Heavens

Irvine, Calif. – Two hungry young galaxies that collided 11 billion years ago are rapidly forming a massive galaxy about 10 times the size of the Milky Way, according to UC Irvine-led research published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Scientists and engineers must join together in a major new effort to educate the public and decision makers on a crisis in providing Earth's people with clean water that looms ahead in the 21st century. That's the focus of a comment article in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society.

Exactly 50 years after the US-American meteorologist Edward Lorenz discovered chaos (remember the "butterfly effect"?) the topic is still as fascinating as ever. A new visualization technique developed at the University of Vienna helps to make chaos visible to the naked eye. The method, which is being published in "Royal Society Interface", allows for the intuitive interpretation of chaotic or nearly chaotic phenomena, and thus makes the fascinating world of chaos theory more accessible to the scientific community.

"We spent 15 percent of home energy on gadgets in 2009, and we're buying more gadgets all the time," says Peter Fischer of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Fischer lets you know right away that while it's scientific curiosity that inspires his research at the Lab's Advanced Light Source (ALS), he intends it to help solve pressing problems.

SAN FRANCISCO, May 21, 2013 – New data released today at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association show that the NeuroStar TMS Therapy System® induced statistically and clinically meaningful response and remission in patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) during the acute phase of therapy, which were maintained through one year of treatment. At the end of acute treatment, 62 percent of patients achieved symptomatic improvement while 41 percent reported complete remission.

Most elite athletes consider doping substances "are effective" in improving performance, while recognising that they constitute cheating, can endanger health and entail the obvious risk of sanction. At the same time, the reasons why athletes start to take doping substances are to achieve athletic success, improve performance, for financial gain, to improve recovery and to prevent nutritional deficiencies, as well as "because other athletes also use them".

Pulsars have a number of unusual qualities. Like zombies, they shine even though they're technically dead, and they rotate rapidly, emitting powerful and regular beams of radiation that are seen as flashes of light, blinking on and off at intervals from seconds to milliseconds. A NASA team has built a first-of-a-kind testbed that simulates these distinctive pulsations.

SAN DIEGO (May 20, 2013) - A novel vaccine study from South Dakota State University (SDSU) will headline the groundbreaking research that will be unveiled at the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists' (AAPS) National Biotechnology Conference (NBC). The meeting takes place Monday, May 20 - Wednesday, May 22 at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina.

The massive ball of iron sitting at the center of Earth is not quite as "rock-solid" as has been thought, say two Stanford mineral physicists. By conducting experiments that simulate the immense pressures deep in the planet's interior, the researchers determined that iron in Earth's inner core is only about 40 percent as strong as previous studies estimated.

A suite of disquieting global phenomena have given rise to the "Anthropocene," a term coined for a new geologic epoch characterized by humanity's growing dominance of the Earth's environment and a planetary transformation as profound as the last epoch-defining event -- the retreat of the glaciers 11,500 years ago.

And in Bonn, Germany May 21-24, world experts will experts will focus on how to mitigate key factors contributing to extreme damage to the global water system being caused while adapting to the new reality.

On 5:24 a.m. EDT on May 17, 2013, the sun erupted with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection or CME, a solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of solar particles into space that can reach Earth one to three days later and affect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground. Experimental NASA research models, based on observations from NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, show that the CME left the sun at speeds of around 745 miles per second. The solar material in CMEs cannot pass through the atmosphere to affect humans on Earth.

The first tropical storm of the Eastern Pacific hurricane season was short-lived. Satellite imagery revealed that Tropical Storm Alvin became a remnant low pressure area 36 hours after it was named.

NASA's GOES Project created an image of Alvin's remnants using infrared data from NOAA's GOES-15 satellite on May 17 at 1200 UTC (8 a.m. EDT). NASA's GOES Project is located at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Alvin became a named tropical storm on May 15 at 5 p.m. EDT and weakened into a trough (elongated area) of low pressure by 5 a.m. EDT on May 17.

NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite known as TRMM measured Cyclone Mahasen's rainfall rates from space as it made landfall on May 16. Mahasen has since dissipated over eastern India.

Tropical Cyclone Mahasen hit southern Bangladesh on May 16, causing the reported deaths of at least 13 people and the destruction of many homes. Mahasen brought heavy rains and tropical storm force winds when it came ashore, but the winds quickly weakened.

An experimental, inexpensive iPhone application transmitted diagnostic heart images faster and more reliably than emailing photo images, according to a research study presented at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2013.

The app could help save lives by speeding treatment for the deadliest type of heart attack known as STEMI (ST segment elevation myocardial infarction), in which a clot blocks blood flow to the heart.

Archaeologists have made a discovery in southern subtropical China which could revolutionise thinking about how ancient humans lived in the region.

They have uncovered evidence for the first time that people living in Xincun 5,000 years ago may have practised agriculture –before the arrival of domesticated rice in the region.