Hot flashes before menopause? It can happen

Public release date: 12-Jun-2013
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Contact: Jenny Bahun
jbahun@fallscommunications.com
216-696-0229
The North American Menopause Society (NAMS)

CLEVELAND, Ohio (June 12, 2013)More than half of middle-aged women who still have regular cycles have hot flashes. Asian and Hispanic women are less likely to have them than white women, but compared with previous studies, the figures are surprisingly high, showed a survey of some 1,500 women published online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS).

The survey, conducted by researchers at Group Health (a large healthcare system in the Pacific Northwest) and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, consisted of a diverse group of women, including whites, blacks, Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders, women of mixed ethnicity, Vietnamese, Filipinos, Japanese, East Indians, Chinese, and other Asians. The women were 45 to 56 years old, had regular cycles, had no skipped periods, and were not taking hormones.

A surprising 55% of them reported having hot flashes or night sweats. (Previous studies pegged the highest rates at below 50%.) The groups with the highest proportions reporting hot flashes or night sweats were Native Americans (67%) and black (61%) women, but the differences between these groups and white women weren't statistically significant. Fifty-eight percent of white women, the largest ethnic group, reported having hot flashes or night sweats.

Compared with them, Asian and Hispanic women were significantly less likely to have these symptoms. Among Asian women, 31% of Filipino, 26% of Japanese, 25% of East Indian, 23% of "other Asian," and 18% of Chinese women reported having hot flashes or night sweats. Twenty-six percent of Hispanic women reported these symptoms.

Interestingly, white women who had symptoms were more likely to include soy in their diet, and white women who never had symptoms were more likely to have no soy in their diet.

This study should help ease a worry for women who have been surprised by hot flashes and night sweats while they are still having regular cycles. It doesn't necessarily mean they are in menopause yet, and it's perfectly normal. "Some women even have a hot flash the first couple of nights after childbirth," said Dr. Margery Gass, NAMS Executive Director.

###

The study was funded by Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.

The study will be published in the February 2014 print edition of Menopause.

Founded in 1989, The North American Menopause Society (NAMS) is North America's leading nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the health and quality of life of all women during midlife and beyond through an understanding of menopause and healthy aging. Its multidisciplinary membership of 2,000 leaders in the fieldincluding clinical and basic science experts from medicine, nursing, sociology, psychology, nutrition, anthropology, epidemiology, pharmacy, and educationmakes NAMS uniquely qualified to serve as the definitive resource for health professionals and the public for accurate, unbiased information about menopause and healthy aging. To learn more about NAMS, visit our website: http://www.menopause.org

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Public release date: 12-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Jenny Bahun
jbahun@fallscommunications.com
216-696-0229
The North American Menopause Society (NAMS)

CLEVELAND, Ohio (June 12, 2013)More than half of middle-aged women who still have regular cycles have hot flashes. Asian and Hispanic women are less likely to have them than white women, but compared with previous studies, the figures are surprisingly high, showed a survey of some 1,500 women published online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS).

The survey, conducted by researchers at Group Health (a large healthcare system in the Pacific Northwest) and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, consisted of a diverse group of women, including whites, blacks, Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders, women of mixed ethnicity, Vietnamese, Filipinos, Japanese, East Indians, Chinese, and other Asians. The women were 45 to 56 years old, had regular cycles, had no skipped periods, and were not taking hormones.

A surprising 55% of them reported having hot flashes or night sweats. (Previous studies pegged the highest rates at below 50%.) The groups with the highest proportions reporting hot flashes or night sweats were Native Americans (67%) and black (61%) women, but the differences between these groups and white women weren't statistically significant. Fifty-eight percent of white women, the largest ethnic group, reported having hot flashes or night sweats.

Compared with them, Asian and Hispanic women were significantly less likely to have these symptoms. Among Asian women, 31% of Filipino, 26% of Japanese, 25% of East Indian, 23% of "other Asian," and 18% of Chinese women reported having hot flashes or night sweats. Twenty-six percent of Hispanic women reported these symptoms.

Interestingly, white women who had symptoms were more likely to include soy in their diet, and white women who never had symptoms were more likely to have no soy in their diet.

This study should help ease a worry for women who have been surprised by hot flashes and night sweats while they are still having regular cycles. It doesn't necessarily mean they are in menopause yet, and it's perfectly normal. "Some women even have a hot flash the first couple of nights after childbirth," said Dr. Margery Gass, NAMS Executive Director.

