U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY PANETTA MEETS WITH SOUTH AMERICAN DEFENSE LEADERS

FROM:  AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta observes a Brazilian Marine Corps demonstration with Adm. Ferando Antonio at Governor's Island Marine Base, Rio de Janeiro, April 25, 2012. Panetta is on a five-day trip to the region to meet with counterparts and military officials in Colombia, Brazil and Chile to discuss an expansion of defense and security cooperation. DOD photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley  


Panetta: U.S., Brazil Partnership 'Is the Future'
By Cheryl Pellerin
RIO DE JANEIRO, April 26, 2012 - On the second day of his first official visit to Brazil, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta addressed a war college audience, watched an amphibious assault demonstration by Brazilian Marines, and paid tribute to Brazil's fallen heroes of World War II.


Panetta has met so far this week with military officials in Colombia and Brazil on a South American trip that aims to expand defense and security cooperation with countries that are important in the region and, increasingly, the world.


"The United States and Brazil begin with a very important strength," Panetta told military officers at the Escola Superior de Guerra -- Portuguese for Superior War College. The secretary said the two nations share the same values and respect for human rights and democracy.


"And if, using that, we can begin to develop the kind of cooperative relationship that we have in the security area, I think our countries can not only help promote security in this hemisphere but can work together to try to promote peace in the world," he said.
"This is the kind of partnership that is the future," noted Panetta, who fielded questions after his lecture.


A Brazilian Navy fleet captain asked if a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan had reduced the power of the U.S. military and if recent and significant budget tightening represented a transformation or was just a way to save money.


"In many ways," the secretary replied to the Brazilian captain's question, "it represents taking into consideration all the factors you just talked about."
Panetta explained how in a time of fiscal constraints Congress directed the Defense Department to reduce its budget by $487 billion over 10 years.


"My problem is that, even though after 10 years of war we are seeing some successes in Iraq and Afghanistan and on the war on terrorism, we still [have] major threats to confront in the world," he said, noting the dangers posed by terrorist groups like al-Qaida, instability in North Korea and Iran, unrest in the Middle East, and cybersecurity threats.
In view of these threats, Panetta said he rejected across-the-board defense cuts in favor of four guidelines. The secretary vowed that the Defense Department would:
-- Maintain the world's finest military.


-- Avoid hollowing out the force. A smaller, ready and well-equipped military is better than a larger, ill-prepared force that has been arbitrarily cut across-the-board.
-- Achieve savings in a balanced manner, with everything on the table.
-- Preserve the quality of the all-volunteer force and not break faith with the men and women in uniform or their families.


Based on these guidelines and with input from all the services, the department developed "a defense strategy that would meet those goals and provide the force we need not just now but in 2020 and beyond," Panetta said.
"At the same time we can't avoid our responsibilities in the rest of the world," the secretary added, "and that's where this hemisphere comes into play."
The United States must work with other countries, including Brazil, to develop innovative partnerships, he said. The United States military, he added, must invest in the technologies of the future -- cyberspace, unmanned systems, and space -- and appreciate the unique capabilities provided by special operations forces.


"We feel very good about the strategy [because] ... it was developed not only because of the budget but because of what we felt we needed to put in place to keep our country strong for the future," Panetta said. "And I recommend to all of you as students, there are elements of the strategy that Brazil and other countries ought to consider as you move forward."


After the lecture, Panetta visited Brazil's World War II Memorial here in Flamengo Park, established in 1965 to honor Brazilian troops killed while serving alongside U.S. troops in Italy.


Panetta and other U.S. and Brazilian officials toured a small museum there, and then placed a wreath in honor of the fallen heroes as rose petals released from the memorial structure drifted down onto the solemn crowd.


Later, at the Governor's Island Marine Base, Panetta and his delegation watched from an observation post as Brazilian special operations troops staged an amphibious beach assault.


During the exercise, two special operations teams used inflatable boats to infiltrate the site of a radar station, "killing" an enemy lookout and reducing the station to splinters with a fiery explosion.


