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Constellation Pharmaceuticals Closes $22 Million in Series B Funding

June 3, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

-Proceeds to Broaden Leading Epigenetics Product Engine and Advance Pipeline
towards the Clinic-
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–(Business Wire)–
Constellation Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the leading biopharmaceutical company
focused on discovering and developing new drugs targeting epigenetic regulation
of the human genome, today announced that it has raised $22 million in a Series
B financing round. The financing round was led by SR One, the independent
corporate healthcare venture capital arm of GlaxoSmithKline, with participation
from existing investors Third Rock Ventures, The Column Group, Venrock, and
Altitude Life Science Ventures. This Series B financing brings the total amount
of capital raised by Constellation in the two years since its founding to $54
million.

Proceeds from the financing will be used to advance the development of
Constellation`s pipeline of compounds towards the clinic. These funds will also
enable Constellation to continue applying its innovative epigenetics product
engine to probe multiple classes of novel drug targets involved in chromatin
regulation and disease.

“We are delighted to have SR One, a premier venture capital investor, lead the
Series B round. Their investment highlights the value created since our Series A
financing round and the transformative potential of epigenetics as a platform
for novel therapeutics” said Mark A. Goldsmith, M.D., Ph.D., President and Chief
Executive Officer of Constellation Pharmaceuticals. “Our differentiated ability
to develop a pipeline of drugs against a broad range of epigenetic target
classes is a core feature of our business strategy, and this investment allows
us to accelerate our efforts to bring these discoveries to the patient.”

About Constellation Pharmaceuticals

Constellation Pharmaceuticals is the leading biopharmaceutical company dedicated
to the discovery and development of novel therapeutics in the emerging field of
epigenetics, a new field of science that focuses on selective regulators of gene
function and expression. The Company`s academic founders represent the core
thought leaders in epigenetics and are responsible for numerous key advances in
the field. Constellation Pharmaceuticals is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
For more information, please visit the company’s website at
www.constellationpharma.com.

Constellation`s Board of Directors include: Mark Levin, Partner, Third Rock
Ventures; David Goeddel, Ph.D., Partner, The Column Group; Anthony Evnin, Ph.D.,
Partner, Venrock; Tom Maniatis, Ph.D., Isidore S. Edelman Professor and
Chairman, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Columbia
University; Bob Tepper, M.D., Partner, Third Rock Ventures; and Mark A.
Goldsmith, M.D., Ph.D., President and CEO, Constellation Pharmaceuticals.

About Epigenetics

Epigenetics is an exciting new field of biology that involves the study of
chemical modifications of both DNA and of its packaging proteins (“chromatin”),
which are collectively called the `epigenome`. The genome, or DNA, is the
“blueprint” for the human body, consisting of thousands of genes, which are the
fundamental units of information necessary for normal cell growth and
development. The epigenome plays an important role in regulating the expression
of genes, that is, switching genes on or off – or in the case of disease, for
switching genes on or off incorrectly. This new field of epigenetic science
provides the opportunity to create a broad new class of human therapeutics
targeting enzymes that chemically modify DNA or chromatin and therefore
influence gene expression.

The Yates Network
Kathryn Morris, 845-635-9828

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NASA’s high-tech GOES-P weather satellite lifts off

March 8, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON: NASA has launched the latest in its family of high-tech meteorological satellites, adding to a constellation of spacecraft that watch storm development and weather conditions on Earth.

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-P (GOES-P) lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 2357 GMT yesterday on a Delta IV rocket which will carry the weather-watching satellite to its orbit around 35,406 kilometre above the Earth’s surface.

“GOES-P is on its way into orbit to begin a 10-year mission to keep a watchful eye on our world,” NASA said yesterday on the satellite’s launch blog, noting that all systems were performing “exactly as expected.”

Once it reaches its orbit, GOES-P will collect and send back to Earth data that will be used by scientists to monitor weather, make forecasts and issue warnings about meteorological incidents.

The satellite will also detect ocean and land temperatures, monitor space weather, relay communications and provide search-and-rescue support.

GOES-P is the latest in a long line of GOES satellites, the first of which was launched in 1975.

The satellite will drop its letter suffix for a number, becoming GOES-15 once it is in space.

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NASA’s Swift satellite makes best-ever ultraviolet portrait of Andromeda galaxy

September 17, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, September 17 (ANI): NASA’s Swift satellite has acquired the highest-resolution view of a neighboring spiral galaxy ever attained in the ultraviolet.

The galaxy, known as M31 in the constellation Andromeda, is the largest and closest spiral galaxy to our own.

