Latest Astrochemistry Stories

Healthier Choices and a Bit of Prep Can Reduce Carcinogens and Increase Flavor WASHINGTON, May 6, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In time for the start of grilling season, experts at the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR), an organization that studies the impact of lifestyle on cancer risk, issued a warning about the hidden health hazards of cookouts and campfires. "Research now shows that diets high in red and processed meat increase risk for colon cancer," said AICR...

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Using observations from an airborne observatory, NASA researchers have discovered new details on how massive stars form within a cloud of interstellar gas and dust. An emerging star known as G35 has been observed forming in an orderly process similar to the one undergone by smaller stars like our sun, according to the scientists’ report in the Astrophysical Journal. Lead author Yichen Zhang said the observations of G35 made with...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online An international team of astronomers are reporting in The Astrophysical Journal they have spotted what resembles a soccer ball sitting in the dying star M1-11. Five instruments helped astronomers detect C60 fluorine in the dying star, which are molecules of carbon with 60 atoms arranged in patterns that resemble a soccer ball. Astronomers used the Subaru Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope (SST), ESO's Very Large Telescope, the...

NASA [ Watch The Video Cosmic Ice ] Behind locked doors, in a lab built like a bomb shelter, Perry Gerakines makes something ordinary yet truly alien: ice. This isn't the ice of snowflakes or ice cubes. No, this ice needs such intense cold and low pressure to form that the right conditions rarely, if ever, occur naturally on Earth. And when Gerakines makes the ice, he must keep the layer so microscopically thin it is dwarfed by a grain of pollen. These ultrathin layers turn out...

National Radio Astronomy Observatory [ Watch the Video Answering Questions Of Where Prebiotic Molecules Form ] Using new technology at the telescope and in laboratories, researchers have discovered an important pair of prebiotic molecules in interstellar space. The discoveries indicate that some basic chemicals that are key steps on the way to life may have formed on dusty ice grains floating between the stars. The scientists used the National Science Foundation's Green Bank...

Research from the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) looked at the effects of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) exposure on a sample of children in Fresno, California. SAN ANTONIO, TX (PRWEB) February 23, 2013 Outside air pollutants are a known trigger of asthma, the most common chronic disease in children according to the World Health Organization, but whether these pollutants actually cause new cases of asthma is still being...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A research team from the University of California, San Diego is hoping to learn how our solar system evolved by studying the origins of different isotope ratios among the elements that make up today’s smorgasbord of planets, moons, comets, asteroids, and interplanetary ice and dust. The scientists are led by Mark Thiemens, Dean of the Division of Physical Sciences, who has worked on this problem for over three decades. Most...

Residents living near an e-waste recycling site in China face elevated risks of lung cancer, according to a recent study co-authored by Oregon State University researchers. Electronic trash, such as cell phones, computers and TVs, is often collected in dumps in developing countries and crudely incinerated to recover precious metals, including silver, gold, palladium and copper. The process is often primitive, releasing fumes with a range of toxic substances, including polycyclic aromatic...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Astronomers are reaching out to the public and asking for a little help in a study to find holes in dust clouds that are threaded throughout our galaxy. By looking at images from the Herschel Space Observatory, combined with those from NASA’s Spitzer satellite, members of the public can join the scientists by helping to distinguish between dense clumps of cold dust and possible holes in these dusty clouds. Dust clouds do not...

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Symbiotic relationship between pollutants and airborne particles explains how city pollution ends up in Arctic Pollution from fossil fuel burning and forest fires reaches all the way to the Arctic, even though it should decay long before it travels that far. Now, lab research can explain how pollution makes its lofty journey: rather than ride on the surface of airborne particles, pollutants snuggle inside, protected from the elements on the way....