Automatic weapons fire, incoming helicopters, troops, amphibious craft, a tank-carrying landing craft and many colored-smoke-belching grenades completed the demonstration.
Toward the end of the day, Panetta visited the 130-foot statue of Christ the Redeemer, its arms outstretched at the top of the 2,300-foot Corcovado Mountain in Tijuca Forest National Park, overlooking the city and the sea.
"In the world of today," Panetta had said at the war college, "we believe it is important for other countries to develop their military capabilities and provide for security for their people and security for this hemisphere."
The best way to deal with common challenges in today's world, the secretary said, "is to work together, not apart."


"That's why I'm here in Brazil," he added. "Because this is an important place to start that kind of relationship."

FROG FUNGUS KILLS FROGS IN THE WILD BY DEPLETING SODIUM AND POTASSIUM LEVELS

FROM:  NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Blood Samples Show Deadly Frog Fungus at Work in the Wild
Pathogen leads to dehydration, other ill effects
April 25, 2012
The fungal infection that killed a record number of amphibians worldwide leads to deadly dehydration in frogs in the wild, according to results of a new study.
High levels of an aquatic, chytrid fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) disrupt fluid and electrolyte balance in wild frogs, the scientists say, severely depleting the frogs' sodium and potassium levels and causing cardiac arrest and death.

Their findings confirm what researchers have seen in carefully controlled lab experiments with the fungus, but San Francisco State University biologist Vance Vredenburg said the data from wild frogs provide a much better idea of how the disease progresses.

"The mode of death discovered in the lab seems to be what's actually happening in the field," he said, "and it's that understanding that is key to doing something about it in the future."

Results of the study are published today in the journal PLoS ONE.
"Wildlife diseases can be just as devastating to our health and economy as agricultural and human diseases," said Sam Scheiner, NSF program officer for the joint National Science Foundation-National Institutes of Health Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases program, which funded the research.

At NSF, the Directorates for Biological Sciences and Geosciences support the program.
"Bd has been decimating frog and salamander species worldwide, which may fundamentally disrupt natural systems," said Scheiner. "This study is an important advance in our understanding of the disease--a first step in finding a way to reduce its effects."
At the heart of the new study are blood samples drawn from mountain yellow-legged frogs by Vredenburg and colleagues in 2004, as the chytrid epidemic swept through California's Sierra Nevada mountains.

"It's really rare to be able to study physiology in the wild like this, at the exact moment of a disease outbreak," said University of California, Berkeley ecologist Jamie Voyles, the lead author of the paper.

Unfortunately, it is a study that can't be duplicated--at least not in the Sierra Nevada.
Frog populations there have been devastated by chytrid, declining by 95 percent after the fungus was first detected in 2004.

"It's been really sad to walk around the basins and think, 'wow, they're really all gone,'" Vredenburg said.

The chytrid fungus attacks an amphibian's skin, causing it to become up to 40 times thicker in some instances.

Since frogs depend on their skin to absorb water and essential electrolytes like sodium from their environment, Voyles and her colleagues knew that the fungus would disrupt fluid balances in the infected amphibians.

But they were surprised to find that electrolyte levels were much lower than anticipated. "It's clear that this fungus has a profound effect in the wild," Voyles said.
Scientists want to learn as much as they can about how the fungus affects wild amphibians, with the hope that these findings will lead to better treatments for the infection.

"The chytrid fungus is causing these frogs to become severely dehydrated, even though they are literally surrounded by water," said Cheryl Briggs, a University of California, Santa Barbara biologist and co-author of the paper.

The new study suggests that individual frogs being treated for the infection might benefit from having electrolyte supplementation in the advanced stages of the disease.
Researchers like Vredenburg already are experimenting with different ways of treating individual frogs, such as applying antifungal therapies or inoculating the frogs with "probiotic" bacteria that produce a compound that kills the fungus.

"The disease is not very hard to treat in the lab with antifungals," Vredenburg said. "But in nature, the disease is still a moving target."

It is still unclear exactly how chytrid spreads across a region, and which frogs might be susceptible to re-infection after treatment.

Earlier this year, Vredenburg and colleagues showed that a common North American frog might be an important carrier of the infection.

The chytrid fungus has killed off more than 200 amphibian species across the globe, but Voyles said the research offers "a glimmer of hope that it might be possible to do something to mitigate the loss."

Other co-authors of the paper are Tate Tunstall and Erica Bree Rosenblum of UC Berkeley, and John Parker of University of California, San Francisco.

