(Press-News.org) Dozens of red hot spots cluster at the tip of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. To the south, fires also speckle the neck of the Yucatan, Guatemala, and Belize. Each hot spot, which appears as a red mark, is an area where the thermal detectors on the MODIS instrument recognized temperatures higher than background. When accompanied by plumes of smoke, as in this image, such hot spots are diagnostic for fire.
April is in the middle of the dry season, which runs from January through May in this region. It is also fire season. Many of these fires may have been deliberately set to manage land for agriculture, especially in forest clearing, working cropland, and renewing pastures. Some also may be wildfires, with natural (lightning) or accidental sources. As the dry season progresses, the number of fires tend to grow, as does the pall of smoke which settles over the land.
Although haze and smoke cover the region and pours northward over the Gulf of Mexico, the shiny, silver-toned band aligned in a north-to-south direction is not smoke. It is sunglint – the mirror-like reflection of the Sun off the water surface.
INFORMATION:
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Brandon Maccherone.
Fires in the Yucatan Peninsula
2013-04-11
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Individual donation amounts drop when givers are in groups
2013-04-11
In December of last year the New York Post published images of a man about to be killed by a train while several bystanders did little to help him. Numerous studies have provided evidence that people are less likely to help when in groups, a phenomenon known as the "bystander effect." Those studies examined situations where only one person was needed to take action to help another. A University of Missouri anthropologist recently found that even when multiple individuals can contribute to a common cause, the presence of others reduces an individual's likelihood of helping. ...
Fires in India and Nepal
2013-04-11
Agricultural fires are set all over the world at different times to prepare the soil for the planting of new crops. In India and Nepal several dozens agricultural fires have been set and are burning in this image from April 06, 2013. This natural-color satellite image was collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined in red.
INFORMATION:
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Lynn Jenner.
...
Spring fling: Sun emits a mid-level flare
2013-04-11
The sun emitted a mid-level flare, peaking at 3:16 a.m. EDT on April 11, 2013.
Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. This disrupts the radio signals for as long as the flare is ongoing, anywhere from minutes to hours.
This flare is classified as an M6.5 flare, some ten times less powerful than the strongest flares, which are ...
Fires in Southeast Asia
2013-04-11
Fires purposely set to burn crop residues and get the land ready for the growing season are continuing as evidenced in this image from the MODIS instrument on the Aqua satellite. A longer, more detailed account of these types of fires can be found at this URL: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/fires/main/world/20130326-indochina.html.
This natural-color satellite image was collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite on April 07, 2013. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined in red.
###
NASA ...
Fires in Southeastern United States
2013-04-11
Many plumes of smoke from fires burning across the southeastern United States of America can be seen here. The fires are affecting several states including Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, and Florida.
There are currently over 1000 new fires in the past week across the South. There were 17 new large fires with 3 being uncontained as well as numerous smaller ones. A "large fire" is defined by the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) as a wildfire of 100 acres or more occurring in timber, or a wildfire of 300 acres or more occurring in grass/sage.
In addition to ...
Texting, social networking and other media use linked to poor academic performance
2013-04-11
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The widespread use of media among college students – from texting to chatting on cell phones to posting status updates on Facebook – may be taking an academic toll, say researchers with The Miriam Hospital's Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine.
According to a new study, freshmen women spend nearly half their day – 12 hours – engaged in some form of media use, particularly texting, music, the Internet and social networking. Researchers found media use, in general, was associated with lower grade point averages (GPAs) and other negative academic ...
BUSM researchers identify novel approach to study COPD and treatment efficacy
2013-04-11
(Boston) – Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have pinpointed a genetic signature for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) from airway cells harvested utilizing a minimally invasive procedure. The findings provide a novel way to study COPD and could lead to new treatments and ways to monitor patient's response to those treatments. The study is published online in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a progressive lung disease that leads to the loss of lung function ...
Older people may be at greater risk for alcohol impairment than teens, according to Baylor Study
2013-04-11
An acute dose of alcohol may cause greater impairment in coordination, learning and memory in the elderly than in young people, according to a study by Baylor University.
Researchers said the findings have profound significance for older people —a population that is aging worldwide at an unprecedented rate and that includes Baby Boomers as they become seniors.
"Health implications such as falls, accidents and poor medicine-taking are pretty easy to conclude," said Douglas B. Matthews, Ph.D., senior author of the paper, published online in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical ...
Revealing hidden artwork with airport security full-body-scanner technology
2013-04-11
Michael Woods
m_woods@acs.org
504-670-4707 (New Orleans Press Center, April 5-10)
202-872-6293
American Chemical Society
Revealing hidden artwork with airport security full-body-scanner technology
NEW ORLEANS, April 10, 2013 — In the latest achievement in efforts to see what may lie underneath the surface of great works of art, scientists today described the first use of an imaging technology like that used in airport whole-body security scanners to detect the face of an ancient Roman man hidden below the surface of a wall painting in the Louvre Museum in Paris.
They ...
Safety reflector technology from footwear getting new life in detecting bioterror threats
2013-04-11
Michael Woods
m_woods@acs.org
504-670-4707 (New Orleans Press Center, April 5-10)
202-872-6293
American Chemical Society
Safety reflector technology from footwear getting new life in detecting bioterror threats
NEW ORLEANS, April 10, 2013 — Tiny versions of the reflectors on sneakers and bicycle fenders that help ensure the safety of runners and bikers at night are moving toward another role in detecting bioterrorism threats and diagnosing everyday infectious diseases, scientists said today.
Their report on progress in using these innovative "retroreflectors" ...