“Swift reveals about 20,000 ultraviolet sources in M31, especially hot, young stars and dense star clusters,” said Stefan Immler, a research scientist on the Swift team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

“Of particular importance is that we have covered the galaxy in three ultraviolet filters. That will let us study M31′s star-formation processes in much greater detail than previously possible,” he added.

M31, also known as the Andromeda Galaxy, is more than 220,000 light-years across and lies 2.5 million light-years away.

On a clear, dark night, the galaxy is faintly visible as a misty patch to the naked eye.

Between May 25 and July 26, 2008, Swift’s Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) acquired 330 images of M31 at wavelengths of 192.8, 224.6, and 260 nanometers.

The images represent a total exposure time of 24 hours.

The task of assembling the resulting 85 gigabytes of images fell to Erin Grand, an undergraduate student at the University of Maryland at College Park who worked with Immler as an intern this summer.

“After ten weeks of processing that immense amount of data, I’m extremely proud of this new view of M31,” she said.

Several features are immediately apparent in the new mosaic.

The first is the striking difference between the galaxy’s central bulge and its spiral arms.

“The bulge is smoother and redder because it’s full of older and cooler stars,” Immler explained. “Very few new stars form here because most of the materials needed to make them have been depleted,” he added.

Dense clusters of hot, young, blue stars sparkle beyond the central bulge.

M31′s disk and spiral arms contain most of the gas and dust needed to produce new generations of stars.

Star clusters are especially plentiful in an enormous ring about 150,000 light-years across.

“Swift is surveying nearby galaxies like M31 so astronomers can better understand star- formation conditions and relate them to conditions in the distant galaxies where we see gamma-ray bursts occurring,” said Neil Gehrels, the mission’s principal investigator at NASA Goddard. (ANI)

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Warped debris disks around stars a result of interstellar wind

August 29, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, August 29 (ANI): In a new research, a team of scientists has determined that the warped shapes of the dust-filled disks where new planets may be forming around other stars, may be due to interstellar wind.

The dust-filled disks where new planets may be forming around other stars occasionally take on some difficult-to-understand shapes.

Now, a team led by John Debes at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, has found that a star’s motion through interstellar gas can account for many of them.

“The disks contain small comet- or asteroid-like bodies that may grow to form planets,” Debes said. “These small bodies often collide, which produces a lot of fine dust,” he added.

As the star moves through the galaxy, it encounters thin gas clouds that create a kind of interstellar wind.

“The small particles slam into the flow, slow down, and gradually bend from their original trajectories to follow it,” said Debes.

Far from being empty, the space between stars is filled with patchy clouds of low-density gas.

When a star encounters a relatively dense clump of this gas, the resulting flow produces a drag force on any orbiting dust particles.

The force only affects the smallest particles – those about one micrometer across, or about the size of particles in smoke.

“This fine dust is usually removed through collisions among the particles, radiation pressure from the star’s light and other forces,” explained Debes. “The drag from interstellar gas just takes them on a different journey than they otherwise would have had,” he said.

Working with Alycia Weinberger at the Carnegie Institution of Washington and Goddard astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, Debes was using the Hubble Space Telescope to investigate the composition of dust around the star HD 32297, which lies 340 light-years away in the constellation Orion.

He noticed that the interior of the dusty disk – a region comparable in size to our own solar system – was warped in a way that matched a previously known warp at larger distances.

“Other research indicated there were interstellar gas clouds in the vicinity. The pieces came together to make me think that gas drag was a good explanation for what was going on,” Debes said.

“It looks like interstellar gas helps young planetary systems shed dust much as a summer breeze helps dandelions scatter seeds,” Kuchner said.

As dust particles respond to the interstellar wind, a debris disk can morph into peculiar shapes determined by the details of its collision with the gas cloud. (ANI)

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Image of different regions of Trifid Nebula captured by European Southern Observatory

August 27, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Munich, August 27 (ANI): A new image by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) has captured the different regions of the Trifid Nebula, which is a rare combination of three nebula types, as seen in visible light.

This massive star factory is so named for the dark dust bands that trisect its glowing heart, revealing the fury of freshly formed stars and presaging more star birth.

Smoldering several thousand light-years away in the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer), the Trifid Nebula presents a compelling portrait of the early stages of a star’s life, from gestation to first light.

The heat and “winds” of newly ignited, volatile stars stir the Trifid’s gas and dust-filled cauldron.

In time, the dark tendrils of matter strewn throughout the area will themselves collapse and form new stars.

The French astronomer Charles Messier first observed the Trifid Nebula in June 1764, recording the hazy, glowing object as entry number 20 in his renowned catalogue.

Observations made about 60 years later by John Herschel of the dust lanes that appear to divide the cosmic cloud into three lobes inspired the English astronomer to coin the name “Trifid”.

