At first glance, the center of the Milky Way seems like a very inhospitable place to try to form a planet. Stars crowd each other as they whiz through space like cars on a rush-hour freeway. Supernova explosions blast out shock waves and bathe the region in intense radiation. Powerful gravitational forces from a supermassive black hole twist and warp the fabric of space itself.
Heavens
In 1604, a new star appeared in the night sky that was much brighter than Jupiter and dimmed over several weeks. This event was witnessed by sky watchers including the famous astronomer Johannes Kepler. Centuries later, the debris from this exploded star is known as the Kepler supernova remnant.
WASHINGTON ― To more effectively defend against ballistic missile attacks, the U.S. should concentrate on defense systems that intercept enemy missiles in midcourse and stop spending money on boost-phase defense systems of any kind, concludes a new, congressionally mandated report from a committee of the National Research Council.
Inhaled pain relief appears to be effective in reducing pain intensity and in giving pain relief in the first stage of labour, say Cochrane researchers. These conclusions came from a systematic review that drew data from twenty-six separate studies that involved a total of 2,959 women, and are published in The Cochrane Library.
This study attempts to fill the void that exists in specialized literature with regard to stock photography agencies and their technical characteristics. "It is surprising to see more articles on this type of organization in the economic press than in academic or professional journals, in spite of their high annual net sales", states Professor Perianes.
Young children whose families immigrate to Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States are as prepared and capable of starting school as their native-born counterparts, with one exception—vocabulary and language development. That's the finding of a new study published in the September/October 2012 issue of the journal Child Development in a special section on the children of immigrants.
Volunteers participating in the Galaxy Zoo project have been helping scientists gain new insights by classifying galaxies seen in hundreds of thousands of telescope images as spiral or elliptical. Along the way they've also stumbled across odd-looking galaxies which resemble each letter of the alphabet.
The international team behind Galaxy Zoo, including astronomers from Oxford University, are inviting people to be involved in more discoveries as they launch a new incarnation of the site at www.galaxyzoo.org.
A new kind of roof-and-attic system field-tested at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory keeps homes cool in summer and prevents heat loss in winter, a multi-seasonal efficiency uncommon in roof and attic design.
The system improves efficiency using controls for radiation, convection and insulation, including a passive ventilation system that pulls air from the underbelly of the attic into an inclined air space above the roof.
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—A strip of glass covered in hairy nanoparticles can cheaply and conveniently measure mercury, which attacks the nervous system, and other toxic metals in fluids.
Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Northwestern University and the University of Michigan found that their new method can measure methyl mercury, the most common form of mercury pollution, at unprecedentedly small concentrations. The system, which could test for metal toxins in drinking water and fish, is reported in the current edition of Nature Materials.
Airborne wind energy—an emerging approach to harnessing high-altitude winds—could scale up fairly quickly if given significant government support for research and development, according to a survey of experts by Near Zero, a nonprofit energy research organization.
Satellite images from two NASA satellites were combined to create a full picture of Tropical Storm Leslie and Hurricane Michael spinning in the Atlantic Ocean. Imagery from NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites showed Leslie now past Bermuda and Michael in the north central Atlantic, and Leslie is much larger than the smaller, more powerful Michael.
Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new software tool to prevent performance disruptions in cloud computing systems by automatically identifying and responding to potential anomalies before they can develop into problems.
Cloud computing enables users to create multiple "virtual machines" that operate independently, even though they are all operating on one large computing platform. However, this approach can cause performance issues when a software bug, or other problem, in one virtual machine disrupts the entire cloud.
A study by the University of Southampton has shown that women are having children later in life mainly because they are spending longer in education.
Research by Professor Máire Ní Bhrolcháin and Dr Éva Beaujouan of the ESRC Centre for Population Change at the University reveals that finishing full-time education and training at an older average age is the main reason why people are having their first child later in life – both in Britain and in France.
Thieves are unlikely to appreciate this fabric, which looks innocuous but in fact incorporates a fine web of conductive threads connected to a microcontroller that detects warning signals emitted when the fabric is cut and triggers an alarm. This system can be used to protect buildings, bank vaults, and trucks against even the most wily of intruders. Vehicles parked overnight at truck stops are particularly vulnerable to attacks by thieves who slit open the canvas tarp covering the trailer while the driver is asleep and make off with the cargo.
The erstwhile planet Pluto (now officially an asteroid) was known for decades as a small, dark planet—hidden, difficult to spot, and on a quiet, determined course all its own. And so, when the DHS Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) needed a target semi-submersible to detect the hidden but determined maritime smuggling operations of the South American drug cartels, it created its own vessel and called it "PLUTO," after the planet that is so difficult to spot.