Heavens

This morning's TRMM overpass showed that most of the deep convection (rising air and developing thunderstorms) has been sheared off by wind shear, and pushed northeast of the center of circulation. TRMM showed only a small area of convection around the center.

Pasadena, CA—Astronomers, conducting the broadest survey to date of galaxies from about 800 million years after the Big Bang, have found 22 early galaxies and confirmed the age of one by its characteristic hydrogen signature at 787 million years post Big Bang. The finding is the first age-confirmation of a so-called dropout galaxy at that distant time and pinpoints when an era called the reionization epoch likely began. The research will be published in a December issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

Results of an investigation conducted by University of Nevada, Reno researchers, public health officials and area physicians published this week in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, indicate that Washoe County experienced a cluster of a particular birth defect, gastroschisis, during the period April 2007 – April 2008. Subsequent review of medical records since the study's conclusion indicates that while the rate is still elevated, the cluster appears to have subsided.

An unusual supernova rediscovered in seven-year-old data may be the first example of a new type of exploding star, possibly from a binary star system where helium flows from one white dwarf onto another and detonates in a thermonuclear explosion.

In a paper first published online Nov. 5 in the journal Science Express, University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) astronomer Dovi Poznanski and his colleagues describe the outburst, dubbed SN 2002bj, and why they believe it is a new type of explosion.

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– A new class of supernova was discovered by scientists at Berkeley and may be the first example of a new type of exploding star. A team of astrophysicists at UC Santa Barbara had predicted this kind of explosion in their theoretical work.

Lars Bildsten, professor at UCSB's Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP), and colleagues, predicted a new type of supernova in distant galaxies that would be fainter than most and would rise and fall in brightness in only a few weeks.

This week, Astronomy & Astrophysics publishes a somewhat unusual research article because it is co-authored by German high-school students. Led by astronomer Klaus Beuermann (University of Göttingen, Germany), the team [1] involves a secondary school physics teacher, three students from two high schools in Göttingen [2], and three professional astronomers.

The perceptions of five Chinese vowel /u, o, a, y, i/ and many perceptional phenomena can be explained well by the excitation pattern peaks. The study is reported in Science in China, Series F-Information Sciences, Volume 52，Issues 10 (Oct, 2009).

It is commonly accepted that the locations of prominent energy concentrations are related to vowel quality. But, because the spectrum of a sound undergoes many significant changes after entering the peripheral auditory system, no simple determinant relation is found between acoustic formant frequencies and vowel qualities.

New research shows that the widely used pain reliever acetaminophen may be associated with an increased risk of asthma and wheezing in both children and adults exposed to the drug. Researchers from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, conducted a systematic review and metaanalysis of 19 clinical studies (total subjects=425,140) that compared the risk of asthma or wheezing with acetaminophen exposure.

CHICAGO (November 4, 2009)––Men whose prostate specific antigen (PSA) rise within 18 months of radiotherapy are more likely to develop spread and die of their disease, according to an international study led by Fox Chase Cancer Center radiation oncologist Mark K. Buyyounouski, M.D., M.S. and presented today at the annual meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).

Boston, Mass. -- As flu season approaches, parents around the country are starting to face school closures. But how bad should an influenza outbreak be for a school to shut down? A study led by epidemiologists John Brownstein, PhD, and Anne Gatewood Hoen, PhD of the Children's Hospital Boston Informatics Program, in collaboration Asami Sasaki of the University of Niigata Prefecture (Niigata, Japan), tapped a detailed set of Japanese data to help guide decision making by schools and government agencies.

University of Alberta physics professor Craig Heinke has solved a mystery that lies 11,000 light years beyond Earth. A supernova (or exploding star), 20 times heavier than our sun blasted apart, leaving behind a small core that has puzzled astronomers since its discovery in 1999.

Evidence for a thin veil of carbon has been found on the neutron star in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant. This discovery, made with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, resolves a ten-year mystery surrounding this object.

"The compact star at the center of this famous supernova remnant has been an enigma since its discovery," said Wynn Ho of the University of Southampton and lead author of a paper that appears in the latest issue of Nature. "Now we finally understand that it can be produced by a hot neutron star with a carbon atmosphere."

Is there such a thing as "weather" on Mars? There are some doubts, considering the planet's atmosphere is only 1 percent as dense as that of the Earth. Mars, however, definitely has clouds, drastically low temperatures and out-of-this-world dust storms, and Istvan Szunyogh, a Texas A&M professor of atmospheric sciences, has been awarded a NASA grant to analyze and forecast Martian weather.

Mars is the most Earth-like planet we know, but it is still quite different. For example, it is much colder on Mars.

ESA's comet chaser Rosetta will swing by Earth for the last time on 13 November to pick up energy and begin the final leg of its 10-year journey to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. ESA's European Space Operations Centre will host a media briefing on that day.

Bethesda, MD (Nov. 2, 2009) – Due to the increasing complexities of treating digestive diseases, allowing gastroenterological (GI) trainee physicians the opportunity to develop enhanced abilities and experiences in specific disease areas or procedures will be a great benefit to patients, according to a "Report of the Multisociety Task Force on GI Training." Additionally, GI training programs need to measure the achievements of trainees based on specific defined competencies rather than the duration of training alone.