Made with the Wide-Field Imager camera attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in northern Chile, the new image prominently displays the different regions of the Trifid Nebula as seen in visible light.

In the bluish patch to the upper left of the image, called a reflection nebula, gas scatters the light from nearby, Trifid-born stars.

The largest of these stars shines most brightly in the hot, blue portion of the visible spectrum.

This, along with the fact that dust grains and molecules scatter blue light more efficiently than red light, imbues this portion of the Trifid Nebula with an azure hue.

Below, in the round, pink-reddish area typical of an emission nebula, the gas at the Trifid’s core is heated by hundreds of scorching young stars until it emits the red signature light of hydrogen, the major component of the gas, just as hot neon gas glows red-orange in illuminated signs all over the world.

The gases and dust that crisscross the Trifid Nebula make up the third kind of nebula in this cosmic cloud, known as dark nebulae, courtesy of their light-obscuring effects.

Within these dark lanes, the remnants of previous star birth episodes continue to coalesce under gravity’s inexorable attraction.

The rising density, pressure and temperature inside these gaseous blobs will eventually trigger nuclear fusion, and yet more stars will form. (ANI)

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Omega Nebula’s ‘watercolors’ revealed in new image

July 8, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Munich, July 8 (ANI): A new image captured by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) has reveled the Omega Nebula, a stellar nursery where infant stars illuminate and sculpt a vast pastel fantasy of dust and gas, in all its glory.

The Omega Nebula, sometimes called the Swan Nebula, is a dazzling stellar nursery located about 5500 light-years away towards the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer).

An active star-forming region of gas and dust about 15 light-years across, the nebula has recently spawned a cluster of massive, hot stars.

The intense light and strong winds from these hulking infants have carved remarkable filigree structures in the gas and dust.

When seen through a small telescope, the nebula has a shape that reminds some observers of the final letter of the Greek alphabet, omega, while others see a swan with its distinctive long, curved neck.

Swiss astronomer Jean-Philippe Loys de Cheseaux discovered the nebula around 1745. The French comet hunter Charles Messier independently rediscovered it about twenty years later and included it as number 17 in his famous catalogue.

In a small telescope, the Omega Nebula appears as an enigmatic ghostly bar of light set against the star fields of the Milky Way.

In recent years, astronomers have discovered that the Omega Nebula is one of the youngest and most massive star-forming regions in the Milky Way.

Active star-birth started a few million years ago and continues through today.

The newly released image, obtained with the EMMI instrument attached to the ESO 3.58-metre New Technology Telescope (NTT) at La Silla, Chile, shows the central region of the Omega Nebula in exquisite detail.

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has also imaged small parts of this nebula.

At the left of the image, a huge and strangely box-shaped cloud of dust covers the glowing gas.

The fascinating palette of subtle color shades across the image comes from the presence of different gases (mostly hydrogen, but also oxygen, nitrogen and sulfur) that are glowing under the fierce ultraviolet light radiated by the hot young stars. (ANI)

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Wine cheaper than water in Australia!

July 5, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Sydney, July 5 (ANI): The unprecedented meltdown that Australia’s wine industry is facing has driven wine prices lower than bottled water.

The price collapse and over planting has forced Australia’s biggest winemaker, Foster’s, owner of prestigious labels such as Lindemans and Penfolds, to sell 31 vineyards across the country.

Major wine retailer Dan Murphy’s has started selling cleanskins for 1.99 dollars a bottle – cheaper than some bottled water, news.com.au reports.

Thanks to the all time low wine industry, some vineyard owners are leaving grapes to wither on the vine.

“We’ve seen growers who didn’t bother picking their grapes this year. There is a huge oversupply and we have more grapes than we are selling, and prices are being pushed down,” said wine industry critic Stuart Gregor.

A crisis meeting by winemakers concluded that 20 percent of vines needed to be phased out in the next three years to re-address the imbalance, said Winemakers Federation of Australia director Mitchell Taylor.

Apart from Foster’s, Constellation Wines Australia, which owns such labels as Houghton and Banrock Station, had two wineries and 16 vineyards left for sale after placing 26 properties on the market last August.

According to wine commentator Jeremy Oliver, the fire-sale of vineyards and plummeting prices is the reality check for the industry. He estimated 20 per cent of land under vine in Australia was not needed.

“Some vineyards are just being left. People are walking away, which is leading to concern that disease could take over and spread into other properties,” Oliver said.

