Heavens

Scientists from the University of Leicester have led an international study to capture space images that are unique to science.

Researchers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (HST) recently took advantage of the rare opportunity to record Saturn when its rings are edge-on, resulting in a unique movie featuring both of the giant planet's poles.

A newly designed system of identifying molecules for treating hepatitis C should enable scientists to discover novel and effective therapies for the dangerous and difficult-to-cure disease of the liver, says Zhilei Chen, a Texas A&M University assistant professor of chemical engineering who helped develop the screening system.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---A study by University of Michigan researchers offers new insight into what happens to mercury deposited onto Arctic snow from the atmosphere.

The work also provides a new approach to tracking mercury's movement through Arctic ecosystems.

Mercury is a naturally occurring element, but some 2000 tons of it enter the global environment each year from human-generated sources such as coal-burning power plants, incinerators and chlorine-producing plants.

VISTA — the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy — is the latest addition to ESO's Paranal Observatory (eso0949). It is the largest survey telescope in the world and is dedicated to mapping the sky at infrared wavelengths. The large (4.1-metre) mirror, wide field of view and very sensitive detectors make VISTA a unique instrument. This dramatic new image of the Orion Nebula illustrates VISTA's remarkable powers.

(Boston) – Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine's (BUSM) Slone Epidemiology Center and Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) have found that pre-pregnancy obesity and gestational weight gain are associated with an increased risk of preterm birth in African American participants from the Black Women's Health Study. This study currently appears on-line in Epidemiology.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Drinking milk during pregnancy may help reduce your baby's chances of developing multiple sclerosis (MS) as an adult, according to a preliminary study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 62nd Annual Meeting in Toronto April 10 to April 17, 2010.

The study involved 35,794 nurses whose mothers completed a questionnaire in 2001 about their experiences and diet during pregnancy with their nurse-daughter. Of the nurses studied, 199 women developed MS over the 16-year study period.

This week, Astronomy & Astrophysics publishes new 3D maps of the interstellar gas situated in an area 300 parsecs around the Sun. A French-American team of astronomers presents new measurements of the absorption by the interstellar gas in the Sun's local area. Knowledge of the interstellar medium properties, including the spatial distribution, dynamics, and the chemical and physical characteristics, allow astronomers to better understand the interplay between the evolution of stars and their exchange of matter with the ambient interstellar medium.

Health information written by a doctor is rated as more credible when it appears on a Web site than in a blog or a homepage, according to a study of college students.

The findings highlight the relative importance of different online sources to people who seek health information on the Internet.

LONDON, Feb. 5, 2010 – In a landmark study in children and teenagers with type 1 diabetes, JDRF-funded researchers at the University of Cambridge showed that using a first-generation artificial pancreas system overnight can lower the risk of low blood sugar emergencies while sleeping, and at the same time improve diabetes control.

Results from the studies are published in the February 5, 2010 issue of The Lancet, available online at www.thelancet.com.

Scientists in Cambridge have made a significant step towards developing a so-called "artificial pancreas" system for managing type 1 diabetes in children. The team has developed and successfully tested a new algorithm, providing a stepping stone to home testing for the artificial pancreas.

Oli has exploded in strength and as of February 4 it was a Category 4 cyclone with peak sustained winds of 132 mph (115 knots/213 km/hr). NASA's Aqua and TRMM satellites observed Oli's clouds grow colder and rainfall become heavier over the last day. Residents of French Polynesia should watch for local weather advisories.

A $32 million University of Colorado at Boulder instrument package set for launch Feb. 9 by NASA should help scientists better Contact: Tom Woods, 303-492-4224understand the violent effects of the sun on near-Earth space weather that can affect satellites, power grids, ground communications systems and even astronauts and aircraft crews.

Hubble shows that the beautiful spirals galaxies of the modern Universe were the ugly ducklings of six billion years ago.

If confirmed, the finding highlights the importance to many galaxies of collisions and mergers in the recent past. It also provides clues for the unique status of our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

Galaxy morphology, or the study of the shapes and formation of galaxies, is a critical and much-debated topic in astronomy. An important tool for this is the Hubble sequence or Hubble tuning-fork diagram [1], a classification scheme invented in 1926 by the same Edwin Hubble in whose honour the space telescope is named.

To map our home planet, Google Earth depends mostly on satellite imagery for land surfaces and sonar imagery for the sea floor. Maps of the Universe likewise depend on different kinds of detectors for different kinds of features. Maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), for example, depend on measuring minute differences in the temperature of the sky.