A Russian capsule carrying mice, lizards and other small animals returned to Earth on Sunday after spending a month in space for what scientists said was the longest experiment of its kind.

Fewer than half of the 53 mice and other rodents who blasted off on April 19 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome survived the flight, Russian news agencies reported, quoting Vladimir Sychov, deputy director of the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems and the lead researcher.

Sychov said this was to be expected and the surviving mice were sufficient to complete the study, which was designed to show the effects of weightlessness and other factors of space flight on cell structure. All 15 of the lizards survived, he said. The capsule also carried small crayfish and fish.

The capsule’s orbit reached 575 kilometers (345 miles) above Earth, according to the news agencies, which said this was far higher than the orbit of the International Space Station.

Russian state television showed the round Bion-M capsule and some of the surviving mice after it landed slightly off course but safely in a planted field near Orenburg, about 750 miles southeast of Moscow.

“This is the first time that animals have flown in space for so long on their own,” Sychov said in the television broadcast from the landing site. The last research craft to carry animals into space spent 12 days in orbit in 2007.

The mice and other animals were to be flown back to Moscow to undergo a series of tests at Sychov’s institute, which is part of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Reported by The Associated Press from MOSCOW, Russia.
Image by TwoShortPlanks via Flickr.com.

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Mike the Knight, the star of the popular children’s TV series, is coming to Harrisburg on Saturday, May 18. To celebrate Mike’s visit to our area, Junior Dispatch is giving away some great “Mike the Knight” merchandise.

To enter the giveaway, kids must write a knight-themed poem, and we will publish all the entries here.  Your poem can be any style the young author desires — such as a haiku, a riddle, a limerick, an acrostic or a rhyme. Once the little bards have their prose perfected, email it to juniordispatch@yorkdispatch.com by 8 p.m.  Monday, May 20.  Junior Dispatch will then select first- and second-place winners out of all the qualifying entries. Teachers are encouraged to get their students to enter. Please see the official rules below for the details.

First place is the “Mike the Knight” DVD and a “Mike the Knight” book. Second place is the DVD only.

We will publish entries as they arrive.

HARRISBURG EVENT: Mike the Knight and his friends are charging into the Harrisburg Mall for two free performances of “Mike the Knight and the Mission for Hidden Treasure.” The 20-minute performance will also feature Squirt the dragon.  The event also includes photo opportunities, giveaways, and a glimpse of the “Mike the Knight” toys that are coming soon to stores. Performances are set for Saturday, May 18 at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.

ABOUT “MIKE THE KNIGHT”: “Mike the Knight” is a CG-animated series that transports kids to a realm of castles, dragons, and trolls.  With his rallying cry “Be a Knight, Do it Right!”, Mike brings the excitement and enchantment of medieval times to his young viewers.  Currently the broadcast series airs on Nick Jr.  For more information about Mike the Knight and his missions, visit www.miketheknight.com and follow on Facebook (www.facebook.com/miketheknightofficial) and Twitter @MiketheKnight_US.

OFFICIAL RULES: To enter this giveaway, contestants must write a poem of 10 or more words about subject of “knights.” Entrants who are just learning to write can compose their poem verbally, and then have the caregiver write it down. Decisions by Junior Dispatch are final. One entry per person. Entries must include a name, age, address and telephone number.  All entries will be posted on JuniorDispatch.com. Entries must be sent to juniordispatch@yorkdispatch.com by 8 p.m.  Monday, May 20.

ANOTHER CREATIVE WRITING CONTEST: Junior Dispatch is also hosting another writing contest for kids ages 0 to 18. The top prize in three age categories is $100 in gift certificates. Get all the details here: http://ydtalk.com/jdispatch/2013/04/22/tell-us-a-story-and-win-big/

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Billions of winged teenagers will crawl out of the ground, sing their hearts out and fall in love this summer.

As crazy as that sounds, it’s reality for the Brood II cicadas that only come around once every 17 years. The insects are found only in eastern North America, and nowhere else in the world.

Known as magicicada, they have been maturing underground for 17 years, slurping on fluid from the roots of trees. The magic number seems to be 64 degrees: They won’t come out until the soil is that temperature, according to two local experts.

The phenomenon: Soil in Cumberland County was 48 degrees over the weekend, said Ed Dix, a forester with the Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry. So the area still has till about late May or early June before the swarm, he said.

Adult cicadas are 1 to 1-1/2 inches long and have red eyes. Not to be confused with the more common annual cicadas, which look like huge, green flies, magicicadas are both smaller and much rarer.

“They’re definitely going to be noticeable,” said Timothy Abbey, of Penn State Cooperative Extension.

As daunting as billions of huge flies might seem, the bugs are mostly harmless.

