Create your own free news widgets.

The center of the Milky Way presents astronomers with a paradox: It holds young stars, but no one is sure how those stars got there. The galactic center is wracked with powerful gravitational tides stirred by a 4 million solar-mass black hole. Those tides should rip apart molecular clouds that act as stellar nurseries, preventing stars from forming in place. Yet the alternative -- stars falling inward after forming elsewhere -- should be a rare occurrence.

The discovery more than a decade ago of leptin, an appetite-suppressing hormone secreted by fat tissue, generated headlines and great hopes for an effective treatment for obesity. But hopes dimmed when it was found that obese people are unresponsive to leptin due to development of leptin resistance in the brain. Now, researchers at Children's Hospital Boston report the first agents demonstrated to sensitize the brain to leptin: oral drugs that are already FDA-approved and known to be safe. Findings were published January 7 by the journal Cell Metabolism.

CORDOBA, ARGENTINA (MARKET WIRE) Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas) -- On December 23, Amper Central Solar S.A. (Moura, Portugal), a subsidiary of Acciona Energy (Sarriguren, Spain), inaugurated the world's largest photovoltaic solar power plant in Portugal, the 46-megawatt Central Solar de Amareleja.

We are only beginning to discover how vast and strange our solar system truly is.

Amtech Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASYS), a global supplier of production and automation systems and related supplies for the manufacture of solar cells, semiconductors, and silicon wafers, toda...

The emerging field of transparent and flexible electronics not only holds the promise of a new class of device components that would be more environmentally benign than current electronics; being able to print transparent circuits on low-cost and flexible plastic substrates also opens up the possibility of a wide range of new applications, ranging from windshield displays and flexible solar cells to clear toys and artificial skins and even sensor implants. Three broad application areas for this technology are taking shape: transparent displays; flexible displays; and transparent/flexible electronics. Traditional materials used for transparent electronics include indium tin oxide films and indium oxide nanowires. In their search for materials that can offer even higher mobility and therefore even better performance, researchers have turned to single-walled carbon nanotubes .New work at the University of Southern California has now demonstrated the great potential of massively aligned si

The Shidler College of Business will be the first school on the University of Hawaii at Manoa campus to install solar panels.

Washington DC (SPX) Jan 08, 2009 - A NASA-funded study describes how extreme solar eruptions could have severe consequences for communications, power grids and other technology on Earth.

Yingli Green Energy has entered into a sales contract with Goldbeck Solar GmbH, a German solar photovoltaic (PV) systems specialist that works primarily on industrial size projects. Under the terms of the contract, Yingli is expected to supply a minimum of 15 megawatts (MW) of PV modules to Goldbeck Solar in 2009.

Solar Power Inc. (SPI) has entered into a one-year supply agreement with JA Solar Holding Co. Ltd. JA Solar has committed to supply up to 60 megawatts (MW) of its 6-inch polycrystalline photovoltaic (PV) cells based on monthly requirements from SPI.