Heavens

A new report launched by the Institute of Physics (IOP) Exoplanets – The search for planets beyond our solar system explains how new technological advances have seen the discovery of more than 400 exoplanets to date, a number expected to rise to thousands in the next few years.

The report details how new techniques and instruments are providing growing observational evidence that our home galaxy – the Milky Way with its 100 billion stars – could contain millions of solar systems.

FAIRFAX, Va.—Can a drug that has been used to treat malaria for years possibly be used to treat breast cancer before it becomes invasive? That's what researchers at George Mason University's Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine (CAPMM) and Inova Breast Care Institute (IBCI) are trying to prove.

The US is facing many challenges in controlling the childhood obesity epidemic. Despite recent efforts and some progress, one third of US children are still overweight or obese. Yet research has shown that the road to obesity begins early in life, and it is more common and difficult to address for low-income children.

Following an intense study of agricultural ecosystems near Montreal, a new tool that enables the simultaneous analysis and management of a wide range of ecological services has been developed by Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne of McGill University's Department of Geography, Elena Bennett of the McGill School of Environment, and Garry Peterson of the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University.

Blacksburg, Va. – A scientific paper that describes a file format used by scientists to represent models of biological processes has exceeded 500 citations in the ISI Web of Knowledge, an online academic database that documents the impact of scientific publications. The Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML) is designed to enable the exchange of quantitative models of biochemical networks between different computer software packages, allowing the models to be shared and published in a form other researchers can use in various software environments.

Astronomers from the United States and Europe have used a gravitational lens -- a distant, light-bending clump of dark matter -- to make a new estimate of the Hubble constant, which determines the size and age of the universe.

A paper describing the work appears in the March issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

When a large nearby object, such as a galaxy, blocks a distant object, such as another galaxy, the light can detour around the blockage. But instead of taking a single path, light can bend around the object in one of two, or four different routes, thus doubling or quadrupling the amount of information scientists receive. As the brightness of the background galaxy nucleus fluctuates, physicists can measure the ebb and flow of light from the four distinct paths, such as in the B1608+656 system that was the subject of this study.

A slight 'over performance' during a manoeuvre last week had put the spacecraft on a trajectory that included an occultation by Phobos. This meant that Mars Express would pass behind Phobos as seen from Earth. As this would jeopardise the tracking measurements, it was decided to perform another manoeuvre to position the flyby at a slightly higher altitude than originally planned.

REVITALIZING NASA'S SUBORBITAL PROGRAM: ADVANCING SCIENCE, DRIVING INNOVATION, AND DEVELOPING WORKFORCE, a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council, recommends ways NASA can strengthen its suborbital program, which conducts research using aircraft, balloons, and rockets. The program enables cutting-edge research in areas such as climate science and astrophysics and is vital in developing technologies and training personnel, the report says.

The next treatment for cancer might come from fish says a new research report published in the March 2010 print edition of the FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org). In the report, scientists show that the omega-3 fatty acid, "docosahexaenoic acid" or "DHA," and its derivatives in the body kill neuroblastoma cancer cells. This discovery could lead to new treatments for a wide range of cancers, including neuroblastoma, medulloblastoma, colon, breast, and prostate cancers, among others.

KINGSTON, ON – As many as one quarter of the star clusters in our Milky Way – many more than previously thought – are invaders from other galaxies, according to a new study. The report also suggests there may be as many as six dwarf galaxies yet to be discovered within the Milky Way rather than the two that were previously confirmed.

"Smart meters" – intelligent devices to measure consumption – make it possible to read and control power consumption, even of private households, while away from the property. This is because the increasing use of solar and wind resources will be changing the electricity supply matrix in the very near future. Today's battery technology is unable to sufficiently buffer the fluctuations in the energy supply. This is why customers should be able to consume power as precisely as possible, once it becomes available.

LIVERMORE, Calif. - Though comets are thought to be some of the oldest, most primitive bodies in the solar system, new research on comet Wild 2 indicates that inner solar system material was transported to the comet-forming region at least 1.7 million years after the formation of the oldest solar system solids.

The research by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and colleagues provides the first constraint on the age of cometary material from a known comet. The findings are published in the Feb. 25 edition of Science Express.

Using an accelerated, shorter course of radiation therapy for patients with advanced head and neck cancer allows doctors to reduce the amount of chemotherapy, thus reducing toxicity, according to a study presented at the Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium, sponsored by AHNS, ASCO, ASTRO and SNM.

A little-used Internet authentication system from the 1980s could provide the answer for enabling web users to securely sign in only once per Internet session, a Queensland University of Technology researcher has found.

PhD researcher Suriadi, from QUT's Information Security Institute, said a secure single-sign on system was more than simply using the same password for multiple accounts.