PHOENIX — From the bustling streets of Scottsdale to the red rocks of Sedona more than an hour away, a NASA research balloon had some Arizonans wondering whether they had spotted an alien spacecraft.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said he got calls about the object all afternoon on Monday.

He said the object did not show up on FAA radar and was likely a balloon.

Later, Bill Stepp of the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas identified the object as a 4,000-pound research balloon released from a NASA organization used to measure gamma ray emissions in high altitudes.

The balloon was launched at about 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning from Fort Sumner, N.M., and was grounded at about 9 p.m. Monday just south of Kingman in western Arizona.

Stepp said the balloon, which usually floats at an altitude of 130,000 feet, can be seen for about 170 miles on a clear day and has raised concern from Albuquerque to Phoenix.

“It’s something unusual,” he said. “People just don’t know what it is.”

Marshall Valentine, who works in a Scottsdale office, said he and about five other co-workers who spotted the object high in the sky around 2 p.m. Monday had no idea what it was.

“It looks like someone blew a bubble in the sky and it stayed there,” Valentine said. “A plane flew under it and it looked like it was a mountain higher than a plane flies.”

Similar descriptions of an unidentified flying, clear orb were also reported out of Sedona.

Jennifer McCoy, who runs the UFO Store in Sedona with her husband, said a local resident told her about the object around 2 p.m.

She said she went into the parking lot and saw the object in the cloud line.

It “looked like the gigantic bubble from the Wizard of Oz,” she said.

Kececioglu

Someday, genomic sequence testing will help doctors identify whether newborns will develop health problems later in life.

That may seem like science fiction now, but improved technologies and techniques are making genetic sequencing quicker and far less expensive.

Mapping the human genome the first time cost about $3 billion, said John Kececioglu, University of Arizona associate professor of computer science and BIO5 Institute member. Some operations have brought the price down to $5,000.

Kececioglu is conference chair for RECOMB2009, an international conference on computational molecular biology research that will run Sunday through Thursday in Tucson.

Genomic sequencing determines the order of key components in genetic material. Abnormalities such as mutations can mean certain diseases are likely to develop.

All biological processes are governed by the 3 billion lettered segments and their order in human DNA, he said.

“There is a goal to have a $1,000 genome test that a person can actually purchase,” Kececioglu said. “Companies are making use of this data to uncover what disease susceptibilities an individual has.”

Genomics and the environment, including such behaviors as smoking and drinking, contribute to disease, and researchers are trying to offer insights on DNA’s role in the equation, he said.

In addition to identifying the diseases a person is likely to get, markers in a sequenced genome can offer information on which drugs and therapies will best help a person prevail against a specific type of cancer or other disease, he said.

“It’s key to prevention,” Kececioglu said. “It could make health care much more efficient and effective.”

“It’s certainly becoming affordable,” he said. “You do it once in a lifetime. Your genome does not change.”

Continued decreases in price could make use of the tests more commonplace.

If the cost drops to $1,000, it could make economic sense to sequence DNA on all 4 million children born in the United States each year, said Rade Drmanac, chief scientific officer and co-founder of Complete Genomics Inc.

Drmanac will participate in a RECOMB2009 industry panel discussion on personalized genomics.

His Mountain View, Calif., company offers sequencing to research organizations and drug discovery firms for $5,000.

Sequencing efficiencies are expected to increase in the next two to three years, he said, and costs will continue to go down, opening the door for widespread use of the technology.

“The bottom line is we know that having complete and accurate genome sequencing is an absolutely necessary basis for the advance of low-cost health care,” Drmanac said. “We need to do complete genome sequencing to find the genomic basis for disease.”

Pre-diagnosis leading to targeted checkups and early detection can save lives.

Although information from sequencing can benefit health, some fear it could also be used by insurance companies to deny coverage, Kececioglu said.

“The privacy issues are very important. That information is not shared with anyone besides the patient,” he said.

RECOMB2009 will attract 275 top researchers in the computational, mathematical and biological sciences coming from 18 nations, Kececioglu said. It is not open to the public, however.

The BIO5-hosted event, he said, will offer the latest information on how computers help make sense of the huge amount of bioresearch data being produced.

Leslie Boyer, director of the Venom Immunochemistry, Pharmacology and Emergency Response Institute, holds a tube containing a dead bark scorpion at her office at Drachman Hall, 1295 N. Martin Ave.

Dawn Bray worried she might lose a second child to a scorpion’s sting.

