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Thursday, October 4, 2012

How 'Big Bang's' Howard flew to space

Howard Wolowitz is still in space.

The fictional aerospace engineer and Expedition 31 crew member was seen floating aboard the International Space Station (ISS) during last week's season premiere of the CBS hit television series " The Big Bang Theory." On this week's episode, airing Thursday night, Wolowitz is still off the planet, 250 miles (400 km) up.

Of course, he is not really on the space station. The real ISS Expedition 31 ended in July. Wolowitz, or rather actor Simon Helberg, was on a sound stage at the Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank, Calif.

His spacecraft surroundings never orbited the Earth, but they did play previous host to the Energizer Bunny for a Super Bowl commercial and were seen in the 2004 feature film, "The Day After Tomorrow."

But Helberg's, or rather Wolowitz's, crew did include a real life NASA astronaut, Mike Massimino, and, further blurring the lines between art and life, the fictional Expedition 31 crew patch that they wore on the show placed Wolowitz's and Massimino's names side-by-side. [ Photos: TV's "Big Bang Theory" Geek Chic ]

Behind the scenes, the job of delivering Wolowitz to the orbiting outpost didn't fall to a Russian rocket but rather to The Big Bang Theory's production designer John Shaffner, set decorator Ann Shea and their teams.

Scavenging for space parts
As it turns out, you can rent a space station.

Last May, when the show's fifth season finale called for Wolowitz to launch onboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, Shaffner went looking for one.

"The first thing that we always do in this business is ask, 'Well, can we rent it? Did somebody make one first?' And unfortunately, we discovered that there weren't any Soyuz replicas to be found," Shaffner told collectSpace.com in an interview.

For the Soyuz, Shaffner and Shea received photos from NASA, turned to a Kansas museum to find dimensions, and scavenged parts from an aerospace junkyard in Los Angeles to piece together a realistic capsule. But in the course of his seeking out the spacecraft, Shaffner found a space station.

"So when the call came this summer from the producers that we need the space station, I was able to immediately say 'Well guess what? No fear. Let me make sure we can put it on hold,' which I did immediately," Shaffner recalled.

From the outside, WonderWorks' space station set for rent looks more like an elongated shipping crate, but inside are the replica science and equipment racks, panels and hand holds that form the general layout and appearance of the real space station's laboratory module. Shea's challenge was making it look lived in, like the orbiting complex.

"I collected things that looked like what was in the actual space station," Shea told collectSpace.com. "I watched the video of the station probably 20 times, trying to pick out all these different things and there were so many surprises in the stuff you saw attached to the walls with Velcro so they wouldn't float around."

"There were camera lenses for some reason, there were toothbrushes, pens, family photographs and lots and lots of different cases of things," she said. "They even had this sort of Halliburton case, or it looked like a Halliburton case, that was a food warmer, somehow ? I can't imagine how that worked. So, I got one of those and we labeled it 'food warmer.'"

Wireless weightlessness
With only 20 feet or so (6 meters) of space station set to work with, Shaffner got together with the directors, visual effects supervisors and cinematographers to use unique camera angles and creative framing to create more 'space' than there really was.

They also added a section to the rented module to allow other actors ? the other station crew members ? to enter and exit, giving viewers a sense that a sprawling outpost continued beyond the lab.

"We really examined ways we could reimagine the spaces we added," Shaffner said.

Part of that was made possible by the way they achieved the appearance of weightlessness. Rather than raise the roof and suspend the actors by wires, the solution came from below.

"It was done by supporting the people from underneath," Shaffner revealed. "There was a very long, sort of skinny platform that a person could lie on and it would almost look like they were swimming through in weightlessness."

The actors also deserve some credit, said Shaffner, for mastering the motions of microgravity.

"They studied and really did a remarkable job with acting the weightlessness," he said.

Attention to accuracy
Having a real astronaut on the set offered a chance for some immediate feedback. Massimino reprises his role on the show for this and next week's episodes.

"His response was immediate and really positive," Shaffner said of Massimino's impression of the spacecraft. "He was so blown away by (the set). He said, 'Wow, you guys really did an amazing job! This really feels like it. This is really how big it is, it is not very big.'"

"He was very, very appreciative and I think in the end that made everyone involved feel extra good about it," said Shaffner. "We had all pulled together to make this real for him and he got a really big kick out of it."

Beyond wanting to please Massimino, the attention to accuracy was rooted in the show's long commitment to serving the storyline by being honest and truthful with its visuals.

"We are all very committed to making sure that we don't want ever the set or the visual environment to not make you believe the story, to take your interest and your mind out of what the characters are living through and start questioning authenticity," Shaffner said.

