Heavens

The effect of spaceflight on a microscopic worm — Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) — could help it to live longer.

The discovery was made by an international group of scientists studying the loss of bone and muscle mass experienced by astronauts after extended flights in space. The results of this research have been published today, July 5 2012, in the online journal Scientific Reports.

Astronomers report a baffling discovery never seen before: An extraordinary amount of dust around a nearby star has mysteriously disappeared.

"It's like the classic magician's trick — now you see it, now you don't," said Carl Melis, a postdoctoral scholar at UC San Diego and lead author of the research. "Only in this case, we're talking about enough dust to fill an inner solar system, and it really is gone!"

On a recent expedition to the inhospitable North Atlantic Ocean, scientists at the University of Washington and collaborators studying the annual growth of tiny plants were stumped to discover that the plankton had started growing before the sun had a chance to offer the light they need for their growth spurt.

For decades, scientists have known that springtime brings the longer days and calmer seas that force phytoplankton near the surface, where they get the sunlight they need to flourish.

Active Region 1515 has now spit out 12 M-class flares since July 3. Early in the morning of July 5, 2012 there was an M6.1 flare. It peaked at 7:44 AM EDT. This caused a moderate – classified as R2 on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's space weather scale – radio blackout that has since subsided.

Tropical "fireworks" happened in the eastern Pacific Ocean on July 4 as Tropical Depression 04E formed off western Mexico's coast and strengthened into Tropical Storm Daniel. NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite captured an image of TD 4E's rainfall and towering clouds as it passed overhead, and saw "hot towers" that suggested it would become a tropical storm.

Researchers in India are developing a new technology that will prevent truck drivers and other road users from using their cell phones while driving. The technology based on RFIDs could also be integrated with police traffic monitoring.

An advanced telescope imaging system that started taking data last month is the first of its kind capable of spotting planets orbiting suns outside of our solar system. The collaborative set of high-tech instrumentation and software, called Project 1640, is now operating on the Hale telescope at the Palomar Observatory in California after more than six years of development by researchers and engineers at the American Museum of Natural History, the California Institute of Technology, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

Athens, Ga. – A study published in the July 5 edition of the journal Nature is challenging scientists' understanding of planet formation, suggesting that planets might form much faster than previously thought or, alternatively, that stars harboring planets could be far more numerous.

Plastic pollution off the northwest coast of North America is reaching the level of the notoriously polluted North Sea, according to a new study led by a researcher at the University of British Columbia.

The study, published online in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, examined stomach contents of beached northern fulmars on the coasts of British Columbia, Canada, and the states of Washington and Oregon, U.S.A.

Using combined data from a trio of orbiting X-ray telescopes, including NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Japan-led Suzaku satellite, astronomers have obtained a rare glimpse of the powerful phenomena that accompany a still-forming star. A new study based on these observations indicates that intense magnetic fields drive torrents of gas into the stellar surface, where they heat large areas to millions of degrees. X-rays emitted by these hot spots betray the newborn star's rapid rotation.

It's a challenge that's long been one of the holy grails of quantum computing: How to create quantum bits, or qubits – the key building blocks of quantum computers - that exist in a solid-state system at room temperature. Most current systems, by comparison, rely on complex and expensive equipment designed to trap a single atom or electron in a vacuum then cool the entire system to close to absolute zero.

X-ray observations have revealed something curious about the young star that illuminates McNeil's Nebula, a glowing jewel of cosmic dust in the Orion constellation: The object is a protostar rotating once a day, or 30 times faster than the sun. The stellar baby also has distinct birthmarks—two X-ray-emitting spots, where gas flows from a surrounding disk, fueling the infant star.

Over a dozen radio signals that have hindered data collection on ESA's SMOS water mission have been switched off. The effort also benefits satellites such as NASA's Aquarius mission, which measures ocean salinity at the same frequency.

We all know what happens when you place a cell phone too close to a speaker: seconds before the phone rings, that obnoxious buzz interrupts your favourite song.This is radio interference – an unwanted reception of radio signals. Not only can it interrupt the music from your stereo, it can also impede satellite measurements.

Although Herbig-Haro (HH) objects come in a wide array of shapes, the basic configuration is usually the same. Twin jets of heated gas, ejected in opposite directions from a forming star, stream through interstellar space. These outflows are fueled by gas falling onto the young star, which is surrounded by a disc of dust and gas. If the disc is the fuel tank, the star is the gravitational engine, and the jets are the exhaust.

In Hubble's image of HH 110, one such turbulent streamer of gas can clearly be seen streaking across the frame.

DARPA's UAVForge, a crowdsourcing competition to design, build and manufacture an advanced small unmanned air vehicle (UAV), set out to determine if a loosely-connected community of UAV enthusiasts could develop a militarily relevant back-pack portable UAV with specific capabilities. By using a crowdsourcing design approach, the effort sought to inspire innovation and creative thought by lowering barriers to entry and increasing the number and diversity of contributors.