Cognitive Labs

A new landing page is available... here it is. See the full page here

BEST, cognitive labs
Yes, we are building the global mind

We have working on usability, mainly to make it simple to understand our service. With that thinking, we have added some easy tutorial pages that in 5 screen shots, should get you up and running.

It's even easier to use the screen shots as 'ads' or landing pages for a simple text ad. That way, people know exactly what it is we're offering. For example:



To see in context: http://www.cognitivelabs.com/boomer_memoryloss_quick_facts.htm

I wanted to bring your attention to one of our new partners, Austin, Texas-based myDNA.com. I think the concept behind the company is fascinating - it's basically a next generation portal focused on the structural causes of illness and takes a scientific approach to treatment. We are all engineers, architecting our health by running the requisite software programs. MyDNA is an emulator that lets you into the mainframe of health. When you think about it a portal is basically a fancy emulator. So, if you go to myDNA.com you may see one of our banner ads. it's part of our long-term strategy and it looks like their's - of providing lifelonging solutions - we're focused more or less on the inside of the head while they are focused on the all of the body systems. When you can comine the web with various conditional tests you get much closer to risk factor assessment...the cornerstone of a personal health or cognitive management program....please check it out.

Naqada predynastic slipware, Egypt, 3600-3220 B.C. predates the so-called "Scorpion King."

In an era before modern methods, Sir Flinders Petrie created a method of dating human cultural eras based on relativity.

By carefully mapping the location and stylistic variation of potsherds, Petrie developed several cultural eras that predated recorded history. This analysis of voluminous amounts of raw data is akin to what we do at Cognitive Labs. We develop a snapshot of human cognition as it develops over time, based on various domains of observed reaction to scientifically developed stimuli, all engineered into a scalable archive. Indexing the data creates a search engine for human mental performance.

Classifying the data into the observed themes tells us how cognitive performance changes over time. By juxtaposing with other known information, we will discover for whom it changes over time, and why it changes over time. Indications also are that the observed cognitive decline which impacts people as they age can be at least be monitored, and in some cases influenced directly through lifestyle changes and nutritional intervention. It truly is a scale or meter for the mind, as Slate first suggested.

We also turn our attention to the ascent of cognition as we age, and optimization of cognitive performance, which turns out to have real impact on how we do things like take tests, perform as students, in theworkplace, and perform as a sentient athlete.

There is a depth and richness to optimization as well as to prolongation of cognitive performance It's no surprise that when we ran a halo competition at E3 using brainspeed.com, the champions of the competition scored very highly when compared to the population as a whole in several domains of cognitive function. Some of the same skills are required for piloting an aircraft or spacecraft.

Sequencing the ascent of cognition will be as interesting as sequencing the overall gradual decline of cognitive function associated with age. In fact, they are the two ends of the same thread, interrelated and inseparable.

Making the knowledge available to everyone can be as significant and surpassing a breakthrough as the Gutenberg press in diffusing written information. Please join us in the quest!



Petrie, Sir William Matthew Flinders [pē'trē]
Pronunciation Key

Sequence datiunguce
Petrie, Sir William Matthew Flinders , 1853–1942, English archaeologist, a noted Egyptologist. He excavated ancient remains in Britain (1875–80), Egypt (1880–1924), and Palestine (1927–38) and was (1892–1933) professor of Egyptology at University College, London. In 1894 he founded the Egyptian Research Account, which became (1905) the British School of Archaeology in Egypt. His most important excavations were at Memphis, but he made many other outstanding discoveries. Among these are the sites of Greek settlements at Naucratis (1885) and Daphnae (1886); tombs of the first dynasty at Abydos (1899); the stele of Merneptah at Thebes (1896), inscribed with the earliest known Egyptian reference to Israel;


