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Earthly cargo lofted to orbit on shuttle's final flight
NASA/MSFC/David Higginbotham
UPFRONT
Hubble heir may not fly TALK about getting kicked while you’re down. As NASA’s shuttle programme winds down without a replacement, some influential politicians are moving to slash the agency’s budget and kill off its next flagship astronomy mission. The infrared James Webb Space Telescope is designed to pick up where the Hubble Space Telescope leaves off when it reaches the end of its useful life in a few years. JWST could search for oxygen and other possible signs of life in exoplanet atmospheres and peer back at the universe’s first galaxies. But it is billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule. Last week, members of an appropriations committee in the House of Representatives proposed
cancelling JWST in a draft 2012 budget for the agency. The proposal would require approval by the entire House and Senate, as well as President Barack Obama, and it is already getting a chilly reception from some members of Congress. Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland called the suggested cancellation “a short-sighted and misguided move”, and the American Astronomical Society said JWST would “revolutionise our understanding of our place in the universe, just as Hubble has done”. Astronomy is not the only area that would be affected by the proposal, which would slash NASA’s budget by $1.6 billion per year. Other vulnerable projects include the development of new space flight technologies.
–Anybody order a telescope?–
Two new legs CHECK out the new pins. The world’s first double leg transplant was performed in Spain this week. On Sunday, Pedro Cavadas and around 50 of his colleagues at La Fe Hospital in Valencia surgically transplanted two donated legs to an as-yet-unidentified man who lost his own lower limbs in an accident. The 13-hour surgery will have involved carefully attaching blood vessels and dragging nerve vessels close together. “All nerves are joined under a microscope,” says Nadey Hakim, surgical director of the transplant unit at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust in London. “You pull them together and hope they
“Nerves are joined under a microscope. You pull them together and hope they grow in the right direction” grow in the right direction.” Hakim, who carried out the first double arm transplant over a decade ago, points out that leg transplants involve a much more 4 | NewScientist | 16 July 2011
complex procedure because the vessels and nerves are larger. Unlike arm transplants, leg transplants are not a good option for limb amputees, Hakim says. “You can’t function without your hands, but there are a lot of good prosthetic options for legs.” In this case, however, the man’s legs had been amputated high on the thigh, leaving too little tissue to attach a prosthetic limb, making a double leg transplant the only option. There was “no alternative”, reported Spain’s National Transplant Organization in a statement last year, when giving the surgery the go-ahead. Hakim expects that, while it will take at least a year for the man to feel sensations in his new legs, physiotherapy and the use of crutches should help him gain full function of both limbs. The man is currently recovering in hospital receiving intensive treatment to suppress his body’s immune response to prevent rejection of the legs. Although impossible to predict the eventual outcome, it is likely that doctors will be able to gauge the success of the surgery within a month.
Fishy genes PLENTY more fish in the sea? Maybe not for much longer. Overfishing is damaging the genetic diversity of fish to a greater degree than expected, leaving at-risk species vulnerable. It was thought that even badly overfished species would remain genetically diverse, since millions of individual fish remain even in the most depleted species. To test this assumption, Malin Pinsky of Stanford University in California gathered published data on
genetic diversity in 37 overfished species and compared it with diversity in 51 of their lightly fished relatives. To his surprise, he found that the overfished species carried, on average, about 18 per cent fewer genetic variants than their lightly fished relatives. That’s despite widespread overfishing being just a few decades old. “It looks like the [genetic] effects of overfishing are quite widespread,” Pinsky told a meeting of the Society for the Study of Evolution in Norman, Oklahoma, last month.
Final shuttle lofts Earthly cargo IT MAY be the shuttle’s last mission, but it is certainly not the most glamorous. On Sunday, shuttle Atlantis docked with the International Space Station, carrying utilitarian items including a new tank for a urine recycling system. The tank will hold toxic, concentrated waste brine left over from the space station’s water recycling system, which extracts drinkable water from urine and other waste. Unlike the tank it will replace,
which is returned to the ground for disposal, the new one can be emptied into larger holding tanks on docked cargo ships for disposal in orbit. The shuttle is also carrying an experiment that will test satellite refuelling technology for use by future robotic servicing missions. Atlantis, which launched on 8 July, will return to Earth for the last time on 21 July. For the next few years, NASA’s astronauts will have to hitch rides to orbit on Russian Soyuz craft.
