The UA's Lori Stiles has details:

Astronomers Plan Last Look at Asteroid Before OSIRIS-REx Launch

Every six years, asteroid 1999 RQ 36 nears the Earth - by cosmic standards - and researchers are launching a global observation campaign to learn as much as possible in preparation for the OSIRIS-REx, the first U.S.-led mission to bring back a sample of pristine asteroid material.

Astronomers working on the U.S.' first asteroid-sample return mission — the NASA mission named OSIRIS-REx — have begun a months-long observing campaign that is the last chance to study their target asteroid from Earth before the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft launches in 2016.

OSIRIS-REx is a quest to bring back to Earth a good-sized sample of an asteroid unaltered since solar system formation — a sample that very well could contain molecules that seeded life.

While the scientists involved in creating what is soon to be a real-life "sickbay" are not admitting that they got the idea from spending more time watching Star Trek then doing much of anything else, it's safe to assume that that's probably what did happen.

"British engineers have built a £1 million Star Trek-style 'sick bay' for the National Health Service, debuting at the Leicester Royal Infirmary's accident and emergency department.

'We are replacing doctors' eyes with state-of-the-art imaging systems, replacing the nose with breath analysis, and the 'feel of the pulse' with monitoring of blood flow using ultra sound technology and measurement of blood oxygen levels,' says professor Mark Sims, a University of Leicester space scientist.

'Ultimately in the longer term we would aim to work towards something like the 'tricorder' device seen in futuristic science series like Star Trek. What we are developing so far is more like a first attempt at the medical bed in the sci-fi series,' says Sims.

'It is hard to predict how this work will develop. But ten years from now it could be routine for diagnostic technology to be combined in this way."

Apparently, doctors are too busy counting their money to wash their hands and not get the people they're supposed be treating even sicker, but hey, maybe new language on some posters will help:

A new study has a message for doctors and nurses who fail to wash their hands: Don’t think about yourself. Think about your patients.

Getting health care professionals to comply with notices to wash their hands before and after dealing with patients has been something of a thorn in the side of many hospitals. Although this simple measure limits the spread of sickness — and could potentially reduce the nation’s hospital health care bill by billions of dollars — many doctors and nurses simply ignore it. Compliance rates for hand washing in American hospitals are only around 40 percent, and years of awareness programs urging doctors to wash up or use disinfectant gels have had little effect.

Part of the problem, according to a forthcoming study in the journal Psychological Science, are the actual signs posted in hospital washrooms urging health care workers to wash up. Changing the message from “Wash Your Hands to Protect Yourself” to “Wash Your Hands to Protect Your Patients,” the study found, could motivate some doctors and nurses to wash their hands more frequently.

The Range got a chance to mingle some of the UA College of Science’s upcoming talent at a reception at Etherton Gallery last night.

We hope to tell you more about the scientists—who are studying everything from how our memory works to the measurement of atoms—in the upcoming weeks, but we wanted to share a bit of news announced by College of Science Dean Joaquin Ruiz.

It appears the school will soon be opening a exhibition in the Rialto Building on Congress Street and Fifth Avenue. The space currently has a display of authentic replicas from King Tut’s tomb and has previously been home to Bodies: The Exhibition and artifacts from the Titanic.

Ruiz tells us he’s anticipating a long future in the Rialto Building. The first year will focus on the planetary sciences. Given all that the UA Lunar and Planetary Lab has done in outer space, there’s no shortage of material available, including those cool Mars photos that we keep posting here on The Range.

The downtown digs are not quite the science center that the UA tried to get off the ground as part of Rio Nuevo, but it’s a start—and another sign that downtown is, at long last, on the rebound.

Speaking of HiRISE, TW intern Allie Leach tracked down the above photo of the Bakhuysen Crater, located in Noachis Terra. The HiRISE Science Team tells us:

Large impact craters often have pits on their floors. Some of these (with raised rims) are later impacts, but some are thought to originate immediately after the crater forms when slurries of molten and broken rocks occupy the crater floor.

Bakhuysen Crater, located in Noachis Terra, is thought to be the largest crater that possesses (and has preserved) these pitted materials.

For more on HiRISE, click here.

Thanks to our friends over at University of Arizona's HiRISE, we have this unique glimpse from the Southern Polar region on Mars. Those cracks pictured below are channels located underneath layered deposits. Nicole Baugh from HiRISE tells us that "the regularity of these features may suggest something about the thickness of ground ice deep below the surface."

More from Baugh:

A series of regularly-spaced, branching channels is present near the top of this image of multiple exposures of the south polar layered deposits.

This image was taken towards the end of summer at the South Pole, so all of the seasonal carbon dioxide frost has disappeared from the surface via sublimation (transition from a solid to a gas). See the color subimage for a closer look at a few of the clusters, each about 300 meters (or 1/5 mile) long.

The sublimation of seasonal carbon dioxide in the Martian polar regions seems to erode connected channels on the underlying surface, as escaping carbon dioxide gas scours the surface beneath the carbon dioxide ice (see this image for some additional information). Such features are fairly common to the south polar region. However, the channel clusters here are unusually even in their spacing. The carbon dioxide gas-driven erosion will exploit pre-existing weakness in the underlying surface, so it's possible that these features are following joints or fractures that exist in the layered deposits...Certainly, the features we see at the surface are providing clues to what's going on underneath!

