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Hubble Space Telescope Directly Measures the Mass of the Surviving Core of a Burned-Out Sunlike Star

Lead Image: Hubble has used microlensing to measure the mass of a white dwarf star. The dwarf, called LAWD 37, is a burned-out star in the center of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. Though its nuclear fusion furnace has shut down, trapped heat is sizzling on the surface at roughly 100 000 degrees Celsius, causing the stellar remnant to glow fiercely. The white dwarf has a ‘spike’ because it is so bright that the light ‘bled’ into the Hubble camera’s CCD detector. This interfered with one of the observing dates for measuring that background star’s position on the sky.…

NASA’s Fermi Space Telescope Detects First Gamma-Ray Eclipses From “Spider” Star Systems

Lead Image: NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope orbits Earth in this illustration. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (USRA) Scientists have discovered the first gamma-ray eclipses from a special type of binary star system using data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. These so-called spider systems each contain a pulsar – the superdense, rapidly rotating remains of a star that exploded in a supernova – that slowly erodes its companion. An international team of scientists scoured over a decade of Fermi observations to find seven spiders that undergo these eclipses, which occur when the low-mass companion star passes in…

A New Target in the Fight Against Heart Disease

Heart disease is a leading cause of death worldwide. It is estimated that in the United States, 1 in 4 deaths are caused by heart disease. Factors that increase the risk of developing heart disease include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, diabetes, and obesity. Soon after cholesterol and fat begin to accumulate on the lining of the blood vessels supplying the heart, the smooth muscle cells that provide strength and flexibility to the blood vessels start to grow and multiply. Scientists researching this phenomenon believe that the vascular smooth muscle cells may be attempting to help, however, this aberrant…

5 Tips to Incorporate Data Entry for Your Business

Data entry is essential for businesses to stay organized, efficient, and accurate. Research the right data entry software for your business needs. Train employees to use the software and establish guidelines for entering data. Implement checks and balances to verify accuracy in the system. Consider outsourcing data entry tasks to a professional team. Data entry is a crucial process for businesses of all sizes. It helps store, organize, and manage information quickly and accurately. An effective data entry system can better understand your customers, products, and services and save time and money. If you’re looking to incorporate data entry into…

Tuning Into Brainwave Rhythms Dramatically Accelerates Learning in Adults

The brainwaves experiment set up in the Adaptive Brain Lab, led by Prof Zoe Kourtzi, in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Psychology. Credit: University of Cambridge First study to show that delivering information at the natural tempo of our neural pulses accelerates our ability to learn. Participants who received a simple 1.5-second visual cue at their personal brainwave frequency were at least three times faster when it came to improving at a cognitive task. When participants were tested again the next day, those who had improved faster were still just as good – the learning stuck. Priming brains for…