Abbey said the insects are plant feeders and not much of a bother to crops. They don’t bite or damage property, but since females lay their eggs in the delicate twigs of deciduous trees, branches can break off and leaves might turn brown.

“But they’re not really a pest: They’re actually a beneficial thing when they come out,” Abbey said, as birds and small mammals like to snack on them.

The cicada way: These periodical cicadas have garnered the nickname “17-year locusts,” even though they’re not locusts, which are a type of grasshopper. When colonists settled in America, they hadn’t seen cicadas before and saw them as the locusts from the biblical plague, Dix said.

After the males emerge, they’ll begin to “sing” constantly. After about 10 days, mating will begin and females will deposit about 600 eggs. It’s a short party, and in just a few weeks, the adults will die and the hatchlings will return to the ground and restart the cycle.

But it is a big production, and the males’ song is loud and unmistakable. Dix said not to pay them too much mind.

“It’s just a bunch of 17-year-old males singing in a tree trying to find a mate,” he said matter-of-factly.

In York: The region the cicadas choose depends largely on how dense its woods are: The more trees, the more cicadas. Dix said areas east of the Susquehanna River have the most chance of a large influx.

“York County actually might have very little impact,” he said.

Their next return to York will be in 2021 in the form of Brood X, the largest of eight broods in the state.

Visit www.magicicada.org for maps and more information about the incoming cicadas.

Reported by MOLLIE DURKIN of The York Dispatch from YORK, PA. Reach her at mdurkin@yorkdispatch.com.

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The colorful handmade giraffes, elephants and warthogs made in a Nairobi workshop were once only dirty pieces of rubber cruising the Indian Ocean’s currents.

Kenya’s Ocean Sole, a sandal recycling company, is cleaning the East African country’s beaches of used, washed-up flip-flops and other sandals.

About 45 workers in Nairobi make 100 different products from the discarded flip-flops. In 2008, the company shipped an 18-foot giraffe to Rome for display during a fashion week.

Company founder Julie Church says the goal of her company is to create products that people want to buy, then make them interested in the back-story.

Workers wash the flip-flops, many of which show signs of multiple repairs. Artisans then glue together the various colors, carve the products, sand and rewash them.

Church said she first noticed Kenyan children turning flip-flops into toy boats around 1999, when she worked as a marine scientist for WWF and the Kenya Wildlife Service on Kenya’s coast near the border with Somalia.

Turtles hatching on the beach had to fight their way through the debris on beaches to get to the ocean, Church said, and a plan to clean up the debris and create artistic and useful items gained momentum. WWF ordered 15,000 key rings, and her eco-friendly project took off.

The company aims to sell 70 percent of its products outside Kenya. It has distributors in the United States, Europe and new inquiries from Japan. Its biggest purchasers are zoos and aquariums.

One of Church’s employees is Dan Wambui, who said he enjoys interacting with visitors who come to the Nairobi workshop.

“They come from far … when they see what we are doing we see them really happy and they are appreciating. We feel internationally recognized and we feel happy about it,” Wambui said.

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On the Internet:

Ocean Sole: http://www.ocean-sole.com

Reported by JOE MWIHIA of the Associated Press from NAIROBI, Kenya.

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NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has captured stunning views of a monster hurricane at Saturn’s North Pole.

The eye of the cyclone is an enormous 1,250 miles across. That’s 20 times larger than the typical eye of a hurricane here on Earth. And it’s spinning super-fast. Clouds at the outer edge of the storm are whipping around at 330 mph.

The hurricane is parked at Saturn’s North Pole and relies on water vapor to keep it churning. It’s believed to have been there for years. Cassini only recently had a chance to observe the vortex in visible light.

Scientists hope to learn more about Earth’s hurricanes by studying this whopper at Saturn.

Cassini was launched from Cape Canaveral in 1997 and arrived at Saturn in 2004.

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Online:

NASA: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/

Reported by MARCIA DUNN of the Associated Press from CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

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Scientists have taken the idea of a film short down to new levels. Molecular levels.

IBM says it has made the tiniest stop-motion movie ever — a one-minute video of individual carbon monoxide molecules repeatedly rearranged to show a boy dancing, throwing a ball and bouncing on a trampoline.

Each frame measures 45 by 25 nanometers — there are 25 million nanometers in an inch — but hugely magnified, the movie is reminiscent of early video games, particularly when the boy bounces the ball off the side of the frame accompanied by simple music and sound effects.

The movie is titled “A Boy and His Atom.” http://youtu.be/oSCX78-8-q0

Videos showing atoms in motion have been seen before but Andreas Heinrich, IBM’s principal scientist for the project, said Tuesday this is the first time anything so small has been maneuvered to tell a story.

“This movie is a fun way to share the atomic-scale world,” Heinrich said. “The reason we made this was not to convey a scientific message directly, but to engage with students, to prompt them to ask questions.”