###

The study was funded by Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.

The study will be published in the February 2014 print edition of Menopause.

Founded in 1989, The North American Menopause Society (NAMS) is North America's leading nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the health and quality of life of all women during midlife and beyond through an understanding of menopause and healthy aging. Its multidisciplinary membership of 2,000 leaders in the fieldincluding clinical and basic science experts from medicine, nursing, sociology, psychology, nutrition, anthropology, epidemiology, pharmacy, and educationmakes NAMS uniquely qualified to serve as the definitive resource for health professionals and the public for accurate, unbiased information about menopause and healthy aging. To learn more about NAMS, visit our website: http://www.menopause.org

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/tnam-hfb061113.php

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Potential disease-transmission sources in animals ID'd by calculating risk using social network mathematics

June 11, 2013 ? Spanish and US scientists have successfully identified animal species that can transmit more diseases to humans by using mathematical tools similar to those applied to the study of social networks like Facebook or Twitter. Their research -- recently published in the journal PNAS -- describes how parasite-primate interactions transmit diseases like malaria, yellow fever or AIDS to humans. Their findings could make an important contribution to predicting the animal species most likely to cause future pandemics.

Professor Jos? Mar?a G?mez of the University of Granada Department of Ecology is the principal author of this research, in collaboration with Charles L. Nunn (University of Cambridge, Massachusetts, US) and Miguel Verd? (Spanish National Research Council Desertification Research Center, Valencia, Spain). They propose a criterion to identify disease-transmission agents based on complex network metrics similar to those used to study social networks.

As Prof G?mez explains, "most emerging diseases in humans are zoonotic, that is, they are transmitted to humans by animals. To identify animal species that are potential high-risk sources of emerging diseases it's essential we set up mechanisms that control and observe these diseases."

Study of 150 primate species

To conduct their study, the researchers constructed a network in which each node represented one of the approximately 150 non-human primate species about which we have enough data on their parasite fauna. "Each primate species is connected to the other primates as a function of the number of parasites they share. Once the network was constructed, we studied each primate species' position -- whether central or peripheral. A primate's centrality is measured by its connection intensity with many other primates that are, in turn, closely connected," says the University of Granada researcher.

The article published in PNAS reports the researchers' discovery that the most central primates could be more capable of transmitting parasites to other species and, therefore, to humans, than the rest. "This is comparable to the idea that, in social networks, web pages that are central and have links to many other pages, spread their contents all through the Web," Jos? Mar?a G?mez affirms.

The researchers have confirmed their hypothesis by relating the centrality value of each primate with the number of emerging pathogens shared with humans. And, in effect, they have found that the most central primates were those that share more emerging pathogens with humans.

In conclusion, the study proposes a simple criterion to detect potential zoonotic agents of emerging disease transmission to humans: the centrality of these agents in their network interaction with their parasites. "The only information needed to construct these networks is the diversity and type of parasite infecting each host -- and we already know about many zoonotic organisms. This is why we think that our approach will be useful in developing early warning plans for emerging disease in humans," Prof G?mez concludes.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/89pnge4vxuY/130611102027.htm

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Hong Kong is unlikely refuge for US secrets leaker

HONG KONG (AP) ? By holing up in Hong Kong, the American defense contractor who says he leaked information on classified U.S. surveillance programs has found an unlikely refuge from extradition.

It might be temporary, however. Hong Kong's protection of Edward Snowden is not a given.

As a former British colony, the territory has a well-established, Western-style legal system. It is home to a boisterous media and outspoken public that ardently defend their rights to expression. And though a semi-autonomous part of China, it ultimately answers to Beijing, which is often at odds with Washington.

That combination of sturdy legal institutions and strong political backing made Hong Kong an attractive place to take shelter, said Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, whose reports last week that exposed widespread U.S. government programs to collect telephone and Internet records were based on information from Snowden.

"There were no good options for him, so it just became a question of weight of all the various factors," Greenwald said in Hong Kong on Monday. "There were probably other places that were more democratic but that would be more likely to hand him over to the United States because they wouldn't want to resist the pressure that the United States would undoubtedly apply to get him."

