Heavens

University of Colorado Boulder astronomers targeting one of the brightest quasars glowing in the universe some 11 billion years ago say "sideline quasars" likely teamed up with it to heat abundant helium gas billions of years ago, preventing small galaxy formation.

• Planck refines our knowledge of the Universe's composition and evolution
• New maps provide excellent evidence for our standard model of cosmology
• Planck dates Universe at 13.82 billion years old
• Anomalies suggest that Universe may be different on scales larger than those we can directly observe
• Most accurate values yet for the ingredients of the Universe, with normal matter contributing just 4.9% of the mass/energy density of the Universe and dark matter making up 26.8% - nearly a fifth more than the previous estimate.

"We are very excited, we are finally seeing the concrete results of so many years of hard work". This is how the scientists of the Planck project have commented the first data resulting from the observations carried out by Planck. The mission of the ESA satellite is to observe the past of our Universe, going back in time and reaching the very first instant right after the Big Bang.

Montreal, March 20, 2013 – The aerospace industry is a key sector of the Canadian economy. With sales of over $22.4 billion in 2011, Canada ranks fourth globally in aerospace production. Nearly half of that revenue was generated in Quebec, where Montreal is one of the few places worldwide in which all the components needed to assemble an aircraft are available within a single metropolitan area.

WASHINGTON – Thirty-five years after its launch, Voyager 1 appears to have travelled beyond the influence of the Sun and exited the heliosphere, according to a new study appearing online today.

The heliosphere is a region of space dominated by the Sun and its wind of energetic particles, and which is thought to be enclosed, bubble-like, in the surrounding interstellar medium of gas and dust that pervades the Milky Way galaxy.

A new wonder material that can generate hydrogen, produce clean water and even create energy.

Science fiction? Hardly, and there's more - It can also desalinate water, be used as flexible water filtration membranes, help recover energy from desalination waste brine, be made into flexible solar cells and can also double the lifespan of lithium ion batteries. With its superior bacteria-killing capabilities, it can also be used to develop a new type of antibacterial bandage.

ANN ARBOR—A common test used to determine mercury exposure from dental amalgam fillings may significantly overestimate the amount of the toxic metal released from fillings, according to University of Michigan researchers.

Scientists agree that dental amalgam fillings slowly release mercury vapor into the mouth. But both the amount of mercury released and the question of whether this exposure presents a significant health risk remain controversial.

Supernovae are amongst the most violent events in nature. They mark the dazzling deaths of stars and can outshine the combined light of the billions of stars in their host galaxies.

Mercury is a volatile, or easily vaporized, substance. Scientists propose that it could accumulate in cold, permanently shadowed craters like the one targeted for the LCROSS impact, but it was a surprise to see that it was also in an area that gets regular sunlight. "The issue for the GRAIL impact was not so much that mercury was found – you would expect it to be present as an element from the moon's formation, just like it is found on Earth," said Keller.

The video was filmed at NASA Goddard's clean room and shows the procedure of the mirror placement on the backplane. The 90 second video features John Amon, Manufacturing Engineer from ITT Exelis, Rochester, N.Y. The video is available in high resolution at NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio website.

MAYWOOD, Ill. – Findings from a Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine study could lead to the development of new drugs to treat gout.

The study, led by Liang Qiao, MD, and his colleagues and collaborators, was published March 19 in the journal Nature Communications.

Gout is caused by a buildup of uric acid around joints, typically the big toe, knee or ankles. The immune system revs up to attack uric acid salt crystals, and this immune response causes painful inflammation.

When it rains, untreated stormwater can sweep pollutants into coastal waters, potentially endangering public health. Now researchers from North Carolina State University have developed low-cost filtration systems that are concealed beneath sand dunes and filter out most of the bacteria that can lead to beach closures.

Infrared satellite imagery tells the temperature of the cloud tops within a tropical cyclone as well as the sea surface temperatures around the storms. A recent infrared image from NASA's Aqua satellite showed very little strength in the remnants of ex-cyclone Tim offshore from southeastern Queensland.

18 March 2013 – Goleta, CA., USA -- The first truly global telescope came a significant step closer to completion this month with the installation and first light on three new 1-meter telescopes at the South Africa Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) near Sutherland, South Africa. A team of five Las Cumbres engineers, technicians, and a postdoc, convened at Sutherland for three weeks during late February and early March to achieve this feat.