Heavens

Light is better than radio waves when it comes to some wireless communications, according to Penn State engineers. Optical communications systems could provide faster, more secure communications with wider bandwidth and would be suitable for restricted areas like hospitals, aircraft and factories.

A tiny communications satellite designed and built by University of Colorado at Boulder undergraduates has been selected as one of three university research satellites to be launched into orbit in November as part of a NASA space education initiative.

The stellar-mass black holes [1] found in the Milky Way weigh up to ten times the mass of the Sun and are certainly not be taken lightly, but, outside our own galaxy, they may just be minor-league players, since astronomers have found another black hole with a mass over fifteen times the mass of the Sun. This is one of only three such objects found so far.

Residents of the northern coastal areas of Australia's Northern Territory and NASA's Aqua satellite have seen new life "blown into" a low pressure system that is once again Tropical Storm Olga.

NASA's Aqua satellite is keeping an eye on the tenth tropical depression to form in the southern Pacific Ocean. Tropical Depression 10P has formed overnight and is expected to continue strengthening.

When Aqua passed over Tropical Depression 10P (TD 10P) on January 27 at 12:17 UTC (7:17 a.m. ET) it was located near 15.1 South and 169.7 W, had maximum sustained winds near 39 mph (35 knots) and a minimum central pressure of 996 millibars. That places TD 10P's center about 45 nautical miles west-southwest of Pago Pago, American Samoa.

For the first time, astronomers have found a supernova explosion with properties similiar to a gamma-ray burst, but without seeing any gamma rays from it. The discovery, using the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope, promises, the scientists say, to point the way toward locating many more examples of these mysterious explosions.

Packed with novel devices and science instruments, Proba-2 is demonstrating technologies for future ESA missions while providing new views of our Sun.

At a press conference on Tuesday at the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Brussels, the team behind the small satellite declared themselves extremely happy with its first three months in orbit and unveiled Proba-2's first solar observations.

An innovative computational technique that draws on statistics, imaging and other disciplines has the capability to detect errors in sensitive technological systems ranging from satellites to weather instruments.

The patented technique, known as the Intelligent Outlier Detection Algorithm, or IODA, is described this month in the Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology.

In an advance that might interest Q-Branch, the gadget makers for James Bond, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and partners from industry and academia have designed and tested experimental antennas that are highly efficient and yet a fraction of the size of standard antenna systems with comparable properties. The novel antennas may be useful in ever-shrinking and proliferating wireless systems such as emergency communications devices, micro-sensors and portable ground-penetrating radars to search for tunnels, caverns and other geophysical features.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – While re-entry and skill-building programs offered by the New Jersey Department of Corrections (NJDOC) at its 11 prisons are heavily used and generally viewed favorably by inmates, many anticipate a difficult return to society due to their underlying health conditions and concerns about finances and support systems.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – While re-entry and skill-building programs offered by the New Jersey Department of Corrections (NJDOC) at its 11 prisons are heavily used and generally viewed favorably by inmates, many anticipate a difficult return to society due to their underlying health conditions and concerns about finances and support systems.

By comparing the immune responses of both, young and old mice, to bacterial infection they found that the number of macrophages, one of the major cell populations involved in the elimination of infecting bacteria, decreases rapidly in aged mice. This decline in the number of fighters and the associated weakness of the immune defense may be responsible for the age-associated increase in susceptibility to infections. The HZI researchers have succeeded to enhance the resistance to an infection in aged mice by treating them with a macrophage-specific growth factor.

Packed with novel devices and science instruments, Proba-2 is demonstrating technologies for future ESA missions while providing new views of our Sun.

At a press conference on Tuesday at the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Brussels, the team behind the small satellite declared themselves extremely happy with its first three months in orbit and unveiled Proba-2's first solar observations.

Research from Malawi, Birmingham and Liverpool has renewed hope that an effective vaccine could be developed against nontyphoidal strains of Salmonella. The work, funded by the Wellcome Trust and GlaxoSmithKline, suggests that the body's immune system could be primed to tackle even the most resilient of strains.

Differences in the number and speed of cometary impacts onto Jupiter's large moons Ganymede and Callisto some 3.8 billion years ago can explain their vastly different surfaces and interior states, according to research by scientists at the Southwest Research Institute appearing online in Nature Geoscience Jan. 24, 2010.