"So we work very hard on creating our authenticity, and it is a theatrical authenticity to some extent. But by really looking and researching and trying to make it honest and authentic, we believe it helps the storytelling," he said.

Continue reading at collectSpace.com for an exclusive look and the details behind the mission patch created for and worn by Howard Wolowitz and Mike Massimino on CBS's "The Big Bang Theory."

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49294154/ns/technology_and_science-space/

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Consumer Reports names best products of the year

Don't know which washing machine or television to buy? Mandy Walker of Consumer Reports shares the magazine's top picks for the best appliances, electronics, and food products of the year so you can shop with confidence.

By Ben Popken, TODAY contributor

The right product to buy? You know you need to do your research, but who has the time??

What most people don't realize, Mandy Walker, senior projects editor at Consumer Reports told NBC News by phone, is that you can "often get top quality products, from a brand name, at a good price." That's good news in this economic climate, where every penny counts more than ever.?

From their low-slung brown brick headquarters in Yonkers, N.Y., the testers, engineers, scientists, journalists and consumer advocates at Consumer Reports put a dizzying array of products through a battery of grueling tests, all year long. Now they've culled from all that data and published?their?475 Best Products of the Year?to give you a handy buyer's guide cheat sheet. These are the best of the best. From large to small appliances, from electronics to ?wine, whether you're gearing up for Turkey Day or getting a jump on holiday shopping, don't enter the shopping aisles without it.

To make it onto the list of best products at the best prices, a product really has to get high marks in the Consumer Reports testing facility.

To test washers, they put a piece of fabric through the washer multiple times and then count by hand the number of threads exposed in the worn-down area. Vacuums are hooked up to a mechanical guide and forced to suck up crumb after crumb and hair after hair. They have a special room for testing audio equipment, baffled so that it's completely soundproof and echo free. To make sure that no building vibration disturbed the tests, it sits on a completely separate foundation from the rest of the building. Everything is measured, tested, and the results are tallied and reported.

Another thing that most people don't realize is that to maintain its objectivity and independence, Consumer Reports doesn't test?samples provided by the manufacturers. They have an army of secret shoppers who buy the products on the open market and then ship them back to Yonkers for testing. That's to make sure?the manufacturers don't send them any "goosed" versions that would cheat the tests.

"We test products for consumers from rival manufacturers to make sure they're going to work well, work for a long time, and that they're safe," says Walker. "That's our mandate."

Here's the best of the best:

Best washer:?LG Washer WM3470HVA, $1100?

Best dryer:?LG Dryer DLEX3470V, $1200?

Best vacuum:??Kenmore Intuition 31100, $250 bagless upright

Best TV:??TV Samsung UN55ES8000,?$2500?

Best tablet:??iPad 3 16 GB 3rd Generation $500 OR??Google Nexus 7 16 GB $250

Best eReader:?Barnes and Noble Nook Simple touch $100?

Best SLR camera:??Nikon D3200 $700

Best camera:?Nikon Coolpix AW100 $300

Best GPS:??Garmin Nuvi 2455LT $160

Best Mac laptop:?Apple Mac Book Pro 15 inch $2200

Best PC laptop:??HP Pavillion M6-1045DX $700

Best streaming player:??Roku 2 Streaming Player $80

Best olive oil: 16 oz.?Trader Joe's California Estate Olive Oil

Best red wine:??Columbia Crest Grand Estates Cabernet Sauvignon $10?

Best white wine:??Bogle Chardonnay, $10?

Best coffeemaker:??Krups Grinder & Brewer KM7000, $130

Check out more of the 475+ Best Products of the Year over at Consumer Reports.

More money and business news:

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Source: http://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2012/10/02/14180416-consumer-reports-names-best-products-of-the-year?lite

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Rovio Flies Into Frankfurt To Unveil Its First Book App: Expect Lots Of Pigs, Maybe An Angry Bird Or Two

Angry Birds has become such a mobile institution, and its maker, Rovio, has gone so far in its extension of that brand -- toys, books, t-shirts, cereal, theme parks, films and more games?-- that this morning's invitation to a launch of Rovio's first ever book app came as something of a surprise. But it's true: despite all the work Rovio (and others that Rovio seems to tolerate happily) has put into spinning out its wildly successful mobile game about catapulting birds onto structures made by pigs, the company has never produced an official book app.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/7FAqkSOitb8/

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Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Marine animals could hold key to looking young: Sea cucumbers, sea urchins can change elasticity of collagen

ScienceDaily (Oct. 1, 2012) ? Sea cucumbers and sea urchins are able to change the elasticity of collagen within their bodies, and could hold the key to maintaining a youthful appearance, according to scientists at Queen Mary, University of London.

