The Secretary of the Air Force is appointed from civilian life by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. The Secretary reports to the Secretary of Defense and/or the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and is by statute responsible for and has the authority to conduct all the affairs of the Department of the Air Force.
Sadun Boro
Sadun Boro (1928 – 5 June 2015) is an Turkish sailor and writer. He was the first Turkish person to Circumnavigate the globe, sailing from 22 August 1965 until 15 June 1968.
Boro was born in Istanbul. He was married to Oda Boro and had a daughter.
Boro died from bladder cancer on 5 June 2015 in Marmaris. He was 87.
Mario Saliwa
Mario Ngqiuyomizi Saliwa (6 March 1984 – 31 May 2015) was a South African first-class cricketer. He played for teams such as the Eagles and Free State. He was born in King William's Town, Eastern Cape.
Saliwa died after being stabbed on 31 May 2015, aged 31.
MERS
MERS (the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) was discovered in Saudi Arabia in 2012. It is a disease caused by a coronavirus whose label is MERS-CoV. MERS-CoV is a betacoronavirus which originated in bats.
Coronaviruses are a family of viruses some of which cause common colds. They can infect both animals and people. MERS is a relative of SARS (the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) virus which swept around the world, infecting more than 8,000 people globally and killing 774 before it was stopped in 2004.
In 2015, the World Health Organization made itself some rules for naming viruses: No official name is allowed to refer to a place, person or animal. This is to prevent stigma, or blame. The WHO rules list MERS as an example of what not to do when naming a virus or disease.
Charles Bolden
Charles Frank Bolden, Jr. (born August 19, 1946) was the 12th Administrator of NASA from 2009 through 2017. He is a retired United States Marine Corps Major General, and former NASA astronaut.
Alan M. Lovelace
Alan Mathieson Lovelace (September 4, 1929 – April 18, 2018) was an American civil servant. He was the Deputy Administrator of NASA from July 2, 1976 to July 10, 1981.
Lovelace was born in St. Petersburg, Florida. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from the University of Florida in Gainesville in 1951. He received a Master of Science in Organic Chemistry in 1952. He became a Doctor of Philosophy in 1954, also in Organic Chemistry.
Lovelace died on April 18, 2018 in Melbourne, Florida at the age of 88.
In June 1981, Lovelace was presented with the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Ronald Reagan.
NASA - "Goddard News"
John R. Dailey
John R. Dailey (born on February 17, 1934) is a retired United States Marine Corps four-star general. He served as Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps (ACMC) and Chief of Staff from 1990 to 1992. He also served as Acting Associate Deputy Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) from 1992 to 1999. Today, he is director of the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) since 2000.
Aaron Cohen
Aaron Cohen (January 5, 1931 – February 25, 2010) was an American civil servant. He served as the Acting Deputy Administrator of NASA between 19 February 1992 and 1 November 1992.
Ronnie Gilbert
Ronnie Gilbert (September 7, 1926 – June 6, 2015) was an American folk singer-songwriter, actress and activist. She was one of the original members of The Weavers with Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Fred Hellerman.
Gilbert was born in New York City. She was the daughter of Jewish immgrants from Eastern Europe. She had one daughter. She was married twice and was bisexual.
Gilbert died from natural causes on June 6, 2015 in Mill Valley, California, aged 88.
James C. Fletcher
James Chipman Fletcher (June 5, 1919 – December 22, 1991) was an American civil servant. He was the president of the University of Utah from 1964 to 1971. He also served as the 4th and 7th Administrator of NASA. He first served from April 27, 1971 to May 1, 1977, and again from May 12, 1986, to April 8, 1989.
Coronavirus
Coronaviruses are a group of RNA viruses. They cause diseases in birds and mammals, including humans. These diseases can be mild, or they can be fatal. In humans and birds, they cause respiratory tract infections. Mild illnesses in humans include some cases of the common cold (which is also caused by other viruses, for example rhinoviruses). More lethal varieties can cause SARS, MERS, and COVID-19.
They are enveloped viruses with a positive-sense RNA genome. The genome size of coronaviruses is about 26 to 32 kilobases, which is extraordinarily large for an RNA virus. There are four major groups of coronaviruses, called alpha, beta, gamma and delta.
The most famous coronavirus is one of the betas, the kind that causes Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in humans.
The name "coronavirus" comes from the Latin word "corona", meaning "crown" or "halo", and refers to how virions look under an electron microscopy (E.M.). They have a fringe of large, bulbous surface projections looking like a crown. This morphology is created by the viral spike (S) peplomer, which are proteins on the surface of the virus. They decide which cells the virus can infect.
Proteins of coronaviruses are the spike (S), envelope (E), membrane (M) and nucleocapsid (N).
Coronaviruses infect the upper respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts of mammals and birds. Six different strains of coronaviruses infect humans. These include:
Coronaviruses are believed to cause many common colds in human adults. The significance and economic impact of coronaviruses is hard to assess. Unlike rhinoviruses (another common cold virus), human coronaviruses are easy to grow in the laboratory.
Coronaviruses are large, spherical particles with unique surface projections. Their size is variable, averageing 80 to 120 nms The total molecular weight is on average 40,000 kDa. They are enclosed in an envelope studded with projecting protein molecules. These layers protect the virus when it is outside the host cell.
The viral envelope is made up of a lipid bilayer in which the membrane (M), envelope (E) and spike (S) structural proteins are anchored. The ratio of E:S:M in the lipid bilayer is approximately 1:20:300. The E and M protein are the structural proteins that combined with the lipid bilayer to shape the viral envelope and maintain its size. S proteins are needed for interaction with the host cells. But human coronavirus NL63 is peculiar in that its M protein has the binding site for the host cell, and not its S protein. The diameter of the envelope is 85 nm.
The earliest reports of a coronavirus infection in animals occurred in the late 1920s, when an acute respiratory infection of domesticated chickens happened in North America. Arthur Schalk and M.C. Hawn in 1931 made the first detailed report which described a new respiratory infection of chickens in North Dakota. It was not realized at the time that three related viruses were involved.
Human coronaviruses were discovered in the 1960s using two different methods. E.C. Kendall, Malcolm Bynoe, and David Tyrrel, working at the Common Cold Unit of the British Medical Research Council collected a unique common cold virus B814 in 1961. The virus could not be cultivated using the techniques which had successfully cultivated rhinoviruses, adenoviruses and other known common cold viruses. Eventually this was solved. The new cultivating method was introduced to the lab by Bertil Hoorn. The isolated virus when put into the noses of volunteers caused a cold. the virus was inactivated by ether which showed it had a lipid envelope. The novel virus caused a cold in volunteers and, like B814, was inactivated by ether.