The NASA Equation

NASA gives a lot more than it gets. After working at Johnson Space Center for 13 years, I saw first hand the great engineering and technological advances developed there and then sent out to the business section. It is part of the NASA charter.

In fact, a recent NASA Agency report explains, "NASA generated more than $64.3 billion in total economic output during fiscal year 2019, supported more than 312,000 jobs nationwide, and generated an estimated $7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes throughout the United States."  This was all gained from NASA's budget of 1/2 of 1% of the federal budget. Awesome return on investment.

NASA has 10 centers operating across the U.S. and its economic impact is not just limited to states with NASA facilities. All 50 states receive economic gain from NASA’s research and space exploration missions.

It is one of the high points of this wildfire burning, Midwest flooding, hurricane spawning, 2020 pandemic "new normal." So, let's look to the stars for some positive relief and hope that next year we have a science data and aerospace driven outlook with less worries, better health, and a trustworthy COVID-19 vaccine that works. 

Stay healthy and remember to vote. Go science!

Microbial Life Deep within Mines

Researchers have discovered micro-organisms in a 3 km deep copper/zinc mine (Kidd Creek Mine) in Ontario, Canada according to July 18, 2019 article in Geomicrobiology Journal. The find confirms previous thinking that ancient, sulfate-rich water in the region could support “deep microbial life.” 

Using a full complement of geochemical tests to compare the ancient fracture water with surface water made it possible for contamination between the sources to be eliminated.

This and other evidence suggests that a unique global biosphere thrives in the Earth’s crust with little or no surface interaction. The world’s oldest groundwaters (mean residence times of millions to billions of years) are located in fractures in Precambrian host rock at this depth.

Further genetic studies on deep well water microorganisms will shed light on all the diversity of previously unknown life deep within the Earth's crust. Go Science!

Meet George Jetson's - Flying Car

I have to admit, my favorite cartoon series on kid's TV is The Jetsons - family, space, advanced technology, flying car, lively robots, and a big goofy dog. What's not to love?

Its super interesting then that an new environmental sustainability study on the impacts of flying cars, (i.e., electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft or VTOLs), combine helicopter pluses like vertical takeoff/landing with the efficient aerodynamic flight of an airplane. In fact, flying cars might have a strong role in longer trips, according to work done at the University of Michigan. 

Apparently, a key efficiency component involves distributed electric propulsion (DEP), which uses small, electrically driven propulsors (i.e., propeller-like and makes it fly).

When researchers looked at energy use and greenhouse gas emissions during takeoff hover, climb, cruise, descent and landing hover, they found that VTOLS  use lots of energy during takeoff/climb but are fairly efficient when cruising at 150 mph. 


VTOLs can finish a 100 kilometers trip much faster than ground-based vehicles. Just as a point-to-point flight "as the crow flies" path is shorter, VTOL flights and higher speeds, offer an 80% time savings compared to ground-based vehicles.

Companies such as Airbus, Boeing, Joby Aviation and Lilium are currently  developing flying car prototypes. I can hear The Jetson's music in my head now... Go Science!

Curiosity and The First Day of School

Most of the time, people are resistant to change. We like the comfortable, "I have this down" feeling that comes with time and repeated experiences. 

I was thinking about this aversion to change while sitting in the slowed traffic that comes with the start back to school. I drive past 2 schools on my way to work, so I get to see eager students in their new clothes saying good-bye to caring, committed, and/or harried parents trying to get to work on time.

Well, okay maybe the older students are not so eager. But mostly, the young ones are excited to see friends they missed over the summer months. 

Why aren't they all equally excited?

I believe young children are still mostly information sponges. They ask why a million times a day (or so it seems). Change is their watchword, their motto, their way of life. It isn't until much later - after a few failures or someone older said an idea was impossible - that curiosity dims and change becomes something to be avoided. 

So the next time you talk with friends, parents, and colleagues, think about that. Curiosity is important! We need to nurture and celebrate it not just on the first day of school, but every day. Curiosity and asking why are the foundation of the scientific method. Go Science!

Nose - The Tip of the Smelling Story

Researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and Harvard have found that smell is based on more than the neuronal networks that receive various stimuli. Different from vision (that pays attention to edges, shading, brightness, and color), smell is affected by odor molecules and a lot of other intriguing unknowns. 

Odors, good or bad, enter the nose as the front door of the smelling (olfactory) mechanism. Some smells like your breath and sweat are identified as "self" and mostly ignored. (Unless you have been on the tennis court or football field for a heavy workout. Then the usual monitoring gets kicked up a notch and even YOU notice you stink.) 