However, the U.S. is one of the largest investors in Hong Kong, a major business center for East Asia. The U.S. and Hong Kong also have an extradition treaty and routinely cooperate on requests to transfer criminals; in one high-profile case, Hong Kong extradited three al-Qaeda suspects to the U.S. in 2003.

While Beijing at times stands up to Washington, it may not want to for Snowden. Beijing has often criticized foreign governments for harboring critics of its Communist government. China also is seeking U.S. cooperation on retrieving corrupt Chinese officials who have fled to America, often with sizeable assets. Cyberhacking and cyberespionage have emerged as the newest friction in relations that Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping pledged over the weekend to improve.

"I can't imagine that after all this effort, they're going to let this one thing make a mess of it," said David Zweig, an expert on Chinese politics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Still, the extradition treaty gives Hong Kong ways to say "no." The U.S. and Hong Kong concluded the treaty with Beijing's blessing on the eve of the territory's hand back from Britain to China in 1997. Provisions allow one side to refuse a request if it's deemed to be politically motivated or if the suspect is unlikely to receive a fair trial.

Beijing may also have a veto. The treaty allows Beijing to refuse to extradite a Chinese national for reasons of national security. A study by the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1997 suggests Beijing may have wider discretion to prohibit any extradition, not just of Chinese nationals, on national security grounds.

Snowden's greatest ally, however, may be the Hong Kong court system. Extraditions, if contested, can drag on for years. Hong Kong's high court in a ruling on a case concerning three African asylum-seekers ordered authorities to devise a unified standard for assessing asylum applications. The ruling effectively puts applications on hold until the new system is in place.

Snowden checked out of Hong Kong's Mira Hotel on Monday. Greenwald, who declined to say where Snowden is currently, said he did not think the contractor had applied for asylum anywhere but that his strategy was simple.

"I think that his goal is to avoid ending up in the clutches of the U.S. government for as long as he can, knowing full well though that it's very likely that won't succeed and he will end up exactly where he doesn't want to be," Greenwald said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hong-kong-unlikely-refuge-us-secrets-leaker-182235835.html

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Journalist: Snowden fled US fearing unfair trial

HONG KONG (AP) ? The American intelligence contractor who disclosed U.S. government surveillance programs fled to Hong Kong because he believed he wouldn't get a fair trial in his home country, the journalist who broke the story said Monday.

Glenn Greenwald of Britain's The Guardian newspaper said Edward Snowden chose the semiautonomous Chinese region because it was the least bad option open to him.

Greenwald said in an interview that Snowden wants to remain out of the "clutches" of the U.S. government for as long as possible but is fully aware that he won't succeed.

Snowden says he worked as a contractor at the National Security Agency and the CIA.

He allowed The Guardian and The Washington Post newspapers to reveal his identity on Sunday as the source of a series of top-secret documents outlining two NSA surveillance programs.

The Guardian reported that Snowden arrived in Hong Kong on May 20. He checked out of a Kowloon hotel on Monday and his current location is unclear.

The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into the leaks at the request of the NSA.

"If the Justice Department does end up indicting him, which almost certainly it will ? it's basically inevitable at this point ? he doesn't really trust the judicial system in the United States to give him a fair trial," Greenwald said in Hong Kong.

"I think if he trusted the political system and the political culture in the United States he would have just remained there and said 'I did what I did and I want to defend it,'" Greenwald said.

He said Snowden chose Hong Kong because it has a history of strong political activism, free speech and respect for the rule of law. But he added that once Snowden decided to leak the information, "all of the options, as he put it, are bad options. There were no good options for him."

Hong Kong, a former British colony, was handed back to China in 1997 but was allowed to retain a high degree of autonomy and its own legal system. The city has an extradition treaty with the U.S., but it contains some exceptions, including for crimes deemed political.

Greenwald said Snowden had watched with concern the court martial of Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army private on trial for handing a trove of classified material to WikiLeaks, and that it had raised fears for him about secrecy and "abridgement of due process."

Snowden, 29, believes he will eventually end up with the same fate as Manning, Greenwald said.

"I think that his goal is to avoid ending up in the clutches of the U.S. government for as long as he can, knowing full well though that it's very likely that he won't succeed and he will end up exactly where he doesn't want to be," Greenwald said.

Snowden told The Guardian that he hoped for asylum in Iceland, though Greenwald said as far as he was aware, he hadn't filed a claim for asylum anywhere.

