How do neutron stars evolve?

A possible evolutionary history of neutron stars is delineated, ranging from star formation through supernova explosions, X-ray and pulsar stages to an eventual pulsar turnoff via spin alignment, or magnetic field decay. New is the emphasis that there should be two populations of pulsars, the slow and the fast one, according to their successive formation in a binary system. The two pulsar populations are related to two phenotypes of supernova remnants, of which Cas A and the Crab are the best known examples.     

Neues vom Ontong-Java-Plateau (Westpazifik)

For the investigation of climatic history for the last 65 million years, several holes were drilled in 1990 on the Ontong Java Plateau by the drilling vessel Joides Resolution, under the auspices of the international Ocean Drilling Program. The Ontong Java Plateau is the largest basalt plateau on earth, and was formed in the Middle Cretaceous. From the core material, seismic reflectors from the overlying sediments can be associated with specific, climate-related oceanic events. For the cyclic sediments of the last 2 million years, high-resolution isotope curves were generated which depict the two dominant Milankovitch cycles with periods of 100 000 and 41000 years.     

Monitoring of iodinated X-ray contrast media in surface water

A monitoring programme was carried out in order to determine iodinated X-ray contrast media (ICM) in the River Danube and to investigate the raw water quality for drinking water production at Langenau waterworks. The study revealed that the maximum concentrations of ICM (over 500 ng l(-1) for diatrizoic acid and iopamidol) were found in 2h-composite samples taken from the downstream of the Ulm/Neu-Ulm metropolitan area. By means of a concentration profile over one month the highest ICM concentrations were observed on weekdays. The extended data evaluation with principal component analysis shows that the upstream and downstream samples had different pattern of variations in ICM concentration and also demonstrates a clear change in ICM composition by the discharge of municipal wastewater. In addition to load profiles of ICM, time-dependent plots of principal component 1 exhibited peaks, indicating a short-term discharge of ICM between the two sampling sites. In conclusion, a point source for ICM contamination between the sampling sites in Ulm upstream and Leipheim downstream seems to be the reasonable explanation for peak ICM concentrations. Due to the observed high variations of ICM concentrations in river, the evaluation of natural waters by means of a single analysis is not representative.