UPFRONT
Hubble heir may not fly TALK about getting kicked while you’re down. As NASA’s shuttle programme winds down without a replacement, some influential politicians are moving to slash the agency’s budget and kill off its next flagship astronomy mission. The infrared James Webb Space Telescope is designed to pick up where the Hubble Space Telescope leaves off when it reaches the end of its useful life in a few years. JWST could search for oxygen and other possible signs of life in exoplanet atmospheres and peer back at the universe’s first galaxies. But it is billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule. Last week, members of an appropriations committee in the House of Representatives proposed
cancelling JWST in a draft 2012 budget for the agency. The proposal would require approval by the entire House and Senate, as well as President Barack Obama, and it is already getting a chilly reception from some members of Congress. Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland called the suggested cancellation “a short-sighted and misguided move”, and the American Astronomical Society said JWST would “revolutionise our understanding of our place in the universe, just as Hubble has done”. Astronomy is not the only area that would be affected by the proposal, which would slash NASA’s budget by $1.6 billion per year. Other vulnerable projects include the development of new space flight technologies.
–Anybody order a telescope?–
Two new legs CHECK out the new pins. The world’s first double leg transplant was performed in Spain this week. On Sunday, Pedro Cavadas and around 50 of his colleagues at La Fe Hospital in Valencia surgically transplanted two donated legs to an as-yet-unidentified man who lost his own lower limbs in an accident. The 13-hour surgery will have involved carefully attaching blood vessels and dragging nerve vessels close together. “All nerves are joined under a microscope,” says Nadey Hakim, surgical director of the transplant unit at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust in London. “You pull them together and hope they
“Nerves are joined under a microscope. You pull them together and hope they grow in the right direction” grow in the right direction.” Hakim, who carried out the first double arm transplant over a decade ago, points out that leg transplants involve a much more 4 | NewScientist | 16 July 2011
complex procedure because the vessels and nerves are larger. Unlike arm transplants, leg transplants are not a good option for limb amputees, Hakim says. “You can’t function without your hands, but there are a lot of good prosthetic options for legs.” In this case, however, the man’s legs had been amputated high on the thigh, leaving too little tissue to attach a prosthetic limb, making a double leg transplant the only option. There was “no alternative”, reported Spain’s National Transplant Organization in a statement last year, when giving the surgery the go-ahead. Hakim expects that, while it will take at least a year for the man to feel sensations in his new legs, physiotherapy and the use of crutches should help him gain full function of both limbs. The man is currently recovering in hospital receiving intensive treatment to suppress his body’s immune response to prevent rejection of the legs. Although impossible to predict the eventual outcome, it is likely that doctors will be able to gauge the success of the surgery within a month.
Fishy genes PLENTY more fish in the sea? Maybe not for much longer. Overfishing is damaging the genetic diversity of fish to a greater degree than expected, leaving at-risk species vulnerable. It was thought that even badly overfished species would remain genetically diverse, since millions of individual fish remain even in the most depleted species. To test this assumption, Malin Pinsky of Stanford University in California gathered published data on
genetic diversity in 37 overfished species and compared it with diversity in 51 of their lightly fished relatives. To his surprise, he found that the overfished species carried, on average, about 18 per cent fewer genetic variants than their lightly fished relatives. That’s despite widespread overfishing being just a few decades old. “It looks like the [genetic] effects of overfishing are quite widespread,” Pinsky told a meeting of the Society for the Study of Evolution in Norman, Oklahoma, last month.
Final shuttle lofts Earthly cargo IT MAY be the shuttle’s last mission, but it is certainly not the most glamorous. On Sunday, shuttle Atlantis docked with the International Space Station, carrying utilitarian items including a new tank for a urine recycling system. The tank will hold toxic, concentrated waste brine left over from the space station’s water recycling system, which extracts drinkable water from urine and other waste. Unlike the tank it will replace,
which is returned to the ground for disposal, the new one can be emptied into larger holding tanks on docked cargo ships for disposal in orbit. The shuttle is also carrying an experiment that will test satellite refuelling technology for use by future robotic servicing missions. Atlantis, which launched on 8 July, will return to Earth for the last time on 21 July. For the next few years, NASA’s astronauts will have to hitch rides to orbit on Russian Soyuz craft.