The Israel stela - first known hieroglyphic reference to phonetic I-s-r-ll; with the reed, open mouth, bolt of cloth, double-reed symbols and the mountains identifier "of foreign nations" phoentically kh-s-wt

and ruins of 10 cities at Tel-el-Hesy (S of Jerusalem). His writings include many works on ancient Egypt, Methods and Aims in Archaeology (1904), and Seventy Years in Archaeology (1931). He edited A History of Egypt (6 vol., rev. ed. 1923–27), of which he wrote the first three volumes. A tireless and meticulous excavator, Petrie was responsible for greatly advancing the methodology of archaeology. He was particularly innovative in the interpretation of deeply stratified deposits, undertaking the seriation of undecorated pottery and demonstrating how ceramics from Egypt could be used to establish the age of archaeological strata outside Egypt, a technique known as cross-dating.

I think we'll have some coverage in PC Gamer for brainspeed.com and brainspeed, based on the interview Elliot did. In an unusual convergence, the release of PREY from the makers of Duke Nukem has an exclusive with PC Gamer, and GameXstream, a streaming game-asset management company where we also are on the advisory board, is going to be powering the direct distribution of PREY to consumers, online. So it was announced at E3. Bravo! I am still wrapping up that sequence dating post... and more on Sir William Mathew Flinders Petrie. Meanwhile I just downloaded Skype, and am planning to use it to communicate in real time with friends and colleagues. I had avoided it since I thought it would take over my PC like Kazaa with the Bde ad projector (hello Kevin), but the jury's still out. I have been assured it will not, and promises more than an incremental increase in productivity.


Over at brainspeed.blogspot you an see some E3 photos (more coming) including the halo challenge competitors and also the brainspeed.com themed vehicle. Next, we'll roll it out to the checkered flag at Nascar and the Talledega motor speedway in Alabama. With the brainspeed.com cam, you'll get a high intensity view from the cage. Soon, you'll know how much quicker the drivers are with brainspeed. Who knows, if Evel Knievel had it there would have been no problem jumping the Snake River canyon.

Biz Stone wrote about blog URL's showing up on Highway 101 as the technology permafrost softened. At the brainspeed.com blog, we're just about there. Next will be the huge Silicon View billboard by the ex-'Liberate' offices - with yourblog.com. It's coming...I can feel it. Your blogging has made you powerful, now give in to your feelings....it is your destiny...learn to use blogger, only then will you be able...

To re-create the flow of events and cultural stratigraphy, scientists turn to sequence dating. In an era prior to C14, DNA analysis and other modern methods of investigation sequence dating provided context and relevance to the matrix of discovery.

We have some thoughts on how this relates to human memory and classifying human thinking into an encyclopedia neuropyschologica that embraces the full gestalt of experience. When the thoughts are full-blown, we'll share them. So, check back later today or this evening.

What if we could use prosthetic arms, legs, or other devices and perceive them as belonging; where in fact, they would be little more than extensions of our body?

Scientists have now trained monkeys to perceive that a third remote limb is part of their tactile self. The monkeys manipulate the third limb like their other two 'natural' limbs. I find this a fascinating development for the future. Devices of all kinds may be considered as appendages, and believed to be so by the mind....

The brains of monkeys who learned to control robotic arms rewired themselves to treat the arms as if they were real - a finding scientists say has implications for developing limbs to assist handicapped humans.

The findings build upon a 2003 study that found monkeys were able to control robotic arms using only signals from their brains and without moving their own arms.

Miguel Nicolelis and colleagues at Duke University's Center for Neuroengineering analyzed the data to see what was happening to the primates' brain cells as they learned to use the robotic arm to position a cursor on a video screen.

"The monkey's brain incorporates properties of the robotic arm as if it was another arm and changes to adapt to those properties," Nicolelis, a neurobiologist, told United Press International.

"Basically, the brain extends the representation of the animal's body and enhances the sense of self. The animal can function using two arms but also can function as if he has a third arm."

This not only expands the limit of the brain's ability to adapt itself to new situations, it also "opens new venues for how to design prosthetics that can be more readily incorporated by the brain," he said.