PLANETS AROUND STARS IS THE RULE, NOT THE EXCEPTION

FROM:  NASA
This artist's illustration gives an impression of how common planets are around the stars in the Milky Way. The planets, their orbits and their host stars are all vastly magnified compared to their real separations. A six-year search that surveyed millions of stars using the microlensing technique concluded that planets around stars are the rule rather than the exception. The average number of planets per star is greater than one. This means that there is likely to be a minimum of 1,500 planets within just 50 light-years of Earth. The results are based on observations taken over six years by the PLANET (Probing Lensing Anomalies NETwork) collaboration, which was founded in 1995. The study concludes that there are far more Earth-sized planets than bloated Jupiter-sized worlds. This is based on calibrating a planetary mass function that shows the number of planets increases for lower mass worlds. A rough estimate from this survey would point to the existence of more than 10 billion terrestrial planets across our galaxy. The results were published in the Jan. 12, 2012, issue of the British science journal Nature. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Kornmesser (ESO)

WISCONSIN HAS AGRIBUSINESS TEAM IN AFGHANISTAN

FROM:  WISCONSIN ARMY AND AIR NATIONAL GUARD
Capt. James Schmitz of the Wisconsin National Guard's 82nd Agribusiness Development Team jots a few notes in his notebook about crop conditions at a demonstration farm in Watapur Province, Afghanistan, April 16. The 82nd ADT was at the farm to perform quality assurance checks of the farm's operations, assess crop health and identify future farm issues. 82nd ADT photo by 2nd Lt. Stephen Montgomery

NEWS: Wisconsin Agribusiness team visits Afghan demonstration farm
Date: April 25, 2012
KUNAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan - The Wisconsin National Guard's 82nd Agribusiness Development Team had its first chance to check the progress of a demonstration farm in the Watapur District of Kunar Province April 16.

The farm - one of three the 82nd ADT oversees - was established by the previous ADT from the Illinois National Guard. The 82nd ADT met with Mohammed Wali, the demonstration farm manager, performed quality assurance and control assessments of the farm, and identified future issues.

"I think it was a good visit," said Master Sgt. John Dietzler, a soil science specialist assigned to the 82nd ADT and project manager for the Watapur Demo Farm.
The demo farm manger's son gave the team a tour of the farm, which is currently growing potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, onions, cucumbers and orange trees intercropped with wheat.
Dietzler said a canal project upstream is causing problems with the farm's irrigation system, which is affecting crop quality.

"Some of the plants were a little wilted, but overall the plants looked pretty good," he said.

After the tour, the team discussed previous training conducted at the demo farm. Wali stated three training events have occurred on the farm - spinach planting, winter vegetable, and orange sapling planting - training up to 30 farmers during each event.
While the previous ADTs have been more hands-on with the demo farms, Dietzler stressed that a cultural advisor and people called young professionals now handle most of the work.

"Much of what we are doing now is advising and facilitating," Dietzler said. "If there is a legitimate reason, we will then provide supplies and money, but we have to be justified in doing a project."

"A lot of time we go these places, we go to just give them ideas - they have the capacity to do it, we just need to encourage them," said Capt. James Schmitz, an agricultural specialist with the 82nd ADT who was also along on the mission to help assess the farm.
One of the stipulations of becoming an ADT-sponsored demo farm is the farmer must agree to reinvest 30 percent of the farm's profits back into farm maintenance and general farm upkeep.

"They have been living for today for so long," Schmitz said. "We're now trying to get them to invest in their future."

The Wisconsin National Guard learned it would gain an agribusiness development team mission in 2010, and the unit trained for 12 months before reporting for active duty in February and completing mobilization training at Camp Atterbury, Ind.

HESS CORPORATION RESOLVES CLEAN AIR ACT VIOLATIONS AT NEW JERSEY REFINERY

FROM:  DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Hess Corporation to Install $45 Million in Pollution Controls and Pay $850,000 Penalty to Resolve Clean Air Act Violations at New Jersey Refinery
WASHINGTON – Hess Corporation has agreed to pay an $850,000 civil penalty and spend more than $45 million in new pollution controls to resolve Clean Air Act violations at its Port Reading, N.J., refinery, the Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today.  Once fully implemented, the controls required by the settlement are estimated to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide (NOx) by 181 tons per year and result in additional reductions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).  High concentrations of NOx and VOCs, key pollutants emitted from refineries, can have adverse impacts on human health, including contributing to childhood asthma, and are significant contributors to smog.

