In boxing a devastating puncher has heavy hands. On a cosmic scale, the high-speed 'jets' spat out by black holes pack a lot of power because they contain heavy atoms, astronomers have found. Black-hole jets recycle matter and energy into space and can affect when and where a galaxy forms stars.

Astronomers have known for decades that black-hole jets contain electrons, which are low-mass particles, but using the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton space telescope and CSIRO's Compact Array radio telescope in northwest NSW, a research team found the first evidence of heavy atoms — iron and nickel — in the jets from a 'typical' black hole known as 4U1630-47.

More pollution causes thunderstorms to leave behind larger, deeper, longer lasting clouds, according to a new paper which can help provide a gauge for the accuracy of weather and climate models.

Researchers had thought that pollution causes larger and longer-lasting storm clouds by making thunderheads draftier through a process known as convection. But atmospheric scientist Jiwen Fan and her colleagues show that pollution instead makes clouds linger by decreasing the size and increasing the lifespan of cloud and ice particles. The difference affects how scientists represent clouds in climate models.

A new paper says that two compounds derived from garlic, diallyl sulfide and ajoene, significantly reduce the contamination risk of Cronobacter sakazakii in the production of dry infant formula powder. 

The discovery could make the product safer to consume, easing the minds of new mothers who can't or opt not to breastfeed.

"A trace dose of these two compounds is extremely effective in killing C. sakazakii in the food manufacturing process," says Xiaonan Lu, corresponding author and assistant professor of food safety engineering at the University of British Columbia. "They have the potential to eliminate the pathogen before it ever reaches the consumer."

Our Galaxy may have been swallowing "pills" — clouds of gas with a magnetic wrapper — to keep making stars for the past eight billion years, according to CSIRO astronomer Dr. Alex Hill and colleagues, in their study of the Smith Cloud, a large gas cloud falling into our Galaxy from intergalactic space.

Named after its discoverer, Gail Bieger (née Smith), the Smith Cloud is at least two million times the mass of our Sun. If it were visible to the naked eye, it would look 20 times wider than the full Moon. The Smith Cloud is one of thousands of "high velocity clouds" of hydrogen gas flying around the outskirts of our Galaxy.  

A group has investigated the impact of cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness training on incarcerated youths and found that mindfulness training, a meditation-based therapy, can improve their attention skills, paving the way to greater self-control over emotions and actions.

The authors say this the first study to show that mindfulness training can be used in combination with cognitive behavioral therapy to protect attentional functioning in high-risk incarcerated youth.

 Type E botulism, a neuromuscular disease caused when birds eat fish infected with toxin-producing bacteria, has become a deadly menace that stalks the loons, gulls and other water birds of the Great Lakes region.

Cases of the disease are on the rise, killing approximately 10,000 more waterfowl in 2007 than when it was first reported in 1963. 

To understand die-off origin and distribution, ocean engineers from the Florida Atlantic University Institute for Ocean Systems Engineering in Dania Beach, Florida are using their expertise in experimental hydrodynamics. They have teamed with the U.S. Geological Survey to help develop a novel way of tracking waterfowl carcasses to determine the source of lethal outbreaks that infect fish eaten by waterbirds.