Other smells set off different neural activity patterns across the brain. 

In mammals, the olfactory bulb has neuronal circuits that process information via receptors. It sends information to higher processing brain areas, including the cerebral cortex. There, smell messages are analyzed thoroughly and sent across the brain (i.e. chocolate=yum or skunk spray=yuck) before they return to the bulb in a feedback loop.

The latest research shows that signaling is linear and is further analyzed in the brain with respect to intensity, known characteristics, and past experience (i.e., banana or mountain lion). Go Science!

Nanoparticles and Near Infrared Vision

Last month an article was published in Cell describing how researchers had injected the retinas of mice with nanoparticles that attached to retinal photoreceptor cells and changed near-infrared light (IR) to green light the animals could see in the dark. Like a mouse version of night vision goggles without the goggles.

To see if the treated mice could actually see in the IR range (700 nanometers to 1 millimeter), they checked the pupils of the injected mice and noted that the test animals' eyes constricted when shown 900 nm light, while the controls (not treated) mice did not.  

Then, researchers gave the mice a choice of two boxes: one that was completely dark and one illuminated by near-infrared light. Control mice spent time in both boxes, but mice with nanoparticle treated retinas chose the dark box, suggesting that they could see the near-IR light and preferred the dark. 

This research has tons of applications. All of which are fascinating. I plan to keep an eye on developments in mammalian night vision. Who knows? Maybe someday everyone will have excellent night vision and no one will stub a toe in the dark. Go science!

Comet Watching for One and All

If you have a desire to look up into the night sky and watch comets go by like I do, you won't want to miss the 46P/Wirtanen comet on December 17, 2018 (when it makes its closest approach). This brilliant cosmic tourist may also be seen by the naked eye or with binoculars (this year) so everyone can try to spot it.

Check out the NASA video and description of the best hours/days and ways to view this wonderful astronomical occurrence. The next visit of the Wirtanen comet is projected to be much less impressive. So get out your coats, chairs and various gear now. Go science!

International Observe the Moon night

Okay, vacations and summer heat behind us, it's time to get back to science. In this case, space science that anyone, any age, can do - moon observations.

The October 20, 2018 event is the International Observe the Moon Night. This worldwide focus on lunar science and exploration, held since 2010 takes place in Sept. or Oct. annually.

It's a chance to learn about our most observed neighbor and later allow you to offer up lunar factoids at everything from kids' birthday to cocktail parties (well ones where all your space science friends attend). 

This year also marks the 50th year anniversary of Apollo 8 visiting the moon and creates a chance to talk about past, present, and future lunar and planetary science and exploration. Plus, we can celebrate all the scientists/engineers who participated and shared in this tremendous human achievement.

Want to join the fun? Check out NASA's 2018 Moon Maps of how the Moon will appear on International Observe the Moon Night from the northern and southern hemispheres. Go science!

Citizen Science Blogs

Time is flying this summer! I can hardly keep up with the latest science happenings, but if you are wanting to add more science to your summer. Check out this list of citizen science blogs compiled by Scientific American. 

Or you can watch a NASA YouTube video on how the general public can do publishable research. Learn scientific protocols and find important answers. You don't need a ton of special skills, just lots of curiosity! 

Enjoy your summer and let me know what types of projects you are working on. Go science!

FDA Stops Benzocaine in Products for Teething Pain

Like most people I know, I get lots of updates from various organizations, news agencies, etc. I also get daily and weekly science updates from different agencies and online sources. 

Today I received an update from the Food and Drug Administration that over-the-counter (OTC) teething products containing benzocaine are going to be taken off the market. The FDA news release builds on previous warnings about risks connected with benzocaine products for methemoglobinemia. This dangerous condition is the result of elevated levels of methemoglobin in the blood, which causes the amount of oxygen carried through the blood to be greatly reduced and lead to death. 

So spread the word! All those teething and throat pain products sold as gels, sprays, ointments, solutions and lozenges under the OTC brand names Anbesol, Baby Orajel, Cepacol, Chloraseptic, Hurricaine, Orabase, Orajel and Topex, as well as store brands and generics are out. Companies can voluntarily remove the products or they will be required by the FDA to stop producing them. 

To decrease gum pain from newly erupting teeth, parents are asked to go back to the basics of rubbing inflamed gums and offering cold teethers. Go science!

