We present the trigonometric parallax, proper motion, and structure of three methanol masers from the Southern Hemisphere Parallax Interferometric Radio Astrometry Legacy Project (SπRALS). All three masers have better than 5% parallax accuracy, which we attribute to the new inverse MultiView calibration technique.

Great progress has been made using VLBI techniques to measure trigonometric parallaxes to masers associated with young, high-mass stars, in order to map the spiral structure of the Milky Way. However, large numbers of parallax distance have only been obtained over about half of the Galaxy. Here I discuss the use of 3-dimensional kinematic distances for completing the map with many sources well past the Galactic Center.

Knowledge of the effects of burial depth and burial duration on seed viability and, consequently, seedbank persistence of Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri S. Watson) and waterhemp [Amaranthus tuberculatus (Moq.) J. D. Sauer] ecotypes can be used for the development of efficient weed management programs. This is of particular interest, given the great fecundity of both species and, consequently, their high seedbank replenishment potential. Seeds of both species collected from five different locations across the United States were investigated in seven states (sites) with different soil and climatic conditions. Seeds were placed at two depths (0 and 15 cm) for 3 yr. Each year, seeds were retrieved, and seed damage (shrunken, malformed, or broken) plus losses (deteriorated and futile germination) and viability were evaluated. Greater seed damage plus loss averaged across seed origin, burial depth, and year was recorded for lots tested at Illinois (51.3% and 51.8%) followed by Tennessee (40.5% and 45.1%) and Missouri (39.2% and 42%) for A. palmeri and A. tuberculatus, respectively. The site differences for seed persistence were probably due to higher volumetric water content at these sites. Rates of seed demise were directly proportional to burial depth (α=0.001), whereas the percentage of viable seeds recovered after 36 mo on the soil surface ranged from 4.1% to 4.3% compared with 5% to 5.3% at the 15-cm depth for A. palmeri and A. tuberculatus, respectively. Seed viability loss was greater in the seeds placed on the soil surface compared with the buried seeds. The greatest influences on seed viability were burial conditions and time and site-specific soil conditions, more so than geographical location. Thus, management of these weed species should focus on reducing seed shattering, enhancing seed removal from the soil surface, or adjusting tillage systems.

The exclusive association of Class II methanol masers with high mass star formation regions and in turn spiral arms, makes them ideal tracers of spiral structure. The bright and compact nature of masers also makes them good sources for Very Long Baseline Interferometry, with their fluxes visible on some of the longest terrestrial baselines. The success of the BeSSeL (Bar and Spiral Structure Legacy) project has demonstrated the use of masers in large scale high–precision trigonometric parallax surveys. This survey was then able to precisely map the spiral arms visible from the Northern Hemisphere and recalculate the fundamental Milky Way parameters R0 and θ0. The majority of the Milky Way is visible from the Southern Hemisphere and at the present time the Australian LBA (Long Baseline Array) is the only Southern Hemisphere array capable of taking high–precision trigonometric parallax data. We present the progress–to–date of the Southern Hemisphere experiment. We will also unveil a new broadband Southern Hemisphere array, capable of much faster parallax turnaround and atmospheric calibration.

Maser astrometry is now providing parallaxes with accuracies of ±10 micro-arcseconds, which corresponds to 10% accuracy at a distance of 10 kpc! The VLBA BeSSeL Survey and the Japanese VERA project have measured ≈200 parallaxes for masers associated with young, high-mass stars. Since these stars are found in spiral arms, we now are directly mapping the spiral structure of the Milky Way. Combining parallaxes, proper motions, and Doppler velocities, we have complete 6-dimensional phase-space information. Modeling these data yields the distance to the Galactic Center, the rotation speed of the Galaxy at the Sun, and the nature of the rotation curve.

