published: 2020.03.24.09.38

published: 2020.03.31.09.20

published: 2020.04.07.09.14

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published: 2020.05.05.21.56

Astrophysical jets are flows of matter that moves at relativistic speed. They are opportunity to see length contraction in action. An astrophysical jet is analyzed to explain the length contraction effect. Astrophysical jets are ejected from compact objects such as black holes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrophysical_jet#/media/File:M87_jet.jpg is a photograph of the jet ejected by the supermassive black hole...

From TPM Reader ANON … Your brief write-up is true as far as it goes, but doesn’t even scratch the...

Astronomers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and other institutes have found the black hole that is currently the closest to Earth. The aforementioned black hole lies just 1000-light years from our planet, and is closer to our Solar System compared to others found to date. What’s more, it is part of a triple system that can be seen with the naked eye.

They say this system could just be the tip of the iceberg, as many more similar black holes could be found in the future.

"We were totally surprised when we realised that this is the first stellar system with a black hole that can be seen with the unaided eye," says Petr Hadrava, Emeritus Scientist at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in Prague and co-author of the research.

More details about this finding over at ScienceDaily.

(Image Credit: JohnsonMartin/ Pixabay)

♐ Sagittarius - Archer (Thighs)

Astronomer Avi Loeb believes that the interstellar object dubbed 'Oumuamua could actually be a probe sent by alien beings. Given the evidence that has so far been gathered, he says, it is a possible conclusion to draw.

Faced with a growing economic crisis, many European Union member states are clamoring for the introduction of so-called corona bonds. Just like it was in the euro crisis, though, Germany is opposed. In the end, Berlin may not have a choice. By DER SPIEGEL Staff

Rugby Football Union chief executive Bill Sweeney has described the prospect of the sport being postponed into 2021 as "catastrophic".

The LIGO and Virgo observatories appear to have picked up gravitational waves from a first-of-its-kind astronomical observation.

The gargantuan structures hint at a massive explosion in our galaxy’s past.

It’s almost too dense to exist. Almost.

Angels pitcher Andrew Heaney struggled against the Houston Astros in 2018, and he's irate not only at the sign stealing but because players haven't apologized.

Angels star Mike Trout did not hold back his opinion on the Houston Astros cheating scandal when he spoke to reporters at Angels spring training.

New Angels catcher Jason Castro played for the Astros when they lost 106 or more games three years in a row. He left Houston a year before they cheated in 2017.

Angels manager Joe Maddon is ready to move on from the Astros cheating scandal, saying he doesn't want his pitchers to hit Houston batters.

(MedPage Today) -- Study Authors: Larry A. Kramer, Khader M. Hasan, et al.; Michael H. Lev Target Audience and Goal Statement: Neurologists, radiologists The goal of this study was to examine the long-term effects of spaceflight on human brain...

New analyses show that cheating didn't help the Astros, and may have hurt their record

The Dodgers are tired of talking about what the Houston Astros did in 2017. They're excited about what lies ahead for the team this season.

Oakland A's pitcher Mike Fiers is a hero to some, but others believe he waited too long to go public with the Astros' sign-stealing scheme.

The Houston Astros cheated and Mike Fiers shined the brightest light on their scheme, LZ Granderson writes.

The Astros asked a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge to throw out pitcher Mike Bolsinger's lawsuit or, at least, to move the case to Texas.

Trips to the movies and baseball stadiums are out of the question at the moment, but taunting the Astros over their 2017 World Series title remains in season.

Worden performed the first deep-space spacewalk — nearly 200,000 miles from Earth

It could be sometime in May before California officials begin to seriously contemplate how they might start to gradually ease the stay-at-home order.

Ticket sales were supposed to help theater and opera companies pay the costs of turning freelancers into staff members under AB 5. What now?

We tend to look to the stars in troubled times. "Astro Poets," "You Were Born for This" and "Madame Clairevoyant's Guide to the Stars" teach us how.

We're still divided into red state and blue states. Of course we aren't coming together with a disaster like the COVID-19 pandemic raging on.

The usually bustling Israeli city is seen looking desolate amid the spread of the coronavirus.

CORONAVIRUS will quickly culminate before vanishing almost overnight, an astrologer has bizzarely claimed.

ASTRONAUTS could use their own wee to construct a Moon base, the European Space Agency has astonishingly announced.

HOROSCOPE: Horoscopes for this week for all 12 star signs have been shared by Russell Grant. What does the astrology forecast for your sign predict? Check the reading here.

In IndyCar Series history, driver Helio Castroneves ranks second in second-place race finishes. His legacy, beyond being a three-time Indianapolis 500 winner, might be that of being this era's bridesmaid.

If Belarus was already in the grip of a public health crisis, its president looks hell-bent on turning COVID-19 into a catastrophe for the country.

Three months ago, Apple released a new credit card in partnership with Goldman Sachs that aimed to disrupt the highly regulated world of consumer finance. However, a well-known software developer tweeted that he was given 20x the credit line offered to his wife, despite the fact that they have been filing joint tax returns and […]

The Space Museum is staging a special exhibition 2020 Astronomical Events to highlight six major astronomical events happening this year.

The events include grouping of the four planets with the moon in late March, the serial phenomena of Jupiter's moons on June 11 and 12, and the partial solar eclipse on June 21.

Information on the Perseid meteor shower in mid-August, the Geminid meteor shower in mid-December and the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction on December 21 will also be featured.

The exhibit explains details and phenomena of these events, while serving as a practical guide to help visitors pick the best dates, times, locations and tools to observe them.

It will run until September 21 in two phases. The first three events will be presented during the first phase from January to June, while the second phase events will be shown from June to September.