About 1.5 million tonnes of grapes are required for the annual vintage, but this year about 1.7 million were harvested while the previous 12 months the harvest was about 1.8 million tonnes. (ANI)

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Lunar Eclipse – Lunar Eclipse 2009 – Lunar Eclipse July 2009 – July 2009 Eclipse – Penumbral lunar eclipse on Tuesday – 7th July 2009

July 5, 2009 By admin 1 Comment

Lunar Eclipse – Lunar Eclipse 2009 – Lunar Eclipse July 2009 – July 2009 Eclipse – Penumbral lunar eclipse on Tuesday – 7th July 2009

NEW DELHI: A penumbral lunar eclipse will occur on Tuesday, the second of four such phenomena this year, but sky watchers in India will be a disappointed lot as it will not be visible in the country.

The July 7 penumbral lunar eclipse will occur as the moon rises over Australia and sets in western North and South America in the early predawn hours, Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE) Director C B Devgun said.
The last penumbral lunar eclipse this year took place on February 9 and two more will occur after the July 7 event on August 6 and December 31.

During Tuesday’s eclipse, the moon will only enter the southernmost tip of the penumbral shadow of the earth and thus will be very difficult to observe visually, Devgun said.

The moon will be located in the constellation of Sagittarius when the eclipse occurs. Thus, the eclipse will be visible in North America west of the Great Lakes, including Hawaii, and many parts of Alaska (Harrington, 1997). The moon will also be high in the sky over New Zealand and eastern Australia during the eclipse, he said.

The eclipse is an event of Saros series 110. The previous such phenomenon occurred on June 27, 1991. The next is on July 18, 2027, which will end the series.

Source –

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Health-Science/Penumbral-lunar-eclipse-on-Tuesday/articleshow/4740538.cms

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Astronomers unveil largest map of cold cosmic dust

July 2, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Berlin, July 2 (ANI): Astronomers have unveiled the largest map of cold cosmic dust, which are peppered in the inner regions of the Milky Way galaxy, and are the potential birthplaces of new stars.

Made using observations from the APEX telescope in Chile, this will prove an invaluable map for observations made with the forthcoming ALMA telescope, as well as the recently launched ESA Herschel space telescope.

This new guide for astronomers, known as the APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy (ATLASGAL) shows the Milky Way in submillimeter-wavelength light.

Images of the cosmos at these wavelengths are vital for studying the birthplaces of new stars and the structure of the crowded galactic core.

“ATLASGAL gives us a new look at the Milky Way. Not only will it help us investigate how massive stars form, but it will also give us an overview of the larger-scale structure of our galaxy,” said Frederic Schuller from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, leader of the ATLASGAL team.

The area of the new submillimeter map is approximately 95 square degrees, covering a very long and narrow strip along the galactic plane two degrees wide (four times the width of the full Moon) and over 40 degrees long.

The Universe is relatively unexplored at submillimeter wavelengths, as extremely dry atmospheric conditions and advanced detector technology are required for such observations.

The interstellar medium – the material between the stars – is composed of gas and grains of cosmic dust, rather like fine sand or soot.

However, the gas is mostly hydrogen and relatively difficult to detect, so astronomers often search for these dense regions by looking for the faint heat glow of the cosmic dust grains.

Submillimeter light allows astronomers to see these dust clouds shining, even though they obscure our view of the Universe at visible light wavelengths.

Accordingly, the ATLASGAL map includes the denser central regions of our galaxy, in the direction of the constellation of Sagittarius – home to a supermassive black hole that are otherwise hidden behind a dark shroud of dust clouds.

The newly released map reveals thousands of dense dust clumps, many never seen before, which mark the future birthplaces of massive stars.

The clumps are typically a couple of light-years in size, and have masses of between ten and a few thousand times the mass of our Sun. (ANI)

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Astronomers obtain first detection of magnetic field on bright star Vega

June 26, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Paris, June 24 (ANI): Astronomers, using the NARVAL spectropolarimeter of the Bernard-Lyot telescope in France, have obtained the first detection of a magnetic field on the bright star Vega.

According to an article in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, astronomers clearly observe the magnetically-induced effect in the spectrum of Vega, thereby showing that the star possesses a magnetic field, something unknown so far.

Using the high-sensitivity NARVAL spectropolarimeter installed at the Bernard-Lyot telescope at the Pic du Midi Observatory in France, a team of astronomers detected the effect of a magnetic field (known as the Zeeman effect) in the light emitted by Vega.

Vega is a famous star among amateur and professional astronomers. Located at only 25 light years from Earth in the Lyra constellation, it is the fifth brightest star in the sky. It has been used as a reference star for brightness comparisons.

Vega is twice as massive as the Sun and has only one-tenth its age.

Because it is both bright and nearby, Vega has been often studied but it is still revealing new aspects when it is observed with more powerful instruments.

Vega rotates in less than a day, while the Sun’s rotation period is 27 days.

