We investigate the chemical abundances of NGC 3603 in the Milky Way, of 30 Doradus in the Large Magellanic Cloud, and of N66 in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Mid-infrared observations with the Infrared Spectrograph on board the Spitzer Space Telescope allow us to probe the properties of distinct physical regions within each object, the central ionizing cluster, the surrounding ionized gas, photod...

We investigate the chemical abundances of NGC 3603 in the Milky Way, of 30 Doradus in the Large Magellanic Cloud, and of N66 in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Mid-infrared observations with the Infrared Spectrograph on board the Spitzer Space Telescope allow us to probe the properties of distinct physical regions within each object, the central ionizing cluster, the surrounding ionized gas, photod...

We investigate the chemical abundances of NGC 3603 in the Milky Way, of 30 Doradus in the Large Magellanic Cloud, and of N66 in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Mid-infrared observations with the Infrared Spectrograph on board the Spitzer Space Telescope allow us to probe the properties of distinct physical regions within each object, the central ionizing cluster, the surrounding ionized gas, photod...

We examine the practice of deriving interstellar medium (ISM) abundances from low-resolution spectroscopy of GRB afterglows. We argue that the multi-ion single-component curve-of-growth analysis technique systematically underestimates the column densities of the metal-line profiles commonly observed for GRB. This systematic underestimate is accentuated by the fact that many GRB line-profiles (e...

Gas in galactic disks is collected by gravitational instabilities into giant atomic-molecular complexes, but only the inner, molecular parts of these structures are able to collapse to form stars. Determining what controls the ratio of atomic to molecular hydrogen in complexes is therefore a significant problem in star formation and galactic evolution. In this paper we use the model of H2 forma...

The earliest evidence for animal life comes from the fossil record of 24-isopropylcholestane, a sterane found in Cryogenian deposits, and whose precursors are found in modern demosponges, but not choanoflagellates, calcareans, hexactinellids, or eumetazoans. However, many modern demosponges are also characterized by the presence of siliceous spicules, and there are no convincing demosponge spic...

Isotope anomalies provide important information about early solar system evolution. Here we report molybdenum isotope abundances determined in samples of various meteorite classes. There is no fractionation of molybdenum isotopes in our sample set within 0.1 h and no contribution from the extinct radionuclide Tc at mass 97 (Tc/Mo < 3× 10). Instead, we observe clear anomalies in bulk iron meteor...

We compared sponge spicules occurring in surface sediments with those of a living sponge community in a shallow-water reef environment of Bocas del Toro archipelago, Panama, with the goal of evaluating how faithfully spicular analysis reflects the living sponge community. Most megasclere morphotypes present in living species are also found in sediment. On the contrary, microscleres are underrep...