Heavens

More than 83,000 volunteer citizen scientists. Over 16 million galaxy classifications. Information on more than 300,000 galaxies. This is what you get when you ask the public for help in learning more about our universe.

The project, named Galaxy Zoo 2, is the second phase of a crowdsourcing effort to categorize galaxies in our universe. Researchers say computers are good at automatically measuring properties such as size and color of galaxies, but more challenging characteristics, such as shape and structure, can currently only be determined by the human eye.

HOUSTON – (Sept. 23, 2013) – Pacemakers, insulin pumps, defibrillators and other implantable medical devices often have wireless capabilities that allow emergency workers to monitor patients. But these devices have a potential downside: They can be hacked.

Researchers at Rice University have come up with a secure way to dramatically cut the risk that an implanted medical device (IMD) could be altered remotely without authorization.

Their technology would use the patient's own heartbeat as a kind of password that could only be accessed through touch.

Typhoon Pabuk continued to strengthen as it moved north through the northwestern Pacific Ocean on Sept. 23, and NASA's Aqua satellite captured an infrared image of the storm. The NASA image showed powerful thunderstorms east of the storm's center.

Although the Rim Fire doesn't show any signs of smoke billowing like it has in the past satellite images, the fire still continues on. The blaze, which started on August 17, 2013, more than a month ago, is currenty 84% contained. Fire officials are currently estimating that complete containment will be achieved around October 1, 2013.

The statistics on the fire to date:

Acres Burned: 257 126 (402 square miles)

Structures Threatened: 0

Containment: 84%

Residences Destroyed: 11

Southeastern China was hit by the most powerful typhoon of 2013 on Sept. 22, when Typhoon Usagi came ashore landfall in the Guangdong Province during the evening. NASA's TRMM satellite observed very heavy rainfall just south of the eye as the center was landfalling.

While searching for ever smaller devices that can be used as data storage systems and novel sensors, physicists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have directly observed magnetization dynamics processes in magnetic nanowires and thus paved the way for further research in the field of nanomagnetism. Small magnetic domain wall structures in nanowires can be used to store information and, for example, can be used as angle sensors. Initial applications based on magnetic domain walls have been developed and are already in use in sensor technology.

The mild winters experienced in Northern Europe are thanks to the Gulf Stream, which makes up part of those ocean currents spanning the globe that impact on the climate. However, our climate is also influenced by huge eddies of over 150 kilometres in diameter that rotate and drift across the ocean. Their number is reportedly on the rise in the Southern Ocean, increasing the northward transport of warm and salty water. Intriguingly, this could moderate the negative impact of melting sea ice in a warming climate.

After an unusually cold summer in the northernmost latitudes, Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its annual minimum summer extent for 2013 on Sept. 13, the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado in Boulder has reported. Analysis of satellite data by NSIDC and NASA showed that the sea ice extent shrunk to 1.97 million square miles (5.10 million square kilometers).

NASA's TRMM satellite data revealed heavy rainfall and banding of thunderstorms around the southern quadrant of System 98W in the northwestern Pacific near Guam and the Marianas Islands. Those are two signs that the low pressure area may be consolidating into a tropical depression.

At 1700 UTC/1 p.m. EDT on Sept. 20, System 98W was centered about 16.2 north and 146.7 east, about 195 nautical miles north-northeast of Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. System 98W had maximum sustained winds near 25 knots/28.7 mph/46.3 kph.

NASA's Global Hawk 872 flew over Tropical Storm Humberto on Sept. 16 and 17 after it was reborn from remnants of its earlier life cycle. Data from NASA 872 showed that the core had a hybrid structure.

NASA's Global Hawk 872 unmanned aircraft took off at 10:42 a.m. EDT from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va., Sept. 16 to investigate newly reformed Tropical Storm Humberto. NASA 872 dispersed dropsondes throughout Humberto and gathered data on the environment of the storm.

Two NASA satellites observed Hurricane Manuel as it made landfall in northwestern Mexico and brought rainfall into southwestern Texas. NASA's TRMM Satellite measured Hurricane Manuel's rainfall from space and found areas where it was falling as fast as 2 inches per hour. NASA's Aqua satellite captured both visible and infrared images that revealed strong thunderstorms associated with Manuel's remnants were streaming northeast into Texas. Those rains are expected to continue to soaking central Texas through Sept. 21.

TRMM's Precipitation Radar or PR can provide 3-D vertical profiles of rain and snow from the surface up to a height of about 12 miles/20 kilometers. TRMM's 3-D view of the vertical structure near Usagi's eye found that the violent storms in Usagi's eye wall were consistently reaching heights of over 15 km/~9.3 miles. A few storms found in a feeder band spiraling into Usagi from the south were reaching even higher heights of over 16 km/~9.9 miles.

A team of astronomers has discovered enormous arms of hot gas in the Coma cluster of galaxies by using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton. These features, which span at least half a million light years, provide insight into how the Coma cluster has grown through mergers of smaller groups and clusters of galaxies to become one of the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 19, 2013—Today, computerized smart systems can deliver drugs intravenously in exact volumes to hospital patients. However, these systems cannot recognize which medications are in the tubing nor can they determine the concentration of the drug in the tubing. This lack of precise information can lead to medication errors with serious consequences.

(Millbrook, N.Y.) Triclosan – a synthetic antibacterial widely used in personal care products – is fueling the development of resistant bacteria in streams and rivers. So reports a new paper in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, which is the first to document triclosan resistance in a natural environment.