A bark scorpion stung her 6-year-old son Morgan last May. As the family rushed him to the hospital in Globe, a wave of fear came over Bray. Six years earlier, in May 2002, she lost her 2-year-old son Dally to a bark scorpion’s sting.

“When Morgan got bit, I was thinking that it was happening again,” Bray recalled this week. “With another son, we would have the same outcome.”

From Globe, doctors flew Morgan to Tucson for treatment. He received a dose of Anascorp, a scorpion antivenin used widely Mexico but not approved for general use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Morgan made a speedy recovery. Just hours after his treatment, the Brays ate dinner together at a McDonald’s before making the two-hour drive back to their home about 25 miles south of Globe.

Morgan’s survival means that his brother “did not die in vain,” Bray said.

After Dally’s death, the Brays met with Leslie Boyer, director of the University of Arizona’s Venom Immunochemistry, Pharmacology and Emergency Response Institute. Dally received an antivenin but died anyway, his mother said. The family wanted answers.

Of the 60 scorpion species and subspecies in the U.S., only the Arizona bark scorpion is dangerous to humans; consequently, scorpion sting deaths are exceedingly rare in the United States, with fewer than a half-dozen in the past decade. But in equatorial countries more people die of scorpion stings than venomous snake bites. More than 1,000 people a year die from scorpion stings in Mexico, according to an article in eMedicine, an online medical journal.

Two years after Dally’s death, Boyer and a team of UA researchers began studying Anascorp, a drug Mexican doctors used regularly to treat those severely affected by scorpion stings. The UA researchers published their findings in the May 14 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

The study focused on 15 children hospitalized for severe reactions to scorpion stings in 2004 and 2005. Eight received Anascorp, which the FDA considers an “investigational drug.” Seven received a placebo.

Symptoms of nerve poisoning disappeared in less than four hours in the children treated with the antivenin. In the placebo group, symptoms lasted for several hours. Children not treated with Anascorp required sedation and longer hospital stays, the study found.

Bark scorpion venom “goes to every nerve of the body and tells them, ‘Fire!’ ” Boyer said.

In the worst cases, the bark scorpion’s venom can cause respiratory failure.

Scorpions sting about 8,000 people in Arizona every year. In Mexico, where Anascorp is widely available, scorpions sting 250,000 people a year.

In about 200 cases a year in the U.S., usually involving children, nerve poisoning becomes severe enough to require hospitalization.

Children in Tucson can go to a hospital emergency room for treatment, Boyer said. “But what about the baby in Morenci, the toddler in Globe?”

The UA study has expanded to include 24 Arizona hospitals. About 600 patients have received Anascorp since 2004, Boyer said.

Even in rural areas, severely affected children can receive the treatment within an hour of getting stung, the doctor said.

Whether the study’s findings will lead to FDA approval remains unclear. “We’re the only state in the country where this is important,” Boyer said.

For the Brays, it was a matter of life and death.

“Dr. Boyer was our angel,” Bray said. “If she trusted it, we trusted it.”

Dr. Leslie Boyer holds a tube containing a dead bark scorpion.

KINGMAN – A new solar plant is planned for Mohave County, the fourth and largest now slated to be built in Arizona’s northwest corner.

The 340-megawatt plant would be built about 27 miles northwest of Kingman by Mohave Sun Power, LLC, on land it plans to buy from Las Vegas developer Jim Rhodes. The facility will use a solar-thermal design, with parabolic mirrors concentrating the sun’s energy on tubes carrying oil. The heated oil is piped to a central facility to generate steam to turn generators. Some of the energy will be stored in molten salt tanks for use after dark, and a secondary heating system using oil, gas or biofuels can also keep the plant running on cloudy days.

The $2.1 billion plant will be one of the largest of its type in the world, project director Greg Bartlett said Tuesday.

Another plant using the same technology is planned south of Kingman. That 200-megawatt facility is being developed by Albiasa Solar. A Mohave County housing development called The Ranch at White Hills is building a solar facility to power its homes, and a smaller solar project is slated for the Yucca area.

“This is proof that our (Arizona’s) renewable energy standard is finally bearing fruit,” said Arizona Corporation Commission Chairwoman Kris Mayes.

The company looked all over the Southwest before settling on Mohave County, Bartlett said. Some of the benefits to locating the project in Mohave County, as compared to Maricopa County, included a higher elevation, the remote area, the amount of water and the ability to acquire 4,000 acres from a private landholder. The company has a lease purchase agreement with Rhodes for the property.

