Florida
A Space Shuttle contingency has been declared in Mission Control, Houston, as a result of the loss of communication with the Space Shuttle Columbia at approximately 9 a.m. EST Saturday as it descended toward a landing at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla. It was scheduled to touchdown at 9:16 a.m. EST.
Communication and tracking of the shuttle was lost at 9 a.m. EST at an altitude of about 203,000 feet in the area above north central Texas. At the time communications were lost. The shuttle was traveling approximately 12,500 miles per hour (Mach 18). No communication and tracking information were received in Mission Control after that time.
Search and rescue teams in the Dallas-Fort Worth and in portions of East Texas have been alerted. Any debris that is located in the area that may be related to the Space Shuttle contingency should be avoided and may be hazardous as a result of toxic propellants used aboard the shuttle. The location of any possible debris should immediately be reported to local authorities.
Flight controllers in Mission Control have secured all information, notes and data pertinent to today's entry and landing by Space Shuttle Columbia and continue to methodically proceed through contingency plans.
News media covering the Space Shuttle should stay tuned to NASA Television, which is broadcast on AMC-2, transponder 9C, C-Band, located at 85 degrees West longitude. The frequency is 3880.0 MHz. Polarization is vertical and audio is monaural at 6.8 MHz. Reporters can also go to any NASA center newsroom to monitor the situation.
New information, including the times and locations of press briefings, will be posted to this page.
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A network of fully protected reserves should be established immediately in all major marine habitats of the coastal United States, according to a sweeping new report on the future of America's oceans. "The term 'marine reserve' refers to an area in which no extractive use of any biological or mineral resource is allowed," said Stephen R. Palumbi, a professor of biological sciences at Stanford University who authored the January report. "That means all commercial and recreational fishing, as well as oil and gas exploration, would be off limits."
Trimming the waistline may not be the only reason to cut calories after the New Year: Doing so also may protect the brain from aging. In the first study to look specifically at the effects of life-long calorie-restricted diets on brain cells, University of Florida researchers determined certain proteins linked to cell death that naturally increase with age were significantly reduced in the brains of rats whose calories were limited. More important, they found the levels of a beneficial protein known to provide potent protection against neuron death were twice as high in older rats whose calories were restricted by 40 percent.
People looking forward to eating raw oysters over the holidays will welcome news that scientists are making progress in the fight against a rare but deadly disease associated with the tasty bivalves. Two Florida researchers report curing mice of the disease by using a virus to attack its bacterial source - Vibrio vulnificus. The scientists say the research may lead to techniques to purify oysters after harvest but before they reach raw bars and seafood markets - and might one day result in a better cure for the disease in people. The work, reported in a November article in the journal Infection and Immunity, is part of a growing trend in research to use bacteria-attacking viruses, or "phages," to cure diseases caused by bacteria.
Gastroenterologists at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., report photodynamic therapy (PDT) appears to destroy the abnormal tissue of Barrett's esophagus as well as superficial esophageal cancer. Here's how PDT works. Patients are given an injection of a photosensitizing drug called porfimer sodium (Photofrin). Cells in the body absorb this drug. Normal cells get rid of it, but the drug tends to collect in premalignant and malignant cells. Two days after the injection of Photofrin, physicians insert and endoscope into the sedated patient's esophagus. An endoscope is a thin, flexible tube with a miniature camera on its tip. Physicians deliver a specific wavelength of red laser light through the endoscope to the targeted cells. The laser light destroys the Photofrin-containing cells. Normal esophageal cells grow back in their place.
The horse, a classic model of grace and speed on land, is now an unlikely source of inspiration for more efficient flight. So says a group of University of Florida engineers who have recreated part of a unique bone in the horse's leg with an eye toward lighter, stronger materials for planes and spacecraft.
The third metacarpus bone in the horse's leg supports much of the force conveyed as the animal moves. One side of the cucumber-sized bone has a pea-sized hole where blood vessels enter the bone. Holes naturally weaken structures, causing them to break more easily than solid structures when pressure is applied. Yet while the third metacarpus does fracture, particularly in racehorses, it doesn't break near the hole - not even when the bone is subjected to laboratory stress tests. UF engineering researchers think they've figured out why - and they've built and are testing a plate that mimics the bone's uncanny strength in a form potentially useful for airplanes and spacecraft.
