Radio telescope spots previously unknown star-forming region

Scientists at the Institut de Radioastronomie Millimetrique (IRAM) have discovered that a region in the Medusa merger serves as home to thousands of recently formed stars. That region’s called the Eye of Medusa, and it’s a gas rich location smack-dab at the center of the merger, which, as its name implies, is a collision between two galaxies 100 million light-years away. The team has detected the newly birthed stars (pictured below the fold) for the first time using a powerful millimeter radio telescope in the French Alps called Northern Extended Millimeter Array or NOEMA. This discovery is actually a huge testament to how promising the observatory is, seeing as it’s not even fully built yet: out of the 12 15-meter-diameter antennas planned for it, only seven are operational.

Millimeter radio telescopes give scientists a way to observe the cold parts of the universe, specifically gas and dust under -34 degrees Fahrenheit where stars usually form. So, how exactly did the IRAM team manage to detect the young stars when no other observatory could? According to the institute, the group led by Sabine Koenig, tried something new. Instead of programming NOEMA’s antennas to detect carbon monoxide, which is common practice for millimeter radio telescopes, they configured it to detect hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and formylium (HCO+) molecules.

IRAM says that likely means the star formation process has a more complex chemical formulation than people think. It also proves that we still know very little about the universe. It’s certainly something worth looking into, since galaxy collisions and the birth of stars are two important aspects in our quest to understand how galaxies form.

[Image Credit: André Rambaud, IRAM (NOEMA) / IRAM, NASA , ESA Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Legacy Archive (Eye of Medusa)]

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Source: IRAM

GM powers data center with used Chevy Volt batteries

General Motors believes old Chevy Volt (and eventually, Bolt) batteries have a future as backup power sources for houses and buildings that use renewable energy. In fact, the company has repurposed five old Volt batteries to help power its data center in Milford, Michigan. They store energy generated by the center’s 74-kilowatt solar array and wind turbines, and then feed the surplus back to the Milford campus grid. GM senior manager Pablo Valencia said that’s possible, because the batteries retain 80 percent of their storage capacity, even after they’re no longer ideal for cars.

Just like Tesla’s Powerwall, the repurposed Volt batteries can provide the electricity a building needs during power outage: the five-battery pack, in particular, can supply enough energy to keep the data center running for up to four hours. GM doesn’t have a big supply of old EV batteries yet, so it can’t offer them as backup power sources to consumers at this point in time — the five in its possession came from early development models of the Chevy Volt. But since it’ll likely have access to loads of used batteries someday, the company has already started testing systems with unnamed partners for both commercial and non-commercial uses. “The importance of this announcement is that we are preparing for the future,” Valencia said. “This is a preparation for that time. Typically the lifecycle of a vehicle is 10 to 12 years.”

[Image credit: Argonne National Laboratory/Flickr]

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Source: Reuters

Square’s food delivery service can get you a $15 NYC meal in 15 minutes

You might have forgotten that Square, the company best known for its mobile credit card reader, also owns the restaurant delivery service Caviar. With so many food delivery options out there, it’s simply hard to stand out. But now Square is bringing one of it’s more unique Caviar capabilities to NYC: Fastbite, a feature that will deliver a meal from a popular restaurant for under $15 in 15 minutes or less. There are, of course, a few caveats: You’ve only got a handful of single-serving options to choose from (not full restaurant menus), and Fastbite is only available during peak lunch and dinner hours in Manhattan. But if you’ve ever had a busy day where your lunch delivery didn’t make it on time, or you just simply didn’t want to deal with the lunch rush, Fastbite could be incredibly useful.

Plenty of startups promise the impossible these days, so I tested out the new Caviar feature (a “mouth-on”, if you will) to verify the company’s claims. Opening up the Caviar app at the AOL office revealed two food options: A pulled pork sandwich from Mighty Quinn’s Barbecue, and a falafel salad from another nearby restaurant. I went for the pulled pork sandwich, which ended up costing around $14 with delivery fees (Caviar covered the cost for the test). Once I placed the order, a marker appeared on a small map, allowing me to track the location of the delivery person (similar to how Uber and other taxi apps let you track cars). Around 13 minutes later, my sandwich arrived at the AOL lobby.

“One of the things that’s unique about our relationship with the restaurants is we have a full partnership,” said Avlok Kohli, who founded FastBite last year before being acquired by Square in February. “We help them ramp up demand and figure out how to manage deliveries.”

That’s a good thing, after all, since many local restaurants aren’t ready to handle a mad delivery rush on their own. Square’s close relationship with restaurants might also help it compete with a slew of other delivery options, including Sprig, which promises inexpensive meals in under 20 minutes, and GrubHub Seamless, which might take longer but offers entire menus. And while it seems like Square might not be able to scale fast deliveries in other cities, Kohli said that could be solved based on the type of couriers they use. For dense urban cities, bike messengers and people on foot may be enough. For a sprawling area like LA, they’ll have to use cars.

As for the sandwich? It was still warm and tasty by the time I got my hands on it. The barbecue sauce didn’t even soak through the bread. Really, what more could you ask for from a food delivery?

Filed under: Misc, Mobile

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