Heavens

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The newest generation of "virtual biopsy" colonoscopy probes being tested at the Mayo Clinic campus in Florida demonstrate that it might soon be possible to use such a device to determine whether a colon polyp is benign and not remove it for biopsy. Currently, all colon polyps are extracted during a colonoscopy and sent to a pathologist for examination, which adds time, expense, and some surgical risk, to the procedure.

The second tropical depression of the northwestern Pacific tropical cyclone season has formed and is currently located about 235 miles east-southeast of Yap, Micronesia. NASA's Aqua satellite captured infrared, microwave and visible images of Tropical Depression 02W (TD 02W) early this morning.

On Earth, helium is a gas used to float balloons, as in the movie "Up."

In the interior of Jupiter, however, conditions are so strange that, according to predictions by University of California, Berkeley, scientists, helium condenses into droplets and falls like rain.

Helium rain was earlier proposed to explain the excessive brightness of Saturn, a gas giant like Jupiter, but one-third the mass.

When NASA's Galileo probe reached Jupiter in 1995 and began sending back data about the gas giant, astronomers were in for a surprise: Jupiter was unusually poor in helium and neon, the two lightest noble gases. New simulations of the physics inside the planet reveal why.

For the first time, astronomers have made direct measurements of the size and brightness of regions of star-birth in a very distant galaxy, thanks to a chance discovery with the APEX telescope. The galaxy is so distant, that we see it as it was 10 billion years ago. A cosmic "gravitational lens" is magnifying the galaxy, giving us a close-up view that would otherwise be impossible. The research is published online today in the journal Nature.

SAN FRANCISCO, March 21, 2010 — What better venue than San Francisco –– sourdough capital of the world –– to unveil a new natural sourdough ingredient that could replace conventional additives in a variety of other breads, while making them tastier and more healthful? And that's what scientists described today at the American Chemical Society's 239th National Meeting, being held here.

Astronomers have combined a natural gravitational lens and a sophisticated telescope array to get the sharpest view ever of "star factories" in a galaxy over 10 billion light-years from Earth. They found that the distant galaxy, known as SMM J2135-0102, is making new stars 250 times faster than our Galaxy, the Milky Way.

Scientists have found a massive galaxy in the early Universe creating stars like our sun up to 100 times faster than the modern-day Milky Way.

The team of international researchers, led by Durham University, described the finding as like seeing "a teenager going through a growth spurt".

Due to the amount of time it takes light to reach Earth the scientists observed the galaxy as it would have appeared 10 billion years ago – just three billion years after the Big Bang.

GREENBELT, Md. -- Twelve days after a flawless launch, NASA and NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-P (GOES-P) reached its proper orbit and was renamed GOES-15. The latest weather satellite will complete its checkout in mid August 2010 and be stored in-orbit, ready for activation should one of the operational GOES satellites degrade or exhaust their fuel.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) is the one of the leading pathogens causing hospital-acquired infection in the United States. It may cause diarrhea, colitis, sepsis and lead to prolonged hospitalization and death. Mayo Clinic researchers say they've found a way to reduce the acquisition of this infection and drop its frequency to a fraction of what it had been.

The seemingly serene orb of Saturn is in fact a gas giant with extraordinary patterns of charged particles and rough and tumble roller derbies for rings. Such are the findings of NASA's Cassini spacecraft since its arrival at Saturn in 2004 – they are combined in two review papers to be published in the March 19 issue of the journal Science.

Astronomers have come across what appear to be two of the earliest and most primitive supermassive black holes known. The discovery, based largely on observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, will provide a better understanding of the roots of our universe, and how the very first black holes, galaxies and stars all came to be.

The Corot satellite strikes again with another fascinating planet discovery, this time the newly discovered gas giant Corot-9b may have an interior that closely resembles those of Jupiter and Saturn in our own Solar System.

Very few planets are temperate enough to allow the presence of liquid water, but the newly discovered Corot-9b is one of them. It was found on 16 May 2008 and orbits its star every 95.274 days, a little longer than Mercury takes to go round the Sun.

INDIANAPOLIS – Patients seen at private facilities reimbursed by Medicare were more than 550 percent more likely to have routine cataract surgery than those who received their care from the Department of Veterans Affairs, a strong indication that the frequency of cataract surgery may be responsive to financial incentives to either or both the medical facility and the physicians who perform the procedure.

These findings from a large eight-year study are reported in the March 2010 issue of the American Journal of Medical Quality.

FAIRFAX, Va., March 18, 2010—When you think of people suffering from social anxiety, you probably characterize them as shy, inhibitive and submissive. However, new research from psychologists Todd Kashdan and Patrick McKnight at George Mason University suggests that there is a subset of socially anxious people who act out in aggressive, risky ways—and that their behavior patterns are often misunderstood.