The researchers investigated the genes of marine creatures such as sea urchins and sea cucumbers, known as echinoderms. They found the genes for "messenger molecules" known as peptides, which are released by cells and tell other cells in their bodies what to do.

The study was published online in the journals PLOS ONE and General and Comparative Endocrinology.

Project leader Professor Maurice Elphick, from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, said: "Probably the most exciting discovery from our research was finding genes encoding peptides that cause rapid stiffening or softening of collagen in the body wall of sea cucumbers.

"Although sea urchins and sea cucumbers may not look much like us, we are actually quite closely related to them. As we get older, changes in collagen cause wrinkling of our skin, so if we can find out how peptides cause the body wall of a sea cucumber to quickly become stiff or soft then our research might lead to new ways to keeping skin looking young and healthy."

The scientists analysed the DNA sequences of thousands of genes in the purple sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus and the edible sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus and specifically searched for genes encoding peptide messenger molecules. Rapid advances in technology used to sequence genes made the research possible.

"When the human genome was sequenced over a decade ago it cost millions of pounds -- now all of the genes in an animal can be sequenced for just a few thousand pounds," Professor Elphick said.

"We also found that sea urchins have a peptide that is very similar to calcitonin, a hormone that regulates our bones to make sure that they remain strong," Professor Elphick said.

"So it will be fascinating to find out if calcitonin-type peptides have a similar sort of role in spiny-skinned creatures like sea urchins."

"These types of advances in basic science are fascinating in their own right but they are also important because they underpin the medical breakthroughs that lead to improvement in the quality of people's lives."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Queen Mary, University of London.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal References:

Maurice R. Elphick. The Protein Precursors of Peptides That Affect the Mechanics of Connective Tissue and/or Muscle in the Echinoderm Apostichopus japonicus. PLoS ONE, 2012; 7 (8): e44492 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0044492
Matthew L. Rowe, Maurice R. Elphick. The neuropeptide transcriptome of a model echinoderm, the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus. General and Comparative Endocrinology, 2012; DOI: 10.1016/j.ygcen.2012.09.009

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/7RV2DqvT-Vs/121001132150.htm

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Monday, October 1, 2012

Iran restores access to Gmail

FILE- In this Monday, Feb. 13, 2012 file photo, Iranian women use computers at an Internet cafe in central Tehran. Iran?s cyber monitors often tout their efforts to fight the West?s 'soft war' of influence through the web, but trying to ban Google?s popular Gmail may have gone too far with complaints coming even from email-starved parliament members. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? Iranian authorities have restored access to Gmail a week after blocking Google's popular email service.

The Islamic Republic blocked Gmail last week in response to video clips posted on YouTube of an anti-Islam film that set off deadly protests across the Muslim world. YouTube is owned by Google.

The ban sparked a slew of complaints from Internet users and officials in Iran.

On Monday, Mohammad Reza Aghamiri, a member of governmental Internet watchdog committee, told the semiofficial Mehr news agency that authorities have lifted the Gmail ban after resolving technical problems to separate YouTube and Gmail.

As of Monday, YouTube is still blocked, while Gmail is now available

Iran has an estimated 32 million Internet users out of a total population of around 75 million.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-10-01-Iran-Gmail/id-2453b614edbf4195bb45c131065f1caa

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Baboon personalities connected to social success and health benefits

ScienceDaily (Oct. 1, 2012) ? Whether human or baboon, it helps to have friends. For both species, studies have shown that robust social networks lead to better health and longer lives. Now, a team of University of Pennsylvania researchers has helped show that baboon personality plays a role in these outcomes, and, like people, some baboons' personalities are better suited to making and keeping friends than others.

The research was conducted by psychology professor Robert Seyfarth and biology professor Dorothy Cheney, both of Penn's School of Arts and Sciences. They collaborated with the Arizona State University's Joan Silk.

Their work was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Seyfarth and Cheney, along with their colleagues and students, have spent the last 17 years observing a group of baboons living in the Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana, studying the biological roots of their social dynamics. As with many other primates, baboon societies are strongly hierarchical. Females "inherit" their dominance ranks from their mothers and enjoy priority of access to food and mates. But high-ranking females do not always have greater reproductive success than low-ranking females. This suggests that, when it comes to evolutionary success, the inherited advantage of high rank can't explain everything.

"If you look at a baboon society," Seyfarth said, "and see the ranked, matrilineal families, you would think that whatever traits put an individual at the top of the hierarchy, that's what natural selection is going to favor. But that turns out not to be the case.

"In fact, dominance rank is not as good a predictor of reproductive outcomes as a close network of social relationships and stable relationships over time. So our question became 'What predicts having a strong network?'"

Baboon females actively work to maintain close social bonds, but, like humans, some baboons seemed to be better at it than others. With such traits closely tied to fitness and reproductive success, the Penn researchers wanted to get at the root of this variation.