When asked why Snowden didn't just head to Iceland, Greenwald said he was unsure but guessed that because the Arctic nation is a small country, it would find it much more difficult to say no to the United States than Beijing or Hong Kong.

"There's a lot of history in terms of small Scandinavian countries or small countries in Europe succumbing to U.S. demands and doing things that are contrary to their values or even their law," Greenwald said. "I think he feels that won't happen here."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/journalist-snowden-fled-us-fearing-unfair-trial-161050096.html

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Inside An Independent Bookshop: What Writers Should Know | The ...

We are writers, but we are also book lovers.

Despite the changes with the digital revolution, most of us still haunt physical bookstores and still purchase physical books. I read 95% on the Kindle these days but I still purchase print copies of the books I specifically want to remember and I buy gifts in print.

One of my treats at the end of a writing day is to go and wander around a bookstore ? sometimes Hatchards and sometimes my local indie. I bought a gorgeous print edition of Dante?s Inferno the other day because of the raised demons on the cover. I?d just read it on Kindle but just wanted the pretty object!

Print will never go away, I truly believe that. So today I?m delighted to have an article from David Perez, author and bookseller at Moby Dickens in Taos, New Mexico. He covers some of the important aspects of being a bookseller that may puzzle authors and may also help you sell to bookstores more effectively.

By way of (brief) introduction, I?m a writer and published author working at Moby Dickens Bookshop, a locally owned, independent bookstore in Taos, New Mexico that?s been in business over twenty-five years. In my six years of? ?being on the inside,? so to speak, I?ve learned about the complexities, pressures?and joys?of the bookselling business.

At Moby Dickens, every staff member does a little of everything: ordering, receiving, customer service, and so forth. Some of us specialize, such doing out-of-print research, or handling author events. But we all have a working knowledge of the whole she-bang. In this spirit, let me share some of my experiences.

40 percent goes a long way

Like all retail establishments, we operate on its basic principle: Buy at wholesale, or discount, and sell at retail. For bookstores, however, there?s no ?recommended retail price.? The price of the book is the price of the book.

As a rule, bookstores purchase inventory at a 40 percent discount, give or take. That 40 percent is what pays for everything: stock, salaries, rent, utilities, and a hundred and one items that one needs to keep a store running. That?s a small margin for profitability. So it?s an on-the-edge-business, which boils down to the central issue: You have to love books, their feel and smell, their ability to be passed down generation to generation. In turn, you have to love writers, love stories. For independents, you also have to embrace community and be able to go the extra mile for customers. Of course, none of this guarantees success. While an independent is not beholden to shareholders, you still have to be business savvy?and lucky too.

What to order and where to put it?

Ah, that?s the crux, isn?t it? Thousands of new titles are published in the United States every week. Add to that the zillions of already existing books and you got quite a chore deciding what to buy.

Every store is different. Some centralize the ordering, others delegate. However, it?s usually the owners who handle the budgetary considerations, which is a whole other question, maybe the question. After all, you can only order what you can afford, or anticipate that you can afford.

At Moby Dickens, we have about thirty ?sections,? ranging from fiction to children?s to cookbooks to travel and so on. To keep informed about upcoming titles, we review catalogues, trade publications like Publisher?s Weekly, and various bestseller lists, including The New York Times, Barnes & Noble, Powell?s, and Amazon. Customers also recommend books. Often we monitor what other bookstores are selling, particularly in our region. Ordering is sometimes done through representatives, who sell on behalf of both publishers and distributors.

But, in addition to what the budget allows, there?s the question of shelf/table space. Where are you going to put all these books? How many copies can you order? How many can reasonably be face out (which is what we all want, right?)? Does ordering a book mean returning another book?

And ordering?not to mention receiving and shelving?has to be done in the middle of operating a store. Hopefully, you?ll be constantly busy tending to customers and business is brisk. Which returns us to square one: how does one find time to keep up-to-date with all these freaking books? The short answer is you can?t, but you do your best. With good planning and teamwork, you make the time and, somehow, it all works out.

?What section does this book go in??