According to information from Mohave County Supervisor Buster Johnson’s office, the plant will use about 1,500 to 3,000 acre-feet of water per year to wash the mirrors and generate steam. The plant intends to recycle some of the water. The company says it’s well aware of the water concerns in the county and is spending a lot of time upfront on the issue, Bartlett said.

The ACC is watching the water issue carefully, Mayes said.

Gibson

University of Arizona engineering junior Malcolm Gibson is focusing on developing tiny robots to precisely deliver medicine and other treatments in the human body.

NASA announced Tuesday that Gibson was awarded a two-year aeronautics scholarship valued at $40,000.

Gibson has been working for two years on MEMS, or microelectromechanical systems, that can be steered through the bloodstream to a specific organ to deliver treatments exactly where needed.

While such microbots may appear to have little to do with flying, biomedical engineering plays a big role in aeronautics, said Tony Springer, lead for communications and education at NASA Aeronautics Research.

About 500 “cream of the crop” students applied for the 20 undergraduate and five graduate scholarships offered, Springer said.

The scholarship program’s goal is to attract top engineering talent to NASA in particular and the aerospace industry in general, he said.

Jeff Goldberg, dean of the UA College of Engineering, said, “We like to think our students are really strong and this shows they are strong on a national level.”

Gibson, 21, who is pursuing double majors in aerospace and mechanical engineering, said his research work and educational background helped him earn the scholarship.

“Even though the global aspect of the project is not related to aerospace, I’ve been focusing more on the mechanical aspects,” he said. “They are looking for motivated students who are involved in research, even if not directly related to aeronautics.”

The scholarship, which begins in September, offers $15,000 per year to cover tuitions costs for two years and $10,000 for use during a 10-week summer 2010 internship at a NASA research center.

Gibson, who plans to continue his MEMS research through graduation from UA, will leave in mid-August for five months of research and study at the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems in Zurich, Switzerland.

If your school or organization can’t take your kids to Flandrau Science Center to see the stars, Flandrau can bring the stars to them.

Starting June 1, Flandrau will start sending traveling planetarium shows to schools and youth organizations.

The shows will display a virtual night sky, bringing the planetarium to the classroom.

“It’s unique because we’re using digital planetarium technology to enhance many of the shows with dynamic content and real space images, including data from University of Arizona research programs,” said Jennifer Fields, associate director for education at Flandrau.

“In general, with the decision by the administration to close the Flandrau facility on campus, we are moving to a stronger outreach presence in the community.”

The program is designed primarily for K-8 students, but can be used by day-care facilities and other organizations that have programs for kids, such as the YMCA.

“We just started offering and promoting these programs so we don’t know how many organizations will sign up, but we have already begun getting inquiries about the programs,” Fields said.

The Flandrau Center follows state science standards so its programs mesh with a teacher’s curriculum.

They are designed not merely as a teaching tool, but also as a way to get children excited about astronomy.

Matthew Wenger, a graduate associate at Flandrau, said there is no better place for children to learn about astronomy. He describes Tucson as the astronomy capital of the U.S. and maybe the world.

“Tucson has beautiful, dark skies compared to other cities its size,” Wenger said. “We also have so many clear nights that stargazing is an easy hobby to get into.”

There are five different shows: “Little Sky Show,” “There’s No Place Like Space: All About Our Solar System,” “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” “Constellations” and “Seasons.”

The first three, designed for younger children, are 20 minutes long. “Constellations” and “Seasons,” for older students up to eighth grade, are 50 minutes long.

Flandrau requires a minimum order of two shows. The shorter shows cost $100 for the first show and $50 for the second. The longer shows cost $175 for the first show and $75 for the second.

All shows are designed for about 15 to 20 students. The traveling planetarium system requires a 15-by-20-foot area and a minimum ceiling height of 10 feet.

If a classroom isn’t big enough or if the teacher wants to accommodate more students, the shows can be put on in a school’s auditorium.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION

• Call or e-mail astronomy coordinator Mike Terenzoni.

•E-mail: miket@ns.arizona.edu

•Phone: 626-3646

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Show descriptions

“The Little Sky Show”

Age: Three years – first grade

Length: 20 minutes

Price: $100 for the first show, $50 for each additional show. Two-show minimum.

This show will teach through story and song about constellations, the sun and the moon.

“There’s No Place Like Space: All About Our Solar System”

Age: Three years – first grade

Length: 20 minutes

Price: $100 for the first show, $50 for each additional show. Two-show minimum.

