The data show that areas with large amounts of interstellar dust have low abundances of gaseous deuterium. (Google Photo)

An international team of researchers is claiming that deuterium--a heavy form of hydrogen created moments after the Big Bang--is far more abundant than previously estimated. Using new data from NASA’s FUSE satellite, they say that some of the deuterium has gone unnoticed in the past because it binds as a solid to interstellar dust grains, making it difficult to see. The claim, if true, could force astronomers to rethink current models of how stars and galaxies form and evolve, Physicweb wrote.
Deuterium--an isotope of hydrogen containing a proton plus a neutron--is cosmologically significant because it is continually destroyed in star cores by the same nuclear reactions that create helium and other heavier elements. The amount of deuterium is therefore far lower now than it was in the early universe. Indeed, the shortfall in the amount of deuterium allows scientists to track our galaxy’s chemical evolution over billions of years.
But what has mystified astronomers over the years is the fact that while primordial concentrations are about 27 parts deuterium per million hydrogen atoms (ppm), values in the Milky Way today range from 5-22 ppm. Three years ago, Bruce Draine from Princeton University developed a model that could explain this anomaly. He said that deuterium, compared to hydrogen, might preferentially bind to interstellar dust grains, changing from an easily detectable gas to an unobservable solid form.
That theory is now strongly supported by the new data from NASA’s Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) satellite, which can monitor the ultraviolet fingerprints of gaseous deuterium. The data, collected over the past six years, show that areas with large amounts of interstellar dust have low abundances of gaseous deuterium, while areas with little interstellar dust have high concentrations.
But surprisingly, the FUSE team has found present-day deuterium abundances are less than 15% below primordial concentrations-- much larger than current assumptions based on theory that at least one-third was destroyed over time. This implies two possibilities: either significantly less material has been converted to helium and heavier elements in stars; or much more primordial gas rained down onto the galaxy over its lifetime than previously thought.
“Our results indicate some essential physical processes have been left out of the models,“ says team member Jeffrey Linsky from the JILA lab in Boulder, Colorado. “New models of the galaxy’s chemical evolution need to be computed that can explain the new deuterium abundance.“

Earlier this year, astronomers witnessed for the first time the final death throes of an aged and collapsing star as it spewed high-energy light beams into space before exploding as a supernova, Space.com reported.
The first analyses of that remarkable event, conducted by four different research teams and detailed in the Aug. 30 issue of the journal Nature, provides the strongest evidence yet that supernovas and the brilliant but mysterious energy flare-ups known as gamma-ray bursts, or GRBs, might be linked.
Astronomers have traditionally thought that GRBs form when matter from a swirling disk falls onto a black hole.
“Some of the rotation and magnetic field of the black hole somehow gets transformed into [gamma-ray] jets,“ explained Timothy Young, an astronomer at the University of North Dakota who was not involved in the studies.
But the detection of GRB 060218, a gamma ray burst observed by NASA’s Swift Telescope in February, strongly suggest that the energetic flare-ups might also be associated with certain types of supernovas.
Analyses of GRB 060218 revealed it showed traits common to both GRBs and supernovas. It had the twin jet-like streams of material shooting out in opposite directions characteristic of GRBs but also a not-quite spherical shockwave typical of supernovas.
Also like classical supernovas, GRB 060218 dimmed before brightening again. Scientists think the extra luminescence occurs when radioactive nickel-56 created in the initial supernova explosion decays to cobalt-56Ñthis reheats the material, causing it to glow at optical frequencies.
GRB 060218 differs from other known GRBs, however, in that the burst lasted much longer than normal. GRBs typically last from a few milliseconds to tens of seconds, but this one lasted about 33 minutes. It was also about 100 times less energetic than typical GRBs, releasing a comparatively modest ten million billion times the output of the Sun throughout its entire duration. Other GRBs have been known to outshine whole galaxies, releasing in a few seconds more energy than the Sun during its entire lifetime.
Because it was less bright and did not produce as many gamma-rays as other GRBs, scientists refer to GRB 060218 as a mild type of GRB known as an X-ray flash.
Astronomers also think the star that created GRB 060218 was on the lower end of the mass spectrum compared to most stars that go supernova. Astronomers think it was a so-called Type 1C supernova, which form when ancient stars that are devoid of helium and hydrogen explode. Astronomers estimate that before it exploded, the star had a mass of about 20 times that of the Sun.

Chinese paleontologists said they had found the remains of the largest dinosaur ever to be unearthed in Asia, measuring an estimated 35 meters (116 feet).
The dinosaur fossil is located in Changji Prefecture, part of northwest China’s Xinjiang region, Xu Xing, a researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, told AFP.
“We have so far only excavated the neck of the dinosaur, but extrapolating from it, we can determine it to be 35 meters long,“ Xu said.
China has emerged as a treasure trove of dinosaur fossils, especially the northern desert regions, where the absence of vegetation makes them easier to find.

