The Inner Harbour on the Cataraqui River in Kingston, Ont., has mercury levels in sediment more than two times the Canadian government's most severe effect limits, according to a Queen's University study.
"Mercury levels in this part of the river have never been studied before," says biology professor Linda Campbell. "Now we know the sources of the problem and just how widespread it is."
ESA's Herschel space telescope can be used to study such regions in detail, but only Planck can find them all over the sky. Launched together in May 2009, Planck and Herschel are both studying the coolest components of the Universe. Planck looks at large structures, while Herschel can make detailed observations of smaller structures, such as nearby star-forming regions.
One puzzle to be solved is why there is similar filamentary structure on both the large and the small scale. "That's a big question," says Tauber.
"This is our first detailed look inside the biggest storm of the Solar System," says Glenn Orton, who led the team of astronomers that made the study. "We once thought the Great Red Spot was a plain old oval without much structure, but these new results show that it is, in fact, extremely complicated."
A researcher from The University of Western Ontario has helped solve a 37-year old space mystery using lunar images released yesterday by NASA and maps from his own atlas of the moon.
Phil Stooke, a professor cross appointed to Western's Departments of Physics & Astronomy and Geography, published a major reference book on lunar exploration in 2007 entitled, "The International Atlas of Lunar Exploration."
Tropical Cyclones Tomas and Ului are both causing problems for residents in the South Pacific Ocean today, March 16, and watches and warnings are in effect for the Fiji Islands and the Solomon Islands, respectively. NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites passed over each storm and their images were combined to show the close proximity of the troublemaking twins.
A Kansas State University study aimed at alleviating intestinal damage in trauma patients digressed to an important finding that could affect medication given to the individuals.
The birth of the most massive stars—those ten to a hundred times the mass of the Sun—has posed an astrophysical riddle for decades. Massive stars are dense enough to fuse hydrogen while they're still gathering material from the gas cloud, so it was a mystery why their brilliant radiation does not heat the infalling gas and blow it away.
TAMPA, Fla. (March 16, 2010)—Approximately half of Americans living with colorectal cancer will develop liver metastases at some point during the course of their disease. Radiofrequency ablation, a minimally invasive treatment that applies heat directly in the tumor causing cancer cell death with minimal associated injury to the surrounding healthy liver, contributes to prolongation of their life by nearly three years, note researchers at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 35th Annual Scientific Meeting in Tampa, Fla.
ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Nature abounds with examples of evolutionary arms races. Certain marine snails, for example, evolved thick shells and spines to avoid be eaten, but crabs and fish foiled the snails by developing shell-crushing claws and jaws.
Common as such interactions may be, it's often difficult to trace their origins back in evolutionary time.
New Haven, Conn.—An international team led by Yale University has, for the first time, measured the mass of a type of supernova thought to belong to a unique subclass and confirmed that it surpasses what was believed to be an upper mass limit. Their findings, which appear online and will be published in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal, could affect the way cosmologists measure the expansion of the universe.
An electronic device is an accurate technique for locating and avoiding nerves during spinal procedures, suggests a study by Henry Ford Hospital researchers.
The issue becomes important for patients as the demand for minimally invasive surgical techniques continues to grow, so does the need for effective methods for monitoring the location of nerves during surgery to avoid damage to them.
It is expected that Earth-based ESA stations will take part in controlling Phobos-Grunt, receiving telemetry and making trajectory measurements, including implementation of very long-baseline interferometry (VLBI). This cooperation is realized on the basis of the agreement on collaboration of the Russian Federal Space Agency and ESA in the framework of the 'Phobos-Grunt' and 'ExoMars' projects.
Menlo Park, Calif. — Desktop experiments could point the way to dark matter discovery, complementing grand astronomical searches and deep underground observations. According to recent theoretical results, small blocks of matter on a tabletop could reveal elusive properties of the as-yet-unidentified dark matter particles that make up a quarter of the universe, potentially making future large-scale searches easier.
The second–ever known tropical cyclone in the South Atlantic Ocean can't escape satellite eyes, and today, the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES-12 captured a visible image of Tropical Storm 90Q now located off the coast of Argentina.
NASA's Aqua satellite flew over Tropical Storm Ului during the morning hours (Eastern Time) on March 12 and noticed a large area of strong convection in the storm's center, indicating strengthening.
The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on Aqua captured an infrared image of Ului, formerly Tropical Depression 20P, on March 12 at 14:17 a.m. ET (9:17 a.m. ET). The infrared image showed a well –developed storm with a large cluster of high, cold (colder than minus 63 Fahrenheit), strong thunderstorms around the center of Tropical Storm Ului.