Five billion years ago, a great disturbance rocked a region near the monster black hole at the center of galaxy 3C 279. On June 14, the pulse of high-energy light produced by this event finally arrived at Earth, setting off detectors aboard NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and other satellites. Astronomers around the world turned instruments toward the galaxy to observe this brief but record-setting flare in greater detail. "One day 3C 279 was just one of many active galaxies we see, and the next day it was the brightest thing in the gamma-ray sky," said Sara ...

NOAA's GOES-West satellite saw that Hawaii is in the middle of a triangle of tropical cyclones. Tropical Depression 02C formed over 700 hundred miles south-southeast of Hawaii on July 10. There are three tropical cyclones in the Central Pacific Ocean and Hawaii is in the middle of them. On July 10, newborn Tropical Depression 01C was west of Hawaii, while newborn Tropical Depression 02C was south of the Big Island. Post-Tropical Depression Ela was fizzling northeast of Hawaii. NOAA's GOES-West satellite provided an infrared image of the newborn depression that showed ...

NOAA's GOES-West satellite saw that Hawaii is in the middle of a triangle of tropical cyclones. Tropical Depression 01C formed hundreds of miles southwest of Hawaii on July 10. There are three tropical cyclones in the Central Pacific Ocean and Hawaii is in the middle of them. On July 10, newborn Tropical Depression 01C was west of Hawaii, while newborn Tropical Depression 02C was south of the Big Island. Post-Tropical Depression Ela was fizzling northeast of Hawaii. NOAA's GOES-West satellite provided an infrared image of the newborn depression that showed fragmented ...

An automated thermal detection system that can discern wild elephants from background and other animals in infrared images could save lives in parts of the world where the animals roam free and often enter villages and other human habitation, according to research published in the International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics. Siva Mangai and colleagues at Karunya University, in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India, explain how encounters between humans and elephants is a critical safety issue in the Western Ghats region of Tamil Nadu. "The movement of wild ...

NASA's Aqua satellite saw the massive Typhoon Nangka moving out of the Marianas Islands, while NASA's RapidScat instrument pinpointed the location of its strongest winds. On July 9, the RapidScat instrument that flies aboard the International Space Station, observed Nangka's strongest winds on the western side of the storm, reaching speeds of more than 30 meters per second (108 kph/67 mph). RapidScat scanned the storm's surface winds for about 90 minutes from 1:41 p.m. to 3:14 p.m. EDT. When Aqua passed over Typhoon Nangka on July 10 at 01:10 UTC (9:10 a.m. EDT ...

NOAA's GOES-West satellite saw that Hawaii is in the middle of a triangle of tropical cyclones. Post-Tropical Depression Ela was located northeast of Hawaii on July 10, and the forecast calls for the storm to move west toward the islands over the weekend of July 11 and 12 and dissipate. There are three tropical cyclones in the Central Pacific Ocean and Hawaii is in the middle of them. On July 10, newborn Tropical Depression 01C was west of Hawaii, while newborn Tropical Depression 02C was south of the Big Island. Post-Tropical Depression Ela was northeast of the islands ...

RapidScat is an instrument that sits on the International Space Station and reads surface winds over the ocean. It has been invaluable to tropical cyclone forecasters, showing where the strongest winds are located in storms. RapidScat spotted Chan-Hom's strongest winds away from Taiwan as it approached mainland China for landfall. On July 9, the RapidScat instrument that flies aboard the International Space Station, observed Chan-Hom's strongest winds stretched from the northwestern to southeastern side of the storm, reaching speeds of more than 30 meters per second (108 ...

DETROIT - A Wayne State University School of Medicine professor, in collaboration with researchers at CReAte Fertility Center, University of Toronto, Harvard University and Georgia Reagents University, has developed the first diagnostic test for sperm RNA based on next-generation sequencing. For couples with unexplained infertility, the test may help determine the best infertility treatment for couples having difficulty conceiving. Published this week in Science Translational Medicine, "Absence of sperm RNA elements correlates with idiopathic male infertility," by the ...

This news release is available in German. Are wind farms harmful to humans? Some believe so, others refute this; this controversial topic makes emotions run high. To give the debate more objectivity, an international team of experts dealt with the fundamentals of hearing in the lower limit range of the audible frequency range (i.e. infrasound), but also in the upper limit range (i.e. ultrasound). The project, which is part of the European Metrology Research Programme (EMRP), was coordinated by the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB). At PTB, not only acoustics ...

July 10, 2015 - For children with cleft lip and palate, the chances of undergoing secondary surgery vary depending on the center where they're treated, reports a study in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery--Global Open®, the official open-access medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). When secondary surgeries are performed, they don't necessarily improve the child's final facial appearance, according to the new research by ASPS Member Surgeon Dr. Thomas J. Sitzman of Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and colleagues. Secondary ...

Random-access memory, or RAM, is where computers like to store the data they're working on. A processor can retrieve data from RAM tens of thousands of times more rapidly than it can from the computer's disk drive. But in the age of big data, data sets are often much too large to fit in a single computer's RAM. The data describing a single human genome would take up the RAM of somewhere between 40 and 100 typical computers. Flash memory -- the type of memory used by most portable devices -- could provide an alternative to conventional RAM for big-data applications. It's ...

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jul. 10, 2015) -- Macrophages are cellular sentinels in the body, assigned to identify "attacks" from viruses, bacteria, or fungi and sound the alarm when they are present. However, these cells are a "double edged sword" in spinal cord injury, providing both neural repair-promoting properties and pathological functions that destroy neuronal tissue "We know from previous research that macrophages are versatile, and signals at the injury site can stimulate repair or destruction--or confusingly, both," said John Gensel Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Physiology ...

