Heavens

The world became a slightly safer place on May 13, when the Pan-STARRS 1 (PS1) telescope in Hawaiʻi started surveying the sky for killer asteroids.

Secrets of the Universe are to be revealed as a new telescope equipped with the world's most powerful digital camera begins its observations of the night sky.

The Pan-STARRS sky survey telescope – known as PS1 – will enable scientists to better understand the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy, the material that is thought to account for much of the mass of the universe but has never been proven to exist.

PHILADELPHIA – The interaction of the drug compstatin with two ancient, co-evolved human systems points to new ways for reducing clotting during dialysis for end-stage kidney disease and multiple organ failure due to sepsis, a dangerous whole-body inflammatory response to infection.

The possibility that System 92L in the Atlantic Ocean will bloom into the Atlantic's first tropical storm is now minimal because of strong westerly winds.

The GOES-13 satellite captured a visible image of System 92L on June 16 at 11:45 UTC (7:45 a.m. EDT) and it appeared as a small rounded area of cloudiness in the Atlantic.

he second tropical depression of the Eastern Pacific Ocean hurricane season formed close to the western Mexican coast this morning, and the third tropical depression may develop in the next day or two. NASA satellite imagery captured the two systems in one image, right after Tropical Depression 2-E formed.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- For patients with quadriplegia, mutism and lower cranial nerve paralysis (locked-in syndrome), their only means of interacting with others is through vertical gaze and upper eyelid movements, using eye-coded communication strategies.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Until now, astronomers have used telescopes to find Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs), moon-sized bodies, and obtain their spectra to determine what types of ices are on their surface. They have also used thermal-imaging techniques to get a rough idea of the size of KBOs, but other details have been difficult to glean. While astronomers think there are about 70,000 KBOs that are larger than 100 kilometers in diameter, the objects' relatively small size and location make it hard to study them in detail.

Not all patients with sickle cell disease receive laxatives after being treated with narcotics, despite recommendations from a collaborative panel of pediatric experts. These are the findings from a Nationwide Children's Hospital study examining patients from 29 pediatric hospitals, and appearing in Pediatric Blood & Cancer.

Gels, creams and sprays containing painkillers such as ibuprofen, diclofenac, ketoprofen, and piroxicam are safe and effective treatments for local pain, according to Cochrane Researchers. A new systematic review they have conducted shows that topical non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are more effective than placebos for treating short-term pain and have few side effects.

By any measure, Lutetia is quite large. Planetary scientists believe that it is a primitive asteroid left on the shelf for billions of years because no planet consumed it as the Solar System formed. Indeed, most measurements appear to back this picture, making the asteroid out to be a 'C-type', which contains primitive compounds of carbon.

Research published this week in PLoS Medicine finds that pregnant women with an inherited condition that makes them more likely to form blood clots only face a small increase in the risk that they might have a miscarriage or stillbirth. The findings also show that there is no significant association between this condition, known as inherited thrombophilia, and placenta-related problems in pregnancy, suggesting that the prescription of drugs to women with thrombophilia to prevent these problems would be premature.

Satellite imagery captured a visible look at System 92L earlier today, and it seems to be running into an environmental road block: upper level winds that are lessening its chances for development into a tropical cyclone.

GREENBELT, Md. -- The Solar X-Ray Imager instrument aboard the GOES-15 satellite has just provided its first light image of the sun, but it required a lot of experts to make it happen.