Just for Fun Science

Trivia and other knowledge-based activities have been around a long time. I enjoy testing myself with lots of different brain challenges. I am particularly addicted to word finds.  

So when I ran across the May 2018 crossword puzzle by The Scientist, I gave it a try. 

It covers a number of science topics including everything from a breed of dairy cow, biologically produced poison, and African blooms to Asa Gray's field, and #3 on the Periodic Table. 

It's just the thing for a Friday or to keep the brain thinking about science over the weekend. Do you have favorite science brain teasers? List them in the comments. Have a great weekend and go science!

NASA Spinoffs

Some folks wonder if space exploration is "worth it." (Not me or anyone I know, but some.) I believe it's because for decades, NASA was not great at advertising its amazing technologies. Not exactly a strength (or even of interest) to most scientists and engineers.

When I worked at Johnson Space Center, I became aware of NASA accomplishments (besides launching rockets and building an international space station) through the annual NASA Spinoffs book that employees received.

You can read the online 2018 edition or download a copy here. It's amazing all the science and technology we take for granted that originated within the NASA space program. If you want a comprehensive look at NASA spinoffs, check out the NASA Spinoff Database which contains abstracts of all Spinoff articles published since 1976.

Next time you hear someone asking the question of what has NASA done for me, direct them to these resources. Go science!

Get Your Science (and STEM) On!

I believe that scientists and engineers are very creative people. There is logic involved in the scientific method, but that creative spark or "aha!" moment often sets someone down a path of amazing discovery and innovation. 

So, to honor my creative/science self and have a ton of fun too, I created an Amazon Merch account for STEM t-shirts. Amazon lets you search by  key words. Some of mine are: science, Semper Sci, engineering, Latin, Carpe ipsum, physics, nature, inventor, and earth. 

I also created a science t-shirt Pinterest board. If you are looking to celebrate science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), as well as famous scientists, inventors, Earth Day, the Physics of Love, and more, check it out!

For March, I created a St. Patrick's Day t-shirt celebrating, Samuel O'Reilly, Irish Inventor who created the first electric tattoo machine. Who knew?!  In the future, I hope to highlight inventors from lots of different countries around the world. Go science!

Starman - Sparking the Exploration Imagination

What a fantastic and inventive way to highlight the launch of new space hardware! A red Tesla and a Starman going where no sports car has gone before! Epic! Whimsical! Totally fun! Way to go SpaceX!

When was the last time you got to use those adjectives when talking or writing about the U.S. Space program? A VERY long time I'll wager. 

I worked at Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX for 13 years at the beginning of the Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs. It was super interesting and we made history nearly every day, albeit incrementally. 

The senior scientists and engineers said it was not as exciting as the "good old days" of Gemini and Apollo when we knew very little about space and were exploring it with primitive and limited data processing capabilities. 

Now a forward thinking, early-adopter, inventor, billionaire has sparked our collective imagination with a visual we will never forget. The generations to come will have a positive benchmark in their push to the stars. Go science!

NASA Remembers

Today NASA remembers the 17 daring and courageous  astronauts who lost their lives during America's space program. Several NASA centers including Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama and Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida are holding observances for employees, family, and the public. 

Strangely, the loss of NASA personnel all happened days apart in the winter of different years (e.g., Apollo 1 fire - Jan. 27, 1967; Challenger explosion after liftoff - Jan. 28, 1986; and Columbia breakup upon reentry - Feb. 1, 2003). 

I was working at Johnson Space Center during the Challenger explosion and knew well several of the crew. Ron McNair's children went to the same preschool as mine and we chatted often when dropping off and picking up. Others, I worked with on mission planning. As everyone involved in the space program can agree, these deaths were personal losses. We shopped with, went to church with, commuted with, and served with these NASA heroes. I was still living in Clear Lake, TX when the ill-fated Columbia spacecraft and crew were lost. Grief revisited - for me and the nation.

Unfortunately, we often forget how dangerous space exploration is, but the rewards are multiplied a hundred fold or more via NASA science, medical, materials, and engineering spin offs. To me, these lost colleagues lived extraordinary lives and deserve our thankful remembrance. Go science!

Scallops' Eyes are Amazing

It's known that scallops have dozens, sometimes hundreds, of eyes. In fact, their retinal design provides an elegant example of nature's engineering. However, these structures are difficult to study in a lab due to drying and other physical deterioration. 

So, Lia Addadi at the Weizmann Institute of Science and her team, including Benjamin Palmer and Gavin Taylor  decided to try a cryo-scanning electron microscope and the rapid freezing of samples to keep delicate and important structures intact. 

