10—Cleveland Daily Banner—Wednesday, January 6, 2016
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Rare galaxy with 2 black
holes has 1 starved of stars
KISSIMMEE, Fla. (AP) — An
astrophysicist has discovered
something even rarer than a
double-black hole galaxy: a
skinny black hole.
The University of Colorado
at Boulder’s Julie Comerford
reported her findings Tuesday
at the American Astronomical
Society’s annual meeting in
Kissimmee, Florida.
To date, only 12 galaxies are
known to exist with two black
holes
in
their
midst,
Comerford said. Normally
galaxies have a single supermassive black hole at the center, equivalent to 1 million to 1
billion times the mass of our
sun.
But in this newly identified
galaxy about 1 billion lightyears away, one of the two
black holes is significantly
smaller than the other and
apparently starved of stars.
Black holes typically are surrounded by stars; this one
appears “naked.”
Comerford speculates the
slim black hole lost mass in
the collision of two galaxies
that merged into this one —” a
crash diet.” Or it’s a rare
example of an intermediatesized black hole that likely will
morph over time into a supermassive monster.
Astronomers have yet to
confirm an intermediate-size
black hole, which makes
Comerford’s streamlined target
extra tantalizing. Intermediate
black holes are 100 to 1 million times the mass of our sun.
Comerford used the Hubble
AP Photo
In thIs July 16, 2014, file photo, a bee works on a honeycomb
at the Gene Brandi Apiary in Los Banos, Calif. The Environmental
Protection Agency has found that a major pesticide harms honeybees when used on cotton and citrus but not on other big crops like
corn, berries and tobacco.
EPA: pesticide harms
bees in some cases
WASHINGTON (AP) — A major
pesticide harms honeybees when
used on cotton and citrus but not
on other big crops like corn,
berries and tobacco, the
Environmental Protection Agency
found.
In its first scientific risk assessment of the much-debated class of
pesticides called neonicotinoids
and how they affect bees on a
chronic long-term basis, the EPA
found in some cases the chemical
didn’t harm bees or their hives but
in other cases it posed a significant risk. It mostly depended on
the crop, a nuanced answer that
neither clears the way for an outright ban nor is a blanket goahead for continued use.
Honeybees don’t just make
honey; about one-third of the
human diet comes from insectpollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of
that pollination. Bees and other
pollinators worldwide have been in
trouble with declining numbers.
Some advocacy groups solely
blame neonicotinoids — they
works on insects’ central nervous
systems — and call for bans on
the chemicals. Recent scientific
studies have pointed to problems
and pesticide makers dispute
those studies. Europe banned the
pesticide class, and then lifted the
ban. Top bee scientists have said
that class of pesticide is only one
of a number of factors hurting
bees, not the sole cause of their
decline.
Before acting, EPA said it needed more specific and targeted
research and this is the first of
four planned assessments of risk
of specific neonicotinoids. It will be
announced Wednesday, but The
Associated Press obtained the
summary earlier and the chief
pesticide official explained the
results in an interview. The study
was done by the EPA and
California’s
environmental
agency, with a similar one done by
Canada being released Wednesday
at the same time.
EPA analysis of detailed tests
found a clear level of concentration of the pesticide imidacloprid,
the most common neonicotinoid,
in which things start to go awry. If
n ectar brought back to the hive
from worker bees had more than
25 parts per billion of the chemical, “there’s a significant effect,”
namely fewer bees, less honey and
“a less robust hive,” said Jim
Jones, EPA’s assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention.
But if the nectar chemical level
was below 25 parts per billion, it
was as if there were no imidacloprid at all, with no ill effects,
Jones said.
There was a clear threshold at
25 parts per billion of harm or no
harm, not really much of a grey
area, he added.
The study also found that it was
the crop more than anything that
determined if it was above or
below that harmful level, Jones
said. While nectar of cotton and
citrus fruits were above the harmful level, the levels were not harmful when it came to corn, most
vegetables, berries and tobacco.
Other crops weren’t conclusive
and need more testing, including
legumes, melons, tree nuts and
herbs.
Also, the controversial practice
of treating seeds with the chemical
seemed not to harm bees, Jones
said.
The nation’s top crop — in
terms of production value in billions of dollars — is corn. And imidacloprid treatment of this crop is
not a problem, Jones said. Same
goes for hay and wheat, which are
the nation’s third and fourth most
valuable crops. Soybeans, the No.
2 crop, and No. 5 crop almonds
are in the still-to-be-determined
category. The problem crops of
cotton and citrus are No. 7 and 9
in U.S. production value in 2014,
according
to
Agriculture
Department statistics.
The study looked just at honeybees, not bumblebees. A 2015
study in the field in the journal
Nature found neonicotinoids in
general harmed bumblebees, but
not honeybees. Jones said EPA
used honeybees because they are
a good surrogate for all pollinators.
This is a draft of a scientific
report, not a regulation, Jones
said. After public comments and
the report is finalized, then EPA
may act.
“The literature is all over the
place, which is why we wanted to
draft a protocol that we knew
would be scientifically robust
enough,” Jones said.
EPA required imidaclopridmaker Bayer Crop Sciences to run
specific tests and then the federal
agency analyzed the results for the
report, Jones said. Imidacloprid is
used under several different
names because it is off patent,
Jones said.
Bayer has long maintained its
pesticides are safe and has found
what it considers problems in previous studies. But the EPA only
shared the risk assessment summary and provided Jones for the
interview on the condition that the
EPA study was not shared with
anyone before the Wednesday
announcement.
University of Illinois entomologist May Berenbaum, who in 2014
was awarded the National Medal
of Science, said last year that two
2015 studies in the journal Nature
“are more nails in the systemic
neonicotinoid coffin.”
Space Telescope and NASA’s
Chandra X-ray Observatory in
her study. She discovered this
latest two-black hole galaxy —
her fourth — last year. Finding
a potential intermediate-size
black hole inside was “an extra
bonus,” she told reporters.
The first double-black hole
galaxy was found in 2003 by
accident,
according
to
Comerford. She is trying to
systematically uncover more.
The findings should shed light
on the evolution of black
holes.
This particular galaxy is catalogued as SDSS J1126+2944.
—Online:
American
Astronomical
Society: http://aas.org/meetings/aas227
nAsA/Cu-Boulder via AP
thIs ImAge provided by CUBoulder shows the galaxy SDSS
J1126+2944 taken with the
Hubble Space Telescope and
the Chandra X-ray Observatory,
with an arrow placed by the
source pointing to a black hole
that lost most of its stars. The
University of Colorado’s Julie
Comerford has discovered
something even rarer than a
double-black hole galaxy: a skinny black hole. Her findings were
reported Tuesday at the
American Astronomical Society’s
annual meeting.