Astronomers have directly detected a planet in a triple star system using imaging techniques. The planet's peculiar arrangement between three stars as well as its wide orbit within the multi-star system expand current models of how star systems and their planets form. To date, detecting exoplanets in multi-star systems has proven challenging, meaning that most directly imaged exoplanets have been detected around single stars, and less so around binary stars.
Heavens
After shining for many millions of years, stars end their lives, mainly, in two ways: very high mass stars die very violently as supernovae, while low mass stars end as planetary nebulae. In both cases they throw out into the interstellar medium the chemical elements synthesized in the interiors of the stars. For that reason, knowing the composition of this gas gives us information which is vital for understanding the chemical evolution of our Galaxy, and by extension, of the universe.
Social behaviour like reaching a consensus is a matter of cooperation. However, individuals in populations often spontaneously compete and only cooperate under certain conditions. These problems are so ubiquitous that physicists have now developed models to understand the underlying logic that drives competition. A new study published in EPJ B shows the dynamics of competing agents with an evolving tendency to collaborate that are linked through a network modelled as a disordered square lattice.
Peering deep into the core of the Crab Nebula, this close-up image reveals the beating heart of one of the most historic and intensively studied remnants of a supernova, an exploding star. The inner region sends out clock-like pulses of radiation and tsunamis of charged particles embedded in magnetic fields.
A system for predicting storm damage by waves in northern areas of the North Sea has been developed by mathematicians at the University of Strathclyde.
Densely populated areas on the sea's coast are particularly vulnerable to severe wave conditions, which can rise above or damage sea defences, leading to dangerous flooding.
The Strathclyde researchers have devised a model of north-east Scottish coastal waters which simulates waves and the effect upon them of tidal currents.
This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the beating heart of one of the most visually appealing, and most studied, supernova remnants known -- the Crab Nebula. At the centre of this nebula the spinning core of a deceased star breathes life into the gas that surrounds it.
The BMJ has produced a series of info-graphics to illustrate payments received by doctors, as disclosed in the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) database, launched last week.
This is a useful step towards greater transparency and public accountability, but it serves mainly to show just how far we have yet to go.
An editorial by The BMJ's Editor in Chief, Fiona Godlee and Clinical Editor, Kate Adlington, says that this database is just the start on the way towards transparency.
When it feels easy to pay for something, it might just make us feel less connected to what we're buying, a new U of T Scarborough study says.
"Debit and credit cards rule the marketplace, and while going cashless is convenient, that convenience may come at a price," says Avni Shah, an assistant professor of marketing at U of T Scarborough and the Rotman School of Management.
As super typhoon Nepartak NASA satellites are gathering data on wind, temperature, rainfall, and cloud extent. NASA's Terra satellite, the Suomi NPP satellite and the RapidScat instrument have been analyzing the storm.
The RapidScat instrument that flies aboard the International Space Station has been analyzing the winds around Super typhoon Nepartak. RapidScat is a scatterometer that can measure wind speeds over open ocean surfaces. RapidScat passed directly over Super Typhoon Nepartak on July 6 and read wind speeds upwards of 27 meters per second (60.4 mph/97.2 kph).
A quick method for making accurate, virtual universes to help understand the effects of dark matter and dark energy has been developed by UCL and CEFCA scientists. Making up 95% of our universe, these substances have profound effects on the birth and lives of galaxies and stars and yet almost nothing is known about their physical nature.
While consumers give high marks to some sunscreens, many of those products do not meet American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) guidelines, according to an article published online by JAMA Dermatology.
CHICAGO --- About 40 percent of the top selling sunscreens on Amazon.com don't meet the American Academy of Dermatology's guidelines for sunscreens. This was largely due to a lack of water or sweat resistance, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study.
The study also found consumers spend up to 3,000 percent more for products that provide the same sunscreen protection as lower-cost sunscreens.
A trustful moral judgment system of good or bad is the building block of cooperation in a large group. A rule of thumb for promoting cooperation is to help those who have a good reputation and not those who have a bad reputation. However, making trustful moral judgment requires time, effort and money. Therefore, this raises a crucial issue - the moral free riders who evade the cost associated with moral judgment (e.g. by not paying taxes for police and court) are better off than those who shoulder the cost.
Finding new and effective ways to create alcohols and esters is a constant target in chemistry, as these substances are important industrial compounds and feedstocks - the raw materials from which many industrial processes start. Alcohols have numerous medical and industrial applications, such as drugs and antifreeze. Esters, a class of organic compounds, are utilized by the food and cosmetics industries to add specific flavours to food or perfumes.
Expecting songbird dads do not always work themselves into frenzy to provide food to their partners sitting on the nest. They take breaks on warmer days, when food is more readily available or if their partner is older and more experienced in successfully hatching eggs. This is according to a study of blue tit birds led by Seyed Mehdi Amininasab of the University of Groningen in The Netherlands and Behbahan Khatam Alanbia University of Technology in Iran. The findings are published in Springer's journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.