With this method, they discovered that scallops' eyes each have a segmented mirror that grows individually. They are made of square, flat, guanine crystals (a millionth of a meter wide) that link together into a grid. 

Stacked groups of grids (20-30) have liquid filling the spaces between them. The crystals and separating spaces are 74 and 86 billionths of a meter thick which works well at reflecting blue-green light in the ocean environment.

The group also noticed that the mirror crystal segments are not inactive, but seem to grow inside the cells of the scallop’s eye, filling them up. Then, they join together to form a uniform mosaic layer. 

So now that we know how scallops' eyes develop, the next research question is whether they all provide images individually or combine information into a single complex image? I can't wait to find out. Go science!

Arctic and Science cafe anniversary

You often hear the expression "down under" when talking about Australia. So when the Summit Station and Arctic are in the news, is it "up over?" 

This mind-worm question has me in its grip this Friday afternoon after the incredibly fun and successful Science cafe 10th anniversary event held on Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2017 at the Historic Arkansas Museum.

If you were there, you were treated to several mind altering hands-on virtual reality demos from the UALR Emerging Analytics Lab. The VR applications that encompassed medicine to archaeology were amazing. Plus we had tons of food, Stone's Throw Brewery beer, Loblolly ice cream, cake, food, door prizes, and an interesting virtual reality Science cafe discussion with Carolina Cruz-Neira, director/developer of all things VR. 

If you have a Science cafe in your area, find it and attend the interesting events on a variety of subjects. I started our SC in March of 2007 and it has been super great meeting tons of scientists and local experts talking about topics that they are passionate about. Go science!

Epic Weather Affects Research too

As friends and family paddle out of Hurricane Harvey's wake and Floridians brace for Irma, researchers are making hard decisions about research facilities, costly instrumentation, samples and model systems in the path of oncoming destruction. 

This article by The Scientist gives a great overview of things to be considered as part of organized emergency preparedness for scientists in the face of approaching threats.

Some of these preparations include backing up data and moving critical specimens, organisms, and animals to distant facilities. It is crazy enough trying to get your family safe during violent weather, but having to secure your life's work adds another layer of complexity to the drill. We're thinking about you. Go Science! 

3D Printed Yeast - Brew a glass at a time

I have been interested in 3D printing and all it ramifications for several years. I've even written about it in the Manufacturing Engineering Handbook (see Chapter 15) and have attended national conferences that had me spellbound. 

Today, I came across a breakthrough that everyone can get behind - 3D printed yeast in a tiny lattice bioreactor that keep fermenting glucose forever! (At least they have been going for months and months with no slowing down.)

Dr. Alshakim Nelson and his lab group in the Chemistry dept. at the University of Washington have created ethanol from the 3D printed yeast-infused 1 cm structures and plan to try other substances like proteins or even drugs. 

The question to run on the heels of this discovery is, "Can yeast added to a hydrogel cube be put into fruit juice and it will convert the sugar in the drink to alcohol?" You could brew your own alcoholic beverages in a matter of hours or overnight! For lightweight drinkers like me, you could stop the process at just the alcohol level you want. Science win! And who says the basic sciences don't work for the common good? Go Science!

Plastic Ocean Pollution Alarming

If you are like me, your recycle barrel gets full 2x-3x faster than your garbage bin. We know it's important to recycle plastic and even have little rectangular symbols to help us decide what to recycle and where. 

However, plastic pollution in the oceans is another story. Up to 10 - 20 million tons of plastic litter finds its way into the oceans each year. 

Since the 1960s, scientists have been finding seabirds with stomachs full of plastic. Great floating plastic trash areas like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and Great Atlantic Garbage Patch extend from coast to coast. And tiny fragments called microplastics are insidious in the environment as well. Ranging in size from 100 nanometers to 5 millimeters, they are part of everything from personal-care products to industrial abrasives used for paint removal/cleaning. 

But there is more to the problem, the small size of colorful plastic particles trick many different types of birds, mammals, fish, and more to think they have found food. So they eat them and then other animals eat those - all the way up the food network. Plus, plastics are made of chemicals that break down in the bodies of these consumers. It is not clearly known how much harm this causes (different organisms are different), just that many breakdown chemicals found in plastics are known carcinogens.

So, what can we do in addition to recycling the heck out of our trash? Rethink single use plastics like coffee cup lids. Bring your own to your local barista. If we all shift away from plastics as much as possible. We will make a difference. Go science!