The Sky Tonight

August 21, 2014

500 million year reset for the immune system
Freiburg, Germany (SPX) Aug 21, 2014
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics (MPI-IE) in Freiburg re-activated expression of an ancient gene, which is not normally expressed in the mammalian immune system, and found that the animals developed a fish-like thymus. To the researchers surprise, while the mammalian thymus is utilized exclusively for T cell maturation, the reset thymus produced not only T cells, but also served as a maturation site for B cells - a property normally seen only in the thymus of ... read more

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Scientists confirm array of microorganisms in buried Antarctic lake Scientists have confirmed the presence of an array of microorganisms, including an extensive family of rock-eating bacteria, living in a subglacial lake in Antarctica. The discovery gives hope to scientists who suggest life could still be lurking deep under the surface of Mars. ... more		Sequencing at sea Daylight was breaking over the central Pacific and coffee brewing aboard the MY Hanse Explorer. Between sips, about a dozen scientists strategized for the day ahead. Some would don wetsuits and slip ... more		Solar salad, anyone? An Arizona State University alumna has devised the largest catalog ever produced for stellar compositions. Called the Hypatia Catalog, after one of the first female astronomers who lived ~350 AD in ... more
				Sun's activity influences natural climate change For the first time, a research team has been able to reconstruct the solar activity at the end of the last ice age, around 20,000-10,000 years ago, by analysing trace elements in ice cores in Greenl ... more		SETI Searches Kepler Candidates for Signals of Life A recent search by the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) studied 86 candidates in the Kepler space observatory's field for radio signals that could potentially indicate the presence of ... more

CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

Startup in the Land of the Rising Sun; A Japanese Solar Venture - by Bradley L. Bartz

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

NASA, Partners Reveal California Meteorite's Rough and Tumble Journey A meteorite that fell onto the roof of a house in Novato, California, on Oct. 17, 2012, has revealed a detailed picture of its origin and tumultuous journey through space and Earth's atmosphere. An ... more		New Milky Way maps help solve stubborn interstellar material mystery An international team of sky scholars, including a key researcher from Johns Hopkins, has produced new maps of the material located between the stars in the Milky Way. The results should move astron ... more		Sierra Space clears design milestone for missile tracking satellites in SDA Tranche 2 Top diplomats of North Korea, China agree to oppose 'hegemonism' Elbit secures 120 million order for Hermes 900 maritime surveillance UAS		Seven tiny grains captured by Stardust likely visitors from interstellar space Since 2006, when NASA's Stardust spacecraft delivered its aerogel and aluminum foil dust collectors to Earth, a team of scientists has combed through the collectors in search of rare, microscopic pa ... more
				Lockheed taps GenDyn unit for Space Fence ground equipment structures Ground structures for housing the U.S. Space Fence program are to be designed and built by a General Dynamics business unit under contract from Lockheed Martin. ... more		First Indirect Evidence of So-Far Undetected Strange Baryons New supercomputing calculations provide the first evidence that particles predicted by the theory of quark-gluon interactions but never before observed are being produced in heavy-ion collisions at ... more

Disney tops and yo-yos with stable spins despite asymmetric shapes Tops and yo-yos are among the oldest types of playthings but researchers at Disney Research Zurich and ETH Zurich have given them a new spin with an algorithm that makes it easier to design these to ... more		As Seen by Rosetta: Comet Surface Variations A new image of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko shows the diversity of surface structures on the comet's nucleus. It was taken by the Rosetta spacecraft's OSIRIS narrow-angle camera on August 7, 2014 ... more		The first animals on Earth may have been sea sponges, study suggests Small Satellite Contracted to Probe Climate Effects of Space Radiation Fengyun satellite strengthens China global weather forecasting capacity		Fascinating rhythm: light pulses illuminate a rare black hole The universe has so many black holes that it's impossible to count them all. There may be 100 million of these intriguing astral objects in our galaxy alone. Nearly all black holes fall into one of ... more
NASA's RXTE Satellite Decodes the Rhythm of an Unusual Black Hole Astronomers have uncovered rhythmic pulsations from a rare type of black hole 12 million light-years away by sifting through archival data from NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite. ... more		Stardust Team Reports Discovery of First Potential Interstellar Particles Seven rare, microscopic interstellar dust particles that date to the beginnings of the solar system are among the samples collected by scientists who have been studying the payload from NASA's Stard ... more		Monitoring Meteor Showers from Space Those who enjoy the spectacle of the Perseids, Geminids or other annual meteor showers likely aren't thinking about where these shooting stars originated or whether they might pose a danger. Scienti ... more		Hubble Revisits a Globular Cluster's Age This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the globular cluster IC 4499. Globular clusters are big balls of old stars that orbit around their host galaxy. It has long been believed t ... more

	Cisco to cut 6,000 jobs in streamlining US computer networking giant Cisco Systems said Wednesday it plans to slash some 6,000 jobs, or eight percent of its global workforce in the coming year. ... more		Stardust grains may reveal first look at interstellar space Seven grains of stardust that are believed to come from outside our solar system are revealing new hints about what the universe is made of, scientists said Thursday. ... more

Worlds most powerful centrifuge begins operations in China

Breakthrough in UAV swarm intelligence as SRI redefines topology mapping

China factory activity shrinks in September for sixth straight month

Cassini Prepares For Its Biggest Remaining Burn		All-You-Can-Eat at the End of the Universe		Electrons moving in a magnetic field exhibit strange quantum behavior		Follow the radio waves to exomoons		NASA's NuSTAR Sees Rare Blurring of Black Hole Light
Monitoring Solar Activity with SDO		Sun sets for a NASA solar monitoring spacecraft		Cassini Tracks Clouds Developing Over a Titan Sea		Colliding Atmospheres: Mars vs Comet Siding Spring		Astrophysicists Detect Destruction of Three Stars by Black Holes

White dwarfs crashing into neutron stars explain loneliest supernovae

Hubble Finds Supernova Star System Linked To "Zombie Star"

Northrop Grumman's Scalable SIRU tapped for space mission

NASA's 3-D Study of Comets Reveals Chemical Factory at Work

Red Dwarf Stars Might Be Best Places to Discover Alien Life

China to test recoverable moon orbiter

Association of satellite operators joins program for space safety

China to send orbiter to moon and back

Step closer to birth of the sun

Rotation of Planets Influences Habitability

IT outsourcing boom boosts struggling Bulgaria

Dawn navigates mini-asteroid belt

Probe makes space history with rendezvous with comet

Rosetta and Philae: Profile of comet-chasing team

Rosetta Arrives At Comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Rosetta's Comet: Imaging the Coma

August supermoon will be brightest this year

Scientist underlines threat of inevitable "solar super-storms"

MESSENGER Team Celebrates 10th Anniversary of Launch

Orbiter Completes Maneuver to Prepare for Comet Flyby

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