The First
In 1957, a Soviet dog named Laika became the first living creature to orbit the Earth. Originally a stray, Laika was selected over two other trainees. Though she died a few hours after launch, her trip proved that a living passenger could survive being launched into orbit and endure weightlessness.

Space Dogs
Handlers at the Soviet Academy of Sciences show off some of the dogs in their space program. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Russians launched missions that included passenger slots for at least 57 dogs. The number of animals that actually reached space is smaller, as several dogs went more than once.

Little Guy
A squirrel monkey, his body swathed in protective silicon rubber padding, is strapped into a capsule as part of a training exercise for spaceflight. A comrade of his known as Gordo was similarly secured for a 1958 fifteen-minute flight that ascended to a height of 310 miles. Though it is believed that Gordo survived the entirety of his flight, the parachute on his craft failed to open and he and his capsule were lost at sea.

Able and Baker
The first two monkeys to survive their trip into space are presented at a NASA press conference in 1959. Able, on the left, a seven-pound rhesus monkey, and Baker, an 11-ounce squirrel monkey from Peru, withstood forces 38 times the normal pull of gravity and endured weightlessness for about 9 minutes during their historic flight. Able died four days after returning to earth during a relatively simple surgery to remove an infected electrode. Baker lived until 1984.

Chimp in Training
In early 1961, just a few months before Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin launched into orbit, NASA was using chimps to help iron out the kinks in its Mercury program. Approximately 20 of them were trained at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico on equipment simulating space flight, like the rocket sled, above.

Timed Task
The chimps in the Holloman training program were taught how to do simple tasks in response to electric lights and sounds. Jim, the chimp whose efforts are photographed here, has made a mistake: the experiment calls for him to hit the odd shape, in this case, the circle in the middle.

Capsule Position
The chimps in the Holloman program were prepared for launch in a Mercury capsule, similar to the one above.

In Space
Two chimps from the Holloman program were successfully launched into orbit. A chimp named Ham, whose journey lasted 16 minutes and 59 seconds, took off in January 1961. His comrade, Enos, blasted off ten months later, above, for a journey that circled the Earth two times.

Safe Return
After his brief journey into orbit, Ham splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean and he and his capsule were recovered by a rescue ship. He only suffered a bruised nose during his flight.

Manned Space Flight
Once Ham and Enos had completed their journeys, NASA felt ready to send a human into orbit. On February 20, 1962, John Glenn became the first American to circle the Earth.

Their study, to appear on Aug. 15 in The Journal of Infectious Diseases, does not prove that the microflora, Helicobacter pylori, actually help protect children from asthma. It may be that asthmatics do not host the bacteria for other reasons.

Still, the recent study, conducted by researchers at New York University School of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in New York, found that children who carried H. pylori were 40 percent less likely to have asthma before age 5. And children ages 3 to 13 who had the bacteria were 60 percent less likely to report that they had asthma at the time of the study. The study relied on interviews with individuals and their families to determine whether the children had asthma.

Antibiotics kill helpful bacteria as well as harmful ones, and previous research has linked antibiotic use in children with higher risk for asthma.

“H. pylori is disappearing, and this is a fact that probably cannot be changed,” said Dr. Yu Chen, the lead author of the study. “But it’s important to realize that bacteria that have been living with us for millions of years may actually have some beneficial qualities.”

ScienceDaily (July 30, 2008) — A collaboration between chemists and biologists has made it possible to identify the effects of a new class of molecules, polyoxometalates (1), primarily composed of metals and oxygen. These molecules are very powerful inhibitors of a specific protein kinase, CK2, an enzyme that is overactive in a number of cancers. The enzyme's instrumental role in controlling cell proliferation and survival makes it an important target in the search for new medications.

This provides the astronomers with a new way to estimate the distance of this object and obtain invaluable information on the operating mode of stellar vampires, dense stars that suck material from a companion.

Although novae were first thought to be new stars appearing in the sky, hence their Latin name, they are now understood as signaling the brightening of a small, dense star. Novae occur in double star systems comprising a white dwarf - the end product of a solar-like star - and, generally, a low-mass normal star - a red dwarf. The two stars are so close together that the red dwarf cannot hold itself together and loses mass to its companion. Occasionally, the shell of matter that has fallen onto the ingesting star becomes unstable, leading to a thermonuclear explosion which makes the system brighter.

Nova Scorpii 2007a (or V1280 Scorpii), was discovered by Japanese amateur astronomers on 4 February 2007 towards the constellation Scorpius ("the Scorpion"). For a few days, it became brighter and brighter, reaching its maximum on 17 February, to become one of the brightest novae of the last 35 years. At that time, it was easily visible with the unaided eye.

Eleven days after reaching its maximum, astronomers witnessed the formation of dust around the object. Dust was present for more than 200 days, as the nova only slowly emerged from the smoke between October and November 2007. During these 200 days, the erupting source was screened out efficiently, becoming more than 10,000 times dimmer in the visual.

An unprecedented high spatial resolution monitoring of the dust formation event was carried out with the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), extending over more than 5 months following the discovery. The astronomers first used the AMBER near-infrared instrument, then, as the nova continued to produce dust at a high rate, they moved to using the MIDI mid-infrared instrument, that is more sensitive to the radiation of the hot dust. Similarly, as the nova became fainter, the astronomers switched from the 1.8-m Auxiliary Telescopes to their larger brethren, the 8.2-m Unit Telescopes. With the interferometry mode, the resolution obtained is equivalent to using a telescope with a size between 35 and 71 metres (the distance between the 2 telescopes used).

The first observations, secured 23 days after the discovery, showed that the source was very compact, less than 1 thousandth of an arcsecond (1 milli-arcsecond or mas), which is a size comparable to viewing one grain of sand from about 100 kilometres away. A few days later, after the detection of the major dust formation event, the source measured 13 mas.

"It is most likely that the latter size corresponds to the diameter of the dust shell in expansion, while the size previously measured was an upper limit of the erupting source," explains lead author Olivier Chesneau. Over the following months the dusty shell expanded regularly, at a rate close to 2 million km/h.

"This is the first time that the dust shell of a nova is spatially resolved and its evolution traced starting from the onset of its formation up to the point that it becomes too diluted to be seen", says co-author Dipankar Banerjee, from India.

The measurement of the angular expansion rate, together with the knowledge of the expansion velocity, enables the astronomer to derive the distance of the object, in this case about 5500 light-years.

"This is a new and promising technique for providing distances of close novae. This was made possible because the state of the art facility of the VLTI, both in terms of infrastructure and management of the observations, allows one to schedule such observations," says co-author Markus Wittkowski from ESO.

Moreover, the quality of the data provided by the VLTI was such that it was possible to estimate the daily production of dust and infer the total mass ejected. "Overall, V1280 Sco probably ejected more than the equivalent of 33 times the mass of the Earth, a rather impressive feat if one considers that this mass was ejected from a star not larger in radius than the Earth," concludes Chesneau. Of this material, about a percent or less was in the form of dust.

If you look at Beijing’s soaring skyscrapers, gleaming motorways and glitzy shopping malls, it’s easy to conclude that this city is as modern as any in the world. And then the waiter brings the check. Sorry, madam, we don’t take credit cards.

In Beijing, more than any other big-country capital, cash is king. Official figures indicate that 110,000 Beijing businesses now accept credit cards, twice as many as in 2006. What those figures don’t show is how many accept only Chinese-issued cards (my guess is about half). And though 110,000 sounds like a large number, there are vastly more establishments that are extremely allergic to plastic of any color.

So when visiting Beijing, or some other Chinese city, it’s important to know how to get your hands on large amounts of cash. With an eye to the Olympics, Premier Wen Jiabao in 2006 ordered nine ministries and the central bank to “further develop consumer financial instruments.” The result was a vast expansion of retail banking – for decades virtually non-existent – including services for visitors. Though foreign credit cards may not yet be widely welcomed, foreign currency exchanges have proliferated, and it’s now possible to change cash and travelers checks at 80 percent of the city’s three-star-and-above hotels. Better yet, automated teller machines in Beijing are up to 9,400 and counting.

The trick is to find one that works. About half of all ATMs in China accept only credit and debit cards that are part of the domestic UnionPay system. So look for cash machines bearing the stickers of international networks like Visa, Plus, MasterCard and Cirrus. Then pray.

ATMs at Chinese banks get a workout – locals prefer them over the notoriously long lines at teller windows – so the machines are often out of cash or receipts or gas or spare parts. They also sometimes fail to make the connection to a foreigner’s bank. So if you get a message to contact your card issuer because your plastic has been declined, don’t despair. Just try another machine. And even when you find an ATM that works, withdrawals are typically limited to 2,000 yuan (about $280 at the current exchange rate) and sometimes less. Foreign banks like Citibank and HSBC have machines that dispense more. These are not numerous, but you will find a handful at the airport – both before and after customs.

Get as much cash as you can at one time, since you’ll be paying your bank’s $3 or $4 service fee no matter what amount you withdraw. Also, you’ll need those banknotes. Expect to pay for much of your food, transportation, tips, souvenirs, cheap sportswear at the Silk Market and, in some cases, even lodging in cash. Stacks of it. The largest bill is 100 yuan, worth only about $14 (it’s the red one, with Mao’s face on it). The government has put 36.5 billion new notes into circulation so far this year, twice as many as last year, so there is a good chance your stash of cash will be crisp and clean. Don’t be insulted if a cashier holds your bill up to the light to check its authenticity. Don’t be surprised if, upon handing over several bills, they are run through a counting machine, which nearly every Chinese business seems to have on hand. Or, more often, to be told that the credit card machine isn’t working right now, so how about paying in cash?

