Happy Birthday Ørsted! (and Electromagnestism)

Today (August 14th) is the 232nd birthday of Hans Christian Ørsted, whose experimental work in 1820 discovered that electric currents generate magnetic fields, and hence can be said to be the discovery of electromagnetism (one of the four fundamental forces).

Google's logo for the day honors Ørsted's birth by showing (in essence) his experimental set-up. Though I suspect most people who see it will think it is a bomb.

Interesting Astrophysics: 03-13 Aug, 2009

In addition to the usual crop of galaxy-related papers I tend to find most interesting there have been a rash of both interesting AGN and massive star stellar wind papers. Papers of particular note are Harris & Zaritsky (star formation history of the LMC), Behar (Seyfert galaxy outflows) and three papers by Parkin et. al., Pittard, and Owocki (all related to stellar wind theory).

---

Galaxies and Starbursts

The Star Formation History of the Large Magellanic Cloud
Jason Harris, Dennis Zaritsky, arXiv:0908.1422 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 20 pages, with color figures. Accepted for publication in AJ

Dust-Corrected Star Formation Rates of Galaxies. I. Combinations of H-alpha and Infrared Tracers
Robert C. Kennicutt, Jr., Cai-Na Hao, Daniela Calzetti, John Moustakas, Daniel A. Dale, George Bendo, Charles W. Engelbracht, Benjamin D. Johnson, Janice C. Lee, arXiv:0908.0203 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 75 pages, 22 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal

The properties of the stellar populations in ULIRGs I: sample, data and spectral synthesis modelling
J.Rodriguez-Zaurin, C.N.Tadhunter, R.M.Gonzalez-Delgado, arXiv:0908.0269 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: accepted for publication in MNRAS

Quantified Morphology of HI Disks in the Universe
B. W. Holwerda, W. J. G. de Blok, A. Bouchard, S-L. Blyth, K. van der Heyden, N. Prizkal, arXiv:0908.0693 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 6 pages, 3 figures, proceeding of the conference "Panoramic Radio Astronomy: Wide-field 1-2 GHz research on galaxy evolution", June 02 - 05 2009, Groningen

---

Black Holes and AGN

The OPTX Project III: X-ray versus Optical Spectral Type for AGNs
L. Trouille, A. J. Barger, L. L. Cowie, Y. Yang, R. F. Mushotzky, arXiv:0908.0002 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. 11 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables

Constraining the Spin of the Black Hole in Fairall 9 with Suzaku
S. Schmoll, J. M. Miller, M. Volonteri, E. Cackett, C. S. Reynolds, A. C. Fabian, L. W. Brenneman, G. Miniutti, L. C. Gallo, arXiv:0908.0013 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: Accepted for publication in ApJ

Isotropic Mid-Infrared Emission from the Central 100 pc of Active Galaxies
N. A. Levenson, J. T. Radomski, C. Packham, R. E. Mason, J. J. Schaefer, C. M. Telesco, arXiv:0908.0036 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 10 pages, 5 figures; accepted for publication in ApJ

AGN/starburst connection in action: the half million second RGS spectrum of NGC1365
M.Guainazzi, G.Risaliti, A.Nucita, Junfeng Wang, S.Bianchi, R.Soria, A.Zezas, arXiv:0908.0268 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics, 13 pages, 10 figures

Density Profiles in Seyfert Outflows
Ehud Behar, arXiv:0908.0539 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: submitted to ApJ

A 100-kpc inverse Compton X-ray halo around 4C60.07 at z=3.79
Ian Smail, B.D. Lehmer, R.J. Ivison, D.M. Alexander, R.G. Bower, J.A. Stevens, J.E. Geach, C.A. Scharf, K.E.K. Coppin, W.J.M. van Breugel, arXiv:0908.0819 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: ApJL, in press

---

Stars, Supernovae and Planets

The interactions of winds from massive young stellar objects: X-ray emission, dynamics, and cavity evolution
E. R. Parkin, J. M. Pittard, M. G. Hoare, N. J. Wright, J. J. Drake, arXiv:0908.0468 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 19 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

3D models of radiatively driven colliding winds in massive O+O star binaries - II. Thermal radio to sub-mm emission
J. M. Pittard, arXiv:0908.1003 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 25 pages, 21 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Radiation Hydrodynamics of Line-Driven Winds
Stan Owocki, arXiv:0908.1565 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 14 pages. to appear in "Recent Directions in Astrophysical Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiation Hydrodynamics"

Stephen Hawking schools Investors Business Daily

Investors Business Daily, perhaps better known for exceptionally dishonest climate change denialism editorials, now presents conservatism's most cogent arguments against health care reform:

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

Once the rest of the world had stopped laughing at Investors Business Daily it was left to Hawking to quietly state the obvious (as reported by Hugh Muir in the Guardian).

"I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," he told us. "I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."

After being so rightly ridiculed for their stupidity IBD removed the offending passage from their editorial without having the intellectual ability to realise (or honesty to admit) that it invalidated the whole premise of their misinformed screed (redacted editorial here). Clearly they have never heard of the "No true Scotsman" fallacy either.

Color variation in stars around M82, selected for continuum subtraction

Postage stamp images (B, V and I bands mapped to blue, green and red in the images) of 100 square arcsecond fields around select stars (and occasionally background galaxies) from the HST ACS mosaic images of M82.