“This settlement is the 31st such agreement with petroleum refineries across the nation. Hess joins a growing list of corporations who have entered into comprehensive and innovative agreements with the United States that will result in cleaner, healthier air for communities across the nation,” said Ignacia S. Moreno, Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice.  “For example, this agreement will improve air quality for New Jersey residents by requiring Hess to install advanced pollution control and monitoring technology and adopt more stringent emissions limits.”

“EPA is committed to protecting communities by reducing air pollution from the largest sources,” said Cynthia Giles, Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.  “This settlement will reduce harmful emissions that impact air quality, protecting the residents of Port Reading and New Jersey.”

The settlement requires new and upgraded pollution controls, more stringent emission limits, and aggressive monitoring, leak-detection and repair practices to reduce emissions from refinery equipment and processing units.

The government’s complaint, filed on April 19, 2012, alleged that the company made modifications to its refinery that increased emissions without first obtaining pre-construction permits and installing required pollution control equipment.  The Clean Air Act requires major sources of air pollution to obtain such permits before making changes that would result in a significant emissions increase of any pollutant.
The state of New Jersey actively participated in the settlement with Hess and will receive half of the civil penalty.

The settlement with Hess is the 31st under an EPA initiative to improve compliance among petroleum refiners and to reduce significant amounts of air pollution from refineries nationwide through comprehensive, company-wide enforcement settlements.  The first of these settlements was reached in 2000.  With today’s settlement, 108 refineries operating in 32 states and territories – more than 90 percent of the total refining capacity in the United States – are under judicially enforceable agreements to significantly reduce emissions of pollutants.  As a result of the settlement agreements, refiners have agreed to invest more than $6 billion in new pollution controls designed to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and other pollutants by over 360,000 tons per year.

MALARIA IS STILL A THREAT TO MILLIONS

FROM:  U.S. CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL
"Have You Heard?"
Malaria threatens security of millions
Malaria, a disease spread by mosquito bites, can lead to impoverishment, disability, and death. Beyond the loss of human potential, malaria’s direct costs total more than $12 billion each year and cause substantial economic losses for entire nations. Encouragingly, inexpensive yet simple interventions can dramatically reduce malaria’s impact.

From global efforts to grass-roots mobilization, resources committed to fight malaria have increased greatly in the past decade. Hundreds of millions of life-saving insecticide-treated bed nets and effective antimalarial medicines are now available to people who need them, especially pregnant women and children under 5 years old, who are most vulnerable to malaria.

The impact of this massive scale-up has been a dramatic decline in malaria cases and deaths---in many countries by as much as 50 percent. Globally, WHO estimates that malaria deaths decreased by a third between 2000 and 2010, with most of this reduction in Africa. These achievements are fragile, however, because resources are constrained in the current economy, bed nets wear out, and parasites develop resistance to medicines.

World Malaria Day, April 25th, and its theme “Sustain Gains, Save Lives: Invest in Malaria,” remind us that successes of the past decade can be easily reversed.

The U.S. government has a major role in the global malaria partnership. CDC, which began in 1946 as the agency to control malaria in the United States, is a leader in global malaria efforts. The successful President’s Malaria Initiative is jointly implemented by the U.S. Agency for International Development and CDC and has greatly contributed to recent decreases in malaria.

CDC has played a key role in developing and improving the tools to prevent and treat malaria: treated bed nets and house-spraying to protect families from mosquitoes, accurate diagnostic tests and high-quality effective drugs, and treatment for pregnant women that protects them and their babies.

What more can we do?

Even as many individuals and companies contribute to organizations that buy and distribute bed nets, our nation is harnessing its technical expertise to develop and evaluate new prevention and control methods. CDC is working to ensure that new medicines, vaccines, diagnostic tests, and mosquito control products are deployed effectively, and is also investigating new ways to collect the strategic information needed to track our progress and ensure we invest wisely.

