Let’s start out the news feed with something big.  A fantastic rendering of one of our simulations made the July 30th cover of Science News!  The associated article does an excellent job in describing the current state of the field.  This beautiful visualization was created by Ralf Kaehler at SLAC.  The featured simulation shows a Population III star at the end of its 3 Myr life.  Most of the surrounding gas is heated to 30,000 K, shown in red, whereas the dense gas associated with nearby halos shield against the stellar radiation and survive this blast of radiation.  The HII region that is created is over-pressurized and drives a 30 km/s shock from the star.  Because the host dark matter halo is only 1 million solar masses, its escape velocity is 3 km/s.  Over 90% of the gas is expelled from the halo, delaying further star formation and having possible consequences on the first galaxy.  This is clearly seen in the expanding, clumpy shell, centered on the star.