The intense centrifugal force induced by this rapid rotation flattens its poles and generates temperature variations of more than 1000 degrees Celsius between the polar (warmer) and the equatorial regions of its surface.

Astronomers analyzed the polarization of light emitted by Vega and detected a weak magnetic field at its surface.

This is really not a big surprise because one knows that the charged particle motions inside stars can generate magnetic fields, and this is how solar and terrestrial magnetic fields are produced.

However, for more massive stars than the Sun, such as Vega, theoretical models cannot predict the intensity and the structure of the magnetic field, so that astronomers had no clue to the strength of the signal they were looking for.

After many unsuccessful attempts in past decades, both the high sensitivity of NARVAL and the full dedication of an observing campaign to Vega have made this first detection possible.

he strength of Vega magnetic field is about 50 micro-tesla, which is close to that of the mean field on Earth and on the Sun.

This first observational constraint opens the way to in-depth theoretical studies about the origin of magnetic fields in massive stars.

Astronomers believe that this discovery will be a key step in understanding stellar magnetic fields and their influence on stellar evolution. (ANI)

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Herschel telescope obtains images of ‘whirlpool galaxy’ as first test observation

June 20, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Paris, June 20 (ANI): Herschel, the largest infrared space telescope ever flown, has obtained images of the famous ‘whirlpool galaxy’ for a first test observation.

European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Herschel opened its ‘eyes’ on June 14 and the Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer obtained images of M51, which is popularly dubbed the ‘whirlpool galaxy’.

Scientists obtained images in three colours, which clearly demonstrate the superiority of Herschel, the largest infrared space telescope ever flown.

This image shows the ‘whirlpool galaxy’, first observed by Charles Messier in 1773, who provided the designation Messier 51 (M51).

This spiral galaxy lies relatively nearby, about 35 million light-years away, in the constellation Canes Venatici. M51 was the first galaxy discovered to harbour a spiral structure.

The image is a composite of three observations taken at 70, 100 and 160 microns, taken by Herschel’s Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) on June 14 and 15, immediately after the satellite’s cryocover was opened on June 14.

Herschel, launched only a month ago, is still being commissioned and the first images from its instruments were planned to arrive only in a few weeks.

But, engineers and scientists were challenged to try to plan and execute daring test observations as part of a ‘sneak preview’ immediately after the cryocover was opened.

The objective was to produce a very early image that gives a glimpse of things to come.

To the left is the best image of M51, taken by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, with the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer (MIPS), juxtaposed with the Herschel observation on 14 and 15 June at 160 microns.

The obvious advantage of the larger size of the telescope is clearly reflected in the much higher resolution of the image. Herschel reveals structures that cannot be discerned in the Spitzer image.

These images clearly demonstrate that the shorter the wavelength, the sharper the image, which is a very important message about the quality of Herschel’s optics, since PACS observes at Hersche”s shortest wavelengths.

Produced from the very first test observation, these images lead scientists to conclude that the optical performance of Herschel and its large telescope is so far meeting their high expectations. (ANI)

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Astronomers discover youngest and lowest mass dwarf stars

April 23, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, April 23 (ANI): Astronomers have found three brown dwarfs with estimated masses of less than 10 times that of Jupiter, making them among the youngest and lowest mass sub-stellar objects detected in the solar neighborhood to date.

The observations were made by a team of astronomers working at the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de l’Observatoire de Grenoble (LAOG), France, using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT).

The dwarfs were found in a star forming region named IC 348, which lies almost 1000 light years from the Solar System towards the constellation of Perseus.

This cluster is approximately 3 million years old – extremely young compared to our 4.5 billion year old Sun – which makes it a good location in order to search for the lowest mass brown dwarfs.

The dwarfs are isolated in space, which means that they are not orbiting a star, although they are gravitationally bound to IC 348.

Their atmospheres all show evidence of methane absorption which was used to select and identify these young objects.

“There has been some controversy about identifying young, low mass brown dwarfs in this region. An object of a similar mass was discovered in 2002, but some groups have argued that it is an older, cooler brown dwarf in the foreground coinciding with the line of sight,” said astronomer Andrew Burgess.

“The fact that we have detected three candidate low-mass dwarfs towards IC 348 supports the finding that these really are very young objects,” he added.
The team set out to find a population of these brown dwarfs in order to help theoreticians develop more accurate models for the distribution of mass in a newly-formed population, from high mass stars to brown dwarfs, which is needed to test current star formation theories.

The discovery of the dwarfs in IC 348 has allowed them to set new limits on the lowest mass objects.

According to Burgess, “Finding three candidate low-mass dwarfs towards IC 348 backs up predictions for how many low-mass objects develop in a new population of stars.”