With increased knowledge, the right tools, and renewed commitment to decrease malaria, we can sustain gains made in past decade and save lives.
Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H
Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

NEW PROGRAM TO PROVIDE FUNDS FOR INNOVATIONS TO IMPROVE GLOBAL LIVING STANDARDS AND CONDITIONS

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Secretary Clinton Announces Launch of New Partnership to Drive Investment in Innovation
Media Note Office of the Spokesperson Washington, DC
April 27, 2012
Yesterday, Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton launched a new partnership to promote investment in innovation at the inaugural Global Impact Economy Forum in Washington, DC.
The Accelerating Market-Driven Partnerships (AMP) initiative is a public-private partnership that seeks to mobilize innovation and investment around critical global challenges such as poverty, climate change, sustainable cities and waste, and addressing agricultural value chain waste in key growth markets. The pilot initiative will initially focus on promoting sustainable cities and related issues in Brazil.

During the launch of AMP, Secretary Clinton said: “AMP will bring a business eye to taking on social and environmental problems in developing markets. We will launch it in Brazil, focused first on building sustainable cities, from providing low-cost housing, to offering skills training that builds capacity of local workers, to improving urban waste management systems. AMP will draw on the resources of the private sector, civil society, and multilateral partners in both Brazil and the United States.”

AMP will provide a platform for businesses, private investors, social entrepreneurs, government, multilateral institutions and philanthropic organizations to identify and tackle key environmental, social and economic challenges in countries that are transitioning from development assistance. The partnership supports the U.S. Department of State’s efforts to promote sustainable, inclusive economic growth and development that strengthens diplomatic efforts and bolsters U.S. business opportunities and investments abroad.
The pilot initiative in Brazil will build on the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s work on the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas to advance sustainable and inclusive cities and housing. In collaboration with the U.S. Department of State, AMP will also develop an “Innovation Toolkit” that identifies critical elements necessary to strengthen science and technology, and to foster the development of entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems. AMP will partner with the World Bank Group’s EVOKE online educational gaming platform.

Brazil is South America’s largest economy and the world’s sixth largest economy in terms of gross domestic product. Since 2003, more than 30 million people in Brazil have been lifted out of poverty and are now active participants in the country’s vibrant economy. AMP will promote catalytic investments, such as investments in women, that create opportunities for sustainable social and economic growth and development in sectors identified as priorities by businesses, investors, government and multilateral institutions. Later this year, a delegation of U.S. officials will travel to Brazil to discuss U.S. support for Brazil's thriving innovation ecosystem as part of this initiative.

The AMP initiative is being launched in partnership with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the World Bank Group, the Law Offices of Arent Fox and Machado Associates, Grupo ABC, HP, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Mercy Corps.

Other commitments announced at the Secretary’s Global Impact Economy Forum include:
· Investing with Impact Platform: Morgan Stanley Smith Barney announced the launch of the Investing with Impact Platform which will provide the tools and products necessary for clients to combine financial, social and environmental returns.

· $1.25 billion Impact Investment fund: TriLinc Global Impact Fund, LLC announced today its intention to file a registration statement with the SEC for an initial public offering of approximately $1.25 billion, with the purpose of providing an impact investment vehicle for the general public. The Fund intends to use net proceeds it receives to provide growth capital to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) around the world, particularly in developing economies.

U.S. ASSESSING IT'S OPTIONS IN YEMEN

FROM:  AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE

U.S. Assessing Military Assistance to Yemen, Spokesman Says

By Karen Parrish

WASHINGTON, April 26, 2012 - Defense officials are assessing what U.S. national security role they are called upon to perform in Yemen, a department spokesman said today.

Navy Capt. John Kirby told Pentagon reporters the Defense Department had suspended military assistance activities in Yemen because of political instability there. Kirby said with a new administration now governing Yemen, defense leaders "are beginning to reassess, and to start up again, some elements of military assistance."

That assistance in the past has meant "helping Yemen deal with their own terrorism problems inside their borders," Kirby said.

A Sept. 30 U.S. airstrike in Yemen killed terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki, whom President Barak Obama has called "the leader of external operations" for al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.

But the threat inside Yemen presented by al-Qaida -- particularly al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula -- remains, Kirby said.

"We believe it's a serious threat. We're working with the Yemeni government, even now, on how best to help them deal with that threat," he added.

