, and new research suggests a physical connection even deeper than anyone thought. The profound psychological and physical bonds shared by the mother and her child begin during gestation when the mother is everything for the developing fetus, supplying warmth and sustenance, while her heartbeat provides a soothing constant rhythm.

The physical connection between mother and fetus is provided by the placenta, an organ, built of cells from both the mother and fetus, which serves as a conduit for the exchange of nutrients, gasses, and wastes. Cells may migrate through the placenta between the mother and the fetus, taking up residence in many organs of the body including the lung, thyroid muscle, liver, heart, kidney and skin. These may have a broad range of impacts, from tissue repair and cancer prevention to sparking immune disorders.

It is remarkable that it is so common for cells from one individual to integrate into the tissues of another distinct person. We are accustomed to thinking of ourselves as singular autonomous individuals, and these foreign cells seem to belie that notion, and suggest that most people carry remnants of other individuals. As remarkable as this may be, stunning results from a new study show that cells from other individuals are also found in the brain. In this study, male cells were found in the brains of women and had been living there, in some cases, for several decades. What impact they may have had is now only a guess, but this study revealed that these cells were less common in the brains of women who had Alzheimer?s disease, suggesting they may be related to the health of the brain.

We all consider our bodies to be our own unique being, so the notion that we may harbor cells from other people in our bodies seems strange. Even stranger is the thought that, although we certainly consider our actions and decisions as originating in the activity of our own individual brains, cells from other individuals are living and functioning in that complex structure. However, the mixing of cells from genetically distinct individuals is not at all uncommon. This condition is called chimerism after the fire-breathing Chimera from Greek mythology, a creature that was part serpent part lion and part goat. Naturally occurring chimeras are far less ominous though, and include such creatures as the slime mold and corals.

?Microchimerism is the persistent presence of a few genetically distinct cells in an organism. This was first noticed in humans many years ago when cells containing the male ?Y? chromosome were found circulating in the blood of women after pregnancy. Since these cells are genetically male, they could not have been the women?s own, but most likely came from their babies during gestation.

In this new study, scientists observed that microchimeric cells are not only found circulating in the blood, they are also embedded in the brain. They examined the brains of deceased women for the presence of cells containing the male ?Y? chromosome. They found such cells in more than 60 percent of the brains and in multiple brain regions. Since Alzheimer?s disease is more common in women who have had multiple pregnancies, they suspected that the number of fetal cells would be greater in women with AD compared to those who had no evidence for neurological disease. The results were precisely the opposite: there were fewer fetal-derived cells in women with Alzheimer?s. The reasons are unclear.

Microchimerism most commonly results from the exchange of cells across the placenta during pregnancy, however there is also evidence that cells may be transferred from mother to infant through nursing. In addition to exchange between mother and fetus, there may be exchange of cells between twins in utero, and there is also the possibility that cells from an older sibling residing in the mother may find their way back across the placenta to a younger sibling during the latter?s gestation. Women may have microchimeric cells both from their mother as well as from their own pregnancies, and there is even evidence for competition between cells from grandmother and infant within the mother.

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Friend: Girlfriend worried about Chiefs' Jovan Belcher

The day after Kansas City Chiefs' linebacker Jovan Belcher fatally shot his girlfriend and then killed himself, fans mourned a tragedy. NBC's Than Truong reports.

By Isolde Raftery, NBC News

A day after Jovan Belcher, a Kansas City Chiefs linebacker, fatally shot his girlfriend and then drove to a stadium parking lot where he committed suicide in front of two coaches and general manager, fans gathered at Arrowhead stadium for a game against the Carolina Panthers, where they cheered for their team but also mourned a tragedy.

Before the game, Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt told the Kansas City Star newspaper that it had been a rough 24 hours for the Chiefs family.

"We have so many guys on the team and on the coaching staff who are really hurting," Hunt said.

---

According to police reports, Belcher, 25, and his girlfriend Kasandra Perkins, 22, were arguing around 7 a.m. on Saturday. Also at their home was Belcher's mother, who was visiting to help care for their three-month-old daughter, Zoey Michelle.

Around 7:50 a.m., Belcher shot Perkins several times. She was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

Belcher drove 15 minutes to Arrowhead Stadium where he stood in the parking lot and thanked general manager Scott Pioli, head coach Romeo Crennel and linebackers coach Gary Gibbs, for what they had done for him, news reports said. Belcher had played three seasons for the Chiefs and had started in nearly every game.

Then he pulled the trigger.

Ed Zurga / AP

Kansas City Chiefs general manager Scott Pioli, left, and coach Romeo Crennel stand together before an NFL football game against the Carolina Panthers at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo. on Sunday, the day after witnessing linebacker Jovan Belcher kill himself.

Over the weekend, Perkins? friends and family described a fraught relationship.

"She knew something was off with him," Lynell Diggs, a friend of Perkins, told Newsday.

The night before the murder-suicide, Diggs and Perkins had been together at a Trey Songz concert. At a restaurant after the concert, Diggs said that Perkins talked about her concerns that her boyfriend wasn?t doing well, according to Newsday.

Angela Perkins, 32, Kasandra's cousin, told Newsday on Long Island that Belcher and Perkins hadn't been getting along for some time. She had visited around the time the baby was born, she said.

She said having a baby and Belcher's busy schedule strained their relationship, according to Newsday.

Perkins' Instagram profile suggested a different story. On Friday, fewer than 24 hours before she died, she posted photos of Belcher smiling and kissing their daughter.

Related: Chiefs will have a moment of silence for all domestic violence victims?

