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During the past 24 hours, sunspot 1110 has increased in size more than 10-fold. A white-light camera onboard NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory took this picture during the early hours of Sept. 29th:
Although it is still small compared to behemoth sunspot 1109 right behind it, sunspot 1110 is much more active. Reconnection events in the sunspot's magnetic canopy have produced at least two C-class solar flares since yesterday (SDO movies: #1, #2).
© NASA/MSFC/Bill Cooke, NASA's Meteoroid Environment OfficeComet Hartley 2 approaches Earth at a distance of 18 million miles, seen on Sept. 28, 2010.
Comet 103P/Hartley 2, a small periodic comet, was discovered in 1986 by Malcolm Hartley, an Australian astronomer. It orbits the sun about every 6.5 years, and on Oct. 20, the comet will make its closest approach to Earth since its discovery. In this case, "close" means 11 million miles, or 17.7 million kilometers. A moonless sky will make for promising viewing conditions in the northeastern skies, especially just before dawn.
© Roche.comDevice can identify the protein HER2 status and isolate circulating tumor cells
Benjamin Thierry, of the Ian Wark Research Institute at the University of South Australia, along with his colleagues, has created an elastic, disposable microfluidic device that can efficiently catch the protein HER2 - which is the tyrosine kinase human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 -- found in "aggressive breast cancers with poor prognosis."
The only way to find out HER2 status in breast cancer patients now is through fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) or immunohistochemistry, both of which require biopsies. The problem with biopsy-based testing is that it could lead to treatment that is ineffective, because the HER2 status of the primary tumor in 20 percent of breast cancers differs from the HER2 status in that of a metastatic tumor. This information has led to the idea of isolating circulating tumor cells (CTCs), but this is difficult because circulating tumor cells exist at very low ratios of 1 to 10 per billion blood cells.
Researchers in the Midwest are developing microelectronic circuitry to guide the growth of axons in a brain damaged by an exploding bomb, car crash or stroke. The goal is to rewire the brain connectivity and bypass the region damaged by trauma, in order to restore normal behavior and movement.
Pedram Mohseni, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Case Western Reserve University, and Randolph J. Nudo, a professor of molecular and integrative physiology at Kansas University Medical Center, believe repeated communications between distant neurons in the weeks after injury may spark long-reaching axons to form and connect.
Their work is inspired by the traumatic brain injuries suffered by ground troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Despite improvements in helmets and armor, brain trauma continues to be the signature injury of these wars.
Pedram Mohseni, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Case Western Reserve University, and Randolph J. Nudo, a professor of molecular and integrative physiology at Kansas University Medical Center, believe repeated communications between distant neurons in the weeks after injury may spark long-reaching axons to form and connect.
Their work is inspired by the traumatic brain injuries suffered by ground troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Despite improvements in helmets and armor, brain trauma continues to be the signature injury of these wars.
© NERCThe 'Mediterranean' Boy with the Amber Necklace burial at Boscombe Down, about 3 kilometres from Stonehenge
Recent research suggest that some of the people buried in the area during the Bronze Age were not local. Rather, they came from both the snow of the Alps and the heat of the Mediterranean to visit Stonehenge.
The analysis of the teeth from two males provides new evidence that one dubbed 'the Boy with the Amber necklace' had come from the Mediterranean area, whilst it confirms the 'Amesbury Archer' had come from the Alps.
The Amesbury Archer was discovered around five kilometres from Stonehenge. His is the richest Copper Age (2450 - 2300 BC) grave found in Britain and it contained some of Britain's earliest gold and copper objects - a pair of gold hair clasps and three copper daggers.
The state-of-the-art catamaran which is 31 metres long and 15 metres wide, was launched in Monaco.
Police sketch artists might soon be trading in the pencil and paper for a genetics lab. Forensic biologists say they may soon be able to reconstruct a criminal's profile from the DNA they leave at a crime scene.
This would potentially render DNA databases obsolete, said molecular biologist Manfred Kayser from Erasmus MC in Rotterdam in his keynote address at the 20th International Symposium of Forensic Science, in Sydney in September.
This would potentially render DNA databases obsolete, said molecular biologist Manfred Kayser from Erasmus MC in Rotterdam in his keynote address at the 20th International Symposium of Forensic Science, in Sydney in September.
© Sylvain Gigan et al.The initial object imaged through a layer of white paint (A) was a 32-pixel by 32-pixel image of a flower; the image was reconstructed with a new technique (B), matching the original by roughly 94.5 percent.
Normally, one cannot see through opaque barriers such as paint, skin, fabric or eggshells because any light that does manage to make it through such materials is scattered in complicated and seemingly random ways. [Infographic: How Light Works]
© PS1SCTwo images of 2010 ST3 (circled in green) taken by PS1 on the night of Sept. 16 show the asteroid moving against the background field of stars and galaxies.
"Although this particular object won't hit Earth in the immediate future, its discovery shows that Pan-STARRS is now the most sensitive system dedicated to discovering potentially dangerous asteroids," said Dr. Robert Jedicke, a University of Hawaii at Mānoa member of the PS1 Scientific Consortium (PS1SC), who is working on the asteroid data from the telescope. "This object was discovered when it was too far away to be detected by other asteroid surveys," Jedicke noted.
© Technology Review, MIT
For some time now, astronomers have been scanning the heavens looking for signs of Hawking radiation. So far, they've come up with zilch.
Today, it looks as if they've been beaten to the punch by a group of physicists who say they've created Hawking radiation in their lab. These guys reckon they can produce Hawking radiation in a repeatable unambiguous way, finally confirming Hawking's prediction. Here's how they did it.
Physicists have long realised that on the smallest scale, space is filled with a bubbling melee of particles leaping in and out of existence. These particles form as particle-antiparticle pairs and rapidly annihilate, returning their energy to the vacuum.
Hawking's prediction came from thinking about what might happen to particle pairs that form at the edge of a black hole. He realised that if one of the pair were to cross the event horizon, it could never return. But its partner on the other side would be free to go.
To an observer it would look as if the black hole were producing a constant stream of quantum particles, which became known as Hawking radiation.
Since then, other physicists have pointed out that black holes aren't the only place where event horizons can form. Any medium in which waves travel can support an event horizon and in theory, it should be possible to see Hawking radiation in these media too.