Such prosthetics, dubbed "neuroprosthetics" by Nicolelis, could give those needing artificial limbs the ability to control them as if they were the real thing.

Experiments in Nicolelis' lab already are building on the neuroprosthetic concept. His team is developing ways patients can receive feedback sensation, either visually or by touch, from neuroprosthetic devices via electrodes running from the limb to the brain.

Tiny electrodes implanted in the brain translated the brain signals into movement of the robotic arm.

In Nicolelis' study, which appears in the May 11 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, the monkey's brain was able to adapt to the robotic arm by shifting some of its neurons that previously were used to control its own arms to become more attuned to the function of the robotic arm.

When the researchers analyzed the brain signals collected during the experiment, they found the monkey simultaneously carrying out an activity with its own arm while performing another with the robotic arm.

Jack Uellendahl, a clinical specialist in prosthetics at Hanger Prosthetics and Orthotics in Phoenix, Ariz., called the findings "fascinating" but believes the application to artificial limbs is a long way off.

The greater potential might be for quadriplegics rather than for amputees, said Uellendahl, who has more than 25 years of experience in the prosthetics field.

Recent advances in enabling amputees to control prostheses using their residual muscles already have allowed patients to exceed the dexterity of current artificial limbs and devices, such as hands, wrists, elbows and shoulders, he said. Rather than developing better ways to control prostheses, there might be a greater need to develop better prosthetic joints, he added.

Developing better control methods based on findings from the monkey research may have a spillover benefit.

"Perhaps this method of controlling the full variety of prosthetic joints possible will encourage more development of more sophisticated prosthetic joints," Uellendahl said.

The findings challenge some experts' views of the brain's plasticity.

They propose the human brain has the unique ability to change its concept of self and this extends to the tools humans use. This is not too surprising since the brain routinely incorporates tools in everyday use into its perception of who people are.

Here's the wire release that hit right at E3, I thought you might be interested. For now, you can buy brainspeed at brainspeed.com. Got any feedback? Let me know.



LOS ANGELES -(BUSINESS WIRE)-May 19, 2005-Natrol, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTOL - News), a nationally recognized manufacturer of health supplements, announced the launch of its Natrol brainSpeed (TM)line of three cognitive health supplements that include a patent-pending formula -- the brainSpeed Blend(TM). Targeting the cholinergic system - the key to cognitive speed - the brainSpeed blend was tested clinically to help promote mental agility, maintain memory and improve speed.

In another major innovation, Natrol brainSpeed also represents the first time a nutritional supplement provides a tool for consumers to verify results on an individual basis. Through the use of the brainSpeedOmeter(TM) online test powered in partnership with Cognitive Labs, consumers have the ability to establish a baseline for their mental processing speed. When they use the products as recommended and retest themselves, users will be able to measure changes in their own cognitive processing speed. This tool delivers on the product line's promise of providing individual results (www.brainspeed.com).

According to Natrol CEO Elliott Balbert: "We have been developing the Natrol brainSpeed project for 2-1/2 years. This effort included significant investment in research, formula testing and safety testing to lead this emerging category. Not only are vital boomers interested in their mental well-being but so are students, professionals and executives -- even game players and athletes. The brain is the C.P.U. (central processing unit) of our body. It is time the nutraceutical industry delivered a legitimate brain health product from a company that backs it with science, safety and sincerity."

Natrol is departing from its customary strategy of broadly rolling out the product into all its retail stores. The company has selected key marketing partners to deliver the three new items to the consumer. The Natrol brainSpeed line will initially be available at select independent health food stores; at Walgreens, the nation's largest drugstore chain; online at www.drugstore.com; and at select GNC outlets. The company will also be working with the National Senior Olympics, US Chess Federation and key alpha influencers online via the Internet.