Dr. Seuss’ rhymes in “There’s No Place Like Space,” teach children about space.

“Follow the Drinking Gourd”

Age: Kindergarten – fifth grade

Length: 20 minutes

Price: $100 for the first show, $50 for each additional show. Two-show minimum.

“Follow the Drinking Gourd” is a book about how slaves used the stars of the Big Dipper to find their way to freedom. Students will learn how to identify constellations like the Big Dipper.

“Constellations”

Age: Fourth grade – eighth grade

Length: 50 minutes

Price: $175 for the first show, $75 for each additional show. Two-show minimum.

Students learn how the night sky changes based on Earth’s motion. They will also make their own “star-finders” and practice using them.

“Seasons”

Age: Fifth grade – eighth grade

Length: 50 minutes

Price: $175 for the first show, $75 for each additional show. Two-show minimum.

This show provides a better understanding of the changing of the seasons based on Earth’s position and motion.

As first wind farm goes up in state, others likely to follow

The Dry Lake Wind Project, Arizona's first wind farm, is scheduled to begin sending electricity to Salt River Project customers late this year.

Thirty big wind machines rising off a little-used highway between Holbrook and Heber are a curiosity for now in a state that lags its neighbors in alternative energy. But that soon will change.

The 412-foot turbines, Arizona’s first, will begin sending energy to Salt River Project customers later this year, and many more turbines are on the way.

Utilities are rushing to develop alternative energy because of state requirements mandating more renewable sources and because of federal taxes being proposed on activities tied to fossil-fuel burning and global-warming pollution.

Developments such as the Dry Lake Wind Project are attractive to utilities because, if there is room for the energy on existing power lines, the turbines are quick to build, use no water and generate electricity more cheaply than solar-power plants.

“We are going after wind because it reduces emissions,” SRP Energy Manager Charlie Duckworth said.

Of the 19 states west of Texas, only Arizona and Nevada still lack operating wind farms to help meet growing energy demands.

SRP already buys wind power from turbines in New Mexico.

At Dry Lake, every time the wind tops about 7 mph, the turbines will spin and send energy to the power grid.

The turbines hit their maximum efficiency at a sustained breeze of about 26 mph. Brakes keep them from spinning when storm winds top 55 mph.

The 30 turbines will have a maximum capacity of 63 megawatts when conditions are right. In a steady wind, each massive turbine can generate enough electricity to power about 500 homes. When the wind hits them all at once, they’ll generate enough power for more than 15,000 homes.

More on the way

Iberdrola Renewables, a Spanish company with U.S. headquarters in Oregon, is building the $100 million Dry Lake project. The company has plans for 209 more turbines at the Navajo County site in subsequent phases.

If all are built, the turbines will stretch about 15 miles across the northern Arizona plains.

Dry Lake is not the only wind-power project planned for Arizona.

With Arizona utilities striving to generate 15 percent of their power from renewable sources such as wind turbines and solar panels by 2025 to meet state requirements, wind farms have also been proposed from Flagstaff to Bisbee.

Arizona Public Service Co., the other big utility in the state, announced last week that it plans to pursue an in-state wind farm.

The Navajo Nation, which stretches across parts of several counties in three states, has been trying to develop a wind farm north of Flagstaff in Coconino County.

Wind is classified based on the average speed and consistency, and most of Arizona’s windy land is classified as moderate.

any locations would require new power lines to deliver the energy to the power grid, so it’s unlikely every windy hilltop and valley in the state will see turbines.

A rancher’s initiative

Navajo County and Iberdrola officials give rancher Bill Elkins credit for researching the area’s wind potential and attracting the first wind farm to Arizona.

About six years ago, Elkins started working with Northern Arizona University to build towers on his ranch to gauge wind speeds. He studied the power-line capacity in the area to determine whether wind power could transmit to the power grid.

His research proved to Iberdrola that a wind farm on the site was feasible.

The Dry Lake turbines are being built in three curvy rows of 10 each, crossing land owned by Elkins, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the state.

Landowners lease their land to wind-farm operators. A typical agreement pays the owner $3,000 to $5,000 annually, according to the American Wind Energy Association.

Elkins declined to say what his family expects to earn.

The BLM will earn $36,966 in leases this year for the 10 Dry Lake turbines on its land and should get $87,255 a year after that, officials said last year when they approved the project.

The state, which has a different deal with Dry Lake tied to the amount of energy generated by the nine turbines on its land, could earn $4 million during the 50-year agreement.

