There is considerable evidence that the circumnuclear regions of galaxies are intimately related to their host galaxies, most directly through their bars. There is also convincing evidence for relations between the properties of supermassive black holes in the nuclei of galaxies and those of their host galaxies. It is much less clear, however, how

With the main goal of investigating the AGN and/or Starburst nature of LINERs, we have studied their FIR properties. We confirm their heterogeneous nature and three families of LINERs have been identified: normal spiral galaxies, nuclear Starbursts, and ongoing mergers.

The RXTE All-Sky monitor shows new detections of the black hole binary, XTE J1118+480, reported to be in optical outburst (ATEL #383). The source is first seen on 2005 January 9, with an average flux of 15(4) mCrab at 2-12 keV. The flux increases only slightly to 16(3) mCrab on Jan. 10, and to 19(3) mCrab on Jan. 11. The X-ray hardness ratios

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We present Cu and Zn abundances for a sample of 30 stars spanning a metallicity range between solar and [Fe/H]=-3. LTE abundances were obtained using Kurucz model atmospheres and the near UV lines of Cu I 3273.95 and Zn I 3302.58 A observed at high spectral resolution. The trend of [Zn/Fe] vs [Fe/H] is essentially constant over the whole

The experimentally measured spectral density of current noise in Josephson junctions provides direct evidence for the existence of zero-point fluctuations. Assuming that the total vacuum energy associated with these fluctuations cannot exceed the presently measured dark energy of the universe, we predict an upper cutoff frequency of νc=(1.69±0.05)