Heavens

Economists and professionals praise the merits of competition, as it leads to lower prices and improvements in quality. But in the automobile smog-testing industry, competition can lead to corruption and even public health problems, according to research by USC Marshall School of Business Assistant Professor of Management Victor Bennett.

Driven by the strong demand for high-definition video, digital health services, the Internet of Things, and virtual reality, broadband, ubiquitous and convergent information access has become the most important engine to drive the development of the modern information society.

University of Alberta researchers discovered that elk are more frequently and more easily disturbed by human behaviour such as ATV drivers than by their natural predators like bears and wolves.

The U of A researchers, led by biologist Simone Ciuti, spent 12 months in southwestern Alberta. The study involved elk herds, made up of females and their off-spring. The researchers observed the animals' reactions to different rates of human disturbances in the form of vehicle traffic on nearby roads and off-road, all-terrain vehicles.

Tropical Storm Bopha continues to intensify in the western North Pacific Ocean as it heads toward Yap State, triggering more warnings and watches. Infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite captured over two days revealed that the storm had consolidated, intensified and developed a large band of strong thunderstorms south of the center, that resemble a tail.

Data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft tie a shift in seasonal sunlight to a wholesale reversal, at unexpected altitudes, in the circulation of the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan. At the south pole, the data show definitive evidence for sinking air where it was upwelling earlier in the mission. So the key to circulation in the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan turned out to be a certain slant of light. The paper was published today in the journal Nature.

(Nov. 28, 2012 - Chicago, IL) - Mexican cities and villages where credit exceeds savings deposits offer a higher quality of life and a more educated citizenry, according to 12 years of financial data released by Mexico's National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV). The research was funded by the Consortium on Financial Systems and Poverty at the University of Chicago.

Fort Davis, Texas — Astronomers have used the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at The University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory to measure the mass of what may be the most massive black hole yet — 17 billion Suns — in galaxy NGC 1277. The unusual black hole makes up 14 percent of its galaxy's mass, rather than the usual 0.1 percent. This galaxy and several more in the same study could change theories of how black holes and galaxies form and evolve. The work will appear in the journal Nature on Nov. 29.

Thanks to NASA's Cassini spacecraft which has been orbiting Saturn since 2004, scientists have been able to observe for the first time ever the seasonal atmospheric circulation direction change on Titan – an event which only happens once every 15 years and is never observable from Earth. Their findings are published today in Nature.

A jet of X-rays from a supermassive black hole 12.4 billion light years from Earth has been detected by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. This is the most distant X-ray jet ever observed and gives astronomers a glimpse into the explosive activity associated with the growth of supermassive black holes in the early universe.

Virginia Tech physics researchers have discovered a quasar with the most energetic outflow ever, a finding that may answer questions about how the mass of a galaxy is linked to its central black hole mass and why there are so few large galaxies in the universe.

Researchers studied the quasar known as SDSS J1106+1939 in great detail using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Paranal, Chile – the world's most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory, and found the most energetic quasar outflow ever discovered.

PULLMAN, Wash. - Imagine landing on the moon or Mars, putting rocks through a 3-D printer and making something useful – like a needed wrench or replacement part.

"It sounds like science fiction, but now it's really possible," says Amit Bandyopadhyay, professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Washington State University.

Bandyopadhyay and a group of colleagues recently published a paper in Rapid Prototyping Journal demonstrating how to print parts using materials from the moon.

Quasars are the intensely luminous centres of distant galaxies that are powered by huge black holes. This new study has looked at one of these energetic objects – known as SDSS J1106+1939 – in great detail, using the X-shooter instrument on ESO's VLT at the Paranal Observatory in Chile [1]. Although black holes are noted for pulling material in, most quasars also accelerate some of the material around them and eject it at high speed.

A NASA study using TRMM satellite data revealed that the year 2010 was a particularly bad year for landslides around the world.

A recent NASA study published in the October issue of the Journal of Hydrometeorology compared satellite rain data from NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) to landslides in central eastern China, Central America and the Himalayan Arc, three regions with diverse climates and topography where rainfall-triggered landslides are frequent and destructive hazards to the local populations.

It's a digital world. Or is it?

NASA technologist Jonathan Pellish isn't convinced. In fact, he believes a computing technology of yesteryear could potentially revolutionize everything from autonomous rendezvous and docking to remotely correcting wavefront errors on large, deployable space telescope mirrors like those to fly on the James Webb Space Telescope.

"It's fast forward to the past," Pellish said, referring to an emerging processing technology developed by a Cambridge, Mass.-based company, Analog Devices Lyric Labs.

Tropical storm warnings are in effect in Micronesia as NASA and other satellite imagery indicates that Tropical Storm Bopha continues to intensify.