About Natrol brainSpeed

The extensive research conducted by the company produced a core blend of five vital nutrients. These nutrients support the processing speed of information through the synapses of the brain. By supporting this key blend with additional nutrients the company was able to key in on three different cognitive fields. They are brainSpeed Attention(TM), brainSpeed Memory(TM) and brainSpeed Perform(TM). Each unique compound targets a different functionality, thereby broadening the line's marketing appeal to a national consumer base from all walks of life.

Founded in 1980, Natrol, Inc. is a diversified nutrition company that manufactures and markets premium branded nutritional products, functional teas and sports fitness products under the Natrol, Laci Le Beau Tea and Prolab Sports Nutrition labels.

Natrol markets more than 500 nutritional products domestically and around the world. For more information visit www.natrol.com.

The statements made in this press release which are not historical facts, including statements regarding expectations for future growth of revenue and profits and trends concerning net sales, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. As a result of a number of factors, the Company's actual results could differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. Certain factors that might cause Natrol's actual results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements include adverse trends in the dietary supplements industry, intense competition, adverse effects of unfavorable publicity regarding particular products or the Company's industry generally, the Company's dependence on the introduction of successful new products, the Company's ability to gain market share and shelf space in each of its distribution channels, the Company experiencing high rates of product returns, and adverse government regulation, as well as those factors set forth under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2004, and in the Company's other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

(a) These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug

Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose,

treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Lots of meetings, so little time. It's like running up and down the court and shooting three's. Sometimes they rattle off the rim, sometimes they're a swish. But you don't stop.

From time to time it was a little hard to hear - especially when the U.S. Army Airborne dropped in from the Chinook helicopter, and the rat-a-tat-tat of "Our army at war" in front of the convention center.

Brainspeed.com launched with dazzling activities including a Halo Challenge followed by the brainspeed challenge where some of the players scored in the 99th percentile. PC Gamer from Future Networks covered some of the events.

Brainspeed.com gave away 10,000 purple bracelets saying "think faster"

We ended up hanging with Fatal1ty and company for most of the day. He of the Time Magazine coverage of this week - wrapped in a double helix, in the same issue with Bill Gates smiling face and Exposition of XBox 360. So, watch out for Gamer IQ.

It's all about fueling your brain - you can track and monitor, plus you can optimize - that's what brainspeed is all about.

Does it work? Is the pope Catholic? We're writing this as the developers of Cognitive Labs, the technology behind brainspeed.com. So we know it works. The code works, or it doesn't - there's no middle ground. And it works. End of story.

You can plow through all the academic studies if you want. Be my guest.

I am blogging e3, that is, the computer gaming industry expo. So I hope to be covering all aspects of mental acuity. By the way, I have started another blog called brainspeed which takes a slightly more playful take on the world of cognitive enhancement in addition to our breakthrough work in memory loss. For this, I have to thank the readers of this blog who have pushed us in many unseen directions and who have the ability to intuit key trends.

So, in any event, I just chimed in over at the "Blogging E3" blog run by Weblogs Inc. So maybe we'll run some dual posts at blogging E3 and brainspeed.blogspot. The button you see above is hosted at weblogs, inc. Weblogs is run by the people behind the Silicon Alley Reporter and the Digital Coast Reporter which technically was not supposed to be read by people in Silicon Valley. (There was a rather thin crop of 'hits' in LA including L90 which we were involved in) and also the former Venture Reporter picked up by Dow Jones.

Our partner Natrol (Nasdaq: NTOL) is ramping up activities and has a press release coming and lots of promotion including the re-appearance of the brainspeed squad.

What do you think of blogs are a marketing foil? Overhyped, soft-bladed?

Then I get a picture in my mind: "Ben, I've got one word for you...plastics blogs."

Sure, some people don't like the format and 'commercialization' of blogs but eventually creative ads are indistinguishable from "Art."

