NASA uses vertical treadmill to simulate zero-G jogging
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Astronauts driven up the wall NASA boffins have developed a curious new method of simulating the effects of exercise on astronauts in weightless conditions. They plan to conduct Earth-based trials on human test subjects suspended horizontally in mid-air while running on a vertical treadmill.â¦
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NEW YORK  - Treadmill training with assistance of robot-driven leg supports, a device called the Lokomat, helps build muscle mass in partially paralyzed stroke patients, German researchers report in the February issue of Stroke.
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By MIKE SCHNEIDER  CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA asked an astronaut aboard the international space station to exercise vigorously Friday, hoping the rapid movement would jostle a half-retracted solar wing that refuses to fold up properly.
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DALLAS, Texas - Taking a step into the new frontier, NASA Ames Research Center, under the direction of Simon &quot;Pete&quot; Worden, has launched an island in Second Life, an online 3-D virtual world created, shaped, and owned by its participants.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration confirmed Thursday that it built a special chip used in a disputed demonstration of quantum computing in February. NASA engineers used their experience with submicrometer dimensions and ultra-low temperatures to build a quantum processor for Canadian startup D-Wave Systems, said Alan Kleinsasser, principal investigator in the quantum chip program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. D-Wave claimed to demonstrate a prototype quantum computer during a news conference Feb. 13 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. But industry experts became skeptical when D-Wave revealed it had left the computer at its Vancouver office, then conducted the demonstration over a Web link. "You could characterize our announcement as being met with enthusiasm from industry and skepticism from academia," D-Wave CEO Ed Martin said in an interview Feb. 27. But he said the event served as proof of concept of the technology and that D-Wave's potential customers are businesses that don't care how the technology works as long as it can solve their complex models. He plans to start renting time on the machine to customers in 2008. "Businesses aren't too fascinated about the details of quantum mechanics, but academics have their own axes to grind. I can assure you that our VCs look at us a lot closer than the government looks at the academics who win research grants," Martin said. He described D-Wave's computer as a hybrid, running applications on a traditional, digital computer and using a single quantum processor as an accelerator or coprocessor. Martin said the back end is a rack-mounted PC with an off-the-shelf processor, but he wouldn't cite the specific brand. The crucial part is the quantum chip, which is a processor built from the superconducting materials aluminum and niobium, then chilled in a tank of liquid helium. It achieves supercomputing speeds because its basic data units -- called qubits -- can hold both the values 0 and 1 simultaneously, and instantly share those values among all the qubits. A standard digital processor assigns a specific value to each data bit, and handles them one at a time. D-Wave designed the quantum chip and then contracted with NASA to build it. The request was nothing new for engineers at the MDL (Microdevices Laboratory), a unit of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who were accustomed to building superconducting circuits for clients like Hypres, a company in Elmsford, New York, and for instruments used aboard spacecraft like the European Space Agency's Herschel mission. "There has been activity in MDL in quantum technology, including quantum computing, for around 10 years," Kleinsasser said. "Superconducting quantum computing technology requires devices and ultra-low [millikelvin] temperatures that are also required in much of our sensor work. A couple of years ago, D-Wave recognized that JPL is capable of producing the chips it wished to design. There is no [private] industry that can deliver such superconducting devices. So we worked out a collaboration that produced the chips that D-Wave is currently using." The computer that D-Wave used for the Feb. 13 demonstration had a chip capable of running at 16 qubits, Martin said. The company plans to scale its machine much larger in the next 18 months, reaching 32 qubits by the end of 2007, then 512 qubits and 1,024 qubits by the end of 2008. Still, D-Wave will surprise a lot of experts if it can reach its goals. Many analysts say quantum computing is feasible but that a working system is still a decade or more away. "Given the kind of upheaval a working quantum system would bring, especially to the financial system where cryptography would become vulnerable, it would be major technology breakthrough," said Martin Kariithi, an analyst with Technology Business Research. "I don't think a small company like D-Wave would pull it off; they are likely to get absorbed by a tech heavyweight like Intel or IBM as they get within five to eight years of a solution," he said. Â
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NASA's thermal-imaging sensor helps fight the flames.
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Johnson Space Center and SpaceRef.com report, âIf you look carefully at the large version of this image [of the International Space Station] you will see a 5th generation iPod attached to a Belkin external battery pack on the equipment rack directly in front of [astronaut] Thomas Reiter.â
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Tycho: You might have heard that NASA was trying to gin up an MMO. We just received a mail from a human being involved in the project, someone who wants to make sure they collect the best ideas from the best people. Naturally, she thought of the readership here. Her mail follows:I know how incredibly unpleasant this could end up being if we don'thave the right minds behind it, and would just like the chance to get itin front of as many potentially talented people as possible. Would youguys consider posting a sentence on this in the news section soon?"The purpose of this RFI is to solicit information from organizationswith proven immersive synthetic environments expertise who areinterested in potentially forming a MMO platform development partnershipwith NASA. We are currently targeting releasing a Request for Proposalin March 2008."Here's a couple of run-downs in English from people outside NASA:http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/01/nasa-seeks-inpu.htmlhttp://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/01/would-you-play.html#previouspostAnd the NASA sites:http://procurement.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eps/synopsis.cgi?acqid=128415http://ipp.gsfc.nasa.gov/mmo/submit.htmlNASA gets surprisingly tiny amounts of money (about $17B/yr) to go tofreakin' space and do a whole lot of discovering of varioushumanity-impacting things. And a lot of people just don't know theamount of awesomeness we do for that. We're working on many things totry and communicate to people better about what we do (that's part ofour forming mandates, actually), and this is one initiative.And I think it would be cool if it wasn't a big mess, or even just an"eh" thing. I'd like to see it be *good*.For the space program, guys?Oh, but darling: you had us at immersive synthetic environments.(CW)TB
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Look, Ma, no hands! The U.S. space agency's latest spacecraft can run an entire mission by itself. By Amit Asaravala.
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New software synchronizes Research In Motion devices with Mac OS X.
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If you&#39;re not one of  the seven people scheduled to ride on the space shuttle next  week, take heart: NASA has opened a launch simulator for the  rest of us.
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Blog: Intel researchers are using motion sensors to help people set goals for weight loss or track patients who are rehabilitating injuries.
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GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- A number of employers apparently are willing to let their workers walk. Steelcase Inc. says many companies have expressed interest in its newest product, which combines an office workstation with a treadmill so workers can burn calories while earning a paycheck.
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NASA scientists announced Monday the successful testing of the first nanotechnology-based electronic device to fly in space.  National Aeronautics and Space Administration researchers said the test showed the nanosensor could monitor trace gases inside a spaceship.
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Bones McCoy jobless before even born NASA is to carry out a contest between human and robotic surgeons in conditions of zero gravity this week. Competing fleshy and machine medics are even now carrying out a variety of procedures aboard C-9 military cargo aircraft soaring in parabolic arcs high above the Gulf of Mexico.â¦
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A treadmill stress test can predict heart attacks or other serious heart disease even in men without symptoms, US researchers report.
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To the Nike nation, the joggers in dogged pursuit of fitness or the finish line, the news will come as no surprise: The human body was built to run.