Out with a Bang: Explosive Neutron Star Merger captured for the first time in Millimeter Light

Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), M. Weiss (NRAO/AUI/NSF)

Scientists using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) — an international observatory co-operated by the US National Science Foundation’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) — have for the first time recorded millimeter-wavelength light from a fiery explosion caused by the merger of a neutron star with another star. The team also confirmed this flash of light to be one of the most energetic short-duration gamma-ray bursts ever observed, leaving behind one of the most luminous afterglows on record. The results of the research will be published in an upcoming edition of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the brightest and most energetic explosions in the Universe, capable of emi...

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Flare-ups of Gout are linked to Heart Attack and Stroke

Gout

Experts at the University of Nottingham, in collaboration with experts at Keele University, have found that the risk of heart attacks and strokes temporarily increases in the four months after a gout flare.

The research showed that gout patients who suffered from a heart attack or stroke were twice as likely to have had a gout flare in the 60 days prior to the event, and one and a half times more likely to have a gout flare in the 61-120 days prior.

The results of the study, led by Professor Abhishek in the School of Medicine at the University of Nottingham, are published in the journal JAMA.

Gout is a common form of arthritis that affects one in 40 adults in the UK...

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Putting a Positive Spin on the Buckyball C60

Its potential for high level ionization and as the origin for some of the mysterious UIE bands seen in the universe. Is there now at long last some plausible theoretical basis for the molecular origins and carriers of at least some of the most prominent so-called ‘UIE’ (Unidentified Infrared Emission) bands that have mystified astronomers for decades?

The theoretical astrophysicists and astrochemists at the Laboratory for Space Research (LSR) and Department of Physics at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) seem to think so (at least in theory) in a peer-reviewed paper just published in The Astrophysical Journal.

A team led by Dr SeyedAbdolreza Sadjadi, member of the LSR, and Professor Quentin Parker, Director of the LSR in the Department of Physics, has now placed some interesting...

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In DNA, scientists find solution to building Superconductor that could Transform Technology

UVA's Edward H. Egelman, PhD, has been elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences.
UVA’s Edward H. Egelman, PhD, was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences in recognition of his research accomplishments.

Scientists at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and their collaborators have used DNA to overcome a nearly insurmountable obstacle to engineer materials that would revolutionize electronics.

One possible outcome of such engineered materials could be superconductors, which have zero electrical resistance, allowing electrons to flow unimpeded i.e. they don’t lose energy and don’t create heat, unlike current means of electrical transmission...

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