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GLOBAL NEWS nanometres wide, the particles can easily diffuse between cells. The magnetic field is comparable to what is employed in magnetic resonance imaging. The method's ability to activate cells uniformly across a large area indicates that it also will be feasible to use it in in vivo whole-body applications, the scientists report. (Source: University at Buffalo News Center, 6 July 2010, http://www. buffalo. edu/news/11518) of movement, if produced by the standard Big Bang cosmology. But this has greatly upset the traditional notion that galactic matter should be uniformly distributed. If the Universe began with a Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, the awesome size of these large-scale structures is baffling because there is apparently not sufficient time available for such massive objects to form and to become organised. (Source: The Journal of Cosmology, 30 January 2o10, http://journalofcosmology. com/BigBangro1.html, via DailyGalaxy.com) effort, valued at up to USS100 million. Some industry and government officials familiar with the program see Perfect Citizen as an intrusion by the NSA into domestic affairs, while others say it is an important program to combat an emerging security threat that only the NSA is equipped to provide. "The overall purpose of the [program] is our Government... feel[s] that they need to insure the Public Sector is doing all they can to secure Infrastructure critical to our National Security," said one internal Raytheon email, the text of which was seen by the Wall Street Journal. Raytheon declined to comment. (Source: The Wall Street Journal, 8 July 2010, http://tinyurl.com/35hy2ez) BIG BANG THEORY EXPLODED? team of British, American and Hungarian astronomers has reported that the Universe is crossed by at least 13 "Great Walls" or rivers of galaxies, 100 Mpc long, in the surveyed domain of seven billion light years. (A distance of one million parsecs—approximately 3,262,000 light years—is commonly denoted by the megaparsec, Mpc.) The astronomers found galaxies clustered into bands spaced about 600 million light years apart that stretch across about one-fourth of the diameter of the Universe, or about seven billion light years. This huge shell and void pattern would have required nearly 150 billion years to form, based on their speed SCIENTISTS DISCOVER HEAVENLY SOLAR MUSIC usical sounds created by longitudinal vibrations within the Sun's atmosphere have been recorded and accurately studied for the first time by experts at the University of Sheffield, UK, shedding light on the Sun's magnetic atmosphere. High-resolution images taken by a number of satellites show that the solar corona is filled with large banana-shaped magnetic structures known as coronal loops. These giant coronal loops have also been observed to undergo NANOPARTICLES TO CONTROL ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR REMOTELY Ciusters of heated, magnetic nanoparticles targeted at cel membranes can remotely contro ion channels, neurons and even animal behaviour, according to a paper published by University a Buffalo (UB) physicists in Nature Nanotechnology. "By developing a method tha allows us to use magnetic fields to stimulate cells both in vitro and in vivo, this research will help us unravel the signaling networks tha control animal behavior," says Arnd Pralle, PhD, Assistant Professor o Physics in the UB College of Arts and Sciences and senior/ corresponding author on the paper. The method the UB team developed involves heating nanoparticles in a cell membrane by exposing them to a radiofrequency magnetic field; the heat then results in stimulating the cell. "We have developed a tool to heat nanoparticles and then measure their temperature," says Pralle, noting that not much is known about heat conduction in tissue at the nanoscale. Each one measuring just six somerville NEXUS ¢ 7 AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2010 www.nexusmagazine.com