Heavens

Superior mesenteric artery syndrome in a diabetic patient

Diabetes mellitus is one of the most common chronic disease of the world and the prevalence of diabetes mellitus is over 10% in Taiwan. Gastroparesis is reported in 5% to 12% of diabetic patients. Superior mesenteric artery (SMA) syndrome is an uncommon disease resulting compression of the third portion of the duodenum from the superior mesenteric artery. However, SMA syndrome can cause the same symptoms as diabetic gastroparesis.

GOES-P spacecraft being processed in Florida

During the first three weeks in January, the latest in the series of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites also known as GOES-P is being processed and prepped for launch. Meanwhile, the first and second stages of the Delta IV rocket that will carry it into orbit, are being assembled on the launch pad.

NASA's Rosetta 'Alice' spectrometer reveals Earth's ultraviolet fingerprint in Earth flyby

Boulder, Colo. -- Jan. 14, 2010 -- On Nov. 13, the European Space Agency's comet orbiter spacecraft, Rosetta, swooped by Earth for its third and final gravity assist on the way to humankind's first rendezvous to orbit and study a comet in more detail than has ever been attempted.

Sea Node completes Trident Warrior 2009 Exercise with positive Military Utility Assessment

Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) developed "Sea Node" has completed the Trident Warrior 2009 Exercise and officially received a positive Military Utility Assessment. The Sea-Node System adds FORCENet Capability to the AN/SSX-1 Electronic Support (ES) systems to enable collaborative applications, such as geo-locating coastal radars, as well as to improve situational awareness and reduce operator workload. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is the sponsoring organization. The Trident Warrior exercise is performed annually under NETWARCOM's leadership.

Why we can't always find what we're looking for (and sometimes find what isn't there)

When people look for things that are rare, they aren't all that good at finding them. And it turns out that the reverse is also true: When people look for something common, they will often think they see it even when it isn't there. A new report published online on January 14th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, offers new insight into why this happens and may suggest some simple methods to help airport security personnel looking for weapons and radiologists looking for tumors get better at their jobs, according to the researchers.

Determining chemical composition of a type of red giant star with more carbon than oxygen

What are the peculiar type-R stars made? Where does the carbon present in their shell come from? These are the questions to be solved by a research work conducted by scientists of the department of Theoretical and Cosmos Physics of the University of Granada (Spain), where they have analysed the chemical composition and the evolutionary state of spectral type R carbon stars to try to explain the origin of the carbon enrichment present in its atmosphere.

UI astronomers capture first-of-kind image at distant star

Two University of Iowa researchers have made the first direct radio image of a stellar coronal loop at a star, other than the sun, thereby providing scientists with information that may lead to a better understanding of how such phenomena as space weather affect the Earth.

NASA satellite sees Tropical Storm Edzani becoming extra-tropical

Tropical Storm Edzani will soon be Extra-tropical Storm Edzani and NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite noticed that as its changing, the storm's rains are all south of the system. Earlier today, January 13, Tropical cyclone Edzani was located approximately 785 nautical miles east-southeast of La Reunion Island in the Southern Indian Ocean, near 28.1 South and 68.0 East. Edzani had maximum sustained winds near 40 mph, so it is still hanging onto tropical storm status as it continues changing into an extra-tropical storm.

New research resolves conflict in theory of how galaxies form

For more than two decades, the cold dark matter theory has been used by cosmologists to explain how the smooth universe born in the big bang more than 13 billion years ago evolved into the filamentary, galaxy-rich cosmic web that we see today.

Giant magnetic loop sweeps through space between stellar pair

Astronomers have found a giant magnetic loop stretched outward from one of the stars making up the famous double-star system Algol. The scientists used an international collection of radio telescopes to discover the feature, which may help explain details of previous observations of the stellar system.

"This is the first time we've seen a feature like this in the magnetic field of any star other than the Sun," said William Peterson, of the University of Iowa.

Found - second smallest exoplanet

PASADENA, Calif.—Astronomers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and other institutions, using the highly sensitive 10-meter Keck I telescope atop Hawaii's Mauna Kea, have detected an extrasolar planet with a mass just four times that of Earth. The planet, which orbits its parent star HD156668 about once every four days, is the second-smallest world among the more than 400 exoplanets (planets located outside our solar system) that have been found to date. It is located approximately 80 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Hercules.

VLT captures first direct spectrum of an exoplanet

"The spectrum of a planet is like a fingerprint. It provides key information about the chemical elements in the planet's atmosphere," says Markus Janson, lead author of a paper reporting the new findings. "With this information, we can better understand how the planet formed and, in the future, we might even be able to find tell-tale signs of the presence of life."

'Greenroads' rates sustainable road projects

The first complete version of Greenroads is now available at www.greenroads.us. Muench presented the project today at the Transportation Research Board's annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

The rating system was developed during the past three years by the UW Greenroads team and collaborators at CH2M Hill.

Solar scientists use 'magnetic mirror effect' to reproduce IBEX observation

Ever since NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, mission scientists released the first comprehensive sky map of our solar system's edge in particles, solar physicists have been busy revising their models to account for the discovery of a narrow "ribbon" of bright emission that was completely unexpected and not predicted by any model at the time.

How galaxies came to be: Astronomers explain Hubble sequence

For the first time, two astronomers have explained the diversity of galaxy shapes seen in the universe. The scientists, Dr Andrew Benson of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Dr Nick Devereux of Embry-Riddle University in Arizona, tracked the evolution of galaxies over thirteen billion years from the early Universe to the present day. Their results appear in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.