Heavens

Scientists using a continent-wide array of radio telescopes have made an extremely precise measurement of the curvature of space caused by the Sun's gravity, and their technique promises a major contribution to a frontier area of basic physics.

Bethesda, MD (Sept. 1, 2009) — Sexual impairment is common among men with chronic hepatitis C undergoing antiviral therapy, according to a new study in Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute.

As scientists attempt to learn more about how galaxies evolve, an open question has been whether collisions with our dwarf galactic neighbors will one day tear apart the disk of the Milky Way.

While astronomers know that such collisions have probably occurred in the past, the new computer simulations show that instead of destroying a galaxy, these collisions "puff up" a galactic disk, particularly around the edges, and produce structures called stellar rings.

Barcelona, Spain, 30 August 2009: Smoking still kills more men than women, because men started smoking substantial numbers of cigarettes long before women did. But, because so many men have now quit, male death rates from smoking are decreasing in many European countries where female death rates from smoking are still increasing. Taking men and women together, smoking causes about 0.7 million deaths per year in the 27 countries of the present European Union, including 0.3 million deaths per year before age 70 (more than one of five of all deaths before age 70).

Researchers at the University of Warwick have found what could be the signal of ideal wave "surfing" conditions for individual particles within the massive turbulent ocean of the solar wind. The discovery could give a new insight into just how energy is dissipated in solar system sized plasmas such as the solar wind and could provide significant clues to scientists developing fusion power which relies on plasmas.

GREENBELT, Md. --The dust-filled disks where new planets may be forming around other stars occasionally take on some difficult-to-understand shapes. Now, a team led by John Debes at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., finds that a star's motion through interstellar gas can account for many of them.

The movie begins with an image on August 25 when Danny was just a low pressure area, east of the Bahamas and not yet named. The movie continues through Danny's formation and classification as a tropical storm during the morning of August 26, to the beginning of its journey up the U.S. East Coast today, August 27 at 2:25 p.m. EDT.

Subtle connections between the 11-year-solar cycle, the stratosphere and the tropical Pacific Ocean work in sync to generate periodic weather patterns that affect much of the globe, according to research results appearing this week in the journal Science.

The findings will help scientists get an edge on predicting the intensity of certain climate phenomena, such as the Indian monsoon and tropical Pacific rainfall, years in advance.

Nitrous oxide has now become the largest ozone-depleting substance emitted through human activities, and is expected to remain the largest throughout the 21st century, NOAA scientists say in a new study.

BOULDER-Subtle connections between the 11-year solar cycle, the stratosphere, and the tropical Pacific Ocean work in sync to generate periodic weather patterns that affect much of the globe, according to research appearing this week in the journal Science. The study can help scientists get an edge on eventually predicting the intensity of certain climate phenomena, such as the Indian monsoon and tropical Pacific rainfall, years in advance.

Our sun does not radiate evenly. The best known example of radiation fluctuations is the famous 11-year cycle of sun spots. Nobody denies its influence on the natural climate variability, but climate models have, to-date, not been able to satisfactorily reconstruct its impact on climate activity.

An international team of researchers has debunked one of astronomy's long held beliefs about how stars are formed, using a set of galaxies found with CSIRO's Parkes radio telescope.

When a cloud of interstellar gas collapses to form stars, the stars range from massive to minute.

Since the 1950s astronomers have thought that in a family of new-born stars the ratio of massive stars to lighter ones was always pretty much the same — for instance, that for every star 20 times more massive than the Sun or larger, you'd get 500 stars the mass of the Sun or less.

A new publication that recommends best practices for the next generation of portable biometric acquisition devices—Mobile ID—has been published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

NRL's Spacecraft Engineering Department and Remote Sensing Division announced it has successfully completed the System Requirements and Design Review (SRDR) for the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Microwave Imager/Sounder (MIS) program. The MIS SRDR was the first major development milestone and was held in May 2009. The program sponsor, the NPOESS Integrated Program Office (IPO), has certified the SRDR to be a success.

Smouldering several thousand light-years away in the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer), the Trifid Nebula presents a compelling portrait of the early stages of a star's life, from gestation to first light. The heat and "winds" of newly ignited, volatile stars stir the Trifid's gas and dust-filled cauldron; in time, the dark tendrils of matter strewn throughout the area will themselves collapse and form new stars.