“Brown dwarfs cool with age and current models estimate that their surfaces are approximately 900-1000 degrees Kelvin (about 600-700 degrees Celsius). That’s extremely cool for objects that have just formed, which implies that they have the lowest masses of any of this type of object that we’ve seen to date,” he said. (ANI)

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Most Earthlike planet yet found may have water and life

April 22, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, April 22 (ANI): In a new research, an astronomer has suggested that the most Earthlike planet yet found has conditions right for liquid water, and life as we know it.

According to a report in National Geographic News, the planet, known as Gliese 581d, has a lot more in common with Earth than astronomers first thought.

“New measurements of the planet’s orbit place it firmly in a region where conditions would be right for liquid water, and thus life as we know it,” said astronomer Michel Mayor, from Geneva University in Switzerland.

“It lies in the (life-supporting) habitable zone, and it could have an ocean at its surface,” he added.

First discovered in 2007, Gliese 581d was originally calculated to be too far away from its host star-and therefore too cold-to support an ocean.

But Mayor and colleagues now show that the extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, orbits its host in 66.8 days, putting it just inside the cool star’s habitable zone.

Gliese 581, a red dwarf star in the constellation Libra, lies around 20.5 light-years from Earth.

“In astronomical terms, it is one of our near neighbors, the 87th closest known star system to the sun,” said Carole Haswell, an astronomer at the Open University in Milton Keynes, U.K.

Since planets orbiting Gliese 581 are too far away to be seen directly, Mayor and colleagues originally spotted Gliese 581d by searching for tiny wobbles in the host star’s motion using the European Southern Observatory (ESO) telescope at La Silla in Chile.

Weighing in at around seven Earth masses, Gliese 581d is unlikely to be made of rocks alone, according to the team.

“We can only speculate at this stage, but it may have a rocky core, encased in an icy layer, with a liquid ocean at the surface and an atmosphere,” Mayor said.

“It is very exciting that such a promising candidate for an Earthlike planet has been found so close to us. It means there are likely to be many more when we search further,” said Norton’s colleague Haswell.

And the more Earthlike planets there are, the greater the chance of discovering one that harbors life.

“I think it is only a matter of time,” Norton said. “If life really does exist elsewhere in the universe, then within the next 10 to 15 years I expect we may see the first signs of life, via spectroscopic signals from exoplanets,” he added. (ANI)

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Telescopes reveal chaotic and overcrowded stellar nursery

April 21, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, April 21 (ANI): Astronomers, using different telescopes, have found that the well-known Great Nebula of Orion, which is a stellar nursery of sorts, is a lively and overcrowded place, with young stars emitting gas jets in all directions, creating quite a chaotic picture.

This was observed by astronomers using the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii, the IRAM Millimeter-wave Telescope in Spain, and the Spitzer Space Telescope in orbit above the Earth.

With the naked eye, one can only see the brightest stars, like Betelgeuse and Rigel at the shoulder and knee of the constellation, or perhaps the Orion Nebula as a vaguely fuzzy patch around the sword.

What the eye does not see is an enormous cloud of molecules and dust particles that hide a vast region where young stars are currently being born.

On the sky, the region – known to astronomers as the Orion Molecular Cloud – is more than 20 times the angular size of the full moon.

It is one of the most intense regions of star formation in the local Milky Way and has been the subject of many small-scale studies over the years.

However, the current work is the first to present such a complete study of the young stars, the cloud of gas and dust from which they are being born, and the spectacular supersonic jets of hydrogen molecules being launched from the poles of each star.

Tom Megeath, an astronomer from the University of Toledo, provided a catalogue of the positions of the very youngest stars – sources revealed only recently by the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Thomas Stanke, a researcher based at the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany, then provided extensive IRAM maps of the molecular gas and dust across the Orion cloud.

Dirk Froebrich, a lecturer at the University of Kent, later used archival images from the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain to measure the speeds and directions of a large number of jets by comparing them with their positions in the new images.

Armed with these data, Davis was able to match the jets up to the young stars that drive them, as well as to density peaks within the cloud – the natal cores from which each star is being created.

According to Dr Davis, “Regions like this are usually referred to as stellar nurseries, but we have shown that this one is not being well run: it is chaotic and seriously overcrowded.” (ANI)

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Stability, less inequality top wish list for polls

April 9, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

New Delhi, April 9 (IANS) Some leading public figures and intellectuals in India are hoping the coming elections will produce a government that can provide security and stability and also be more sensitive to social inequality.

Veteran journalist and political commentator Kuldip Nayar says he is ‘exasperated by the way elections are being conducted’.