I liken it to the early days of newsppapers which were dominated by characters that thoroughly mixed politics, journalism, and business. If you have something to say in a blog you can go right to the readers. In the case of brainspeed, here is a product that has been 2.5 years in development; and further, you can track your brain's progress using the brainspeedometer. Within a couple of years, 100 million people will be tracking their cognitive performance like they track their Amazon or drugstore.com shipments. Now, to get the brainspeedometer you need to purchase brainspeed from Natrol. It's on the Internet now at brainspeed.com, soon to be available at drugstore.com and walgreens.com and then at retailers everywhere. You know: Costco, Safeway, Krogers, Whole Foods, Walgreen's, Longs, GNC, etc. I can't guarantee it will be in all of these stores, but brainspeed will certainly be in many of them. So track your memory, and get your brainspeed. It's worthwhile to improve your mind.

Even Microsoft seems to think so. At Cognitive Labs you can click on a deal and get memory for life AND click through to MSN TV2.

So it seems, notwithstanding a story in NEWSDAY last week, TV is good for your brain. More newsblasts coming. 1:09 minutes til Star Wars III kicks off. I can't believe how long it has been since the first one. Yes, I was alive then! It's as old now as "20,000 Leagues under the Sea" was when I was a kid. Best

Did you know that there is a chronic shortage of people entering the field of gertiatric medicine? so reports CNN. Twenty or Thirty years ago, geriatrics was confined to treating 'retired' people over 65. Today, few people are completely retired at 65 - most, according to Dr. David Ruben, who practices in Los Angeles and is president of the American Geriatrics Society, are healthy and active.

Typically, cognitive decline and memory loss leads an individual or their family to contact a geriatric practitioner. Oddly, with a vast number of Americans approaching 65, and at ever increasing rates annually for the next 20 years, only 300 new geriatricians will enter the field in 2005.

Taking your health into your own hands has never been more important. We've grown accustomed to pumping our own gas, searching for info on Google, and handling our own finances. With applications that are easy to use, like Memcheck, and just about free, why would you do anything else?

Well, we've finally added some description to this long running item on the Cognitive labs masthead. So when you click on the image at cognitivelabs.com it takes you to this page which outlines everything that we do in one page. So we'll highlight each item by turns...

Viva el Portal!

Something we thought of probably 5 years ago is started to emerge, the intelligent portal. Not just intelligent in terms of application integration and ease of access to a workspace, but intelligent in terms of making users better that's something that few can claim.

At Portal Wave, we explored this concept very briefly but there was not much interest at the table, it was outside the domain of knowledge at hand, which included a bunch of folks and round-trippers from amongst the smartest people working on database and CRM architectures. The major focus was a universal translator for Siebel, Oracle, SAP, and PeopleSoft and combining this into a portal - except the portal market turned out to be rather slow-moving and subject to press release lockdown, and FUD even with a pretty good technology.

With an intelligent portal, rather than just portal "feature" intelligence you can actually stimulate the entire team to perform and optimize their efforts. You get a smarter company, even if you are a company of One.

On the Alzheimer's front, we've got just about a millennium of customers and now the really big deals are coming up. The market is ready, put on your helmet and chinstrap.

Oh yeah, and buy MemCheck, like voting for Pedro.

The Alzheimer's Association recently announced that Mike Ditka and Captain Janeway of Star Trek: Voyager have joined their national fundraising efforts.

Almost 2 decades ago Ditka turned Da Berz into winners with Fridge Perry and Jim McMahon while spawning the SNL spoof; Janeway provided serious leadership for a newer generation of trekkies. Good luck to them in that effort.

If you recall our post on blue green algae and Alzheimer's sometime back, the original reference came from the Honolulu papers reporting on the work of a scientist on Kauai, reporting on a fairly obscure study of significant local interest in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

That post has since been widely linked to and quoted and we are witnessing the story emerging again in force in the media and now being debated by scientists quite actively. One expert has even said the the originator of the study, Paul Allex Cox, could earn the Nobel prize if his theoretical ideas are found to have merit. Dr. Cox has taken observations from his particular specialty and found them to have peculiar relevance in the field of neurology; therefore he has a unique perspective.