“It’s worked out real well,” Elkins said. “There’s test towers on all the ranches surrounding us now as other companies are trying to move in.”

Positive impact

Now that Elkins has successfully attracted turbines to his ranch and President Barack Obama’s policies are strongly supporting the development of alternative energy, many more turbines are expected to rise over the landscape.

“We’re very happy with what has happened in the economic-stimulus package,” said Jan Johnson, an Iberdrola spokeswoman.

The package allows developers who start building wind-power plants before 2011 to receive Treasury Department grants worth 30 percent of the cost.

“It will be a huge impetus for 2009 and 2010 projects,” Johnson said.

Not only does Iberdrola plan to expand the Dry Lake project, but Navajo County has been busy approving new testing stations that will guide developers to the gustiest swaths of the county, Assistant County Manager Dusty Parsons said.

“We’ve been waiting to see this happen,” Parsons said.

With an unemployment rate reaching into the double digits, Navajo County is embracing the Dry Lake project.

Most of the 200 construction workers are living, shopping and eating in Holbrook. Once the plant is finished, about 10 operators will hold permanent jobs at the plant.

“Even that helps,” said Rod Ross, government-relations administrator for Navajo County. “The county is going through hard times just like everybody else. And we have a pretty good supply of wind up here.” Few Holbrook residents seem bothered by the turbines on the horizon.

Rusty Long, pointing to the coal-burning Cholla Power Plant nearby, noted, “They’re just a little shorter than those stacks on that power plant.”

Six from Tucson High Magnet

Ebaa Al-Obeidi

Margaret Wilch, a science teacher at Tucson High Magnet School, has reason to be especially proud this week.

Six out of nine area students going to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair are hers.

They, along with three others, make up the largest entourage ever from here to go to the fair, the world’s largest precollege science contest. Each year more than 1,500 high school students from more than 50 countries exhibit their independent research and compete for nearly $4 million in scholarships and prizes. Doctoral-level scientists are judges.

“These kids are phenomenal. They really are our future for science and engineering in Pima County,” said Kathleen A. Bethel, director of the Southern Arizona Regional Science and Engineering Fair. “I think they’re all going to do great.”

Wilch agreed. “It’s amazing when you give a person an opportunity, what they’ll do. They’re incredibly dedicated and spend lots of time on their projects.”

She is accompanying her students to the fair, which started Sunday and runs through Friday in Reno, Nev.

“She’s just incredible,” Bethel said of Wilch. “Year after year she has at least one student going to Intel, and often they win.”

This is the 11th straight year that Wilch has had international competitors. And seven have come home with awards. Wilch’s students and their projects are:

• Angela Schlegel: “The identification of enzymes used in Salvia divinorum to produce salvinorin A”

• Mahwish Khalid: “The effect of male size of cytoplasmic incompatibility in the parasitic wasp Encarsia pergandiella”

• Negin Nematollahi: “Factors affecting bone strength during development in peri-pubertal girls”

• Michael Wallace: “Artificial selection for polystyrene degradation in bacterial communities”

• The team of Emily Derks and Alice Glasser: “A comparison of the effects of added urban stresses on native and non-native soil microbial communities.”

The other competitors are:

• Ebaa Al-Obeidi, from Canyon del Oro High: “Sonoran Solar Solution”

• Martin Lopez and Mario Valdez, from Rio Rico High: “Terminal Ballistics of Household Structures”

Wilch said her earlier education has molded how she prepares her students for success.

She specifically recalls two science teachers: Gary Benesh at George Washington High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and David Lyon, Ph.D. at Cornell (Iowa) College.

In Lyon’s class, Wilch published a scientific paper as an undergraduate, a rarity.

“And I don’t ever remember having a textbook in Mr. Benesh’s class. I remember going out into the field, going to the zoo. He had us reading Scientific America magazine.”

Her students are getting a similar education. She has University of Arizona professionals as mentor to her students, who are actually doing research in UA science labs. And she has a UA graduate student working in her classroom, thanks to a National Science Foundation grant.

In addition to the nine competitors at internationals, four students, who also had first-place wins in either the Southern Arizona Regional Science and Engineering Fair in Tucson or the first-ever Arizona State Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix earlier this year, will attend as observers.

“For observers, we look for kids who have a long-term commitment and who we think will learn what it takes to get to the next level,” Bethel said. “We’ve had a lot of observers who’ve come back and done well at regionals and internationals.”

CDO’s Al-Obeidi was an observer last year, Bethel said.