‘Parties are highlighting trivial issues and campaigns are degenerating into personal abuses. I find no issues, no all-India party and no leaders. It’s all hotch potch – the money, criminalisation and the controversies,’ said Nayar, a former Rajya Sabha member.

‘The country desperately needs stability, but the whole process is about how to get seats and grab power. Real issues are not relevant.’

But he adds: ‘There are too many players this time. I think we are going through a churning process out of which something good will emerge.’

Mark Tully, writer and BBC’s former bureau chief in India, wants the April-May polls to throw up a government that will be stable.

‘I would like to see a stable government that would concentrate on improving the administrative system and follow a policy of inclusive development. The development policy should benefit all – and not just one particular segment of the population,’ said Tully, now a New Delhi resident.

The author of books like ‘No Full Stops in India’ and ‘The Heart of India’ said even if the elections produced a coalition government, ‘there is no reason why it should not last’.

Former army officer Mukul Deva, whose new book ‘Salim Must Die’ hit the bookstores this week, hopes the present United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government will stay. ‘What are the other alternatives available?’

The military thriller writer feels that political parties should focus on ‘economy and security as the key issues. And on education, health and defence service’.

Deva has been voting regularly since he left the army in the mid-1990s. He said the new government needs to strengthen the police and ‘enlist forces of better calibre as the police were a frontline defence against terror’.

‘One of the major tasks the politicians have on hand is to bring back all the money idling in the tax havens abroad. And those who channelled it abroad must be taken to task,’ Deva said.

Said veteran journalist and novelist Tarun Tejpal: ‘The new constellation must be far more sensitised to inequality and injustice. The country has deep inequalities. Millions are poor in our country.

‘Those representing the country should stop talking about Shining India because even 60 years after independence, our children are not being fed, not clothed and not sent to school,’ Tejpal, editor-in-chief of Tehelka weekly, told IANS.

Rama Krishnan, a professor of international relations at the Jawaharlal Nehru University here, hopes the election verdict will reflect the country’s diversity.

‘I want the diversity of the country to be represented in a variety of forms. And the parties must have a secular and democratic vision. The rule of law should not be questioned by any political party, and human rights should be respected even while battling terror. That is also the image India must project abroad after the polls,’ Krishnan said.

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NASA selects material for heat shield that will protect next gen space explorers

April 8, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, April 8 (ANI): NASA has chosen the material for a heat shield that will protect a new generation of space explorers when they return from the moon.

After extensive study, NASA has selected the Avcoat ablator system for the Orion crew module.

Orion is part of the Constellation Program that is developing the next-generation spacecraft system for human exploration of the moon and further destinations in the solar system.

The Orion crew module, which will launch atop an Ares I rocket, is targeted to begin carrying astronauts to the International Space Station in 2015 and to the moon in 2020.

Orion will face extreme conditions during its voyage to the moon and on the journey home. On the blistering return through Earth’s atmosphere, the module will encounter temperatures as high as 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Heating rates may be up to five times more extreme than rates for missions returning from the International Space Station.

Orion’s heat shield, the dish-shaped thermal protection system at the base of the spacecraft, will endure the most heat and will erode, or “ablate,” in a controlled fashion, transporting heat away from the crew module during its descent through the atmosphere.

To protect the spacecraft and its crew from such severe conditions, the Orion Project Office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston identified a team to develop the thermal protection system, or TPS, heat shield.

For more than three years, NASA’s Orion Thermal Protection System Advanced Development Project considered eight different candidate materials, including the two final candidates, Avcoat and Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator, or PICA, both of which have proven successful in previous space missions.

Avcoat was used for the Apollo capsule heat shield and on select regions of the space shuttle orbiter in its earliest flights. It was put back into production for the study.

It is made of silica fibers with an epoxy-novalic resin filled in a fiberglass-phenolic honeycomb and is manufactured directly onto the heat shield substructure and attached as a unit to the crew module during spacecraft assembly.

NASA, working with Orion prime contractor Lockheed Martin, recommended Avcoat as the more robust, reliable and mature system.

“The biggest challenge with Avcoat has been reviving the technology to manufacture the material such that its performance is similar to what was demonstrated during the Apollo missions,” said John Kowal, Orion’s thermal protection system manager at Johnson.

“Once that had been accomplished, the system evaluations clearly indicated that Avcoat was the preferred system,” he added. (ANI)

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Michelle Obama’s J.Crew outfits trigger shopping frenzy

April 5, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

New York, Apr 5 (ANI): US First Lady Michelle Obama’s fashion sense has continued to inspire most, and this time she has caused a shopping frenzy stateside after she was seen sporting J.Crew outfits in London.

When a photograph of Michelle wearing a cream-coloured “crystal constellation” cardigan priced at 298 dollars during a visit to Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centre emerged, it was sold out by 10a.m. the same morning on J.Crew’s Web site, reports the New York Daily News.