Vitamin E has a beneficial effect on the developing lung. (G00gle Photo)

Expectant mums should ensure they get enough vitamin E as low levels during pregnancy increase the risk of asthma in the unborn child, BBC quoted UK experts as saying.
Children of mothers who had the lowest intake were over five times more likely to have asthma than peers whose mothers had the highest vitamin E intakes.
Vitamin E has a beneficial effect on the developing lung, the University of Aberdeen researchers believe.
The first 16 weeks of pregnancy could be a critical time, researchers say.
By 16 weeks after conception the airways are fully developed in the embryo.
But lead researcher Dr Graham Devereux said vitamin E most likely had a dual effect--influencing both lung growth and airway inflammation.
He and his team studied 2,000 pregnant women and their children over a five-year period.
The children whose mothers fell into the lowest fifth for vitamin E intake during pregnancy were more likely to develop wheezing and asthma by their fifth birthday.
The children’s own nutrient intake at the age of five did not appear to change the researchers’ findings, which appear in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
Earlier work by the team showed newborn babies of mothers with low vitamin E intakes had greater responses to dust mites and grass pollen. When these children reached two, they were also more likely to wheeze and have eczema than their peers.
Dr Devereux stressed: “Pregnant women should not take vitamin E just because of this study. They should eat a balanced, healthy diet.
“It is possible that declining intake of vitamin E in the last 50 years may have contributed to the increase in asthma in children,“ he said.
Currently, 1.1m children have asthma, and it is the most common long-term condition among children in the UK.
Dr Lyn Smurthwaite of Asthma UK said: “Eating a healthy, balanced diet at any time, but especially during pregnancy, makes sense and this study suggests simple modifications in a pregnant mother’s diet may help protect her child from developing asthma by the age of five.
“Asthma UK is pleased to have funded this research which has the potential to provide a natural way of reducing childhood asthma.“
Dr Keith Prowse, chairman of the British Lung Foundation, said: “This is an important piece of research which indicates that maternal diet may be more important in childhood asthma than previously thought.

CT scanning the volcano might someday give observers a picture of the threat before breaking the surface. (Google Photo)

Predicting volcano eruptions has always been more black art than science. No one really knows what’s happening beneath the surface--until it’s too late. That could soon change. Armed with an extensive network of sensors, a team of researchers has used computed tomography (CT) scanning to probe the interior of Mount Etna before, during, and after an eruption. The technique might someday give observers a picture of the threat before it breaks the surface, Daily News reported.
In medicine, CT scanning uses x-rays to create detailed 3-dimensional pictures of the human body. The x-rays pass through porous material such as lung tissue more easily than through denser stuff such as bones.
CT scanning a volcano applies the same idea, but instead of using x-rays to judge density, geophysicists use waves from earthquakes. Earthquakes generate two kinds of waves: pressure waves, which alternately compress and stretch the rock they pass through, and shear waves, which stress the rock up and down. Pressure waves slow down as they travel through less-dense rock, so researchers can track the density of the rock by comparing the relative speed of pressure and shear waves. If the ratio drops, the density of the rock has probably dropped, too.
In today’s issue of Science, Domenico Patane and colleagues at the National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy illustrate the first attempt to CT scan a volcano before, during, and after an eruption. They used an extensive network of seismographs to listen for earthquakes around Mount Etna. After two and a half years of tracking, Mount Etna erupted. Following the eruption, the researchers divided the data into three periods: long before the eruption, just before, and then during and shortly after; they then plotted their interpretation of the density variations within the volcano for each time period. The finest details resolved by the images are a kilometer in size, so no one is claiming they can see fingers of magma rising; instead, the density differences probably correspond to rock cracking and filling up with volcanic gas as magma rises nearby.
The technique is winning fans. “I’m impressed,“ says Steve Malone, a seismologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. Still, he cautions that there’s a long way to go before this can be used for real-time volcano monitoring. Few volcanoes are as well monitored as Etna, and the most dramatic changes in the images happened when the eruption was already underway. “But it’s certainly the type of thing to shoot for.“

Two out of 17 patients with a deadly form of skin cancer have had their tumors wiped out by genetically altered immune cells, ABC quoted US researchers as saying.
But while the findings are being hailed as evidence that the troubled field of gene therapy can successfully treat cancer, other experts say the results are disappointing.
Dr Steven Rosenberg of the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) and colleagues report their findings today online ahead of print publication in the journal Science.
The technique “represents the first time that gene manipulations have been shown to cause tumor regression in humans,“ Rosenberg says.
The researchers infused 17 patients suffering from metastatic melanoma with their own white blood cells that had been removed and genetically engineered to fight tumors.
The patients’ T-cells had been modified with genes that code for receptors designed to recognize melanoma cells.
The cancer was eliminated in two male patients, the researchers say.
In one case a 52-year-old man had a tumor in his armpit disappear and another on his liver shrunk enough to be surgically removed. He remained disease-free 19 months after treatment, the study says.
Another patient, a 30-year-old man, had a lung tumor recede and showed no signs of disease 18 months later.
“The tumors went away and both of the patients are now completely disease-free over a year and a half later,“ says Rosenberg who is chief of surgery at the NCI.
Before the experiment, the patients had advanced skin cancer that was not helped by standard therapies and they were expected to live just three to six months, he says.
But the cancers in the remaining 15 patients did not respond to the treatment and other gene therapy researchers say the results may be a step forward, but are no cause for celebration.
“This certainly is a significant technical advance that is going to fuel more interest ... and more enthusiasm, I hope, among researchers,“ says Dr Michel Sadelain, director of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center’s somatic cell engineering laboratory.
But, he adds, it is “undeniable the response here is rather disappointing“.
Professor Savio Woo of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and a past president of the American Society of Gene Therapy says the researchers “need to do it in more patients and get better response rates, and when that happens we can all pop the champagne“.
Scientists have touted gene therapy as holding great promise for a range of ailments, but safety problems have set the field back.