Defense leaders believe al-Qaida terrorists are a threat not only to nations in which they find safe havens, Kirby said, but also to other nations, including the United States.

"We still consider al-Qaida a threat to national security," he added.

Yemeni civil strife began to escalate in 2011, part of the "Arab Spring" or "Arab Awakening" movement that started in December 2010, and included a series of mass protests against ruling regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and other countries. Protests in Yemen eventually led to a transfer in power from former President Ali Abdullah Saleh to his former vice president, Abdo Rabo Mansour Hadi, who assumed the presidency Feb. 25 following a Feb. 21 election.

In a White House statement issued Feb. 25, President Obama congratulated the "brave Yemenis who have set their country on a path for a more stable, secure, and democratic future."

The United States will remain "a steadfast partner to Yemen and its people as they transition to a democracy worthy of their struggle," the president added.

NLRB JUDGE FINDS JIMMY JOHNS FRANCHISEE ILLEGALLY FIRED EMPLOYEES

FROM:  U.S. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
NLRB judge finds Jimmy Johns franchisee in Minnesota illegally fired employees for protected activity
Administrative Law Judge Arthur Amchan has found that a franchisee of the Jimmy Johns sandwich chain unlawfully discharged six employees after they staged a public campaign complaining of the company’s employee sick leave policy.

In his April 20 decision, Judge Amchan also found that Miklin Enterprises, Inc., a franchisee that operates 10 sandwich shops in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, unlawfully issued written warnings to three employees who took part in the campaign. His decision orders the employer to offer reinstatement to those discharged and rescind the written warnings, and to post notices at all of its shops.

Charges were filed by the Industrial Workers of the World on behalf of the workers, who have also been involved in a campaign to unionize the shops. The NLRB Regional Office in Minneapolis conducted an election in October, 2010, and the union lost by two votes. However, after objections were filed by the union alleging the company engaged in unfair labor practices during the election, the employer and union entered into a settlement in which a rerun election could be held within a year and a half.

In March, 2011, employees asked Milkin Enterprises to provide paid sick leave and to change a policy that requires the employees to find replacements when they are ill and unable to work. After the employer declined, employees posted notices near the 10 shops warning customers that their sandwiches could be made by ill employees. Many or all of these notices were immediately removed by the franchisee. Two days later, six employees involved in the postings were fired and three others received written warnings.
In his decision, Judge Amchan found that the employees’ activity was protected because it was part of an ongoing labor dispute, and that the language and images used did not cause the employees to lose their protection. In addition to ordering the employer to offer reinstatement, the judge also ordered that the employees receive full backpay for any loss of earnings and other benefits.

NASA'S SPITZER FINDS GALAXY WITH SPLIT PERSONALITY

WASHINGTON -- While some galaxies are rotund and others are slender 
disks like our spiral Milky Way, new observations from NASA's Spitzer 
Space Telescope show that the Sombrero galaxy is both. The galaxy, 
which is a round, elliptical with a thin disk embedded inside, is one 
of the first known to exhibit characteristics of the two different 
types. The findings will lead to a better understanding of galaxy 
evolution, a topic still poorly understood. 

"The Sombrero is more complex than previously thought," said Dimitri 
Gadotti of the European Southern Observatory in Chile and lead author 
of a new paper on the findings appearing in the Monthly Notices of 
the Royal Astronomical Society. "The only way to understand all we 
know about this galaxy is to think of it as two galaxies, one inside 
the other." 

The Sombrero galaxy, also known as NGC 4594, is located 28 million 
light-years away in the constellation Virgo. From our viewpoint on 
Earth, we can see the thin edge of its flat disk and a central bulge 
of stars, making it resemble a wide-brimmed hat. Astronomers do not 
know whether the Sombrero's disk is shaped like a ring or a spiral, 
but agree it belongs to the disk class. 

"Spitzer is helping to unravel secrets behind an object that has been 
imaged thousands of times," said Sean Carey of NASA's Spitzer Science 
Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.. 
"It is intriguing Spitzer can read the fossil record of events that 
occurred billions of years ago within this beautiful and archetypal 
galaxy." 

