Read my work in Scientific American

Eyes Wide Shut: Earth's Vital Signs Soon to go Unmeasured as Satellites Fail
NASA's fleet of Earth Observing System orbiters is on borrowed time due to a lack of planning and underfunding
By Lisa Palmer

Satellites aren't built to last forever, so it's not a big surprise that the third and last laser on NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) quit working on October 11, outlasting its designed mission length by three and a half years. Since its launch in 2003 ICESat has been a critical instrument for continuously monitoring how much ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland are contributing to the rise of the world's oceans and how much the swath of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is thinning--both of which are occurring faster than projected. The loss of ICESat, however, is a signal of what the future holds for NASA's ailing Earth Observing System (EOS), which is dying just as fast as it is most needed to inform decisions and policy on climate change. [Complete story available online]

A BETTER PRENATAL TEST?

A biotech startup promises accurate prenatal tests without the risks of traditional amniocentesis.

Life was proceeding as planned for Ravinder Dhallan, or so it seemed. Having earned doctorates in medicine and biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University, he had just started a radiation oncology residency at Massachusetts General Hospital. On the home front Dhallan and his wife, Hejung Christine Chang, had a daughter, and they were eager to see their family grow.

Then things got complicated. Chang suffered two miscarriages. The couple was devastated and had no idea what to do. Only later did they realize that the miscarriages had a genetic basis. The episode left Dhallan struck by how little information was available to women who experienced complications during pregnancy. "It suddenly became personal," he says. And so he resolved to invent a better prenatal diagnostic exam. [complete article]

AN E-Z PASS FOR EMISSIONS TESTS
Drivers may be able to skip the long lines at motor vehicle departments if SysTech's wireless pollution-data-collection system takes off.

By Lisa Palmer, FSB contributor

Fifteen years after receiving his first patent for an automobile-emissions testing device and ten years after founding a company to build and market emissions-testing systems, Pradeep Tripathi has learned a thing or two about his niche. He knows, for example, that neither consumers nor regulators like the current setup. Drivers regard the annual emissions test as a pain in the tailpipe. And regulators question the value of a system that gives them only one shot a year -in some places, once every two years - to certify that a car meets emissions standards. "In between, it could be polluting like crazy and no one will ever know," says Tripathi. [complete article]