Heavens

The Assyrian Empire once dominated the ancient Near East. At the start of the 7th century BC, it was a mighty military machine and the largest empire the Old World had yet seen. But then, before the century was out, it had collapsed. Why? An international study now offers two new factors as possible contributors to the empire's sudden demise - overpopulation and drought.

Adam Schneider of the University of California, San Diego and Selim Adalı of Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey, have just published evidence for their novel claim.

Nestled among a triplet of young galaxies more than 12.5 billion light-years away is a cosmic powerhouse: a galaxy that is producing stars nearly 1,000 times faster than our own Milky Way. This energetic starburst galaxy, known as AzTEC-3, together with its gang of calmer galaxies may represent the best evidence yet that large galaxies grow from the merger of smaller ones in the early Universe, a process known as hierarchical merging.

An international team of astronomers observed these remarkable objects with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- A newly published study used activity monitors to track how sleep habits changed in younger and older teens as they grew during a two-year period. Key findings, for instance that the children fell asleep later as they matured and resisted sleep longer after the nightly onset of hormonal sleep signals, lend new support to recent recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics that middle and high schools avoid starting earlier than 8:30 a.m.

Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have completed the largest and most sensitive visible-light imaging survey of dusty debris disks around other stars. These dusty disks, likely created by collisions between leftover objects from planet formation, were imaged around stars as young as 10 million years old and as mature as more than 1 billion years old.

Two NASA and one European spacecraft, including NASA's MAVEN mission led by the University of Colorado Boulder, have gathered new information about the basic properties of a wayward comet that buzzed by Mars Oct. 19, directly detecting its effects on the Martian atmosphere.

Tropical Cyclone 05B was meandering in the Bay of Bengal on Nov. 8, but forecasters expect it to move west and head toward east-central India for landfall. NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured a visible image of the tropical storm off India's coast.

A detailed analysis by cybersecurity experts from the University of Maryland found that website administrators nationwide tasked with patching security holes exploited by the Heartbleed bug may not have done enough.

First disclosed in April 2014, Heartbleed presents a serious vulnerability to the popular OpenSSL (Secure Sockets Layer) software, allowing anyone on the Internet to read the memory of systems that are compromised by the malicious bug.

NASA's newest Earth observing mission, the International Space Station-Rapid Scatterometer, or ISS-RapidScat provided a look at the winds within post-tropical cyclone Nuri on Nov. 5 and 6 as it moved parallel to Japan. Nuri has moved across the Pacific and is expected to bring hurricane-force wind gusts to Alaska's Aleutian Islands today, Nov. 7.

"RapidScat passed over Nuri, near Japan, three times within a 24 hour period," said Doug Tyler of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "The progression [in three images] showed Nuri's path."

Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have completed the largest and most sensitive visible-light imaging survey of dusty debris disks around other stars. These dusty disks, likely created by collisions between leftover objects from planet formation, were imaged around stars as young as 10 million years old and as mature as more than 1 billion years old.

Using an experiment carried into space on a NASA suborbital rocket, astronomers at Caltech and their colleagues have detected a diffuse cosmic glow that appears to represent more light than that produced by known galaxies in the universe.

NASA's Terra satellite passed over Tropical Storm Nuri on Nov. at captured an infrared picture of the storm. The storm looked more like a frontal system as it stretched from northeast to southwest.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Terra satellite flew over Nuri on Nov. 6 at 1240 UTC (7:40 a.m. EST). The MODIS image showed some strong thunderstorms remaining in a small area around Nuri's center, but the storm appeared stretched out from northeast to southwest. Wind shear was affecting the storm, stretching it out.

The fifth tropical cyclone of the Northern Indian Ocean season formed in the Bay of Bengal as NASA's Terra satellite passed overhead and captured an image of the storm.

When Terra passed over Tropical Cyclone 5B on Nov. 6 at 05:05 UTC (12:05 a.m. EST), the MODIS instrument aboard took a visible image of the storm. The MODIS image showed a concentrated storm with strong thunderstorms circling tight around the center and in the northeastern quadrant.

Does synthetic biology hold the key to manned space exploration of Mars and the Moon? Berkeley Lab researchers have used synthetic biology to produce an inexpensive and reliable microbial-based alternative to the world's most effective anti-malaria drug, and to develop clean, green and sustainable alternatives to gasoline, diesel and jet fuels. In the future, synthetic biology could also be used to make manned space missions more practical.

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has snapped a striking view of a multiple star system called XZ Tauri, its neighbour HL Tauri, and several nearby young stellar objects. XZ Tauri is blowing a hot bubble of gas into the surrounding space, which is filled with bright and beautiful clumps that are emitting strong winds and jets. These objects illuminate the region, creating a truly dramatic scene.

North Carolina State University researchers have developed technology that allows cyborg cockroaches, or biobots, to pick up sounds with small microphones and seek out the source of the sound. The technology is designed to help emergency personnel find and rescue survivors in the aftermath of a disaster.

The researchers have also developed technology that can be used as an "invisible fence" to keep the biobots in the disaster area.