At Moby Dickens, we ask each other this question all the time, and it illuminates a dilemma for us writers. In addition to space limitations, there?s the issue of what genre the book is in. Some are multi-genre, either by design or simply because of the topic. For instance, I follow the Metaphysical section and ordered a biography of Nicholas Tesla. One customer said it should really be in Science. I agreed. Another wondered why it wasn?t in Biography because that?s the section she browses through most and ?would loved to have come across it.? I agreed with her too. But we often have money for only one book. So where to put Tesla?

And if you were the author, how would you categorize the book? Where would you want it to be mainly shelved? Which raises another interesting double-sided question:

What do customers look for and where do they go looking for it?

Well, everything and anything, I suppose. Some folks are ?looking for whatever.? Some browse in specific sections, others for a specific book, or books by a specific author. Because we?re in the Southwest, many people look for books on the area.? Because we?re a big art town, people shop for that too. Ditto stuff relating to the outdoors, like nature and gardening. In sports, the biggest sellers are skiing and fishing.

Our biggest selling section overall is Children and Young Adult, and I suspect this is widely the case across the country. If anything shows that books will never die, it is the popularity of this section. Not a day goes by without a child or teen smiling over a book. Many buy several. Yes, they have e-readers and text all the time. Yes, they read on Ipads and smart phones. But they still want the book.

Recently, we?ve added Kobo e-readers to our inventory, and have expanded our online business. Sales have been modest, which isn?t surprising since people come into our stores because they want physical books. That?s who we are; that?s what makes people say, ?I?m so glad you?re still around.? They also love the fact that our Point of Sales system operates on DOS (!) and that we use a matrix printer (!!). That?s going to change soon, but it?s amazing how long we?ve lasted on such basic technology.

Returning to the issue of how book buyers shop, this segues to something of central importance to writers, which is:

Can you judge a book by its cover?

Absolutely. Do people always buy a book because of its cover? No. Many factors determine whether a book is bought, including blurbs, publisher recognition, the synopsis, and of course the price.

But a good cover can be decisive. We often get customers reacting, ?This looks cheap, this looks like a self-published book.? Of course, it doesn?t have to be self-published to look cheap, for a cover to be less than appealing. And many self-published have gorgeous covers and equally gorgeous content. But a note to authors: Yes, spend time and money designing a great cover. Not just the images, but where the title goes, whether the cover is glossy or matte, etc.

Another FYI: Work overtime on your title. This is extremely important since the vast majority of books are shelved showing only the spine.

Consignments and book signings

Regarding consignment policies, which differ from store to store, I?ve grown to appreciate the dilemma for the owners who have to pay the bills. Each self-published author, each small publisher, becomes a vendor, meaning they?re the ones we order from and pay. Even though we?re a modest-sized store, we now have hundreds of vendors; this on top of the regular stack of bills to pay, like rent and payroll. I use to bristle when I heard of stores with strict consignment policies, or who charge the self-published author to stock their book. Now, I understand the bookstores? difficulties, and its relationship to other challenges like shelf space.

But here?s the thing: we love when writers have published a book, especially when they?re local. We have author events all the time, and try to accommodate everyone. At times we can?t because of scheduling conflicts or other factors. Occasionally I?ve had an author wanting not just a signing, but also for me to read their book (you should see my reading list!) And I totally get it, being an author myself. Sometimes I can, many times I can?t.

What?s been interesting about all this for me is that, privately, I often suggest to fellow authors to focus their readings more on things like house salons or other non-traditional settings. Unless you?re a well-known author, or you have a large following in a certain city, bookstore events are a crapshoot at best. It can be very disheartening to get a small turnout, and it?s not beyond the pale to have no one attend. Of course, since I live in Taos and I work at the bookstore, I did my book launch there and all went well. But I?ve only done three other bookstores since WOW! came out in early 2011.

Returns

Like ordering, returns are a bookstore?s lifeblood. I?m the one who follows this area, so I?ve grown to appreciate its importance. In our bookstore, the bulk of our ordering is through three major distributors: Ingram, Baker& Taylor, and Partners West. Every return is credited to our account based on its discounted price. So, of course, we want to get as much credit as we can, which creates a certain ?pressure? to return books. The balancing is delicate. How much time do we give a title to sell? Should it be placed on sale instead? What about new books we need room for?? How much time does it eat up to actually do the returns, the packing, the shipping?

In ending, let me state that much of what I?ve painted has been with a broad stroke. There are exceptions to every rule, and the rules themselves can vary widely. There?s plenty I didn?t cover, like the question of used books, how we handle Advance Reading Copies, and more. Hopefully, you?ve received nice food for thought.