The UA Lunar and Planetary Lab's HiRISE camera got some major coverage last week on this here blog via our very own Jim Nintzel with the latest findings that there's strong evidence of flowing water on Mars. And, they say, where there is liquid water, there could be life. And where there's life, there's pen pals...on Mars! I. Can't. Wait.

Speaking of water, here's a shot, courtesy of the good folks at HiRISE, of a Slope of Gale Crater, which is covered in hot water deposits, which formed to cool the crater billions of years ago. Alfred McEwen tells us:

This image covers materials near Gale Crater just north of the planned Mars Science Laboratory landing site.

It is possible that hydrothermal deposits formed here in association with the creation and cooling of Gale Crater billions of years ago. This material could then have been transported into the landing ellipse by fluvial processes. Hydrothermal deposits may represent evidence for an ancient habitable environment on Mars.

• NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Our friends at the UA Lunar and Planetary Lab's HiRISE camera are in the headlines today:

"I'm going to hear from my colleagues: 'So, you've discovered water on Mars for the thousandth time?' " says planetary scientist Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona in Tucson. Actually, it's much better than that. Using the most powerful camera ever to orbit Mars, McEwen and his colleagues are reporting the strongest evidence yet for water on Mars that's flowing, not frozen—and the water is flowing today, not a millennium or an eon ago.

At a few spots, the meager warmth of martian summer seems able to coax enough liquid water out of the ground to darken the soil in streaks. The marks, which sometimes number in the hundreds, grow downhill hundreds of meters only to fade with the winter cold. And where there is liquid water, as they say, there could be life.

The newly recognized seasonal streaks are like nothing else on Mars, McEwen and his colleagues reported last March at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference—a finding that they also publish online today in Science. That's because nothing else—no other streaks or gullies—behaves as if flowing water is forming it today, they say. Seasonal streaks act as if elevated temperatures around the melting point of water ice unleash liquid water. By monitoring the same areas using the HiRISE camera aboard Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the team watched the shapes cycle with the seasons. Dark streaks a few meters wide grew from rocky outcrops down steep, equator-facing slopes beginning in the martian spring and continuing until the early fall. In the colder seasons, the streaks faded away.

The HiRISE site has lots of details.

Come on! Everybody's doing it. Did you know that Mars has many slope streaks? These streaks are thought to form when dust cascades down a slope, according to our buddies over at HiRISE. Pretty cool, huh?

HiRISE team member Anjani Polit explains:

In some cases it is possible to pinpoint what destabilized the slope and triggered the avalanche of dust, such as this slope streak which was triggered by a small impact event, or this slope streak, which appears to have been triggered by a dust devil.

Slope streaks generally begin at a point and widen downslope, but they are affected by the terrain and can be diverted, as shown here, where two slope streaks were diverted around a crater.

This observation shows a very unusual slope streak. Almost from its point of origination, the slope streak splits up into many fingers that appear to wind their way through the terrain, diverting around slight topographic highs. This unusual slope streak was first imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera in the year 2000.

With school looming just around the corner for lots of kids (ugh!) and parents (woo!), above is a semi-helpful diagram of how to properly wear a backpack (in case you were wondering) and below are some anal retentive tips on backpack safety from Dr. Colin Wilson's Health Talk:

1. A properly fitted pack should include;

* well padded shoulder straps — The shoulder straps should be at least 2 inches wide and should not fit too snugly around the arms, straining muscles and affecting nerves.
* a significant waist strap — a hip strap or waist belt can take as much as 50-70% of the weight off the shoulders and spine. The waist belt will equalize the strain on the bones, joints and muscles.
* compression straps to keep the pack tight together — on the side of the pack they help to keep a less full pack from shifting weight backwards and away from the body.
* sized to fit the torso of the person or child wearing it — The top of the backpack should not extend higher than the top of the shoulder and the bottom should not fall below the top of the hipbone.

2. Properly weighted pack should be;

* packed so heavy items are close to the body
* no more than 15% of body weight for teens & adults and 10% for children
* filled with lots of compartments to keep contents from moving around while walking

3. Properly worn a pack should;

* have heavy items close to the body helps keep the weight close to the body’s center of gravity
* be worn with BOTH shoulder straps — slinging a pack on one side causes strain and a lean to the child wearing the pack
* be put on with the pack on a table or desk — helps from straining the low back twisting to put on the pack

For more breaking news on backpack safety, read here.

Well, I've been afraid of changes, cause I built my life around you... This week's picture of Mars, courtesy of the UA Lunar and Planetary Lab's HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, highlights the Landslides in Valles Marineris.

Valles Marineris is the largest canyon in the Solar System: if superposed on a map of the United States, it would stretch all the way from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., possibly even up to New England! So this image is just a very small portion of the system.

This observation shows us gully-like landslides (called "mass wasting") on the interior layered deposits of Valles Marineris. These include alcoves and channels, which are also visible in PSP_004396_1675. However, that image quality was very poor due to a dust storm, so a re-image can give us fine-scale shapes and sizes.

This caption is based on the original science rationale.

Written by: HiRISE Science Team (6 July 2011)

The pic makes me long for a little Stevie Nicks:

For more information about the HiRISE, click here.