You can protest, stand on your rights as a credit-worthy customer of Visa, MasterCard or American Express, and ask to see the manager. That sometimes miraculously fixes the broken machine. But I always end up feeling like an idiot when I do the ugly American act. The alternative is to behave as the Chinese do: hand over a brick of bills and watch them be counted with the care found only in a country that loves its lucre, clean or filthy.

ScienceDaily (July 30, 2008) — Diamonds may have been life's best friend. Billions of years ago, the surface of these gems may have provided just the right conditions to foster the chemical reactions believed to have given rise to life on Earth, researchers in Germany report.

Their study is scheduled for the August 6 issue of ACS' Crystal Growth & Design, a bi-monthly journal.

In the new study, Andrei Sommer, Dan Zhu, and Hans-Joerg Fecht point out that scientists have theorized for years that the chemical precursors of life gradually evolved from a so-called "primordial soup" of simpler molecules. But the details of how these simpler amino acids molecules, the building blocks of life, were assembled into complex polymers, remains one of science's long-standing mysteries.

To find out, the research team studied diamonds, crystallized forms of carbon which are older than the earliest forms of life on Earth. In a series of laboratory experiments, the scientists showed that after treatment with hydrogen, natural diamond forms crystalline layers of water on its surface, essential for the development of life, and involved in electrical conductivity. When primitive molecules landed on the surface of these hydrogenated diamonds in the atmosphere of early Earth, the resulting reaction may have been sufficient enough to generate more complex organic molecules that eventually gave rise to life, researchers say.

ScienceDaily (July 29, 2008) — An aerosol mass spectrometer developed by chemists from Aerodyne Research Inc. and Boston College is giving scientists who study airborne particles the technology they need to examine the life cycles of atmospheric aerosols – such as soot – and their impact on issues ranging from climate change to public health.

But new research challenges that finding and suggests that the supposed recovered dinosaur tissue is in reality biofilm – or slime.

"I believed that preserved soft tissues had been found, but I had to change my opinion," said Thomas Kaye, an associate researcher at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Washington. "You have to go where the science leads, and the science leads me to believe that this is bacterial biofilm."

The original research, published in Science magazine, claimed the discovery of blood vessels and what appeared to be entire cells inside fossil bone of a Tyrannosaurus rex. The scientists had dissolved the bone in acid, leaving behind the blood vessel- and cell-like structures.

But in a paper published July 30 in PloS ONE, a journal of the open-access Public Library of Science, Kaye and his co-authors contend that what was really inside the T. rex bone was slimy biofilm created by bacteria that coated the voids once occupied by blood vessels and cells.

He likens the phenomenon to what would happen if you left a pail of rainwater sitting in your backyard. After a couple of weeks you would be able to feel the slime that had formed on the inner walls of the bucket.

"If you could dissolve the bucket away, you'd find soft, squishy material in the shape of the bucket, and that's the slime," Kaye said. "The same is true for dinosaur bones. If you dissolve away the bone, what's left is biofilm in the shape of vascular canals."

Co-authors of the new paper are Gary Gaugler of Microtechnics Inc. of Granite Bay, Calif., and Zbigniew Sawlowicz of Jagiellonian University in Poland.

Kaye said he began his research with the hope of being the second person to find preserved dinosaur tissues. In addition to the acid bath procedure used in the previous work, he added examination by electron microscope before the bones were dissolved. He was surprised by the findings.

The researchers found that what previously had been identified as remnants of blood cells, because of the presence of iron, were actually structures called framboids, microscopic mineral spheres bearing iron. They found similar spheres in a variety of other fossils from various time periods, including an extinct sea creature called an ammonite. In the ammonite they found the spheres in a place where the iron they contain could not have had any relationship to the presence of blood.

"We determined that these structures were too common to be exceptionally preserved tissue. We realized it couldn't be a one-time exceptional preservation," Kaye said.

The scientists also dissolved bone in acid, as had been done previously, and found the same soft tissue structures. They conducted a comparison using infrared mass spectroscopy and determined the structures were more closely related to modern biofilm than modern collagen, extracellular proteins associated with bone. Carbon dating placed the origin at around 1960.

Using an electron microscope, the researchers saw coatings on the vascular canal walls that contained gas bubbles, which they associated with the presence of methane-producing bacteria. In addition, they examined what looked like tiny cracks within the vascular canals and found that they were actually small troughs, or channels. Study at high magnification revealed the channels had rounded bottoms and bridged each other, indicating they were organically created, likely by bacteria moving in a very thick solution.

"From this evidence, we could determine that what had previously been reported as dinosaurian soft tissues were in fact biofilms, or slime," Kaye said.