Moon Base in 2024

Earlier this month NASA announced plans to construct a base at one of the moon's poles. The poles are in near constant sunlight, which will allow for solar power generation at the base.

Construction will begin in 2020 with 4-person crews making 7-day visits to the moon until a functional base is completed in 2024. After that the base would be continually manned with rotating crews similar to how the International Space Station operates.

Before that, NASA will develop a new spaceship, the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV). The CEV will be shaped like the Apollo capsules but 3 times larger. It should be ready by 2010 and will replace the current space shuttle fleet. When the CEV returns to earth it will deploy three parachutes and set down on dry land.

Next, NASA will develop a lunar lander. The lander and the CEV will be put into Earth's orbit separately. They will attach in space before making the 3 day trip to the moon. In the moon's orbit the Lander and the CEV will detach with the lander going to the moon's surface.

More at   NASA: The Vision for Space Exploration

Moose

Last May, papers on Rhodnius Prolixus by Dr Gary Chiang, Rita Tory (Redeemer 2006) and Matt Klingenberg (Redeemer 2006) were presented at the Canadian Society of Zoologists meeting at the University of Alberta, Edmonton. While in Alberta, Gary took this photo of a Moose.

Moose, the largest member of the deer family, are referred to as elk in Europe and Asia, where they inhabit the forests of northern Asia and Europe from Siberia in the east to Norway in the west, the Baltic region, and northern China. In North America moose are found in wooded areas of Canada and the northern United States.

Bull moose have the enormous antlers that can exceed 1.5 m (60 in) in width and 22.7 kg (50 lb) in weight. New antlers begin to grow in early April and are shed after the mating season in late September. The antlers are covered with a soft, nutrient-rich skin called velvet, which when it is shed is often eaten by the bull.

Copy Cat Kittens

Copy Cat, the world's first cloned cat, has had a litter of three kittens. The kittens were born in September and appear healthy. However, Copy Cat is not the first cloned cat to give birth. In New Orleans, two cloned wild African cats successfully mated to produce kittens.

Roslin Institute in Edinburgh cloned the first mammal, Dolly the sheep, in 1997. It died prematurely from progressive lung disease at the age of six.

Copy Cat was cloned in 2001 at Texas A&M University, which has also cloned cattle, swine, goats, horses and a deer.

The vast majority of cloning attempts fail. Copy Cat was the only live birth of the 2 pregnancies from 87 cloned cat embryos transferred into surrogate females. Also, cloning cannot be relied upon to create an identical copy of an animal. Because fur patterning is determined in the womb rather than by genes, Copy Cat does not look like her genetic mother.

Ebola Killed 5000 Gorillas

A report in today's Science magazine extrapolates that the Ebola virus has killed more than 5000 gorillas in West Africa. Ebola could be a more important factor in the decline of great apes (by almost 50%) across central Africa in the last two decades than the bushmeat trade or deforestation. The basis of the report was a study of a group of western gorillas in the Lossi Sanctuary in northwest Republic of Congo.

There are two species of gorilla: the western and eastern gorillas. Nearly all gorillas found in zoos are western gorillas. Mountain gorillas studied by Dian Fossy and featured in 'Gorillas in the Mist' are a sub-species of the eastern gorilla.

Ebola haemorrhagic fever is one of the most virulent viruses ever seen, killing 50-90% of victims. The World Health Organization says that it killed 1200 people infected between its discovery in 1976 and 2004.

The story is on Science Magazine's most recent podcast (mp3 - 42 minutes) that also includes stories on 'Cratering and Water Flows on Mars' and 'Entrepreneurship in a Science Career'

Honey Bee Bomb Squad

The Stealthy Insect Sensor Project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory has trained honeybees to sniff out explosives ranging from dynamite and C-4 to the Howitzer propellant grains used in improvised explosive devices in Iraq.

Pavlovian training techniques were used to teach the bees to stick out their proboscis when they smell bombs. The scientists hope the bees can be used to detect explosives in airports and at roadside security checks.