At Moby Dickens, we?ve benefited from being in Taos, a small town with substantial tourism and a reputation for being maverick, resistant to anything smacking of big chains. People love our store, even as we often struggle to stay afloat. But Taos is a part of a growing trend. For years, I?ve heard the question posed: Can independents save the bookstore business? An article in the Christian Science Monitor (March 18, 2013) called ?Resurgence in the Shelves? gives a possible yes to the question.

In the feature article, writer Yvonne Zipp cites various pieces of hopeful news. According to a survey by the American Booksellers Association, sales at independent bookstores rose 8 percent in 2012 over 2011. Part of the reason is the closing of Borders. Another factor is the growing buy-local movement, which like farmers? markets, bring customers not just for products, but also for atmosphere, a sense of community. Also, social media has allowed owners to expand marketing and outreach while keeping advertising costs down. Of course, stores still struggle and close, but more are taking the plunge. In another hopeful sign, John Mutter, editor in chief of Shelf Awareness, sees more young owners than he did five years ago.

So perhaps the future is bright for us little guys. Maybe it?s also about peaceful co-existence with the big guys. Whatever the case, writers will always find innovative ways to share their stories wherever and however.

Do you have any questions for David about independent bookstores? Or feel free to share your love for your local indie bookstore in the comments below.

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David P?rez is the author of WOW!, a South Bronx ?memoirito? about boyhood and Catholic school, and one of the winners in the Comedy Category of the 2012 Latino Books Into Movies Awards. WOW! was also a Finalist in Multicultural Non-Fiction for the 2012 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. David was selected ?One of the Top Ten Latino Authors to Watch and Read in 2012? by latinostories.com. For more information and to order WOW! visit the author?s website at davidperezwow.com

Follow Moby Dickens Bookshop at? www.mobydickens.com

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Tagged as: bookshops, independent bookstore, indie bookstore

Source: http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2013/06/02/independent-bookshop/

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Fast-approaching asteroid has its own small moon

Earth will soon get a visit from not one asteroid, but two. The first radar images of asteroid 1998 QE2 have revealed that the incoming space rock has an unexpected companion ? a small moon that may be the key to unlocking the asteroid's secrets.

Astronomers have been tracking the larger asteroid since it was discovered in 1998. Calculations of its orbit around the sun show that it will swing about 5.8 million kilometres from our home planet, or about 15 times the distance between Earth and the moon, at 2059 UTC (2159 British Summer Time, 1659 Eastern Standard Time) on 31 May.

There is no risk of an impact, but it is getting close enough to take good images with telescopes on the ground. Asteroid enthusiasts from NASA to the White House have been gearing up to watch 1998 QE2 make its closest approach.

"We find something neat about every one that comes in like this," says Tim Spahr of the Minor Planet Center at Harvard University. "They're all different, and it's very cool what you can learn from close approaches."

Pile of fluff?

On 29 May, astronomers using the 70-metre Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, California, got their first glimpse of 1998 QE2 when it was 6 million kilometres from Earth. To their surprise, the radar images showed a small, bright blip moving around the larger craggy body.

Initial readings suggest that the main asteroid is 2.7-kilometres wide, and its bright companion is roughly 600 metres across.

Asteroid duos and even trios make up 15 per cent of near-Earth objects larger than 200 metres. The discovery of the small moon around 1998 QE2 gives us a rare opportunity to weigh the larger object, and that can tell us what it is made of, says Spahr.

Some asteroids are solid chunks of rock and metal, while others are more like piles of rubble loosely bound by gravity. Measuring the orbit of the moon can reveal the larger asteroid's mass. Combine that with its size, and we'll know QE2's density.

"This is information we would not get otherwise, without sending a spacecraft to orbit the thing," says Spahr.

Revealing the object's composition might be important for astronauts planning to visit similar asteroids in future, whether as part of NASA's scheme to bring an asteroid close to Earth, or as part of planned private mining enterprises.

"If you're an astronaut who wants to go walk around on this thing, you could land in a bank of cottonwood fluff," says Spahr. "It's that when we do go visit something, we know what to expect."

Clarification: Since this article was first published on 31 May 2013, we have quantified the commonness of duos and trios of near-Earth objects.

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