This year’s observers and their projects are:

• Ostin Zarse and Joshua Sloane, from Sonoran Science Academy: “Upping the Power: Can reflective materials be cost effective while increasing the output of photovoltaic cells?”

• Stanley Palase, also from Sonoran Science Academy: “Metabolic Comparison of Carbohydrates”

• Anna Guarino, from Salpointe Catholic High: “Microbial Contamination of Pens”

Emily Derks (left) and Alice Glasser compared the effects of added urban stresses on native and non-native soil microbial communities.

Angela Schlegel

Hollywood stretches scientific accuracy in a new action thriller starring Tom Hanks, a University of Arizona researcher said.

“Angels & Demons,” which opens Friday, tells the tale of bad guys who threaten to destroy Vatican City with an explosive device containing a tiny amount of antimatter.

“We’re debunking the premise that you can really create a dangerous device out of antimatter,” said Erich Varnes, associate professor of physics at UA. “I don’t want people to worry that terrorists are going to build an antimatter device and hold it over us.”

Varnes will discuss the science of antimatter and how it applies to the movie at 8 p.m. Wednesday in the UA Harvill Building.

When antimatter collides with matter – for example, a normal electron with a negative charge meets an antimatter electron with a positive charge – they are annihilated and converted into energy, Varnes said.

Since e=mc2, or energy equals mass multiplied by the speed of light squared, it would take a lot of antimatter to create an effective bomb, he said.

“If you had enough antimatter you could release huge amounts of energy,” he said. “The key point is there is really no practical way to generate or store enough antimatter to do any serious damage at all.”

If U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois ran flat out for 20 years producing antimatter, and if you could store that much antimatter – which you can’t – you would have the equivalent of 10 pounds of conventional explosives, Varnes said.

The movie is accurate in stating that antimatter can be produced in a lab, and if you get enough, it would annihilate with matter and create a lot of energy, he said.

Scientists see public interest in the movie as an opportunity to inform the public.

“The movie uses particle physics as the basis of its entire plot,” he said. “This is a chance for people to learn what is real in the movie, what is exaggerated, and where we are at the cutting edge of particle physics today.”

The movie is based on a novel by Dan Brown, who also wrote the novel on which a 2006 movie, “The Da Vinci Code” was based.

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IF YOU GO

What: Angels & Demons: The Science of Antimatter and the Large Hadron Collider

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday

Where: Room 150 of the Harvill Building, 1103 E. Second St.

Speaker: Erich Varnes, University of Arizona associate professor of physics

Cost: Free

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WHAT IS ANTIMATTER?

Antimatter is made up of elementary antiparticles, like protons and electrons with an opposite electrical charge. When matter and antimatter come into contact, they release energy while being destroyed.

Q: I missed the Eta Aquarid meteors earlier this month. Will there be another good meteor shower that I can see soon?

A: Not until this summer. Usually the best and most predictable shooting star show is the Perseid meteor shower in August, but that is being supplanted by the Geminids around Dec. 13-14. This year the Perseids peak on the nights of Aug. 11-12 and 12-13, but the moon will interfere after 10:30 p.m. on the peak night of Aug. 12-13. If it’s cloudy on those nights, you can still see some Perseid meteors on the nights of Aug. 10-11 and 13-14, even through moonlight.

FLAGSTAFF – The northern Arizona observatory where Pluto was discovered has a new director.

Eileen Friel will become the 10th director of the Lowell Observatory when Bob Millis steps down on June 15.

Friel currently is the executive officer for the Division of Astronomical Sciences at the National Science Foundation. She says she’s looking forward to her new job at what she calls a first-rate research center.

She says Lowell Observatory produces fascinating science and has done a superb job explaining that work to the residents of northern Arizona.

The private, nonprofit observatory was founded in 1894. Pluto was discovered by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 while he was working at the observatory.

Peter Smith

The Phoenix Mars Lander mission has been a successful steppingstone to greater discoveries on our neighboring planet, Peter Smith said Tuesday night.

Smith, the principal investigator for the University of Arizona-led mission, told about 125 people attending a Flandrau Science Center science cafe event that mankind is likely to set foot on Mars.

“Eventually I think the human race will get to Mars,” he said.

“There are no technology hurdles that would stop you from sending people to Mars. But you really want to be sure you are bringing back live astronauts.”

He said the seven-month journey each way and planet positioning means that the mission would likely last three years.

Current plans call for such a mission to take place between 2030 and 2035, he said. But if there are problems with efforts sooner to send people to the moon again, there will be a delay going to Mars.

The Phoenix Lander tasted frozen water in material scooped from the planet’s northern arctic region, but found no conclusive evidence that life exists or existed on the planet.

That will likely change.

“I’m predicting that in 10 years we will have found strong signatures of life on Mars or the other planets we’ve discovered,” Smith said. “We’re not trying to make Mars into something it isn’t – it may not have life. If that’s the case it’s still a great planet that has no life.”

Smith fielded many questions from the capacity crowd at Cushing Street Bar & Restaurant, which featured a special $4 Martian margarita to mark the occasion.

When asked if Mars is the new high ground for U.S. military imperialism, Smith said no, adding tongue in cheek that the moon would be a much better choice for a military outpost.

“I don’t think there is any military use of Mars – not in a decade, a century or a millennium,” he said.

He said there was no question about basing the mission in Tucson.

“I didn’t want to participate if we didn’t do it my hometown. I grew up here,” Smith said to applause from the crowd.

Steve Walkosak, 69, a Tucson Realtor and investor, said the presentation was great.

“We got to see what they had to go through to put it together and see what they found out,” Walkosak said.

Sean Miller (left) asks Alejandro Leyva about his project, the Full Spectrum Imaging System, on Tuesday at the University of Arizona Student Union. Leyva's senior engineering project was one of about 70 on display.

University of Arizona engineering senior Javier Heyer cooked his Cinco de Mayo quesadillas with the power of the sun.

Heyer and his team were among 70 groups participating in Engineering Design Day at the UA Student Union Memorial Center.

Four- and five-person student teams demonstrated projects that covered a broad spectrum of engineering disciplines, said Jeff Goldberg, dean of the College of Engineering.

Student projects displayed included a missile blast deflector for an Apache helicopter, a variety of unmanned aerial vehicles, a full-spectrum imaging system, a leave-behind remote sensor, solar cars, an ultraviolet pasteurizer for milk, a photovoltaic energy system for remote power applications and a pepper spray mount for an M-16 rifle.

Senior student teams worked for two semesters to solve problems presented by industry partners, Goldberg said.

“The primary goal is to give students design experience with a real client in a practice mode,” he said. “We want to give them a rehearsal.”

Student teams also competed for more than $10,000 in cash prizes donated by event sponsors, Goldberg said.

Heyer’s team built a solar cooker that uses a Fresnel lens to focus the sun’s energy to heat mineral oil.

The oil is circulated to warm stovetop heating elements, he said.

The oil can be circulated to heat cooking elements inside the home or restaurant, as well as outside where the solar collector is located, he said.

Despite Tuesday’s overcast skies the solar cooker reached 330 degrees while grilling cheese quesadillas, he said.

One team developed a portable device to detect gluten, a substance found in cereal grains to which many people have allergic reactions.

Food can be tested to see if it contains gluten and is safe to eat by people with a gluten intolerance, said team member James Nimlos.

The device’s portability means it can be used to test restaurant food for gluten, Nimlos said.

At the other end of the digestive spectrum, a team developed a device to remove loops that develop in a flexible colonoscope instrument that is being pushed through a person’s bowels during a colonoscopy exam.

Looping of the colonoscope inside a person means the examining doctor must spend time straightening out the instrument, said Blake Randolph, team member.

The improved way of straightening out an inserted colonoscope could cut 30 minutes off an exam, Randolph said.

A UA senior engineering team developed a device to warn drivers who doze off behind the wheel.

Their brain wave activity alarm, a lightweight wireless device that detects when eyes get droopy and close, could improve driving safety, said team member Joseph Bitz.

The devices, which can be manufactured in large quantities for $6.52 each, could have other uses including medical monitoring of brain activity, team member Henry Barrow said.

The device could hit the market within the next year or so, Bitz said.

UA engineering sophomore Kevin Ferguson viewed the senior project demos and said Engineering Design Day showed him what his professional future holds.

“It gives you a very real idea of what you are getting into and what you can do with an engineering degree,” Ferguson said.

The event contributed to the seniors’ grades, as well as showcasing their engineering skills, said Martha Ostheimer, director of the UA interdisciplinary engineering design program. She said 65 judges from 40 companies spent hours judging the teams for prizes and grades.

Javier Heyer cooks a quesadilla on his senior engineering project, the Concentrated Solar Cooking and Heating System.

On Arizona Skin Cancer Institute’s Web site

A new tool to detect skin cancer has been made public by the Arizona Cancer Center’s Skin Cancer Institute.

