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Washington, D.C. (4/10/2016) - State and federal regulators use a variety of evaluation systems intended to improve teacher quality by "holding teacher education accountable" through assessments and ratings or rankings - of states, institutions, programs and teacher candidates themselves.

A team from the University of Rochester has shown that fluctuations in "twisted light" could be exploited for a range of applications, from detecting rotating black holes to object detection by lidar, the light-equivalent of radar.

San Antonio -- April 8, 2016 -- For decades, scientists have agreed that comets are mostly water ice, but what kind of ice -- amorphous or crystalline -- is still up for debate. Looking at data obtained by ESA's Rosetta spacecraft in the atmosphere, or coma, around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, scientists at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) are seeing evidence of a crystalline form of ice called clathrates.

A research team from the University of Science and Technology of China has successfully visualized coherent intermolecular dipole-dipole coupling in real space using STM-based electroluminescence techniques.

The work was published in Nature on March 31, and reviewers have commented, "The fact that such effects could be directly imaged at the level of the individual molecule is truly fascinating." "I think this is a unique and exciting new way of studying dipole-dipole interactions between molecules with high significance for a broad community."

Crisp, clear images of a "hot Jupiter" system captured by a University of Notre Dame physicist were vital in determining that a newly found planet inhabits a three-star system, a phenomenon documented only a few times before.

Justin R. Crepp, Freimann Assistant Professor of Physics, was part of the team that discovered KELT-4Ab, a so-called "hot Jupiter" because it is a gas giant that orbits extremely close to one of the stars in its solar system. The discovery was published in The Astronomical Journal.

An Australian research team has created a breakthrough chip for the nano-manipulation of light, paving the way for next gen optical technologies and enabling deeper understanding of black holes.

Led by Professor Min Gu at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, the team designed an integrated nanophotonic chip that can achieve unparalleled levels of control over the angular momentum (AM) of light.

Tropical cyclone Zena intensified over the open waters between Vanuatu and Fiji and the Global Precipitation Measurement mission core satellite known as GPM found very heavy rainfall and very high cloud tops. By the next day, April 7, Zena was on its way to dissipation.

At peak intensity Zena had sustained winds estimated at about 90 knots (104 mph). The GPM core observatory satellite had an excellent view of tropical cyclone Zena on April 6, 2016 at 0933 UTC (4:33 a.m. EDT) when tropical cyclone Zena was located southwest of Fiji.

Daily deal websites, such as Groupon and LivingSocial, have emerged as a popular way for small local merchants to conduct online promotions, but unlike other online and offline discount sources, they continually track and display the number of deals sold.

Dr. Upender Subramanian, assistant professor of marketing, and Dr. Ram C. Rao, Founders Professor, developed a theoretical model that considers the strategic interaction between a daily deal website, a merchant and consumers.

Neutron stars are the most extreme and fascinating objects known to exist in our universe: Such a star has a mass that is up to twice that of the sun but a radius of only a dozen kilometres: hence it has an enormous density, thousands of billions of times that of the densest element on Earth. An important property of neutron stars, distinguishing them from normal stars, is that their mass cannot grow without bound. Indeed, if a nonrotating star increases its mass, also its density will increase.

Astronomers have uncovered a near-record breaking supermassive black hole, weighing 17 billion suns, in an unlikely place: in the center of a galaxy in a sparsely populated area of the universe. The observations, made by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the Gemini Telescope in Hawaii, may indicate that these monster objects may be more common than once thought.

The specter of a geomagnetic solar storm with the ferocity to disrupt communications satellites, knock out GPS systems, shut down air travel and quench lights, computers and telephones in millions of homes for days, months or even years has yet to grip the public as a panic-inducing possibility.

Tropical Cyclone Zena, formerly known as Tropical Cyclone 18P formed in the South Pacific Ocean near Vanuatu early on April 5, 2016. The Global Precipitation Measurement or GPM core observatory satellite flew directly above the newly formed tropical cyclone and measured rainfall and cloud heights in the storm.

A near-record supermassive black hole discovered in a sparse area of the local universe indicates that these monster objects - this one equal to 17 billion suns - may be more common than once thought, according to University of California, Berkeley, astronomers.

LAWRENCE -- Two new papers appearing in the journal Nature this week are "slam-dunk" evidence that energies from supernovae have buffeted our planet, according to astrophysicist Adrian Melott of the University of Kansas.

Melott offers his judgment of these studies in an associated letter, entitled "Supernovae in the neighborhood," also appearing this week in Nature.

An international team of scientists has found evidence of a series of massive supernova explosions near our solar system, which showered the Earth with radioactive debris.

The scientists found radioactive iron-60 in sediment and crust samples taken from the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

The iron-60 was concentrated in a period between 3.2 and 1.7 million years ago, which is relatively recent in astronomical terms, said research leader Dr Anton Wallner from The Australian National University (ANU).