Admission is free.

Call 2721 0226 for enquiries.

(Cornell University) To help future scientists make sense of what their telescopes are showing them, Cornell University astronomers have developed a spectral field guide for rocky worlds orbiting white dwarf stars.

(King's College London) A study of female astronauts has assessed the risk of blood clots associated with spaceflight.The study, published in Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance, in collaboration with King's College London, the Centre for Space Medicine Baylor College of Medicine, NASA Johnson Space Centre and the International Space University, examines the potential risk factors for developing a blood clot (venous thromboembolism) in space.

Carol Rees Parrish
Oct 1, 2007; 20:231-234
Nutrition FYI

Acute myocardial infarction (MI) triggers a local and systemic inflammatory response. We recently showed microglia involvement using TSPO imaging. Here, we evaluate whether ¹¹C-methionine provides further insights into heart-brain inflammation networking. Methods: Male Bl6N mice underwent permanent coronary artery ligation followed by ¹¹C-methionine PET at 3 and 7 days (n = 3). In subgroups, leukocyte homing was blocked by integrin antibodies (n = 5). The cellular substrate for PET signal was identified using brain section immunostaining. Results: ¹¹C-methionine uptake peaked in the MI region at d3 (5.9±0.9vs 2.4±0.5 %ID/cc), decreasing to control level by d7 (4.3±0.6 %ID/cc). Brain uptake was proportional to cardiac uptake (r=0.47,p<0.05), peaking also at d3 (2.9±0.4vs 2.4±0.3 %ID/cc) and returning to baseline at d7 (2.3±0.4 %ID/cc). Integrin blockade reduced uptake at every time point. Immunostaining at d3 revealed co-localization of the L-type amino acid transporter with GFAP-positive astrocytes but not CD68-positive microglia. Conclusion: PET imaging with ¹¹C-methionine specifically identifies an astrocyte component, enabling further dissection of the heart-brain axis in post MI inflammation.

⁶⁸Ga-DOTATOC-PET/MRI (⁶⁸Gallium-DOTATOC-positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance imaging) combines the advantages of PET in the acquisition of metabolic-functional information with the high soft tissue contrast of MRI. Standardized uptake values (SUV) in tumors were suggested as a measure of somatostatin receptor expression. A challenge with receptor ligands is, that the distribution volume is confined to tissues with tracer-uptake, potentially limiting SUV quantification. In this study, different functional, three-dimensional (3D) SUV, apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) parameters and arterial tumor enhancement were tested for the characterization of gastroendopancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NET). Methods: For this single-center, cross-sectional study, 22 patients with 24 histologically confirmed GEP-NET lesions (15 men/7 women; median, 61 years, range, 43-81 years), who received hybrid ⁶⁸Ga-DOTA-PET/MRI examinations at 3T between January 2017 and July 2019 met eligibility criteria. SUVs, tumor-to-background ratios (TBR), the total functional tumor volume (TFTV), ADCmean and ADCmin were measured based on volumes of interest (VOI) and examined with receiver operating characteristic analysis to determine cut-off values for differentiation between low and intermediate grade GEP-NET. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients were used to assess correlations between functional imaging parameters. Results: The ratio of PET-derived SUVmean and diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI)-derived ADCmin was introduced as a combined variable to predict tumor grade, outperforming single predictors. Based on a threshold ratio of 0.03 to be exceeded, tumors could be classified as grade 2 with a sensitivity of 86% and specificity of 100%. SUV and functional ADC values as well as arterial contrast enhancement parameters showed non-significant and mostly negligible correlations. Conclusion: As receptor density and tumor cellularity appear to be independent, potentially complementary phenomena, the combined PET/MRI ratio SUVmean/ADCmin may be used as a novel biomarker, allowing to differentiate between grade 1 and 2 GEP-NET.

For oncological management or radiotherapy planning, reliable staging tools are essential. Recent development of quinoline-based ligands targeting cancer-associated fibroblasts demonstrated promising preclinical and clinical results. The current study aimed to evaluate the role of fibroblast activation protein inhibitors (FAPI)-positron-emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) for primary malignancies located within the lower gastrointestinal tract (LGT) as a very first clinical analysis. Methods: ⁶⁸Ga-FAPI-PET/CT was performed in a cohort of 22 patients with LGT including 15 patients with metastatic disease, 1 patient with suspected local relapse and 6 treatment-naïve patients. ⁶⁸Ga-FAPI-04 and ⁶⁸Ga-FAPI-46 uptake was quantified by standardized uptake values (SUV)max and (SUV)mean. After comparison with standard imaging, changes in tumor stage/ localization and (radio)oncological management were recorded. Results: The highest uptake of FAPI tracer was observed in liver metastases and anal cancer with a SUV_max of 9.1 and 13.9, respectively. Due to a low background activity in normal tissue, there was a high tumor-to-background ratio of more than 3 in most lesions. In treatment-naïve patients, TNM was changed in 50% while for patients with metastases new findings occurred in 47%. In total, FAPI-imaging caused a high, medium and low change of (radio)oncological management in 19%, 33% and 29%, respectively. For almost every patient undergoing irradiation, target volume delineation was improved by ⁶⁸Ga-FAPI-PET/CT. Conclusion: The present study demonstrated that both primary and metastatic LGT were reliably detected by ⁶⁸Ga-FAPI-PET/CT leading to relevant changes in TNM status and (radio)oncological management. ⁶⁸Ga-FAPI-PET/CT seems to be a highly promising imaging agent for the diagnosis and management of LGT, potentially opening new applications for tumor (re-)staging.