Heavens

Philadelphia – May 31, 2012 - Pattern formation in physical, biological, and sociological systems has been studied for many years. Despite the fact that these subject areas are completely diverse, the mathematics that describes underlying patterns in these systems can be surprisingly similar. Mathematical tools can be used to study such systems and predict their patterns.

Centaurus A [1] is a massive elliptical radio galaxy -- a galaxy which emits strong radio waves -- and is the most prominent, as well as by far the nearest, radio galaxy in the sky [2]. Centaurus A has therefore been observed with many different telescopes. Its very luminous centre hosts a supermassive black hole with a mass of about 100 million times that of the Sun.

The work of a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, professor has helped reveal a rare orbital shift and the density of an asteroid that will pass close to Earth.

Josh Emery, assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences, and the team of the NASA asteroid sample return mission called OSIRIS-REx have measured the weight and orbit of 1999 RQ36. They have found the asteroid has a low density and its orbit has drifted roughly 100 miles in the last 12 years. This deviation is caused by the Yarkovsky effect.

Washington, D.C. — One idea for fighting global warming is to increase the amount of aerosols in the atmosphere, scattering incoming solar energy away from the Earth's surface. But scientists theorize that this solar geoengineering could have a side effect of whitening the sky during the day. New research from Carnegie's Ben Kravitz and Ken Caldeira indicates that blocking 2% of the sun's light would make the sky three-to-five times brighter, as well as whiter. Their work is published June 1st in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

With the moon as the most prominent object in the night sky and a major source of an invisible pull that creates ocean tides, many ancient cultures thought it could also affect our health or state of mind – the word "lunacy" has its origin in this belief. Now, a powerful combination of spacecraft and computer simulations is revealing that the moon does indeed have a far-reaching, invisible influence – not on us, but on the Sun, or more specifically, the solar wind.

University of Oklahoma scientists and others from more than a dozen countries joined together to sequence the tomato genome and, ultimately, improve the nation's $2 billion tomato crop. The Tomato Genomics Consortium directed the research effort, which was supported in the United States by the National Science Foundation and the USDA's Agriculture Research Services.

VERNON – Loss of production may be one concern cotton producers have on the Rolling Plains when considering switching to reduced- or no-tillage systems, said Dr. Paul DeLaune, Texas AgriLife Research environmental soil scientist in Vernon.

Not only will cotton growers not lose production with subsurface drip irrigation, their economics will improve, according to DeLaune's latest research article that will appear in the July-August issue of Agronomy Journal.

A discovery about the make-up of the atmosphere of Mars could help inform future missions searching for life there.

Scientists have tried to find out how the planet's environment came to contain methane gas, which contains carbon – a substance found in all living things.

They found that meteorites, which continually bombard the surface of Mars, contain enough carbon compounds to generate methane when they are exposed to sunlight.

More atomic hydrogen gas — the ultimate fuel for stars — is lurking in today's Universe than we thought, CSIRO astronomer Dr Robert Braun has found.This is the first accurate measurement of this gas in galaxies close to our own.

Just after the Big Bang the Universe's matter was almost entirely hydrogen atoms. Over time this gas of atoms came together and generated galaxies, stars and planets — and the process is still going on. Astronomers want to understand where, when and how the atomic gas is transformed to better understand the Universe in which we live.

LANSING, Mich., May 30, 2012 – Tart cherries may help reduce chronic inflammation, especially for the millions of Americans suffering from debilitating joint pain and arthritis, according to new research from Oregon Health & Science University presented today at the American College of Sports Medicine Conference (ACSM) in San Francisco, Calif.1 In fact, the researchers suggest tart cherries have the "highest anti-inflammatory content of any food" and can help people with osteoarthritis manage their disease.

The results, published earlier this month in the journal Administrative Science Quarterly, may help explain why a growing number of recession-weary Americans are participating less in monetary-based consumerism in favor of "gift economies" built on freebies and community spirit.

"Treatment of mental disorders within the health care system needs to be accompanied by a community-based approach that focuses on psychosocial problems," say the authors of a case study from Afghanistan published in this week's PLoS Medicine as part of the newly launched series on global mental health practice.

Typhoon Sanvu had a bad weekend. It went from Typhoon status on May 25 to an extra-tropical storm and finally into a remnant low pressure area by May 29, 2012.

Tropical Storm Beryl formed off the Carolina coast on Friday, May 25 as "System 94L" and later that day became the second tropical storm of the Atlantic Hurricane Season, before the season even started. Over the Memorial Day holiday weekend in the U.S. NASA and NOAA satellites kept track of Beryl, feeding forecasters with valuable data.