Spitzer captures a different view of the galaxy than visible-light 
telescopes. In visible views, the galaxy appears to be immersed in a 
glowing halo, which scientists had thought was relatively light and 
small. With Spitzer's infrared vision, a different view emerges. 
Spitzer sees old stars through the dust and reveals the halo has the 
right size and mass to be a giant elliptical galaxy. 

While it is tempting to think the giant elliptical swallowed a spiral 
disk, astronomers say this is highly unlikely because that process 
would have destroyed the disk structure. Instead, one scenario they 
propose is that a giant elliptical galaxy was inundated with gas more 
than nine billion years ago. Early in our universe, networks of gas 
clouds were common, and they sometimes fed growing galaxies, causing 
them to bulk up. The gas would have been pulled into the galaxy by 
gravity, falling into orbit around the center and spinning out into a 
flat disk. Stars would have formed from the gas in the disk. 

"This poses all sorts of questions," said Rubén Sánchez-Janssen from 
the European Southern Observatory, co-author of the study. "How did 
such a large disk take shape and survive inside such a massive 
elliptical? How unusual is such a formation process?" 

Researchers say the answers could help them piece together how other 
galaxies evolve. Another galaxy, called Centaurus A, appears also to 
be an elliptical galaxy with a disk inside it. But its disk does not 
contain many stars. Astronomers speculate that Centaurus A could be 
at an earlier stage of evolution than the Sombrero and might 
eventually look similar. 

The findings also answer a mystery about the number of globular 
clusters in the Sombrero galaxy. Globular clusters are spherical 
nuggets of old stars. Ellipticals typically have a few thousand, 
while spirals contain a few hundred. The Sombrero has almost 2,000, a 
number that makes sense now but had puzzled astronomers when they 
thought it was only a disk galaxy. 

FLEET WEEK PORT EVERGLADES 2012

FROM:  U.S. NAVY
PORT EVERGLADES, Fla. (April 25, 2012) The amphibious assault ship USS Wasp (LHD 1) prepares to moor at Port Everglades. Wasp, along with four other U.S. Navy ships and a U.S. Coast Guard cutter are scheduled to participate in the Fleet Week Port Everglades 2012. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Greg Johnson/Released)

SPACE-BASED TACTICAL INFORMATION IN REMOTE PLACES

FROM:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE ARMED WITH SCIENCE
Written on APRIL 24, 2012 AT 7:50 AM by JTOZER
Satellite Sight For the Frontlines
Image is everything.
In the case of military members on the front lines, quick, reliable satellite images are important, but unfortunately not always easy to come by.  Today, the lowest echelon members of the U.S. military deployed in remote overseas locations are unable to obtain on-demand satellite imagery in a timely and persistent manner for pre-mission planning.

This is due to lack of satellite overflight opportunities, inability to receive direct satellite downlinks at the tactical level and information flow restrictions.

DARPA’s SeeMe program (Space Enabled Effects for Military Engagements) aims to give mobile individual US warfighters access to on-demand, space-based tactical information in remote and beyond- line-of-sight conditions.

If successful, SeeMe will provide small squads and individual teams the ability to receive timely imagery of their specific overseas location directly from a small satellite with the press of a button — something that’s currently not possible from military or commercial satellites.

“We envision a constellation of small satellites, at a fraction of the cost of airborne systems, that would allow deployed warfighters overseas to hit ‘see me’ on existing handheld devices and in less than 90 minutes receive a satellite image of their precise location to aid in mission planning,” said Dave Barnhart, DARPA program manager.

The SeeMe constellation may consist of some two-dozen satellites, each lasting 60-90 days in a very low-earth orbit before de-orbiting and completely burning up, leaving no space debris and causing no re-entry hazard.

The program may leverage DARPA’s Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (ALASA) program, which is developing an aircraft-based satellite launch platform for payloads on the order of 100 lbs. ALASA seeks to provide low-cost, rapid launch of small satellites into any required orbit, a capability not possible today from fixed ground launch sites.

“SeeMe is a logical adjunct to UAV technology, which will continue to provide local or regional very high-resolution coverage, but which can’t cover extended areas without frequent refueling,” Barnhart said. “With a SeeMe constellation, we hope to directly support warfighters in multiple deployed overseas locations simultaneously with no logistics or maintenance costs beyond the warfighters’ handhelds.”