New Scientist takes a look at the work of UA trauma doc Peter Rhee and his colleagues, who is exploring a new technique of saving lives by putting people in a form of suspended animation.

Rhee, who was one of the trauma docs on duty during the 2011 shooting rampage at Gabby Giffords' Congress on Your Corner, has been testing the concept since 2000:

The technique was first demonstrated in pigs in 2000 by Rhee and his colleagues. The animals were sedated and a massive haemorrhage induced, to mimic the effect of multiple gunshot wounds. Their blood was drained and replaced by either a cold potassium or saline solution, rapidly cooling the body to around 10 °C. After the injuries were treated, the animals were gradually warmed up as the solution was replaced with blood.
Vital signs

The pig's heart usually started beating again by itself, although some pigs needed a jump-start. There was no effect on physical or cognitive function.

"After we did those experiments, the definition of 'dead' changed," says Rhee. "Every day at work I declare people dead. They have no signs of life, no heartbeat, no brain activity. I sign a piece of paper knowing in my heart that they are not actually dead. I could, right then and there, suspend them. But I have to put them in a body bag. It's frustrating to know there's a solution."

New Scientist reports that the process will be tested in Pittsburgh:

Neil deGrasse Tyson is wealthy when it comes to knowledge, and I'm sure he's rolling in that Cosmos money. But he's not below bending over and picking up a quarter. Who isn't?

Here's three minutes of Tyson explaining how wealthy Bill Gates actually is. Considering it's Throwback Thursday, I thought I'd share this excerpt that has resurfaced the Internet's attention three years later. It's always #tbt at Reddit.

• Tanner Clinch
• A fourth grader from Manzo Elementary School shows off her artwork to visitors at the exhibit.

Back in November, Tucson Weekly ran a story by Robert Alcaraz about the fourth graders from Manzo Elementary School who have undertaken research to help Biosphere 2's researchers and their massive ecology experiment, the Landscape Evolution Observatory. This past Saturday, April 26, Manzo was back again at Biosphere 2, this time to present artwork created by the students from their nine-month long partnership with Biosphere 2 and the University of Arizona's School of Geography and Development. Tanner Clinch was there to cover the event.

A group of bustling fourth graders depart from a bus, bumping into one another, clinging to get the first look at a new art exhibit, which features their artwork.

Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Ariz., hosted the Landscape Evolution: An Art Show on Saturday, April 26, 2014, that showcased artwork by fourth graders from Manzo Elementary School in Barrio Hollywood, a neighborhood west of Tucson. The exhibit featured work by the students who have spent the last nine months working on a seed experiment in conjunction with researchers at Biosphere 2 and the University of Arizona.

Originally designed to replicate the atmosphere and ecology of earth, Biosphere 2 now stands as a research facility to better understand how plants and the environment in different controlled experiments. Last year, Manzo Elementary School approached Biosphere 2 and the University of Arizona School of Geography and Development to work together on a project that would help promote hands-on science and math education in the classroom.

The event on Saturday, held at the Biosphere 2’s B2 gallery, featured art created by the students, which displays how climate change works. Many of the parents of students were there, showing their support and learning how the teachers of their kids have come up with this idea of teaching through research in a presentation, which took place next to the exhibit in the Sahara Room.

(more after the jump)

The gnomes behind the Self-Driving Google Project released a video updating the Google car's new tricks. In Mountain View, Calif., Google cars drive better than you.

We’ve improved our software so it can detect hundreds of distinct objects simultaneously—pedestrians, buses, a stop sign held up by a crossing guard, or a cyclist making gestures that indicate a possible turn. A self-driving vehicle can pay attention to all of these things in a way that a human physically can’t—and it never gets tired or distracted.

Bottom line: God made it.

Except for fossils and gay people, of course.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock/Denis Tabler.

I encourage you look up tonight. The NASA space station will be visible briefly tonight and every night until next Wednesday, April 9. I have taken the liberty and posted the Tucson sky schedule, or click here to find out where you can spot the pie in the sky in your neck of the woods.

Here are the times and coordinates:

Fri Apr 4, 5:00 AM 4 min 39° 32 above W 11 above SSE
Fri Apr 4, 7:59 PM 4 min 61° 11 above SSW 40 above ENE
Sat Apr 5, 4:14 AM < 1 min 13° 13 above SE 11 above SE
Sat Apr 5, 7:11 PM 5 min 28° 11 above S 11 above ENE
Sat Apr 5, 8:49 PM 1 min 20° 19 above WNW 20 above NNW
Sun Apr 6, 7:58 PM 6 min 36° 10 above WSW 11 above NNE
Mon Apr 7, 7:08 PM 6 min 74° 10 above SW 11 above NE
Tue Apr 8, 7:59 PM 2 min 14° 14 above NW 10 above N
Wed Apr 9, 7:10 PM 2 min 23° 23 above NNW 11 above NNE

Makers and big thinkers have been around forever. Finally, local collaborative groups like Start Up Tucson, Xerocraft and CoLab Workspace are bringing local liked minded individuals to create stuff. Last Saturday's pre-Make-A-Thon event is a perfect example of the exceptionally prolific talented folks among us. The event was "aimed at fostering creative development in the local hacker and crafter communities." Some created a sleep cycle alarm clock, chicken-wire satellite dish and the world's first Tweet-a-Cola machine.

One of the main goals of the weekend was to provide a space where groups and individuals with varying skill sets could work on an idea in a team setting that enables them to combine their different areas of expertise. The teams had many tools at their disposal, including laser cutting, wood cutting, and 3-dimensional printing provided by both Xerocraft and Maker House.

Click here to see all the inventions and vote on your favorite project. The winners will be announced at the Makeathon on Saturday, March 1, at Maker House, 283 N Stone Ave.

• Image courtesy of shutterstock.com

The tsunami and meltdown at Japan's Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant happened way back in March, 2011, going on three years now. Old news, right? Meltdowns happen.

Actually, not such old news. Another 100 tons of radioactive water leaked last Wednesday, just one of an ongoing series of mini-disasters occurring regularly at the damaged nuclear plant which is currently being held together by duct tape, baling wire and chewing gum — or techniques similarly temporary and unreliable.

It's not the first spill, there have been many, but this water is more contaminated than usual.

[T]he water was about 3.8 million times as contaminated with strontium 90 as the maximum allowed under Japan’s safety standards for drinking water. It also showed levels much more radioactive than a worrisome groundwater reading that Tepco announced earlier this month. That reading — five million becquerels of strontium 90 per liter — which was detected at a location closer to the ocean than the latest spill, prompted criticism of Tepco because the company waited five months to report it publicly.

The reason for the spills is that groundwater keeps seeping into the reactor buildings, and the only choices available to Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) are to let it run into the Pacific or store it in huge above-ground water tanks.

So far, Tepco said, about 340,000 tons of water have accumulated in the tanks, enough to fill more than 135 Olympic-size swimming pools. A ton of water is equivalent to about 240 gallons.

• NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

One of The Range's favorite spacecrafts is the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which carries the UA's HiRISE camera high above the surface of Mars. One of HiRISE's latest photos of an impact crater is getting a lot of attention this month. Here's Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait at Slate:

Bang! That is one of the newest craters on Mars: It’s about 30 meters (100 feet) across, and formed by the explosive impact of an asteroid no more than four years ago. We know that because it wasn’t there in an image of Mars taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft in July 2010, but it was in one taken in May 2012.

Plait goes on to explain how a recent experiment here in the Arizona desert gives us some idea of how big the meteorite was: