P1_9 Can You Get Into Space for Peanuts?

 Developing low cost space travel is a key issue since the retirement of the Shuttle. This paper looks at the feasibility of a mixture of toffee and peanuts in a low cost solid fuel rocket. It is found that this fuel mixture would lead to a mass ratio of about 54 which corresponds to a rocket consisting of 98% fuel and 2% remaining for the rocket structure and payload

P1_4 Could Bruce Willis Predict the End of the World?

This article is a follow-â€up to the paper Could Bruce Willis Save the World? where the feasibility of splitting an asteroid with a nuclear weapon is studied. In this article the possibility of spotting the asteroid with the Hubble Space Telescope upon a lucky image was researched. It was found the asteroid could have been spotted as far as away as 1.3210^14ð‘š

P1_7 Medical Nanobot Locomotion Methods within a Fluid

The following paper discusses the motion and mechanisms behind the motion of a nanoscale robot within a fluid and compares it to that of a larger object moving through the same fluid by considering the impeding forces to motion that the nanobot has to overcome. The fluid considered is water and it is found that the apparent viscosity of a fluid is highly dependent on the length scale of the object attempting to move through it with a nanoscale object experiencing a much larger viscosity compared to a macro scale object in the same fluid

The Martian bow shock over solar cycle 23-24 as observed by the Mars Express mission

The Martian bow shock position is known to be correlated with solar extreme ultraviolet irradiance. Since this parameter is also correlated with the evolution of the solar cycle, it is expected that the Martian bow shock position should also vary over such a period. However, previous reports on this topic have often proved contradictory. Using 13 years of observations of the Martian bow shock by the Mars Express mission over the period 2004 to 2017, we report that the Martian bow shock position does vary over the solar cycle. Over this period, our analysis shows the bow shock position to increase on average by 7% between the solar minimum and maximum phases of solar cycle 23–24, which could be even larger for more extreme previous solar cycles. We show that both annual and solar cycle variations play major roles in the location of the bow shock at Mars

The state of the Martian climate

60°N was +2.0°C, relative to the 1981–2010 average value (Fig. 5.1). This marks a new high for the record. The average annual surface air temperature (SAT) anomaly for 2016 for land stations north of starting in 1900, and is a significant increase over the previous highest value of +1.2°C, which was observed in 2007, 2011, and 2015. Average global annual temperatures also showed record values in 2015 and 2016. Currently, the Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of lower latitudes

Rare coding variants in ten genes confer substantial risk for schizophrenia

Rare coding variation has historically provided the most direct connections between gene function and disease pathogenesis. By meta-analysing the whole exomes of 24,248 schizophrenia cases and 97,322 controls, we implicate ultra-rare coding variants (URVs) in 10 genes as conferring substantial risk for schizophrenia (odds ratios of 3-50, PPeer reviewe

Abdominal aortic aneurysm is associated with a variant in low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 1

Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a common cause of morbidity and mortality and has a significant heritability. We carried out a genome-wide association discovery study of 1866 patients with AAA and 5435 controls and replication of promising signals (lead SNP with a p value < 1 × 10-5) in 2871 additional cases and 32,687 controls and performed further follow-up in 1491 AAA and 11,060 controls. In the discovery study, nine loci demonstrated association with AAA (p < 1 × 10-5). In the replication sample, the lead SNP at one of these loci, rs1466535, located within intron 1 of low-density-lipoprotein receptor-related protein 1 (LRP1) demonstrated significant association (p = 0.0042). We confirmed the association of rs1466535 and AAA in our follow-up study (p = 0.035). In a combined analysis (6228 AAA and 49182 controls), rs1466535 had a consistent effect size and direction in all sample sets (combined p = 4.52 × 10-10, odds ratio 1.15 [1.10-1.21]). No associations were seen for either rs1466535 or the 12q13.3 locus in independent association studies of coronary artery disease, blood pressure, diabetes, or hyperlipidaemia, suggesting that this locus is specific to AAA. Gene-expression studies demonstrated a trend toward increased LRP1 expression for the rs1466535 CC genotype in arterial tissues; there was a significant (p = 0.029) 1.19-fold (1.04-1.36) increase in LRP1 expression in CC homozygotes compared to TT homozygotes in aortic adventitia. Functional studies demonstrated that rs1466535 might alter a SREBP-1 binding site and influence enhancer activity at the locus. In conclusion, this study has identified a biologically plausible genetic variant associated specifically with AAA, and we suggest that this variant has a possible functional role in LRP1 expression