Jamie Panas of Guinness World Records said Guinness certified the movie as “Smallest Stop-Motion Film.”

IBM used a remotely operated two-ton scanning tunneling microscope at its lab in San Jose, Calif., to make the movie earlier this year. The microscope magnifies the surface over 100 million times. It operates at 450 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (268 degrees below zero Celsius).

The cold “makes life simpler for us,” Heinrich said. “The atoms hold still. They would move around on their own at room temperature.”

Scientists used the microscope to control a tiny, super-sharp needle along a copper surface, IBM said. At a distance of just 1 nanometer, the needle physically attracted the carbon monoxide molecules and pulled them to a precisely specified location on the surface.

The dots that make up the figures in the movie are the oxygen atoms in the molecule, Heinrich said.

The scientists took 242 still images that make up the movie’s 242 frames.

Heinrich said the techniques used to make the movie are similar to what IBM is doing to make data storage smaller.

“As data creation and consumption continue to get bigger, data storage needs to get smaller, all the way down to the atomic level,” he said.

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Reported by The Associated Press from WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. Associated Press Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report from Washington.

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The Junior Dispatch, in conjunction with the York Libraries’ summer reading program and the York Emporium, is proud to announce a creative writing contest, as detailed in the flier above.

This contest is asking for original stories by kids up to age 18. The topic is an important one: We want you to write a tale of buried treasure!

The details are all in the flyer above, but we want you to pay close attention to these points:

• There are three age categories. (7 and under. 8 to 11, and 12 to 18)
• The word limit is 1,500 words. That just means that the longest your story can be is 1,500 words. Entries in the “7 and under” category certainly don’t need to be that long. A 50 word story, for example, is fine.
• Kids who are just learning to write can tell a story to a caregiver, and then have the caregiver write it down. Please keep it “in their words” though!
• The deadline for your story is Wednesday, July 31, 2013. You’ve got plenty of time, but don’t wait until the last minute either!
• Make sure your name, age and phone number is at the top of your entry. Printed entries should have this info on every page.
• Only one entry per person.
• Emailed entries are preferred. The subject of the e-mail should be “Buried Treasure Contest.” Send the submissions to juniordispatch@yorkdispatch.com. We prefer you sendyour story in one of the following formats: DOC,  PDF or TXT. You may also just insert it into the body of your email.
• Entrants may submit stories through the mail as well. Send those entries (which should include your name, age, address and phone number) to Junior Dispatch, c/o The York Dispatch, 205 N. George St., York, Pa. 17401.

If you would like to print out copies of the flier, you have several options:

• 8.5×11 in B&W
• 8.5×11 in color
• 11×17 in B&W
• 11×17 in color

Now get writing! Tell us a story about some crazy thing you’ve dug up!

If you have any questions about the rules, email John Simcoe at jsimcoe@yorkdispatch.com

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An international team of astronomers has found two planets whose size and position suggest they may support alien life.

The planets orbit a star about 2,000 light-years away from Earth. The star is named Kepler-62. The planets appear to be the right distance from their star for liquid water. With the chance of water, there’s also a chance for life to exist, according to research published online Thursday by the journal Science.

Compared with Earth, the planets, named Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f, are larger and receive 0.41 and 1.2 times the amount of solar radiation. The planet hunters, led by NASA’s William Borucki, say they won’t know what the planets look like or if they are in fact habitable until they can study them a while longer.

“We have found two planets in the habitable zone of another star, and they are the best planets found to date” that may support life, said Borucki, a space scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

One of the planets, Kepler-62f, may be a rocky celestial body with polar ice caps, Borucki said. The other, Kepler-62e, is believed to be warm and have lightning. While it’s too soon to know for sure, it may even be a water world, the first of its kind discovered, Borucki said.

“Kepler-62e probably has a very cloudy sky and is warm and humid all the way to the polar regions,” Dimitar Sasselov, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., said. “Kepler-62f would be cooler, but still potentially life-friendly.”

Mission accomplished: The planets were discovered using NASA’s Kepler satellite, a spacecraft launched in 2009 with a mission to discover Earth-size and smaller celestial bodies in regions around their stars, particularly those where liquid water may exist. The spacecraft was launched in March 2009 and has found more than 2,700 planet candidates.

Kepler detects planets that cross the face of their stars, and gathers data that enables astronomers to estimate the sizes and make suggestions about composition.

The Kepler planets have 1.41 and 1.61 the radius of the Earth, according the researchers. Both planets may be solid, with either rocky or icy compositions, the scientists said.

In 2011, the Kepler mission found its first planet in the habitable zone, called Kepler-22b. That planet is larger than Earth, and orbits a sun-like star every 290 days.

