Heavens

The United States and Mexico constructed the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Gamma-ray Observatory to observe some of the most energetic phenomena in the known universe--the aftermath when massive stars die, glowing clouds of electrons around rapidly spinning neutron stars, and supermassive black holes devouring matter and spitting out powerful jets of particles. These violent explosions produce high-energy gamma rays and cosmic rays, which can travel large distances--making it possible to see objects and events far outside our own galaxy.

Tropical Cyclone Fantala has become a major tropical cyclone in the Southern Indian Ocean reaching Category 5 status on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. NASA's RapidScat instrument observed powerful winds wrapped tightly around the eye, and NASA's Aqua satellite saw the well-structured storm with a wide eye as it was due north of Madagascar early on April 18.

Current health system practices are not sufficient to address growing rates of obesity and diabetes, health and economic disparities and cost control. "A Design Thinking Framework for Healthcare Management and Innovation" argues that addressing these complex challenges will require leaders that can think, and act, more like designers.

Disastrous floods in the Balkans two years ago are likely linked to the temporary slowdown of giant airstreams, scientists found. These wind patterns, circling the globe in the form of huge waves between the Equator and the North Pole, normally move eastwards, but practically stopped for several days then -- at the same time, a weather system got stuck over Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia that poured out record amounts of rain. The study adds evidence that so-called planetary wave resonance is a key mechanism for causing extreme weather events in summer.

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MADISON -- Combining the best features of a lobster and an African fish, University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers have created an artificial eye that can see in the dark. And their fishy false eyes could help search-and-rescue robots or surgical scopes make dim surroundings seem bright as day.

By exploiting some peculiarities of the popular Web programming framework Ruby on Rails, MIT researchers have developed a system that can quickly comb through tens of thousands of lines of application code to find security flaws.

In tests on 50 popular Web applications written using Ruby on Rails, the system found 23 previously undiagnosed security flaws, and it took no more than 64 seconds to analyze any given program.

The researchers will present their results at the International Conference on Software Engineering, in May.

NASA's Aqua satellite spotted an eye in strengthening Tropical Cyclone Fantala while the Global Precipitation Measurement or GPM mission satellite saw heavy rainfall within the powerful hurricane.

On Friday, April 15, 2016 as Fantala became a major hurricane, regional warnings were in effect for the Republic of Mauritius. A strong wind warning is in force for Rodrigues, Mauritius, St Brandon and Agalega in the Southern Indian Ocean.

Subtle distortions hidden in ALMA's stunning image of the gravitational lens SDP.81 are telltale signs that a dwarf dark galaxy is lurking in the halo of a much larger galaxy nearly 4 billion light-years away. This discovery paves the way for ALMA to find many more such objects and could help astronomers address important questions on the nature of dark matter.

Working women who want to minimize career income losses related to motherhood should wait until they are about 30 years old to have their first children, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.

The findings, published in PLOS ONE, hold true regardless of whether a woman has earned a college degree.

Three different NASA satellites caught images of the storm as it rapidly intensifies and moves west. Currently there are no threatened landmasses in its wake, but it this storm is packing quite a punch. The MODIS and AIRS instruments that fly aboard NASA's Aqua satellite provided visible and infrared data on the storm while the RapidScat instrument that flies aboard the International Space Station looked at the speeds of the surface winds.

How did the eruptions of Katmai, Taupo and Santorini grow into a massive blast that spewed fine ash, sulfur and crystal-poor magma into the atmosphere? New research from Georgia Institute of Technology and Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zurich (ETH) suggests they occurred due in part to how light vapor bubbles migrate and accumulate in some parts of shallow volcanic chambers. The findings are published online by Nature.

Do plants operate according to economic criteria? They do, when they are mutualized with fungal partners that demonstrate differing degrees of cooperation. "Carbs for phosphates", that's the deal between plants and mycorrhizal fungi, which can only feed themselves together with a partner: The plant supplies the fungus with carbohydrates and is 'paid back' in phosphates. Additional phosphates are extremely attractive for the plant, as they allow it to grow better.

Good partners force worse partners to improve their performance

A dying star ends its life in a cataclysmic explosion, shooting the majority of the star's material, primarily new chemical elements created during the explosion, out into space.

One or more such supernovae appear to have occurred close to our solar system approximately two million years ago. Evidence of the fact has been found on the earth in the form of increased concentrations of the iron isotope 60Fe detected in Pacific ocean deep-sea crusts and in ocean-floor sediment samples.

Space technology opportunities are to be opened up to emerging nations in a project between the UK and Mexico, led at the University of Strathclyde.

The programme will offer researchers, entrepreneurs and established space companies the prospect of gaining scientific insight or securing a new space market over short periods - of a few months or years - without the extensive investment required for a traditional space mission.

For all their anti-theft, fuel efficiency and satellite radio features, even the priciest new cars still travel on roads using decades-old traffic management technology.

Their fate relies in large part on what drivers can see through windows or in rearview mirrors.

"Drivers communicate wirelessly on smartphones with people around the globe, but their cars can't communicate with cars around the corner," said Larry Head, University of Arizona professor of systems engineering.