Witnessing starbursts in young galaxies

Researchers discuss their findings that the universe was producing stars much earlier than expected and at a rate 1,000 times greater than today's Milky Way

2013-03-14

(Press-News.org) On March 13, it was announced the most vigorous bursts of star birth in the cosmos took place much earlier than previously thought - results now published in a set of papers in Nature and the Astrophysical Journal.

As these findings are published, three of the scientists at the forefront of this research - including the lead researcher of the latest findings – offered their insights about what this reveals about the history of our universe, and how the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is providing a "zoom lens" into the early universe. This includes their surprise at finding so many star-producing "dusty galaxies" at such a young time in the universe's development. "They were not in line with what you would expect from the well known population of radio sources," said John Carlstrom, Deputy Director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago and leader of the 10-meter South Pole Telescope project. "This was the first clue we were onto something interesting. ...It meant that they had escaped detection in the infrared surveys. No one had predicted that we would see such a luminous population of dusty galaxies so far back."

Dan P. Marrone, Assistant Professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona, also noted the results were possible even though ALMA itself is still incomplete. "With little more than a dozen antennas at ALMA, we were able to make very detailed images of these galaxies - and that was after just two minutes of observations per galaxy." He added, "When ALMA is completed, the observations we obtained for this first study are just going to be trivial."

Joaquin D. Vieira a member of the California Institute of Technology's Observational Cosmology Group, as well as leader of the group studying the galaxies discovered by the South Pole Telescope, looked forward. "[Now] we can dig deeper into the spectra of these galaxies to find out what they're made of; we can do chemistry with them," he said. "Future studies also will help us answer other important questions, such as how they formed. Did they form through mergers, or through the slow accretion of gas? How many stellar generations reside in these galaxies?"

### Read more at: http://www.kavlifoundation.org/science-spotlights/kipc-hred-starburst-galaxies

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

People with peanut/tree nut allergies can minimize risk of reactions on airplane flights

2013-03-14

Ann Arbor, Mich. — Few situations can provoke more anxiety for people with peanut or tree-nut allergies than having an allergic reaction while flying on an airplane and being unable to get help. But in a new study, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology-In Practice, researchers found passengers who engaged in eight mitigating factors were less likely to report an allergic reaction. This is the first study to show that in-flight peanut and tree nut allergy is an international problem, says lead author and pediatrician Matthew Greenhawt, M.D., M.B.A., ...

Predicting hotspots for future flu outbreaks

2013-03-14

This year's unusually long and rocky flu season would be nothing compared to the pandemic that could occur if bird flu became highly contagious among humans, which is why UCLA researchers and their colleagues are creating new ways to predict where an outbreak could emerge. "Using surveillance of influenza cases in humans and birds, we've come up with a technique to predict sites where these viruses could mix and generate a future pandemic," said lead author Trevon Fuller, a UCLA postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability's Center ...

UF researcher describes new 5-million-year-old saber-toothed cat from Florida

2013-03-14

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- A University of Florida researcher has described a new genus and species of extinct saber-toothed cat from Polk County, Fla., based on additional fossil acquisitions of the animal over the last 25 years. The 5-million-year-old fossils belong to the same lineage as the famous Smilodon fatalis from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, a large, carnivorous apex predator with elongated upper canine teeth. Previous research suggested the group of saber-toothed cats known as Smilodontini originated in the Old World and then migrated to North America, but ...

Autism Speaks trailblazer study -- Blocking cell distress signals can ease autism symptoms

2013-03-14

New York, N.Y. (March 14, 2013) – Autism Speaks, the world's leading autism science and advocacy organization, today announced a study supported by one of Autism Speaks' first Suzanne and Bob Wright Trailblazer Awards, presents a new theory that autism may result from chronic danger signaling by mitochondria, cell structures that supply our cells with energy. This study by Trailblazer researcher and mitochondrial medicine specialist Robert Naviaux, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of California, San Diego published in the journal PLOS-ONE supports a novel theory about the ...

Playing action videogames improves visual search

2013-03-14

Researchers at the University of Toronto have shown that playing shooting or driving videogames, even for a relatively short time, improves the ability to search for a target hidden among irrelevant distractions in complex scenes. "Recent studies in different labs, including here at the University of Toronto, have shown that playing first-person shooter videogames can enhance other aspects of visual attention," says psychology professor Ian Spence. "But no one has previously demonstrated that visual search is also improved." Searching efficiently and accurately is ...

AAN: Doctors caution against prescribing attention-boosting drugs for healthy kids

2013-03-14

MINNEAPOLIS – The American Academy of Neurology (AAN), the world's largest professional association of neurologists, is releasing a position paper on how the practice of prescribing drugs to boost cognitive function, or memory and thinking abilities, in healthy children and teens is misguided. The statement is published in the March 13, 2013, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. This growing trend, in which teens use "study drugs" before tests and parents request ADHD drugs for kids who don't meet the criteria for the disorder, ...

Whale's streaming baleen tangles to trap food

2013-03-14

Diving and plunging through the waves to feed, some whales throw their jaws wide and engulf colossal mouthfuls of fish-laden water while other species simply coast along with their mouths agape (ram or skim feeding), yet both feeding styles rely on a remarkable substance in the whales' mouths to filter nutrition from the ocean: baleen. Alexander Werth from Hampden-Sydney College, USA, explains that no one knew how the hairy substance actually traps morsels of food. 'The standard view was that baleen is just a static material and people had never thought of it moving or ...

Goats' milk with antimicrobial lysozyme speeds recovery from diarrhea

2013-03-14

Milk from goats that were genetically modified to produce higher levels of a human antimicrobial protein has proved effective in treating diarrhea in young pigs, demonstrating the potential for food products from transgenic animals to one day also benefit human health, report researchers at the University of California, Davis. The study is the first on record to show that goats' milk carrying elevated levels of the antimicrobial lysozyme, a protein found in human breast milk, can successfully treat diarrhea caused by bacterial infection in the gastrointestinal tract. The ...

Overheard phone calls more memorable, rated more distracting than other background talking

2013-03-14

A one-sided cellphone conversation in the background is likely to be much more distracting than overhearing a conversation between two people, according to research published March 13 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Veronica Galván and colleagues from the University of San Diego. The authors studied the effects of overhearing either one side of a cell phone call or a chat between two people on the attention and memory of people who overheard these conversations. Participants in the study were asked to complete a task involving anagrams. As they performed the task, ...

Bottlenose dolphin leaders more likely to lead relatives than unrelated individuals

2013-03-14

Traveling into uncharted territory in search of food can be a dangerous undertaking, but some bottlenose dolphins may benefit by moving through their habitat with relatives who may be more experienced or knowledgeable. It turns out that leaders in bottlenose dolphin groups in the Florida Keys are more likely to be related to the dolphins that follow them, according to research published March 13 by Jennifer Lewis and colleagues from Florida International University. In complex habitats like the shallow waters of the Florida Keys, individuals who follow may benefit from ...

Witnessing starbursts in young galaxies

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: