UA camera sends images from Mars

Photo Courtesy www.lpl.arizona.edu/imp/ This is a recent photo taken of the martian terrain by the Mars Pathfinder (IMP) on the UA developed Sojourner.

A piece of the University of Arizona landed on Mars late Friday morning aboard the Mars Pathfinder.

The landrover is carrying circuitry designed by UA engineering students and electrical and computer engineering professor Jo Dale Carothers.

Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. received their first signal from Pathfinder early afternoon Friday, indicating the spacecraft and its instruments had landed safely.

Using the sun as a reference point, Pathfinder pointed an antenna at Earth, establishing a high-speed communications link.

By 5 p.m. (MST), the Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) was taking pictures of the lander, airbags (used to cushion the spacecraft's landing) and landing site.

The UA-designed camera is equipped with two lenses that are spaced as far as part as human eyes, and will send back stereoscopic images to Earth.

IMP's pictures allowed JPL scientists to determine which of the two exit ramps on Pathfinder should be used by its on-board mini-landrover, Sojourner.

JPL received some of the first panoramic pictures of the Martian landscape by late Friday night.

Sojourner's next mission is to study the composition of specific rock, which scientists have named Barnacle Bill.

Pictures from the Mars mission can be accessed on the JPL team's web page at http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/imp.

Impotence study

A recent study at UMC suggests that a hormone known for its ability to tan the skin appears to be an effective treatment of impotence.

The University of Arizona College of Medicine's study has produced promising results with Melanotan II (MT II), a hormone that may be effective in treating some types of impotence, said Dr. Hunter Wessells, director of the Sexual Dysfunction Unit at the U MC.

"This may be an important breakthrough and could mean a lot to the millions of men affected by impotence," he said.

The first study focusing on MT II as a possible treatment involved 10 men with psychogenic mpotence, mentally or emotionally related, who were administered the drug twice.

The hormone produced erections in 80 percent of the participants, Wessells said.

The drug is currently being studied as a treatment for organic impotence, the most common cause of impotence.

Impotence affects about 18 million men of all ages in the United States.

Scientists discovered Melanotan II as a potential treatment for impotence while studying it as a drug that produces changes in skin color.

The study is being done in collaboration with the UA Department of Dermatology and UMC.