Thinking Across the Boundaries is the Stuff of Breakthroughs. If you can't think across the boundaries yet, you certainly can track your thinking and memory power with MemCheck, so if you would like to become a member, we certainly invite you to do so now. What could be holding you back - with sober, balanced coverage in many of today's respectable sources of quality journalism, such as Slate and Barron's amoung others, now is the time to join.

My colleague Wes has quite often discussed the benefits of statins for fighting Alzheimer's, particularly since the benefits it seems to offer for the cardiovascularly challenged seem transferable to the case of early-stage amyloid formation in the brain.

At the cellular level, what actually appears to happen is that protein structures proliferate. Rather than being broken down by natural processes, these proteins accumulate like layers of saline sediment in a formerly verdant valley, gradually dampening cognitive activity.

Statins appear to act by enhancing blood flow and viscosity which may prevent the early stages of the the protein 'tangle' accumulation. The Archives of Neurology reports on statins in a pilot study that was just published.

We just started posting for free memory tests on Craigs List, that great directory of all things which now will even be beamed into deep space.

So even our simple message of free memory testing will be sent out to the environs of Pluto and beyond. Here's the link....

This is all true thanks to Jim Buckmaster at Craigslist.

Q: Is this a hoax.
A: No.

Q: Do you really think there is a chance that Extraterrestrials will receive and understand this transmission?
A: DSCN has assured us that there is a nonzero chance of this happening. Pretty exciting!

Q: Will you be charging users for this opportunity?
A: Of course not.

Q: How will the postings be selected for transmission?
A: A checkbox on the posting form will be available starting immediately

Is it time to fish or cut bait?

Can fish scale down onset of Alzheimer's?

Scientists in Wales are studying whether eating fatty acids found in dishes such as salmon and sardines can help postpone the start - and hold back the symptoms - of a dementia which affects hundreds of people, particularly the elderly, across Wales.

Previous studies have suggested a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids, found in oily fish, can reduce the risk of the onset of Alzheimer's disease, although this is not yet proven.

Now Professor John Harwood, leading the Cardiff University research, will investigate whether oily fish, including herring and mackerel, can actually help halt or slow Alzheimer's progression. The project, announced today, will be funded by the Alzheimer's Research Trust.

A dual post on memcheck and brainspeed....where you will be seeing all kinds of exciting developments in the coming days. As we had alluded, now is the time to provide the very shortest cliff-note on reaction time, just the bare essentials, from a white paper we put together on zero-latency cognition and its role in gaming, I won't bore you with all the theories, but, the Japanese are the leaders in this field of research.

...Cognitive Labs has taken the algorithmic input of the best and brightest scientific minds of this era and created web applications and software that incorporates them

Research now shows strong connections between speed of brain processing and longevity. Other studies link speed of processing with success in life and on the battlefield, with an added capability to complete more work and feel mentally alert.

While reaction time has been studied by psychologists since the 1800's, the field did not come into its own until military researchers during World War II mastered the science of chronometrics to better train soldiers to operate advance weaponry, and to screen for 'fitness' to operate certain kinds of weapons systems, such as fighter aircraft and radar systems, demanding better than normal reflexes, acuity, and reaction time. Cognitive assessment has been critical in evaluating fitness for Space travel (NASA).

Cognitive Labs has taken the classic tasks and made them more rigorous with design by scientific experts such as Arthur Jensen, Ph.D., one of the world's leading experts on IQ. Cognitive Labs has also greatly increased the sensitivity of the applications so that slight changes in performance are assessed in multiple dimensions of cognitive ability. New research we have completed with Stanford asserts that our tests are sensitive enough to detect early memory loss, as well, particularly as it relates the APOEe4 allele.

Now, Cognitive Labs is taking its scientifically validated exercises and making them available as a training regimen for game subscribers by "skinning" the underlying scientifically derived algorithms for a new audience, like you skin winamp/itunes/wmp By focusing on the 'hard science' origins of the exercises and the military and scientific background of Cognitive Labs, we will be able to create a gamer "academy" with strong military and competitive features, driving subscription sales, sponsorships, and long-term revenue growth through exposure.

