The primary goal of the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite is to provide a map of the cosmic microwave background with unprecedented precision. But along the way, you have to take into account that there is stuff in between us and the farthest edges of the universe — in particular, there’s all sorts of dust here in our home galaxy. You can even become famous just studying dust; one of the most highly cited papers in all of astrophysics is a 1997 map of galactic dust.

Dust isn’t only an annoyance — it’s also pretty. Planck hasn’t released any data about the CMB yet, but they just released a map of the cold dust in our local vicinity, looking for all the world like an abstract expressionist painting. (I want to suggest a particular artist, but my mind is blanking.) Click to embiggen.

It’s a false-color image, of course; the dust is very cold (tens of degrees above absolute zero), and the image is constructed from microwaves, not from visible light. You can see the plane of the galaxy, and the filamentary structures arising from all the churning of the interstellar medium from supernovae, star formation, magnetic fields, and so on.

Okay, pretty time is over. Let’s see the CMB.

Astrology doesn’t work.

Shocker, I know. I’ve written on this topic extensively, but of course astrologers send me email — seriously — saying how their flavor of magic works, or that I wasn’t fair, or that if only I faced the right way and triantrilated my fibbertygibbet, astrology would be correct, despite my article very carefully showing that no matter how you slice it, astrology doesn’t work.

Obviously, astrology’s horse isn’t quite dead yet, so beating it isn’t such a bad idea. My friend Moriel Schottlender wrote up a nice dissection of astrology walking through the steps showing (despite many astrologers’ claims) that gravity clearly is not the force behind astrology. She even includes math.

Of course, those of us in the reality-based Universe knew this, since when tested properly astrology fails tests devised even by astrologers themselves (see my article linked above). So there is no force behind astrology, except that of the human mind to fool itself. Because of that, we’ll always be debunking bunk like this. I guess that’s one thing astronomers and astrologers really do have in common: there will always be work for us.

Men diagnosed with erectile dysfunction probably wouldn’t be too keen to hear that they might have bigger problems, but a new study in the journal Circulation reinforces that unfortunate idea. Given that both ED and heart attacks can result from restricted arteries that prevent blood from flowing freely, doctors have long suspected that they might be connected. Now, the study says, there’s evidence that one precedes the other. From The Los Angeles Times:

The results are probably not too surprising, added Dr. Robert Kloner, a cardiologist at USC’s Keck School of Medicine, “because arteries in the penis are smaller, so atherosclerosis shows up there sooner,” perhaps three to four years before the onset of cardiovascular disease.

The take-home message, both experts said, is that when a patient seeks treatment for ED, typically from a general practitioner, he should be given a full physical work-up to look for heart disease and referred to a cardiologist.

The guidelines for treating men with ED already state that they should be examined for cardiac problems. Kloner says updated guidelines in a few years could make that recommendation more forceful, so doctors can make sure a penis attack doesn’t become a heart attack.

Related Content:
Discoblog: Had a Heart Attack? Start Eating Chocolate
Discoblog: Erectile Dysfunction Could Signal a Heart Attack

Image: iStockphoto