New York, NY -- Anyone who uses multithreaded computer programs -- and that's all of us, as these are the programs that power nearly all software applications including Office, Windows, MacOS, and Google Chrome Browser, and web services like Google Search, Microsoft Bing, and iCloud, -- knows well the frustration of computer crashes, bugs, and other aggravating problems. The most widely used method to harness the power we require from multicore processors, multithreaded programs can be difficult for programmers to get right and they often contain elusive bugs called races.
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Scientists within the New York Center for Astrobiology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have compiled years of research to help locate areas in outer space that have extreme potential for complex organic molecule formation. The scientists searched for methanol, a key ingredient in the synthesis of organic molecules that could lead to life. Their results have implications for determining the origins of molecules that spark life in the cosmos.
The discovery of 13 diffuse interstellar bands with the longest wavelengths to date could someday solve a 90-year-old mystery.
Astronomers have identified the new bands using data collected by the Gemini North telescope of stars in the center of the Milky Way.
Nature reports on its website today findings that support recent ideas about the presence of large, possibly carbon-based organic molecules—"carriers"—hidden in interstellar dust clouds. The paper will also appear in the Nov. 10 print issue of the journal.
Converting sunlight into electricity is not economically attractive because of the high cost of solar cells, but a recent, purely optical approach to improving luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) may ease the problem, according to researchers at Argonne National Laboratories and Penn State.
Gamma-ray bursts are the brightest explosions in the Universe [1]. They are first spotted by orbiting observatories that detect the initial short burst of gamma rays. After their positions have been pinned down, they are then immediately studied using large ground-based telescopes that can detect the visible-light and infrared afterglows that the bursts emit over the succeeding hours and days. One such burst, called GRB 090323 [2], was first spotted by the NASA Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.
The Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) that will fly on the next Landsat satellite came out of its first round of thermal vacuum testing Tuesday, Oct. 4 at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- An international research team led by the University at Buffalo has shown that large energy fluctuations can rile even a "relaxed" system, raising questions about how energy might travel through structures ranging from the ocean to DNA.
The research appeared online Oct. 21 in Physical Review E.
The creation of the Universe was a messy business, and billions of years after the Big Bang, material still litters the dark space between stars. In these cold interstellar regions, gas and dust specks swirl together, sometimes coalescing to form new stars, sometimes expanding as dying stars spew forth new material into the void.
Analysis of the data collected during Rosetta spacecraft fly-by indicates that the Lutetia asteroid that was observed in 2010 is a dense, intact relic dating back to the birth of our solar system. Rosetta passed the Lutetia asteroid at close range in summer 2010. The asteroid was measured to be more than 100 kilometers in diameter. The new research results in Science were acquired through international cooperation, and the analysis was based on a mathematical method developed by Professor Mikko Kaasalainen.
Fat doughnut-shaped dust shrouds that obscure about half of supermassive black holes could be the result of high speed crashes between planets and asteroids, according to a new theory from an international team of astronomers. The scientists, led by Dr. Sergei Nayakshin of the University of Leicester, publish their results in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
A new analysis of Hubble surveys, combined with simulations of galaxy interactions, reveals that the merger rate of galaxies over the last 8 billion to 9 billion years falls between the previous estimates.
Three planets, each orbiting its own giant, dying star, have been discovered by an international research team. Using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, the astronomers observed the planets' parent stars -- called HD 240237, BD +48 738, and HD 96127 -- tens of light years away from our solar system.
One of the massive, dying stars has an additional mystery object orbiting it, according to team leader Alex Wolszczan, an Evan Pugh Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State, who, in 1992, became the first astronomer ever to discover planets outside our solar system.
A new analysis of images from the Hubble Space Telescope combined with supercomputer simulations of galaxy collisions has cleared up years of confusion about the rate at which smaller galaxies merge to form bigger ones. This paper, led by Jennifer Lotz of Space Telescope Science Institute, is about to be published in the Astrophysical Journal.
In today's Nature, astronomers report that organic compounds of unexpected complexity exist throughout the Universe. The results suggest that complex organic compounds are not the sole domain of life but can be made naturally by stars.
In November 2010, the distant dwarf planet Eris passed in front of a faint background star, an event called an occultation. These occurrences are very rare and difficult to observe as the dwarf planet is very distant and small. The next such event involving Eris will not happen until 2013. Occultations provide the most accurate, and often the only, way to measure the shape and size of a distant Solar System body.