Spark Spot

The current hot news is that NASA has postponed the launch of  Endeavour space shuttle after engineers failed to fix a hydrogen leak during fueling.  Endeavour is to make a 16-day visit to the International Space Station to complete the assembly of the $1 billion Japanese Kibo research facility.

Today’s takeoff from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, was canceled at 1:55 a.m. local time because of the leak in a system that vents excess hydrogen as the shuttle’s external fuel tank is being filled with more than 500,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.

Engineers still don’t know the cause of the leak, which is no larger than a pinhole. “It’s very small, but it’s something we have to be concerned about,” Scolese said via video conference from Kennedy.  The spacecraft’s June 13 launch was postponed because of a leak in the same system, which carries the excess hydrogen gas away from the launch pad to an area where it can be safely burned off.

The shuttle can’t take off between June 22 and July 10, when the orbit of the space station would expose the spacecraft to too much sunlight and overheat the vessel’s systems. In March, the launch of the shuttle Discovery was postponed after technicians found a leaky valve in the same system. That mission, which went ahead March 15 to March 28, had already been delayed several times so engineers could test valves that help deliver hydrogen to the engines at the correct pressure.

NASA is scheduled to launch the Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite from Cape Canaveral at 5:12 p.m. local time tomorrow. That mission, which will survey the lunar surface and seek traces of water as part of a longer-term plan to return American astronauts to the moon, had already been delayed a day because of the postponement of the Endeavour launch.

NASA launched a new telescope to scout the earth sized planets. The telescope, named Kepler, rode into a starry night sky aboard an unmanned Delta rocket that blasted off at 10:49 p.m. EST from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.So far, although we’ve discovered more than 300 planets , we haven’t discovered any new earth.

Kepler, named for the 17th century astronomer Johannes Kepler, is designed to do just that.Once in position trailing Earth around the sun, Kepler will turn its gaze onto a patch of sky between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra that is filled with more than 4 million stars. Scientists plan to scrutinize Kepler’s observations of more than 100,000 targets in hopes of catching tiny blinks of light caused by passing planets.Finding Earth-sized planets is like trying to detect a very tiny flea.

The measurements will not only be difficult to make, they will be time-consuming.A planet the size of Earth that is about as far from its parent star as Earth is, will pass by Kepler’s view just once a year. Scientists say they’ll need to catch three transits to verify existence of an Earth-sized world.

NASA hopes to follow up the $591-million Kepler mission with a new generation of powerful telescopes capable of directly imaging Earth-sized planets and analyzing their atmospheres for gases indicative of life. So soon we will come to know about large number of planet in the size of the earth.

GPS utilizes satellite signals to track location. It will monitor and manage your entire fleet from a single computer. By Using Feet GPS Tracking system, you can monitor your cargo, assets, employees, etc. It will helps you if your products are misplaced, stolen, etc.

By Using GPS Tracking system, you can track down the stolen or misplaced products. Technology is getting newer everyday with a lot of new inventions especially in the area of security. GPS Fleet tracking technology in vehicles or any other objects is one of those important technology.

By attaching a GPS device in vehicles or any other objects , we can monitor the vehicles or any other objects from a remote place from anywhere across the globe.

GPS Fleet Tracking will allow their companies to monitor all their vehicles and other assets from a single computer. This will greatly reduce the operating costs for them and eliminating unnecessary cost and wasted time. There are a lot of benefits of using these fleet tracking systems with some different features. Most of these GPS systems are also equipped with alarm systems, cameras, audio (voice) recorders, telephones and added security devices.

These systems also helps their parent to track down where their teenage kids are driving. Parents really just want to make sure their kids are driving to some safest place. but I too feel uncomfortable being monitored while driving. But then again the safety comes first.

These systems also helps in rough terrain such as into the desert or forests it is too easy to lose your bearing and your directions when nightfall. A GPS Tracking System can literally save your life, they have saved many lives in recent years and authorities use them in such locations religiously.

GPS Fleet Tracking Systems are definitely great ways to monitor your business by tracking your vehicles or any other objects. There are so many GPS fleet tracking device are available according to our usage.

Canada’s largest children’s rehabilitation hospital have developed a new technique that uses infrared light brain imaging to decode preference with the goal of ultimately opening the world of choice to children who can’t speak or move.

Bloorview scientists demonstrate the ability to decode a person’s preference for one of two drinks with 80 per cent accuracy by measuring the intensity of near infrared light absorbed in brain tissue.
“This is the first system that decodes preference naturally from spontaneous thoughts,”
After teaching the computer to recognize the unique pattern of brain activity associated with preference for each subject, the researchers accurately predicted which drink the participants liked best 80 per cent of the time.

Most brain-computer interfaces designed to read thoughts require training.
Wearing a headband fitted with fibre-optics that emit light into the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, they were shown two drinks on a computer monitor, one after the other, and asked to make a mental decision about which they liked more. “When your brain is active, the oxygen in your blood increases and depending on the concentration, it absorbs more or less light.”