(Press-News.org) Quasars are active black holes -- primarily from the early universe. Using a special method where you observe light that has been bent by gravity on its way through the universe, a group of physics students from the Niels Bohr Institute have observed a quasar whose light has been deflected and reflected in six separate images. This is the first time a quasar has been observed with so many light reflections. The results are published in the scientific journal, Astrophysical Journal.
INFORMATION:
Article in Astrophysical Journal: http://stacks.iop.org/0004-637X/773/146
For more information contact:
Johan Fynbo
Professor, Dark Cosmology Centre
Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen
+45 3532-5983, +45 2875-5983
jfynbo@dark-cosmology.dk
Quasar observed in 6 separate light reflections
2013-08-07
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Self-healing solar cells 'channel' natural processes
2013-08-07
To understand how solar cells heal themselves, look no further than the nearest tree leaf or the back of your hand.
The "branching" vascular channels that circulate life-sustaining nutrients throughout leaves and hands serve as the inspiration for solar cells that can restore themselves efficiently and inexpensively.
In a new paper, North Carolina State University researchers Orlin Velev and Hyung-Jun Koo show that creating solar cell devices with channels that mimic organic vascular systems can effectively reinvigorate solar cells whose performance ...
New insights into the 1-in-a-million lightning called 'ball lightning'
2013-08-07
One of the rare scientific reports on the rarest form of lightning -- ball lightning -- describes better ways of producing this mysterious phenomenon under the modern laboratory conditions needed to explain it. The new study on a phenomenon that puzzled and perplexed the likes of Aristotle 2,300 years ago and Nikola Tesla a century ago appears in ACS' The Journal of Physical Chemistry A.
C. Michael Lindsay and colleagues explain that ball lightning consists of a floating, glowing ball that may drift eerily through the sky and then explode violently, sometimes injuring ...
A greener, more sustainable source of ingredients for widely used plastics
2013-08-07
A new process can convert a wide variety of vegetable and animal fats and oils -- ranging from lard to waste cooking oil -- into a key ingredient for making plastics that currently comes from petroleum, scientists say. Their report on the first-of-its-kind process appears in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering.
Douglas Neckers and Maria Muro-Small explain that many of the plastics found in hundreds of everyday products begin with a group of chemical raw materials termed olefins that come from petroleum. They include ethylene, propylene and butadiene, ...
Gold 'nanoprobes' hold the key to treating killer diseases
2013-08-07
Researchers at the University of Southampton, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Cambridge, have developed a technique to help treat fatal diseases more effectively. Dr Sumeet Mahajan and his group at the Institute for Life Sciences at Southampton are using gold nanoprobes to identify different types of cells, so that they can use the right ones in stem cell therapies.
Stem cell therapy is in its infancy, but has the potential to change the way we treat cancer and other life-threatening diseases, by replacing damaged or diseased cells with healthy ones. ...
New high-tech laser method allows DNA to be inserted 'gently' into living cells
2013-08-07
WASHINGTON, Aug. 7—The applications of gene therapy and genetic engineering are broad: everything from pet fish that glow red to increased crop yields worldwide to cures for many of the diseases that plague humankind. But realizing them always starts with solving the same basic scientific question—how to "transfect" a cell by inserting foreign DNA into it. Many methods already exist for doing this, but they tend to be clumsy and destructive, not allowing researchers to precisely control how and when they insert the DNA or requiring them to burn through large numbers of ...
Loss of MicroRNA decoy might contribute to development of soft-tissue sarcoma
2013-08-07
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers have discovered a novel mechanism responsible for the loss of a critical tumor-suppressor gene in rhabdomyosarcoma and other soft-tissue sarcomas, rare cancers that strike mainly children and often respond poorly to treatment. Their cause is largely unknown.
Knowledge of the mechanism could guide the development of more effective therapies for these malignancies, say researchers who led the study at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James).
The ...
Is sous vide cooking safe?
2013-08-07
The Institute of Food Research (IFR) has been undertaking research for the Food Standards Agency to establish if the cooking technique sous vide is safe. Sous vide uses lower temperatures to improve food quality and could be a step closer to being more widely adopted after Institute of Food Research scientists assessed the steps needed to ensure the process is safe.
Sous vide cooking involves vacuum packing food in a plastic pouch and then heating in a water bath. Chefs are attracted to the precise nature of the temperature control, allowing innovative use of the technology ...
NOAA report highlights climate change threats to nation's estuaries
2013-08-07
The nation's 28 National Estuarine Research Reserves (NERR) are experiencing the negative effects of human and climate-related stressors according to a new NOAA research report from the National Ocean Service.
The national study, Climate Sensitivity of the National Estuarine Research Reserve System, points to three East Coast reserves, Sapelo Island NERR in Georgia, ACE Basin NERR in South Carolina and Waquoit Bay NERR in Massachusetts, and the Tijuana River NERR on the California-Mexico border, as the most sensitive to climate change.
"The National Estuarine Research ...
What's the matter? Q-glasses could be a new class of solids
2013-08-07
There may be more kinds of stuff than we thought. A team of researchers has reported possible evidence for a new category of solids, things that are neither pure glasses, crystals, nor even exotic quasicrystals. Something else.*
"Very weird. Strangest material I ever saw," says materials physicist Lyle Levine of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
The research team from NIST, Argonne National Laboratory, France's Centre d'Élaboration de Matériaux et d'Études Structurales (CNRS) and the University of Washington have analyzed a solid alloy that ...
Getting to the core of Fukushima
2013-08-07
WASHINGTON D.C. August 7, 2013 -- Critical to the recovery efforts following the devastating effects of the 2011 tsunami on Japan's Fukushima reactor is the ability to assess damage within the reactor's core. A study in the journal AIP Advances by a team of scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) shows that muon imaging may offer the best hope of assessing damage to the reactor cores and locating the melted fuel.
Muon imaging, which utilizes naturally occurring muons created in the atmosphere by cosmic rays to image dense objects, should solve the problem ...