“Skin Cancer: Learn to Spot it Early” is a 12-minute video that shows how to do skin self-exams to find growths that could be or lead to cancers, said Lois Loescher, the institute’s director of education and behavior research.

The video may be found at www.azskincancerinstitute.org/SCVideos.aspx.

“The whole purpose of doing the video is getting people to do skin self-exams,” she said. “Everyone should know how to examine his or her skin regardless of risk factor.

“Early detection really plays a role in survival from skin cancer,” Loescher said. “It’s very important to protect yourself from the sun, but if you don’t catch it early, you increase your chances of having the disease be much more serious.”

A study proved the video’s effectiveness, she said.

“We found a highly significant change – more people were doing skin self-exams after viewing the video,” Loescher said. “We also found a very significant change in knowledge; they had more knowledge about melanoma.”

The video stresses the importance of early detection of skin cancers. Melanoma survival rates are 98 percent if detected early, she said.

The video recommends that people carefully examine their skin each month for changes in moles and spots.

Hand-held and full-length mirrors are needed for an effective self-exam.

Things to look for in moles and spots include asymmetry, border irregularities, color variation, diameter larger than a pencil eraser and changing appearance and feel.

People finding anything suspicious should contact their primary care physician or dermatologist.

Producing the video and testing its effectiveness were funded with a $25,000 Laurence B. Emmons Endowment, said Loescher, principal investigator of the project.

The video was released on the institute’s Web site Friday and shown at a Living in Harmony with the Sun event Saturday and Sunday at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. The event was to promote sun safety, awareness and skin cancer prevention.

A follow-up video on skin cancer prevention tactics is planned, Loescher said.

The video won the American Academy of Dermatology’s Gold Triangle Award, said Jennifer L. Allyn, spokeswomen for the Schaumburg, Ill., organization.

The award recognizes efforts that further understanding of dermatologic issues and encourage healthy behaviors in the care of skin, hair and nails, Allyn said.

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RELATED

Arizona Cancer Center Skin Cancer Institutes video site: www.azskincancerinstitute.org/SCVideos.aspx

The search for life on Mars continues.

The Phoenix Mars Lander mission led by the University of Arizona tasted frozen water in material scooped from the planet’s northern arctic region.

And other discoveries since the Lander’s surface operations ended six months ago have expanded researchers’ understanding of our neighboring planet, said Peter Smith, who led the Phoenix mission.

On Tuesday Smith will discuss efforts to find evidence of life on Mars at a UA Flandrau Science Center science cafe event.

Science cafes are casual forums where people can discuss a topic with UA researchers in a relaxed atmosphere.

“It’s not just about the Phoenix mission; it’s all about the search for life on Mars,” Smith said. “I will try and broaden it out a bit.”

Smith’s presentation begins at 6 p.m. at Cushing Street Bar & Restaurant and will be followed by an informal public discussion on Martian exploration.

“There are a lot of other people studying Mars,” Smith said. “There have been some very interesting developments in the past six months, even since Phoenix.”

UA’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera circling the planet aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite found evidence of sub-surface ice at 43 degrees north latitude – south and closer to the Martian equator than where Phoenix landed, Smith said.

The HiRISE camera photographed white material in five craters caused by meteorite impacts. The white material, believed to be frozen water, disappeared over time as seen in subsequent HiRISE images. Researchers believe the frozen water sublimated, or turned into gas, and disappeared into the atmosphere.

The thick ice layer appears to begin a half meter to a meter below the surface, Smith said.

Earth-based telescopes have discovered high concentrations of methane gas jetting out of regions on the Martian surface, Smith said.

Methane, which is closely linked to biological activity on Earth, could point toward evidence of living material beneath the Martian surface, Smith said.

Smith said researchers are closing in on discovering some form of life on another planet, possibly Mars.

“I don’t know what it’s going to be or where it’s going to be,” he said. “All I’m trying to say is we are hot on the trail of finding life.

“With the intensity of study on this problem I think there will be results within the next decade. It’s a prediction,” Smith said. “We are getting close.”

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IF YOU GO

What: Flandrau Science Center science cafe

Topic: “Journey of the Phoenix”

Presenter: Peter Smith, principal investigator, Phoenix Mars Lander mission

When: 6-7:30 p.m. Tuesday

Where: Cushing Street Bar & Restaurant, 198 W. Cushing St.

Cost: Free, with food and beverages available for purchase