Amaranthus species, commonly referred to as “pigweeds,” are among the most troublesome weeds in many crop production systems. Effective control of these species often begins with an understanding of their biological and reproductive characteristics. At two sites in Missouri, six pigweed species (redroot pigweed, common waterhemp, spiny amaranth, tumble pigweed, smooth pigweed, and Palmer amaranth) were established in 60-m rows spaced 1.5 m apart. At biweekly intervals, plant heights and dry weights were recorded for each species; seed numbers were estimated at the end of the growing season. Dry weight of Palmer amaranth was up to 65% greater than those of all other species 2 wk after planting (WAP). Palmer amaranth biomass accumulation remained greater than those of the other species throughout the season and at the end of the season was 1.2- and 2.7-fold greater than those of redroot and tumble pigweed, respectively. Palmer amaranth was approximately 10 cm tall 2 WAP (37% taller than the next tallest species, redroot pigweed) and approximately 24 cm tall 4 WAP (45% taller than redroot pigweed). In contrast, common waterhemp had not emerged 2 WAP, and plant dry weight 4 WAP was approximately 11 and 26% those of Palmer amaranth and redroot pigweed, respectively. Final plant height ranged from 58 (tumble pigweed) to 208 cm (Palmer amaranth). Redroot pigweed, smooth pigweed, common waterhemp, and Palmer amaranth plants each produced over 250,000 seeds plant−1. Spiny amaranth and tumble pigweed produced approximately 114,000 and 50,000 seeds plant−1, respectively. Common waterhemp produced 535 seeds g−1 of total plant dry weight; this seed production was 1.4-, 1.4-, 2.0-, 3.4-, and 3.4-fold greater than those of redroot pigweed, smooth pigweed, Palmer amaranth, tumble pigweed, and spiny amaranth, respectively. Because the timing for many postemergence herbicides depends on weed height, rapid growth shortly after emergence reduces the time frame for optimum control of species such as Palmer amaranth. Delayed emergence also could result in escaped common waterhemp. Escape of only a few plants could result in a rapid increase in seed populations in the soil seed bank and may select for late-emerging biotypes.

The present study is the first record of twinning in Lagenorhynchus acutus and indeed any Lagenorhynchus sp. Both foetuses were male and located in the left uterine horn, had distinct grossly normal placentas and amniotic sacs, and were therefore likely dizygotic twins. The twins were an incidental finding in an animal that died of a systemic Brucella ceti infection.

Can concerns for one’s reputation cause non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to alter their behavior to the detriment of achieving their policy goals? To answer this question, we explore the relationship between NGOs and their donors. Our theoretical model reveals that reputation can be a key piece of information in the decision to fund an NGO’s activities. Reputation can become so important to the NGO’s survival that it interferes with the long-term policy goals of the organization. As such, reputations can become a double-edged sword, simultaneously providing the information donors seek while constraining NGOs from realizing policy goals. We apply this logic to the problem of NGO accountability, which has received increasing attention in recent years, and demonstrate that the tools used by donors to improve accountability can trigger unintended consequences. We illustrate this strategic dynamic with two types of NGO activity: water improvement and international crisis mediation.

We made dynamical black hole mass measurements from nineteen Seyfert 2 galaxies which host sub-parsec H2O maser disks using the H2O megamaser technique. The nearly perfect Keplerian rotation curves in many of these maser systems guarantee the high accuracy and precision of the black hole mass measurements. With the stellar velocity dispersion (σ∗) of the galaxy bulges measured with the Dupont 2.5 m telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in the South and the Apache Point Observatory (APO) 3.5m telescope in the North, we found that H2O maser galaxies, most of which host pseudo bulges rather than classical bulges, do not all follow the MBH–σ∗ relation shown in the literature. This result is well consistent with the latest findings by Kormendy & Ho (2013) that only early type galaxies and galaxies with classical bulges follow a tight MBH–σ∗ relation. Such a tight correlation may not exist in pseudo bulge galaxies.

Some evidence suggests that Ca and vitamin D supplements affect cancer risk; however, it is uncertain whether the effects are due to Ca, vitamin D or the combination. We investigated the effect of Ca supplements without co-administered vitamin D on cancer risk. Medline, Embase and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, reference lists of meta-analyses and two clinical trial registries were searched for randomised, placebo-controlled trials of Ca supplements ( ≥ 500 mg/d), with ≥ 100 participants and duration >1 year. The lead authors of eligible trials supplied data on cancer outcomes. Trial-level data were analysed using random-effects meta-analyses and patient-level data using Cox proportional hazards models. A total of sixteen trials were eligible, six had no data available, ten provided trial-level data (n 10 496, mean duration 3·9 years), and of these, four provided patient-level data (n 7221, median duration 3·5 years). In the meta-analysis of trial-level data, allocation to Ca did not alter the risk of total cancer (relative risk 0·95, 95 % CI 0·76, 1·18, P= 0·63), colorectal cancer (relative risk 1·38, 95 % CI 0·89, 2·15, P= 0·15), breast cancer (relative risk 1·01, 95 % CI 0·64, 1·59, P= 0·97) or cancer-related mortality (relative risk 0·96, 95 % CI 0·74, 1·24, P= 0·75), but reduced the risk of prostate cancer (relative risk 0·54, 95 % CI 0·30, 0·96, P= 0·03), although there were few events. The meta-analysis of patient-level data showed similar results, with no effect of Ca on the risk of total cancer (hazard ratio 1·07, 95 % CI 0·89, 1·28, P= 0·50). Ca supplements without co-administered vitamin D did not alter total cancer risk over 4 years, although the meta-analysis lacked power to detect very small effects, or those with a longer latency.

