SciByte

The new fast-track trajectory has the rocket launching shortly after the ISS passes overhead

Then, additional firings of the vehicle’s thrusters early in its mission expedites the time required for a Russian vehicle to reach the Station

WMAP's measurements played the key role in establishing the current Standard Model of Cosmology

WMAP data are very well fit by a universe that is dominated by dark energy in the form of a cosmological constant

The anisotropies then are used to measure the universe's geometry, content, and evolution; and to test the Big Bang model, and the cosmic inflation theory

he map contains 3,145,728 pixels, and uses the HEALPix scheme to pixelize the sphere

The telescope's primary reflecting mirrors are a pair

that focus the signal onto a pair of

secondary reflecting mirrors.

shaped for optimal performance: a carbon fibre shell upon a Korex core, thinly-coated with aluminium and silicon oxide.

The secondary reflectors transmit the signals to the corrugated feedhorns that sit on a focal plane array box beneath the primary reflectors

The receivers are polarization-sensitive differential radiometers measuring the difference between two telescope beams.

To avoid collecting Milky Way galaxy foreground signals, the WMAP uses five discrete radio frequency bands

The WMAP's trajectory and orbit

The WMAP observes in five frequencies, permitting the measurement and subtraction of foreground contamination (from the Milky Way

Foreground contamination is removed in several ways

First, subtract extant emission maps from the WMAP's measurements; second, use the components' known, spectral values to identify them; third, simultaneously fit the position and spectra data of the foreground emission, using extra data sets

we're not really sure why they use this life cycle strategy, but one guess is that such a long period between broods could fool predators, who likely won't have been alive (or won't remember) the previous emergence.

Brood II, also known as the "East Coast Brood," is a 17-year cicada due for emergence this summer

It ranges from the Virginia/North Carolina border up through the northern end of the New York City suburbs

Radiolab

radio shows/podcasts

has come up with a cicada tracker to pinpoint exactly when Brood II will begin "swarmageddon."

Radiolab will

monitor the soil temperature. When the soil eight inches below the surface reaches a steady temperature of 64 degrees F, the cicadas will begin their transformation

You can then report your findings to Radiolab, starting at the latest in mid-April

Radiolab's interactive map just when they'll emerge

Both problems have the same underlying defect: the inability to remove a buildup of fat and cholesterol

researchers shed new light on how deposits of cholesterol contribute to macular degeneration and atherosclerosis and even blood vessel growth in some types of cancer

Patients who have atherosclerosis often are prescribed medications to lower cholesterol and keep arteries clear

This study suggests that some of those same drugs could be evaluated in patients with macular degeneration

we need to investigate whether vision loss caused by macular degeneration could be prevented with cholesterol-lowering eye drops or other medications that might prevent the buildup of lipids beneath the retina

The new research centers on macrophages, key immune cells that remove cholesterol and fats from tissues

In macular degeneration, the excessive buildup of cholesterol begins to occur as we age, and our macrophages begin to malfunction

In the "dry" form of age-related macular degeneration, doctors examining the eye can see lipid deposits beneath the retina

As those deposits become larger and more numerous, they slowly begin to destroy the central part of the eye, interfering with the vision needed to read a book or drive a car

As aging macrophages clear fewer fat deposits beneath the retina, the macrophage cells themselves can become bloated with cholesterol, creating an inflammatory process that leads to the formation of new blood vessels that can cause further damage

Those vessels characterize the later "wet" form of the disease

that inflammation creates a toxic mix of things that leads to new blood vessel growth

Most of the vision loss

is the result of bleeding and scar-tissue formation related to abnormal vessel growth

the scientists identified a protein that macrophages need to clear fats and cholesterol

As mice and humans age, they make less of the protein, and macrophages become less effective at engulfing and removing fat and cholesterol

team found that macrophages, from old mice and in patients with macular degeneration, have inadequate levels of the protein, called ABCA1, which transports cholesterol out of cells

As a result, the old macrophages accumulated high levels of cholesterol and couldn't inhibit the growth of the damaging blood vessels

when the researchers treated the macrophages with a substance that helped restore levels of ABCA1, the cells could remove cholesterol more effectively, and the development of new blood vessels was slowed

able to deliver the drug, called an LXR agonist, in eye drops

found that we could reverse the macular degeneration in the eye of an old mouse

could focus therapy only on the eyes, and we likely could limit the side effects of drugs taken orally

since macrophages are important in atherosclerosis and in the formation of new blood vessels around certain types of cancerous tumors, the same pathway also might provide a target for more effective therapies for those diseases

can reverse the disease cascade in mice by improving macrophage function, either with eye drops or with systemic treatments,

Some of the therapies already being used to treat atherosclerosis target this same pathway, so we may be able to modify drugs that already are available and use them to deliver treatment to the eye

the event is a preview of a similar feeding event that is expected to take place with the black hole at the center of our own Milky Way Galaxy

galaxy NGC 4845, 47 million light-years away

Astronomers were using Integral to study a different galaxy when they noticed a bright X-ray flare coming from another location in the same wide field-of-view

the origin was confirmed as NGC 4845, a galaxy never before detected at high energies

the emission was traced from its maximum in January 2011, when the galaxy brightened by a factor of a thousand, and then as it subsided over the course of the year

By analyzing the characteristics of the flare, the astronomers could determine that the emission came from a halo of material around the galaxy’s central black hole as it tore apart and fed on an object of 14–30 Jupiter masses, and so the astronomers say the object was either a super-Jupiter or a brown dwarf

This object appears to have been ‘wandering,’ which would fit the description of recent studies

The black hole in the center of NGC 4845 is estimated to have a mass of around 300,000 times that of our own Sun

This is the first time where we have seen the disruption of a substellar object by a black hole

estimate that only its external layers were eaten by the black hole, amounting to about 10% of the object’s total mass, and that a denser core has been left orbiting the black hole

The flaring event in NGC 4845 might be similar to what is expected to happen with the supermassive black hole at the center of our own Milky Way Galaxy

these events will tell astronomers more about what happens to the demise of different types of objects as they encounter black holes of varying sizes

Estimates are that events like these may be detectable every few years in galaxies around us

the emission brightened and decayed shows there was a delay of 2–3 months between the object being disrupted and the heating of the debris in the vicinity of the black hole.