Galileo encounter with 951 gaspra: first pictures of an asteroid

Galileo images of Gaspra reveal it to be an irregularly shaped object (19 by 12 by 11 kilometers) that appears to have been created by a catastrophic collisional disruption of a precursor parent body. The cratering age of the surface is about 200 million years. Subtle albedo and color variations appear to correlate with morphological features: Brighter materials are associated with craters especially along the crests of ridges, have a stronger 1-micrometer absorption, and may represent freshly excavated mafic materials; darker materials exhibiting a significantly weaker 1-micrometer absorption appear concentrated in interridge areas. One explanation of these patterns is that Gaspra is covered with a thin regolith and that some of this material has migrated downslope in some areas.     

A seismotectonic model for the 300-kilometer-long eastern tennessee seismic zone

Ten years of monitoring microearthquakes with a regional seismic network has revealed the presence of a well-defined, linear zone of seismic activity in eastern Tennessee. This zone produced the second highest release of seismic strain energy in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains during the last decade, when normalized by crustal area. The data indicate that seismicity produced by regional, intraplate stresses is now concentrating near the boundary between relatively strong and weak basement crustal blocks.     

Treatment of Chronic Back Pain in Horses Stimulation of Acupuncture Points with a Low Powered Infrared Laser

Fourteen horses that could not perform at their expected standards due to chronic back pain of 4 to 48 months duration, and had not obtained lasting improvement from other forms of therapy, were treated by stimulating nine acupuncture points using a low powered infrared laser (300 microW, 904 nm). The treatments were performed weekly, and consisted of stimulating each point for 2 minutes with a pulse frequency of 360 pulses per second. After completion of a mean of 11 treatments, clinical signs of back pain were alleviated in 10 of the 14 horses, there was no change in three, and one was lost to follow-up. Of the 10 horses who were training and competing, four won. One year after treatment was discontinued, 9 of these 10 horses continued to perform at a standard acceptable to the owner.     

Intrarenal pelvic nephroblastoma in a meerkat (Suricata suricatta).

Nephroblastoma is the most common primary renal tumor in children and has also been reported in domestic and nondomestic animal species. Intrapelvic renal nephroblastoma is a rare variant of this tumor type in human patients. Postmortem examination of a captive meerkat (Suricata suricatta), which was found dead, revealed enlargement of the pelvis of the left kidney by a tumor mass. Gross, histological, and immunohistochemical findings were consistent with a diagnosis of triphasic intrapelvic renal nephroblastoma. This is the first reported spontaneous case of intrapelvic renal nephroblastoma in a nonhuman species.     

COMPARISON OF CARDIOPULMONARY RESPONSES TO DETOMIDINE ADMINISTERED AS AN INTRAVENOUS STEADY-STATE INFUSION VS INTRAVENOUS BOLUS IN STANDING HORSES

We compared the cardiopulmonary response to detomidine (DET) administered to two different groups of horses after IV steady-state infusion (n = 7) or IV bolus (n = 6) at similar plasma DET concentrations. Based upon previously reported kinetics, a computer predicted DET plasma concentrations and controlled an infusion pump which maintained steady-state arterial plasma DET for the infusion studies. These pharmacokinetics were used to estimate DET plasma concentrations at measurement times following IV bolus DET in the second group of horses. Cardiopulmonary measurements were made following 15 minutes of steady-state infusion and 30 minutes after IV bolus of DET. DET plasma concentration was estimated to be similar between A), 19 ng DET/ml plasma infusion and 30 minutes following an IV bolus dose of 10 γg DET/kg, (estimated plasma concentration 20.5 ng/ml), and B), 43 ng DET/ml plasma infusion and 30 minutes following an IV bolus of 20 γg DET/kg (estimated plasma concentration 42 ng/ml).