Heavens

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Semiconductors have had a nice run, but for certain applications, such as astrophysics, they are being edged out by superconductors. Ben Mazin, assistant professor of physics at UC Santa Barbara, has developed a superconducting detector array that measures the energy of individual photons. The design and construction of an instrument based on these arrays, as well as an analysis of its commissioning data, appear in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

Recent data show that helicopter and fixed-wing commercial air tour operations in the U.S. have high crash rates compared with similar commercial aviation operations, and crash rates increase with less regulated standards of operation. The findings raise concerns about the public health impact of less-regulated commercial air tour operations, such as paid hot-air balloon rides.

"Some may have thick atmospheres, making it so hot at the surface that DNA-like molecules would not survive. Others may have rocky surfaces that could harbor liquid water suitable for living organisms," Marcy said. "We don't know what range of planet types and their environments are suitable for life."

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm Haiyan on Nov. 4 and infrared data showed a large area of powerful thunderstorms affecting Micronesia. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center has forecast newborn Tropical Storm Haiyan to strengthen to a powerful typhoon before making landfall in the Philippines on Nov 8.

Tropical Storm Sonia formed on Friday, Nov. 1 from the eighteenth tropical depression of the Eastern Pacific Ocean hurricane season. Sonia became a tropical storm on Nov. 2 and by Nov. 4 made landfall in western Mexico. Sonia's brief life was captured in a NASA animation of imagery from NOAA's GOES-West satellite.

NASA's TRMM Satellite observed heavy rainfall occurring in Typhoon Krosa before it ran into strong wind shear. On Nov. 1, Krosa was a Typhoon that was threatening Hainan Island, China and Vietnam. By Nov. 4 after moving through the South China Sea, Krosa weakened to a depression.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Nov. 1, 2013 – California has improved its grade on the March of Dimes 2013 Premature Birth report card, moving from a 'B' grade in 2012 to an 'A' grade in 2013.

PISCATAWAY, NJ – Teenagers in the child welfare system are at higher-than-average risk of abusing marijuana, inhalants and other drugs, according to a study in the November issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

AMHERST, Mass. -- In a major new survey of the early universe conducted from the NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, University of Massachusetts Amherst astronomer Mauro Giavalisco and colleagues at several other institutions identify the most distant, thus the earliest galaxy ever detected.

For the first time, a NASA airborne campaign will measure changes in the height of the Greenland Ice Sheet and surrounding Arctic sea ice produced by a single season of summer melt.

NASA's C-130 research aircraft flew from the Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va., to Greenland on Wednesday where they will conduct survey flights to collect data that will improve our understanding of seasonal melt and provide baseline measurements for future satellite missions. Flights are scheduled to continue through Nov. 16.

Typhoon Krosa became wide-eyed in imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite as the storm moved past the Philippines and into the South China Sea. Krosa re-strengthened after it passed over the northern Philippines and its eye expanded by 10 nautical miles from the previous day.

PITTSBURGH, Nov. 1, 2013 – The red, swollen and painful gums and bone destruction of periodontal disease could be effectively treated by beckoning the right kind of immune system cells to the inflamed tissues, according to a new animal study conducted by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh. Their findings, published this week in the early online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offer a new therapeutic paradigm for a condition that afflicts 78 million people in the U.S. alone.

Doom may be averted for the Smith Cloud, a gigantic streamer of hydrogen gas that is on a collision course with the Milky Way Galaxy. Astronomers using the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) have discovered a magnetic field deep in the cloud's interior, which may protect it during its meteoric plunge into the disk of our Galaxy.

A recent slowdown in global warming has led some skeptics to renew their claims that industrial carbon emissions are not causing a century-long rise in Earth's surface temperatures. But rather than letting humans off the hook, a new study in the leading journal Science adds support to the idea that the oceans are taking up some of the excess heat, at least for the moment.

A radio telescope once used to track ballistic missiles has helped astronomers determine how the magnetic field structure and rotation of the young and rapidly rotating Crab pulsar evolves with time. The findings are published in the journal Science today (Friday).