Reported by EVA VON SCHAPER and ELIZABETH LOPATTO for Bloomberg News.

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Every Wednesday night at a gym in Warrenton, Va., 23 kids, ages 9 to 16, gather to practice. But they don’t have a basketball. They’re not making layups or running sprints. They’re doing something a lot more unusual than that.

They’re riding unicycles, which are bikes with one wheel and no handlebars. (“Uni” means one.)

“Ride in a line and then split off,” shouted Linda McLaughlin, who coaches the group, called the UniStars Unicycle Showtroupe, at a recent practice as the kids made two lines and then rode the length of the gym.

The group performs at about a dozen events a year, including parades and charity events.

— — —

Riding a unicycle, like riding a two-wheel bike, is all about “balance, confidence and determination,” said Michelle Carrico, who helps coach the UniStars. New riders use the gym wall for balance. First they face the wall and sit on the unicycle with the palms of their hands on the wall. Then they ride alongside the wall, using it to help them stay on the cycle. Once they master that, the riders start pushing away from the wall and learning how to turn by using their hips to steer.

“I wasn’t that good at first,” said Virginia Lawrence, 12, who has been cycling for about six years. “But then I just got better.”

Carrico’s three rules for the unicyclists are eyes forward, back straight and keep your bottom on the seat.

“It was frustrating at first because everyone else made it look so easy,” said Gabby Macari, 13, has been riding for four years.

Matt McLaughlin, 9, is the youngest rider in the group. He started riding a couple of years ago. His older sister, Abby, helped start the UniStars with Linda, her mom and coach, in 2005 when she was 11 years old. “I thought it was cool, so I wanted to ride,” said Matt. He mounts — or gets on the cycle — by putting the seat between his legs and then stepping on one of the pedals. “I caught on quicker than a lot of people,” he said. “I never got frustrated.” It took him only a couple days to learn, he said. (Wow!)

— — —

When the group rides makes appearances, they ride in circles, in lines, in figure eights and even in what they call a pinwheel, which is when two groups of cyclists form “X” shapes and the rest of the team makes a big circle around them.

“I don’t really get nervous,” said Matt, who will ride in his second Cherry Blossom parade this weekend. “It’s an awesome feeling. I just like being in front of crowds.”

This is Gabby Macari’s first time in the Cherry Blossom Parade. “I’m really excited to be able to do something so big and known,” she said. “I’m always nervous, but you kind of get over it when you’re having so much fun.”

Reported by MOIRA E. McLAUGHLIN of the The Washington Post.

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It’s the Martian version of a spring break: Curiosity and Opportunity will take it easy this month because of the sun’s interference.

For much of April, the sun blocks the line of sight between Earth and Mars. This celestial alignment — called a Mars solar conjunction — makes it difficult for engineers to send instructions on the surface. The same problem also means that NASA can’t talk with rovers’ companion spaceships that orbit the Red Planet and help the space agency communicate with the Mars-roving robots.

Such communication blackouts occur every two years when the red planet disappears behind the sun. No new commands are sent since flares and charged particles spewing from the sun can scramble transmission signals and put spacecraft in danger.

Mission teams prepared by uploading weeks of scaled-back activities beforehand.

“They’re on their own,” said Rich Zurek, chief Mars scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The rovers are banned from driving. Instead, they take a staycation and study their surroundings. The orbiting Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter continue to listen for the rovers and make their own observations, but for the most part will transmit data once Mars is in view again.

Opportunity, Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the European Space Agency’s Mars Express have survived previous bouts of restricted communications. It’s the first for Curiosity, which landed last year near the Martian equator to hunt for the chemical building blocks of life.

The break continues through May 1. During that time, Curiosity can only check the weather every hour, measure radiation and look for signs of water below the desert-like surface. The limited chores are a departure for the active six-wheeler, which is used to driving, drilling and zapping its laser at rocks.

Scientists must wait until next month to drill into another rock and start the long-delayed trek to a mountain where Curiosity will search for the elusive organic molecules that are fundamental to life as we know it. The road trip was supposed to have started last year, but longer-than-expected science experiments put Curiosity behind schedule.

Odyssey, circling Mars since 2001, has experienced half a dozen blackout episodes with no problem. This time, it will try something new. There are plans to radio Earth every day even if calls are dropped, mostly to keep engineers updated on Curiosity’s health. The rover is also programmed to send daily beeps to ground controllers.

By contrast, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will record and store information onboard its computers and beam it back after the hiatus. Opportunity, which parked itself in a clay-rich spot, will use the down time to study a rock and track the amount of dust in the sky.

With Mars missions on autopilot, many scientists and engineers planned to take vacation while a small crew remains on duty.
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Reported by ALICIA CHANG of the Associated Press from Los Angeles, Calif. Follow her at http://twitter.com/SciWriAlicia.

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