Recently, astrometric accuracy approaching ~ 10 μas has become routinely possible with Very Long Baseline Interferometry. Since, unlike at optical wavelengths, interstellar dust is transparent at radio wavelengths, parallaxes and proper motions can now be measured for massive young stars (with maser emission) across the Galaxy, enabling direct measurements of the spiral structure of the Milky Way. Fitting the full 3D position and velocity vectors to a simple model of the Galaxy yields extremely accurate values for its fundamental parameters, including the distance to the Galactic Center, R0=8.38 ± 0.18 kpc, and circular rotation at the Solar Circle, Θ0 = 243 ± 7 km s−1. The rotation curve of the Milky Way, based for the first time on ‘gold standard’ distances and complete 3D information, appears to be very flat.

We report on high-resolution astrometry of 22 GHz H2O maser emission in the Galactic massive star-forming region W51 Main/South using the Very Long Baseline Array. We measured the trigonometric parallax of W51 Main/South to be 0.185 ± 0.010 mas, corresponding to a distance of 5.41+0.31−0.28 kpc. The H2O maser emission in W51 Main/South traces four powerful bipolar outflows within a 0.4 pc size region, three of which are associated with dusty molecular hot cores and/or hyper- or ultra-compact Hii regions. The maser outflows in W51 Main/South have a relatively small range of internal 3D speeds, suggesting that multiple speed maser outflows in other Galactic massive star-forming regions may come from separate young stellar objects closely spaced on the sky.

Water vapor megamasers from the center of active galaxies provide a powerful tool to trace accretion disks at sub-parsec resolution and, through an entirely geometrical method, measure direct distances to galaxies up to 200 Mpc. The Megamaser Cosmology Project (MCP) is formed by a team of astronomers with the aim of identifying new maser systems, and mapping their emission at high angular resolution to determine their distance. Two types of observations are necessary to measure a distance: single-dish monitoring to measure the acceleration of gas in the disk, and sensitive VLBI imaging to measure the angular size of the disk, measure the rotation curve, and model radial displacement of the maser feature. The ultimate goal of the MCP is to make a precise measurement of H0 by measuring such distances to at least 10 maser galaxies in the Hubble flow. We present here the preliminary results from a new maser system, Mrk 1419. Through a model of the rotation from the systemic masers assuming a narrow ring, and combining these results with the acceleration measurement from the Green Bank Telescope, we determine a distance to Mrk 1419 of 81 ± 10 Mpc. Given that the disk shows a significant warp that may not be entirely traced by our current observations, more sensitive observations and more sophisticated disk modeling will be essential to improve our distance estimation to this galaxy.

This review summarizes current advances in astrometry of masers as they pertain to large-scale Galactic structure and dynamics and Local Group cosmology. Parallaxes and proper motions have now been measured for more than 60 massive star forming regions using the Japanese VERA array, the EVN and the VLBA. These results provide “gold standard” distances and 3-dimensional velocities for sources across the Milky Way, revealing its spiral structure. Modeling these data tightly constrains the fundamental parameters of the Milky Way: R0 and Θ0. Proper motions of Local Group galaxies have been measured, improving our understanding of the history and fate of the Group.

We report trigonometric parallx measurements for H2O masers around the protoplanetary nebula OH 231.8+4.2 carried out with the Very Long Baseline Array. Based on astrometric monitoring for 1 year, we measured a trigonometric parallax of 0.89 ± 0.04 mas, corresponding to a distance of 1.12+0.05−0.05 kpc. This is the most accurate distance to OH 231.8+4.2, and the first one based on an annual parallax measurement. The distribution and internal motions of the H2O masers are consistent with the bipolar outflow suggested in literatures.

In the first seven months of 2008, eighteen Cuvier's beaked whales (Ziphius cavirostris), four Sowerby's beaked whales (Mesoplodon bidens), five unidentified beaked whales and twenty-nine long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melas) were reported stranded in the UK and Ireland. Decomposition of those animals investigated puts the predicted time of death at mid-January. Concerns that an unusual mortality event had taken place prompted further investigations. Most carcasses were too decomposed for necropsy. A summary of findings is presented here. Although the initial stranding of five Cuvier's beaked whales in Scotland shared some similarities with atypical mass stranding events linked in time and space to mid-frequency naval sonars, there were two important differences with the remaining strandings during this period. First, the geographical range of the event was very wide and second, the strandings occurred over a prolonged period of several months. Both of these factors could be related to the fact that the mortalities occurred offshore and the carcasses drifted ashore. The cause(s) of this high number of strandings of mixed offshore cetacean species during this period remain undetermined.

Zeeman measurements of OH masers are used to probe the magnetic field around regions of massive star formation. Previous observations suggested that OH maser field directions were aligned in a clockwise sense in the Milky Way, but recent data from a large-scale VLA survey do not support this hypothesis. However, these observations suggest that the magnetic field of the Milky Way is correlated on kiloparsec scales.