The use of Cognitive Labs technology' and its advisors have been featured in Slate Magazine, CNN, Barron's, NPR and various newspapers, online journals, and blogs. Users include hundreds of thousands of people concerned with cognitive fitness, all branches of the Armed Forces, engineers at Microsoft and Adobe, and professional athletes.

http://www.cognitivelabs.com (C) 2005 Cognitive Labs - All rights reserved.

NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 2 May 2005

To respond to a colleague who joked about my precoccupation with manned spaceflight, chortling that he thought I might have blasted off by now...I haven't...but that is not stopping people from trying; for example, look at Richard Branson walking around in his space helmet. If he can make $200,000 per customer I would call that a great business. It's even a better business than selling Ferraris and Maseratis, like the new Ferrari dealer that just opened up in Redwood City, in the vacuous tilt-up haunt of a former dotcom company that went bust in 2001.

Or, on another front, Jeff Bezos' purchase of vast tracts of land in West Texas for his future spaceport, or his website, blue origin.

For a comical, but serious look at this enigma, I direct you to our essay on cognitive enhancement for space. It's really not a laughing matter. It's serious enough that you really ought to purchase MemCheck so you can get a snapshot of your cognitive performance. It's no more difficult than taking a photo with your new Motorola Razor....
.....

Yet another case of astronauts performing cognitive testing...

SpaceRef note: This NASA Headquarters internal status report, as presented here, contains additional, original material produced by SpaceRef.com (copyright © 2005) to enhance access to related status reports and NASA activities...

All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below. "Spring & Labor Day" - a holiday in Russia. Underway: Week 2 for Increment 11.

Sergei Krikalev began the day with the regular morning inspection, combined with the monthly routine inspection on DC1 circuit breakers and fuses. [The regular monthly checkup in the "Pirs" Docking Module looks at AZS circuit breakers on the BVP Amp Switch Panel (they should all be On) and the LEDs (light-emitting diodes) of 14 fuses in Fuse Panels BPP-30 & BPP-36.]

After breakfast, the CDR also performed the periodic inspection and tightening of the quick disconnect (QD) screw clamps of the SM's docking and internal transfer mechanism (SSVP), where Progress 17 is linked up. [The screw clamps rigidize the mating surfaces between SM aft dock and 17P.]

John Phillips meanwhile had another 2-hr. timeline period for prepacking equipment slated for return on LF-1/STS-114.

Krikalev transferred cargo items remaining in the Soyuz-216/10S to stowage locations in the station. [Besides the VC8 "Eneide" payload equipment brought up with Roberto Vittori, 10S also carried Russian cargoes such as photographic gear (NIKON D1X with accessories), A31p laptops, personal items and fresh food, as well as NASA equipment (e.g., CHeCS sampling kits, radiation monitors, medical accessories, the Renal experiment kit, etc.).]

With the Elektron still off, Sergei started the regeneration cycle on absorbent bed #1 of the Russian harmful impurities removal system (BMP). Later tonight, the bake-out to space will be terminated and the vent valve closed. [Regeneration of each of the two cartridges takes about 12 hours; it is not being conducted during crew sleep. The BMP is currently still using the same vacuum vent valve for regeneration as the Elektron (the latter for venting hydrogen).]

Dr. Phillips signed in and performed his first session with the psychological MedOps WinSCAT experiment (Spaceflight Cognitive Assessment Tool) on the MEC (medical equipment computer), which last week received new software for this assessment. [This is a time-constrained questionnaire test of cognitive abilities, routinely performed by astronauts aboard the ISS every 30 days before or after the PHS (periodic health status) test or on special CDR's, crewmember's or flight surgeon's request. The exercise involves tests of symbol memorizing, repeating numbers, mathematical processing, and pattern matching.]