This news release is available in Spanish. Scientists at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), the research company Starlab and the group BR::AC (Barcelona Research Art & Creation) of the University of Barcelona developed a device that produces sounds from brain signals. This highly interdisciplinary team is led by Mara Dierssen, head of the Cellular & Systems Neurobiology group at CRG. Its ultimate goal is to develop an alternative communication system for people with cerebral palsy to allow them to communicate--and more specifically in this pilot phase, ...

The great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) has a terrifying reputation. Shark attacks, though very rare, loom large in our imaginations, drawing intense media attention when they occur. Recent injuries in North Carolina are putting sharks in the limelight again. But going after sharks à la Jaws is not the best way to protect people in the water, said shark researchers. California scientists found that the risk of white shark attack for individual ocean users in California has fallen strikingly, by over 91 percent, since 1950, in a study to be published online ...

Many areas of fundamental research are interested in graphene owing to its exceptional characteristics. It is made of one layer of carbon atoms, which makes it light and sturdy, and it is an excellent thermal and electrical conductor. Its unique features make it potentially suitable for applications in a number of areas . Scientists at EPFL's Bionanophotonic Systems Laboratory (BIOS) together with researchers from ICFO- The Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona, have now harnessed graphene's unique optical and electronic properties to develop a reconfigurable highly ...

Men may feel threatened by female supervisors and act more assertively toward them than male bosses, which could disrupt the workplace with struggles over power dynamics, according to new research published by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. "The concept of masculinity is becoming more elusive in society as gender roles blur, with more women taking management positions and becoming the major breadwinners for their families," said lead researcher Ekaterina Netchaeva, an assistant professor of management and technology at Bocconi University in Milan, ...

Heidelberg, 10 July 2015 - Researchers at EMBL Heidelberg have produced detailed images of the intricate protein-coats that surround trafficking vesicles - the "transport pods" that move material around within biological cells. The study, published today in Science, provides a new understanding of the complex machines that make up the cells' logistics network. Vesicles are responsible for transporting molecules between the different compartments within a cell and also for bringing material into cells from outside. There are several types of vesicle: each has a specific ...

University of Warwick researchers have discovered a cell structure which could help scientists understand why some cancers develop. For the first time a structure called 'the mesh' has been identified which helps to hold together cells. This discovery, which has been published in the online journal eLife, changes our understanding of the cell's internal scaffolding. This also has implications for researchers' understanding of cancer cells as the mesh is partly made of a protein which is found to change in certain cancers, such as those of the breast and bladder. The ...

Treating obese pregnant women with a diabetes drug does not stop their babies from being born overweight, a study has found. Doctors had hoped that the treatment would help to reduce obesity rates and lower the number of difficult births. Heavier babies are more likely to grow into overweight adults. They also have a higher risk of illnesses later in life, such as diabetes and heart disease. It is thought that the additional weight gain in the womb is caused by exposure to excess blood sugar. Researchers tested whether treating overweight mothers-to-be with the ...

A research team comprising scientists from Tohoku University, RIKEN, the University of Tokyo, Chiba University and University College London have discovered a new chemical reaction pathway on titanium dioxide (TiO2), an important photocatalytic material. The reaction mechanism, reported in ACS Nano, involves the application of an electric field that narrows the width of the reaction barrier, thereby allowing hydrogen atoms to tunnel away from the surface. This opens the way for the manipulation of the atomic-scale transport channels of hydrogen, which could be important ...

(BOSTON) - Traditional robots are made of components and rigid materials like you might see on an automotive assembly line - metal and hydraulic parts, harshly rigid, and extremely strong. But away from the assembly line, for robots to harmoniously assist humans in close-range tasks scientists are designing new classes of soft-bodied robots. Yet one of the challenges is integrating soft materials with requisite rigid components that power and control the robot's body. At the interface of these materials, stresses concentrate and structural integrity can be compromised, ...

The middle classes from developing countries are more susceptible than western Caucasians to obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease in today's changing environment. New research published today in Cell Metabolism from the University of Sydney in Australia, the National Centre for Cell Science and the DYP Medical College in Pune, India reveals this may be a result of the nutrition endured by their ancestors. The findings in the paper titled Multigenerational Undernutrition and Diabetes could explain projections that more than 70 per cent of the global burden ...

ORLANDO, FL - While multidirectional instability of the shoulder (MDI) has been traditionally treated without surgery, research presented today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL, shows surgery is also effective for this type of dislocation. "We examined 41 athletes who received arthroscopic surgery for MDI, and noted 73% returned to play at equal or only slightly lower level than before the injury," commented M. Brett Raynor, MD, lead author from Steadman Philippon Research Institute Program. "Our study group ...

ORLANDO, FL - Athletes who suffer a shoulder instability injury may return to play more successfully after being treated arthroscopically compared to nonoperative treatment, say researchers presenting their work today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting. "Our research highlights that collegiate collision athletes with in-season shoulder instability injuries are more likely to return to sport successfully the following season, if they undergo arthroscopic stabilization compared to nonoperative treatment," said lead author Jon ...

ORLANDO, FL - While athletes undergoing anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) surgery often have an additional meniscus injury, treating these tears at the same time may not be necessary. Research presented today by the MOON Knee Group at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in Orlando shows positive results for meniscal tears that were deemed stable and left alone at the time of ACL reconstruction. "We examined 194 patients with meniscus tears who did not receive treatment at the time of ACL surgery," noted lead author Kyle R. Duchman, ...