It's a cruel irony that strikes many victims of spinal cord injury: In those who suffer only partial paralysis, limbs that should remain healthy become stiff and useless because of chronic spasticity, a painful condition that causes muscles to contract involuntarily. But Florida researchers charting the development of spasticity in rats with spinal cord injuries were surprised to find the process briefly reverses itself. This discovery raises the possibility that physicians could someday find a way to spare patients its debilitating effects by intervening at a critical time.
The longer patients on dialysis wait for a kidney transplant once they develop end-stage renal disease, the worse they fare, researchers have confirmed. The findings reinforce the benefit of transplantation over dialysis for these patients and highlight the importance of placing them on the transplant list as early in the course of their disease as possible, researchers say.
Scientists have discovered superconductivity in a most unlikely place: the highly radioactive element used to make nuclear weapons. In an article set to appear Thursday in the journal Nature, a group of researchers, including a University of Florida physicist, report discovering a plutonium-based electrical superconductor. The finding is significant because plutonium, the active ingredient in atomic bombs, has physical properties that should prevent it from behaving as a superconductor - suggesting current theories about this phenomenon may not apply to this element.
Heads will roll as a U.S. Department of Agriculture plan to control imported fire ants is put into practice this month in Florida. The plan introduces tiny South American phorid flies to the United States to control the pesky ants, whose spread has been unaffected by poisons and other measures. Phorid flies use the decapitated heads of imported fire ants to reproduce. "This is the only way we're ever going to see a reduction in the number of fire ants in North America," said one official associated with the plan.
Researchers report the first premature babies to receive an experimental artificial amniotic fluid appear to tolerate the solution, which was given orally in hopes it will help the infants' digestive system develop properly so they can eventually handle regular feedings. Very-low-birthweight babies, some born nearly four months before their due dates often weighing less than two pounds, are almost universally unable to digest human milk or formula. In their first days or weeks they are fed intravenously, which typically causes their intestines to degenerate from disuse-making feeding even more difficult when they later graduate to breast or bottle.
Researchers from the Mayo Clinic say that wearing ionized bracelets for the treatment of muscle and joint pain is no more effective than wearing placebo bracelets. Authors of the published study randomly assigned 305 participants to wear an ionized bracelet for 28 days and another 305 participants to wear a placebo bracelet for the same duration. The study volunteers were men and women 18 and older who had self-reported musculoskeletal pain at the beginning of the study. Neither the researchers nor the participants knew which volunteers wore an ionized bracelet and which wore a placebo bracelet. Bracelets were worn according to the manufacturer's recommendations. Both types of bracelets were identical and were supplied by the manufacturer, QT, Inc.
A national study is underway to research the use of mild, controlled hypothermia to limit heart damage during a heart attack. A heart attack is caused when a heart artery is suddenly blocked, restricting the blood flow to the heart muscle and causing it to die. The ICE-IT study will induce hypothermia-a process that lowers body temperature-on individuals having a first heart attack. As the body temperature decreases, so does the metabolism rate, reducing the amount of blood the heart muscle needs to survive. The cooling process begins by inserting a catheter into a large vein in a patient's leg and directing it through the vein to just below the heart. The catheter tip contains a device that rapidly cools the blood to around 92 degrees, which is then circulated throughout the body. Another catheter is inserted to open the blocked artery using a stent, balloon or an angiojet. The lowered temperature is maintained for about six hours. Anti-shivering medications are given to patients during the cooling process to disguise the sensation of coldness and to help them remain calm. Afterwards, the patient's body is warmed for 30 minutes.
Perfectionism puts adolescent girls with unhealthy eating habits at risk for becoming anorexic and the body imperfections that go along with it as they grow older, a new study finds. The study also found that girls who showed some bulimic tendencies, such as binge eating and occasional purging, were more likely to develop a full-blown version of the disorder if they reported symptoms of depression.
As tobacco companies campaign to promote smokeless tobacco as a safer alternative to cigarettes, many smokers who take up snuff in an effort to quit instead end up using both products, according to a Florida researcher. Further, nonsmokers who use snuff are more likely than those who don't to eventually begin smoking.
