Heavens

Astronomers have uncovered one of the biggest supermassive black holes, with the mass of 17 billion Suns, in an unlikely place: the centre of a galaxy that lies in a quiet backwater of the Universe. The observations, made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the Gemini Telescope in Hawaii, indicate that these monster objects may be more common than once thought. The results of this study are released in the journal Nature.

Most traditional vaccines have safety and efficacy issues, whereas particulate vaccine delivery systems--which utilize nano- or micro-particulate carriers to protect and deliver antigens--are efficient, stable, include molecules to bolster immune responses, and minimize adverse reactions due to the use of biocompatible biomaterials. A new review summarizes the current status of research efforts to develop particulate vaccine delivery systems against bioterrorism agents and emerging infectious pathogens.

After studying how insects navigate through dense vegetation, researchers at Lund University in Sweden have come up with a system that can be applied to flying robots. By adapting the system to drones, they can be made to adjust their speed to their surroundings and fly on their own- completely without human intervention and control.

Washington, DC--A team of astronomers from Carnegie and the University of Western Ontario has discovered one of the youngest and brightest free-floating, planet-like objects within relatively close proximity to the Sun. The paper reporting these results will be published by The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

In science, there is theory: a fairly general "statement" that describes the world. For example (simplifying somewhat) take the statement "the Earth rotates around its own axis and around the Sun". To test this theory, we need to produce predictions that we are able to compare by means of measurements (when these are possible). And to do this, we need more specific models translated into a mathematical language. However, there may be several, slightly different models or even models based on radically different methodologies that predict the same thing.

When NASA's New Horizons sped past Pluto on July 14, 2015, it took the best-ever pictures of the rocky world s surface, giving us new insight into its geology, composition and atmosphere. These stunning images are the most famous result of New Horizons, but the spacecraft also sent back over three years worth of measurements of the solar wind the constant flow of solar particles that the sun flings out into space from a region that has been visited by only a few spacecraft.

The Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool for Non-Randomized Studies of Interventions shows potential value in systematic reviews in an assessment published this week in PLOS Medicine.

San Antonio -- April 5, 2016 -- In addition to its history-making encounter with Pluto last July, the New Horizons spacecraft also recorded significant changes in how the solar wind behaves far from the Sun.

Analysts at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have used detailed light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data for 128 cities nationwide, along with improved data analysis methods and simulation tools, to update its estimate of total U.S. technical potential for rooftop photovoltaic (PV) systems. The analysis reveals a technical potential of 1,118 gigawatts (GW) of capacity and 1,432 terawatt-hours (TWh) of annual energy generation, equivalent to 39 percent of the nation's electricity sales.

Summary: New results from NANOGrav - the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves - establish astrophysically significant limits in the search for low-frequency gravitational waves. This result provides insight into how often galaxies merge, and how those merging galaxies evolve over time. To obtain this result, scientists required an exquisitely precise, nine-year pulsar-monitoring campaign conducted by two of the most sensitive radio telescopes on Earth, the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Cyclone 18P soon after it formed west of Vanuatu in the Southern Pacific Ocean and captured a visible image of the storm.

On April 5 at 02:40 UTC (April 4 at 10:40 p.m. EDT), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of the newborn Tropical Cyclone 18P in the Southern Pacific Ocean west of Vanuatu. Strong thunderstorms circled the center of the tropical storm, and a wide, thick band of thunderstorms wrapped into the center from the south.

The bombardment of Mars some 4 billion years ago by comets and asteroids as large as West Virginia likely enhanced climate conditions enough to make the planet more conducive to life, at least for a time, says a new University of Colorado Boulder study.

El Nino years can have a big impact on the littlest plants in the ocean, and NASA scientists are studying the relationship between the two.

In El Nino years, huge masses of warm water - equivalent to about half of the volume of the Mediterranean Sea - slosh east across the Pacific Ocean towards South America. While this warm water changes storm systems in the atmosphere, it also has an impact below the ocean's surface. These impacts, which researchers can visualize with satellite data, can ripple up the food chain to fisheries and the livelihoods of fishermen.

The salt levels of oceans on distant Earth-like planets could have a major effect on their climates - according to new research from the Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of East Anglia.

A study published today reveals that the circulation in extremely salty or fresh water extra-terrestrial seas would influence their temperatures - and could in fact make for more habitable conditions for alien life.

Where do your eyes focus during a conversation? An innovative study by University of Vermont researchers reveals that for children with autism spectrum disorder, the answer depends on how emotional the conversation is.