Even the 158 dollars “dazzling dots” skirt she was wearing was practically sold out, now there is a 200-person waiting list for the cardigan.

It has been good business for the company, which has seen its stock price up nearly 64 percent in the past four months. (ANI)

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Gamma-ray burst may have caused mass extinction 440 million years ago

April 5, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, April 4 (ANI): A new study has suggested that a brilliant burst of gamma rays may have caused a mass extinction event on Earth 440 million years ago, and a similar celestial catastrophe could happen again in the future.

Most gamma-ray bursts are thought to be streams of high-energy radiation produced when the core of a very massive star collapses.
According to a report in National Geographic News, the new computer model shows that a gamma-ray burst aimed at Earth could deplete the ozone layer, cause acid rain, and initiate a round of global cooling from as far as 6,500 light-years away.

Such a disaster may have been responsible for the mass die-off of 70 percent of the marine creatures that thrived during the Ordovician period (488 to 443 million years ago), suggests study leader Brian Thomas, an astrophysicist at Washburn University in Kansas.

The simulation also shows that a significant gamma-ray burst is likely to go off within range of Earth every billion years or so, although the stream of radiation would have to be lined up just right to affect the planet.

Currently WR104, a massive star 8,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius, is in position to be a potential threat, according to Thomas.

Study author Thomas’ former graduate advisor, Adrian Melott, first proposed in 2004 that a gamma-ray burst near Earth wiped out Ordovician life.

Since then, both researchers have been tackling pieces of the puzzle.

According to their newest models, gamma radiation from a nearby burst would quickly deplete much of Earth’s protective ozone layer, allowing increased ultraviolet radiation (UV) from the sun to reach the surface.

In the longer term, chemical reactions in the atmosphere would produce dark, nitrogen-based gases that would block the sun’s heat and trigger global cooling, even as the gamma rays continued to deplete ozone and let in UV rays, the authors suggesedt.

Some of the pollution would fall as damaging acid rain, which can severely disrupt ecosystems.

The atmosphere might be able to recover within a decade, and a rise in DNA damage caused by increased UV exposure might pass after a few months or years, the researchers note.

“But other biological impacts-such as reduced ocean productivity-could linger for an unknown length of time,” Thomas said. (ANI)

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Grapefruit diet and the Pill ‘don’t mix’

April 3, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, Apr(ANI): Too much grapefruit can swell the risk of blood clots from the Pill, it has been claimed.

American doctors have reported that a woman who went on an intense grapefruit-based diet developed a blood clot in her leg and risked losing the limb.

The case, reported in the Lancet medical journal, said that the unnamed woman came to the casualty department of the Providence St Peter Hospital in Olympia, Washington state after she had problems walking, shortness of breath and felt light-headed, The BBC reported.

By the next day her left leg had turned purple.

The day before, she had gone on a long car journey, after which she felt pain radiating from her lower back down to her left ankle.

Three days before falling ill, she had begun a crash diet which included eating 225g of grapefruit each morning, after rarely eating the fruit in the past.

When medics examined her, an ultrasound scan confirmed the woman had a large blood clot within the veins of her left leg.

Surgeons quickly realised she was in danger of losing her leg to gangrene and put clot-busting medication directly into the blockage, dissolving it.

They told the woman to stop taking the Pill immediately because oestrogen could increase the risk of blood clots.

Writing in the Lancet, the authors led by Dr Lucinda Grande, called it a “constellation of potential risk factors”.

But they added: “The increased [oestrogen] serum concentration due to her three days of grapefruit for breakfast may well have tipped the balance.”

They suggest the fruit blocked the action of a key enzyme that normally breaks down the form of oestrogen in her contraceptive. (ANI)

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Dame Helen Mirren disappointed at Natasha Richardson’s death

March 20, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 20 (ANI): Legendary actress Dame Helen Mirren has expressed her grief over Natasha Richardson’s death.

“Natasha was a great actress, a fantastic mother, a loving wife and a whirlwind of energy, with an infectious love of life expressed firstly by her wonderful deep laugh,” Contactmusic quoted her as saying.

“Anyone who knew her will be in mourning today. I hope that Liam and her sons are helped in their pain by the great love and sympathy that is coming to them from people all over the world,” she added.

Meryl Streep, who paid her last visit to late Natasha in the New York hospital, also uttered grief over the death of the talented artist.

“”Tash (Natasha) was the warm sun in the center of a large constellation of family, friends, all of those lucky enough to know her – she is irreplaceable in our lives; she gave us so much, so generously – her legacy is the love that connects us all,” she said. (ANI)

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