ANN ARBOR, Mich.— The fastest wind ever discovered blowing off a disk around a stellar-mass black hole has been observed by a team of astronomers that includes a University of Michigan doctoral student.
Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, an orbiting telescope, they clocked the record-breaking super wind at about 20 million mph, or about 3 percent of the speed of light. This is nearly 10 times faster than astronomers had previously observed from a stellar-mass black hole. (more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — A new book co-authored by Michigan State University associate journalism professor Eric Freedman uses rarely seen documents, letters and other written material to shed new light on how American presidents have dealt with issues related to blacks.
Titled “Presidents and Black America: A Documentary History,” the book is designed for everyone from advanced scholars to casual readers of history. (more…)
IBM Smarter Cities Solution Helps Zhenjiang Boost Economic Development and Tourism Plans
Armonk, NY & Zhenjiang, China – 24 Feb 2012: IBM and the City of Zhenjiang, China today announced that IBM is helping to transform the city’s public transportation system. Zhenjiang will use hardware, software, services and technologies from IBM’s Research labs, all brought together through the IBM Intelligent Operations Center (IOC) for Smarter Cities – a solution that will serve as the central point of command for the city.(more…)
When Sifrhippus sandae, the earliest known horse, first appeared in the forests of North America more than 50 million years ago, it would not have been mistaken for a Clydesdale.
It weighed in at around 12 pounds–and it was destined to get much smaller over the ensuing millennia.
Sifrhippus lived during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a 175,000-year interval of time some 56 million years ago in which average global temperatures rose by about 10 degrees Fahrenheit. (more…)
Where does it begin, the act of becoming a scientist? Perhaps with a bowling ball, its finger holes packed with explosives, which when detonated, launch the ball into the air, cracking the otherwise pristine concrete walkway of your childhood home in four places, much to the consternation of your father. Or maybe with an explosion of homemade rocket fuel in your basement chemistry lab that scares your mother half to death. And all this before the troublesome teen years.(more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Pregnant female geladas show an unusually high rate of miscarriage the day after the dominant male in their group is replaced by a new male, a new University of Michigan study indicates.
The “Bruce effect” – in which pregnant females spontaneously miscarry after being exposed to an unfamiliar male – has been found repeatedly in laboratory rodents. However, no conclusive evidence for this effect had ever been demonstrated in a wild population prior to this study. Geladas are Old World monkeys that are close relatives of baboons. (more…)
*New version of Microsoft’s flagship development environment simplifies common workflows, reduces user interface complexities and streamlines application lifecycle management, improving collaboration for developers and teams.*
REDMOND, Wash. — Designing software, creating code and then bringing a product to market is an incredibly complex affair — and it’s becoming more complex by the minute as software users demand greater integration between applications, across devices and among services. To help integrate cross-functional teams and help developers accomplish goals more efficiently, Microsoft will release code-named “Visual Studio 11” Beta and .NET Framework 4.5 Beta on Feb. 29.
“Visual Studio 11” is an integrated solution that helps individuals and development teams of any size to be productive and focused, to collaborate seamlessly with colleagues, and to turn their ideas into exceptional and compelling applications. (more…)