Outside Belcher?s mother?s home Saturday in West Babylon, N.Y., where he grew up and attended high school, friends and family gathered. Jerseys and Letterman jackets had been hung up along the outside of the house. Trophies and photographs lined the ground beneath.

They raised plastic cups to toast Belcher, described as quiet, thoughtful, a role model.

Belcher was a native of West Babylon, N.Y., on Long Island, where he had played football but wasn't recruited to play college ball,?according to the Boston Globe. Rather, he was a star wrestler who kept trim ? 6-foot-2 and under 200 pounds.?

In 2008, Belcher told the Globe: "I do like being the underdog because you can come up and surprise people."

At the University of Maine, Belcher became the team captain and was named national defensive player of the year.

"When he got to campus, he was a phenomenally impressive young man, in how he conducted himself in and around the young men in our program," Maine coach Jack Cosgrove told the Globe at the time. "We were fortunate nobody else recruited him."?

Cosgrove described Belcher's "infectious smile" and said he was a great role model who worked well with children ? the football player had been a child development and family relations major. ?

Related: Police: Kansas City Chiefs linebacker kills girlfriend, then himself

The Chiefs? Hunt told the Kansas City Star that he left the decision of whether to postpone Sunday?s game against the Panthers to head coach Crennel.

Hunt said the captains "unanimously believed the right thing to do was to play the game, and that?s how the decision was made."

The Chiefs also decided to have a moment of silence for victims of domestic violence at the game and to keep Belcher?s locker intact ? at least for now.

The Chiefs won Sunday?s game, 27 to 21.

MSNBC's Alex Witt talks with The Nation's Dave Zirin about the Kansas City Chiefs playing on Sunday, a day after linebacker Jovan Belcher killed his girlfriend and then himself.

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Serial killer found dead in Alaska jail cell, officials say

A man accused of murdering an Alaska woman and at least seven other people has taken his own life, according to police. KTUU's Rhonda McBride reports.

By NBC News staff and wire reports

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A confessed serial killer awaiting trial for the kidnapping death of an Anchorage teenager was found dead in his jail cell Sunday in an apparent suicide, law enforcement officials said.

Israel Keyes had admitted to abducting and killing 18-year-old Samantha Koenig, who disappeared in February from an espresso stand in Anchorage, officials said at a news conference Sunday.

Keyes also admitted to killing a Vermont couple, Bill and Lorraine Currier, in June 2011, and up to five more people whom he did not name, prosecutors said.

Keyes revealed his past crimes in dozens of hours of interviews conducted after he was arrested for Koenig's death, officials said.

"He did tell us that he had killed other people and that there were bodies of up to four other people in Washington state, as well as a body disposed of in New York state," Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Feldis said after the press conference.

There may be even more murder victims, Feldis said.

Keyes also admitted to two bank robberies, one of them committed in Texas after Koenig's murder, Feldis said.

FBI officials said they considered Keyes to be a serial killer, NBC station KTUU reported.

"We've developed information that he was responsible for multiple additional victims. To our knowledge there are no other victims here in Alaska. They're all in the Lower 48," FBI Special Agent Mary Rook told the station.

"We do know he traveled extensively and he didn't always stay where he landed. He would land in one airport, rent a car and drive hundreds of miles,? she added.

AP

Alaska barista Samantha Koenig, 18, was abducted after she closed up a coffee stand in Anchorage.

Father of abducted barista, 18, pleads for her return

The FBI told the station that it had spoken with its behavioral analysts in Quantico, Virginia, to get insight into Keyes? personality.

"He was very, very sensitive to his reputation," Anchorage Police Chief Mark Mew said, according to KTUU.? "As odd as that sounds, we had to keep things extremely quiet in order to keep him talking with us."

Details about the cause of Keyes' death were not released, but a spokeswoman for the Alaska State Troopers said he was alone in his cell and that foul play was not suspected.

Texas arrest in case of abducted 18-year-old Alaska barista

Sunday's news conference was the first public release of many details about a case that has transfixed Anchorage residents.

Koenig's disappearance from the coffee stand in February triggered a city-wide search and a reward fund. Keyes was arrested in Texas after using a debit card linked to Koenig.

Investigators found Koenig's body in early April in an iced-over lake north of Anchorage. Officials said Sunday that Keyes' initial confession led them to that location, and that he had admitted using a chainsaw to cut a hole in the ice to dump her body in the lake.

Body in icy lake is missing Alaska barista, police say

Koenig's body is the only one of Keyes' victims that has been found, officials said Sunday.

Although Keyes told investigators that he placed the Curriers' bodies in an abandoned Vermont house, that house was demolished and searchers were unable to find the victims' remains at the site, officials said.

Law enforcement officials described Keyes as methodical and a frequent traveler, able to conceal his actions and dispose of his victims' bodies without easy discovery.

Keyes, 34, was a self-employed carpenter and Army veteran who had been stationed at Fort Lewis in Washington state. He moved to Anchorage in 2007. He also had a house and property in Constable, New York.

He had been scheduled for trial in March on federal charges, and faced a possible death penalty.

The investigation into Keyes' crimes - some of which date back 14 years - will continue, a process that could take years, officials said.

"Mr. Keyes never showed no remorse for his actions," Feldis told KTUU.

Michelle Tasker, a spokeswoman for the Koenig family, told KTUU Sunday that news of Keyes' apparent suicide was not the outcome they wanted.

"We would've obviously liked for him to have gone in front of a jury of his peers and answer for what he's been accused of doing," said Tasker. "He did an injustice again to Samantha."

Reuters contributed to this report.

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