During seven years of observations in the animals' natural habitat, the researchers measured individual female baboons on their sociability. They measured the number of grooming partners a baboon had, as well her tendency to be friendly or aggressive toward others. They also measured reproductive and fitness benefits they accrued: how long individuals and their offspring lived, as well as their stress levels, as determined by the presence of certain hormones in their droppings.

The researchers found that strength of an individual's social bonds was not fully predicted by seemingly obvious factors, such as the female's rank or the size of the family she was born into.

"Even when a female has a lot of relatives," Cheney said, "sometimes she's a loner, but some females who have no relatives do just fine. It suggests that you have to be both lucky and skilled to have these networks."

And, again like humans, these skills came down to individual personality traits. To determine a female's personality, the researchers paid close attention to grunting behavior. For baboons, grunting greases the social wheels. If a lower-ranking female grunts when approaching a higher-ranking female, the grunt acts as a kind of appeasement, reducing the chance of receiving aggression. Conversely, if a higher-ranking female grunts to a lower-ranking female, the grunt puts her at ease, increasing the chance of a friendly social interaction. And females of all ranks grunt when approaching a mother with an infant, because grunts increase the likelihood that the mother will allow the grunter to interact with her child.

Working bottom up from the trends they found in the baboon's behavior, the researchers grouped the baboons into three distinct personality profiles: "nice," "aloof" and "loner."

Nice females were friendly to all others and often grunted to lower-ranking females to signal reassurance. They formed strong and enduring social bonds with fairly consistent partner preferences over time.

Aloof females were more aggressive and less friendly, and they grunted primarily to higher-ranking females who had infants. They formed weaker bonds but had very consistent partner preferences.

Loner females were often alone and relatively unfriendly; they grunted primarily to appease higher-ranking females without infants. They formed weak bonds with changing partners.

Of the three, the loners had the highest stress levels, the weakest social bonds and the least stable social partners over time. Both of these measures were correlated with lower offspring survival and shorter lifespans. Both nice and aloof females showed the health and reproductive benefits associated with strong social bonds.

"This belies the idea that everything is competition and conflict," Cheney said.

While the mechanisms that make both "nice" and "aloof" effective strategies remains unclear, the study shows that cooperative personalities are adaptive.

"These results have allowed us to, for the first time in a wild primate, link personality characteristics, social skill and reproductive success," Seyfarth said. "By being a nice baboon, you increase the likelihood of having strong social bonds, which in turn translates to a better chance of passing on your genes."

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, Leakey Foundation and National Geographic Society.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Pennsylvania.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/NuFP-3DKu3s/121001151955.htm

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Yale College gains Corporate Health Gold Standard Award

Yale College has been awarded GOLD standard for Corporate Health by the Welsh Government.

The Corporate Health Standard is a quality mark for workplace health promotion in Wales recognising implementation of practices to promote the health and well-being of their employees.

?The Health Improvement Team of the Welsh Government feedback indicated they were very impressed by the supportive environment at the College and by the staff they met,? says Vanessa Davies, Director of Human Resources and Professional Development at Yale College.

The quality initiative is a progressive programme and Yale College will be re-assessed for consistency of their high quality every three years. The College will continue to work to ensure the health and well-being of all staff and are welcoming suggestions for on-going improvement to uphold their status. The work to achieve the standard is consistent with the business excellence model, which drives quality and organisational development in many organisations.

Quote from Yale College Corporate Health Assessors? Report 2012:
?The overall culture was open, transparent and supportive; welfare and wellbeing were firmly embedded in the strategy, the policies and the day-to-day working of the College, and there was a clear commitment from the Governors, the Principal, the Senior Management Team and all staff to health and wellbeing. It is important to note that it was obvious from the outset that senior managers and the governors consider the welfare of staff to be a strategic issue.?

Photos show: ? Bob Baines and Carol Tunnah both from Public Health Wales present award to Yale College Chair of Governors? Carol O?Toole.

Photo Left to right: Yale College Principal, Dhesi; Vanessa Davies, Director of HR, Bob Baines & Carol Tunnah of Public Health Wales; Carol O?Toole, Yale College Chair of Governors; Pam Rigby, College Youth Worker; Chaplain Janice Jones; Mark Parsons, Manager of Hospitality and Catering; Gill Smith, Lecturer in Sports, Science and Fitness; Anne Joynson-Evans, Assistant Director Health, Care & Public Services; Elane Roberts Community and Social Cohesion Co-ordinator; Paula Hancock-Wood, Director of Services; Imran Khan, Human Resources Advisor.

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Source: http://www.yale-wrexham.ac.uk//news/yale-college-gains-corporate-health-gold-standard-award/

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