Heavens

DALLAS – July 14, 2009 – Infectious disease specialists at UT Southwestern Medical Center have mapped the gene profiles of children with severe Staphylococcus aureus infections, providing crucial insight into how the human immune system is programmed to respond to this pathogen and opening new doors for improved therapeutic interventions.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – A glass of wine here, a nightcap there – new research out of Wake Forest University School of Medicine suggests that moderate alcohol intake offers long-term cognitive protection and reduces the risk of dementia in older adults.

The study is being presented at the Alzheimer's Association 2009 International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease (ICAD), in Vienna on July 13.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Global warming may exact a toll on salt marshes in New England, but new research shows that one key constituent of marshes may be especially endangered.

A scientific instrument package developed for the $2.2 billion orbiting Herschel Space Observatory that was launched in May by the European Space Agency has made its first successful observations, targeting two star-forming galaxies near the Milky Way.

Sporting a 3.5-meter mirror, the Herschel Space Observatory is the largest space telescope ever built and flown. Herschel is about one-and-one-half times the diameter of the Hubble Space Telescope.

On June 27, 2009, the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES-O, soared into space during a spectacular launch from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. GOES-O has now been renamed and its solar array has been deployed.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) GOES-O satellite is the second in the GOES N Series that will improve weather forecasting and monitor environmental events around the world.

Herschel has carried out the first test observations with all its instruments, with spectacular results. Galaxies, star-forming regions and dying stars comprised the telescope's first targets. The instruments provided spectacular data at their first attempt, finding water, carbon and revealing dozens of distant galaxies.

These observations show that Herschel's instruments are working beyond expectations. They promise a mission of rich discoveries for waiting astronomers.

SPIRE surprises with power

Research by a Michigan State University scientist sheds new light on how stars and galaxies were formed back in the early days of the universe – some 13 billion years ago.

Work by Brian O'Shea, an MSU assistant professor of physics and astronomy, and two colleagues indicates that the universe's earliest inhabitants, known as Population III stars, were not nearly as massive as originally thought. In addition, they argue that many of these stars actually formed in binary systems, that is, pairs of stars that orbit a common center.

Turk, Abel and O'Shea ran five data-intensive simulations, each of which covered a 400 quadrillion cubic mile volume of the universe and took about three weeks to run on 64 processors. The simulations focused on the first Population III stars: massive, hot stars thought to have formed a mere several hundred million years after the Big Bang.

The tight cluster of stars surrounding a supermassive black hole after it has been violently kicked out of a galaxy represents a new kind of astronomical object and a fossil record of the kick.

Blacksburg, Va. -- Four researchers at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) at Virginia Tech and their colleagues at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine are advocating the use of systems biology as an innovative clinical approach to cancer. This approach could result in the development of improved diagnostic tools and treatment options, as well as potential new drug targets to help combat the many potentially fatal types of the disease.

A team of astrophysicists has solved a mystery that led some scientists to speculate that the distribution of certain gamma rays in our Milky Way galaxy was evidence of a form of undetectable "dark matter" believed to make up much of the mass of the universe.

Galileo knew he had discovered a new planet in 1613, 234 years before its official discovery date, according to a new theory by a University of Melbourne physicist.

Professor David Jamieson, Head of the School of Physics, is investigating the notebooks of Galileo from 400 years ago and believes that buried in the notations is the evidence that he discovered a new planet that we now know as Neptune.

TORONTO, ON – An international team of astronomers has found a better way to examine the origins and evolution of galaxies that form following supernova explosions – the starting point for the formation of galaxies when a star explodes – and they have discovered new supernovae in the process.

Irvine, Calif. — UC Irvine cosmologists have found two supernovae farther away than any previously detected by using a new technique that could help find other dying stars at the edge of the universe.

This method has the potential to allow astronomers to study some of the very first supernovae and will advance the understanding of how galaxies form, how they change over time and how Earth came to be.

The Omega Nebula, sometimes called the Swan Nebula, is a dazzling stellar nursery located about 5500 light-years away towards the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer). An active star-forming region of gas and dust about 15 light-years across, the nebula has recently spawned a cluster of massive, hot stars. The intense light and strong winds from these hulking infants have carved remarkable filigree structures in the gas and dust.