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NASA’s Galex Reveals the Largest-Known Spiral Galaxy

PASADENA, Calif. — The spectacular barred spiral galaxy NGC 6872 has ranked among the biggest stellar systems for decades. Now a team of astronomers from the United States, Chile and Brazil has crowned it the largest known spiral, based on archival data from NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) mission, which has since been loaned to the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Measuring tip-to-tip across its two outsized spiral arms, NGC 6872 spans more than 522,000 light-years, making it more than five times the size of our Milky Way galaxy. (more…)

Americans Have Worse Health than People in Other High-Income Countries

Health

WASHINGTON — On average, Americans die sooner and experience higher rates of disease and injury than people in other high-income countries, says a new report from the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine.

The report finds that this health disadvantage exists at all ages from birth to age 75 and that even advantaged Americans—those who have health insurance, college educations, higher incomes and healthy behaviors—appear to be sicker than their peers in other rich nations. (more…)

Pesticides and Parkinson’s: UCLA Researchers Uncover Further Proof of a Link

Environment, Health

Study suggests potential new target in fight against debilitating disease

For several years, neurologists at UCLA have been building a case that a link exists between pesticides and Parkinson’s disease. To date, paraquat, maneb and ziram — common chemicals sprayed in California’s Central Valley and elsewhere — have been tied to increases in the disease, not only among farmworkers but in individuals who simply lived or worked near fields and likely inhaled drifting particles.

Now, UCLA researchers have discovered a link between Parkinson’s and another pesticide, benomyl, whose toxicological effects still linger some 10 years after the chemical was banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (more…)

NASA’s Kepler Discovers 461 New Planet Candidates

Science

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA’s Kepler mission Monday announced the discovery of 461 new planet candidates. Four of the potential new planets are less than twice the size of Earth and orbit in their sun’s “habitable zone,” the region in the planetary system where liquid water might exist on the surface of a planet.

Based on observations conducted from May 2009 to March 2011, the findings show a steady increase in the number of smaller-size planet candidates and the number of stars with more than one candidate. (more…)

IBM Tops U.S. Patent List for 20th Consecutive Year

Technology

IBM inventors deliver innovation in emerging areas of tech

ARMONK, N.Y. – 10 Jan 2013: IBM today announced that it received a record 6,478 patents in 2012 for inventions that will enable fundamental advancements across key domains including analytics, Big Data, cybersecurity, cloud, mobile, social networking and software defined environments, as well as industry solutions for retail, banking, healthcare, and transportation. These patented inventions also will advance a major shift in computing, known as the era of cognitive systems.

This is the 20^th consecutive year that IBM topped the annual list of U.S. patent recipients. (more…)

‘The Philosophical Child’: A book for when your child asks, ‘Why are we here?’

General

Children are natural philosophers, says Jana Mohr Lone of the University of Washington Department of Philosophy.

Lone, an affiliate faculty member and director of the Northwest Center for Philosophy for Children, says she wrote her new book, “The Philosophical Child,” to help parents, teachers and other adults conduct conversations with children about life’s mysteries.

The center was founded in 1996 and became affiliated with the UW in 1999. In 2008, Lone started writing a blog titled “Wondering Aloud: Philosophy with Young People,” that she still maintains, often analyzing children’s books for their philosophical content. (more…)

Chipping Away at the History of Plaster in Sculpture and Medicine

Culture

A new exhibition about plaster and the casting process, highlighting the sculpture models of the neo-classical artist John Flaxman (1755-1826), starts at the UCL Art Museum this month.

Shown alongside Flaxman’s art will be more unusual applications of plaster pulled from UCL’s stored collections, including Victorian death masks used for the early study of eugenics and casts of human pathological specimens, including the cast of a seven year old’s leg with rickets from the Great Ormond Street Hospital Collection. Many of these macabre objects highlight the efficiency of plaster and its unique ability to capture fleeting moments in time. (more…)

Magma in Earth’s Mantle Forms Deeper Than Once Thought

Environment

Study simulating pressures in mantle beneath the ocean floor shows that rocks can melt at depths up to 250 kilometers

Magma forms far deeper than geologists previously thought, according to new research results.

A team led by geologist Rajdeep Dasgupta of Rice University put very small samples of peridotite, rock derived from Earth’s mantle, under high pressures in a laboratory.

The scientists found that the rock can and does liquify, at least in small amounts, at pressures equivalent to those found as deep as 250 kilometers down in the mantle beneath the ocean floor. (more…)