A snaking, extended filament of solar material currently lies on the front of the sun-- some 1 million miles across from end to end. Filaments are clouds of solar material suspended above the sun by powerful magnetic forces. Though notoriously unstable, filaments can last for days or even weeks. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, which watches the sun 24 hours a day, has observed this gigantic filament for several days as it rotated around with the sun. If straightened out, the filament would reach almost across the whole sun, about 1 million miles or 100 times ...

In response to the rise of drug-resistant pathogens, doctors are routinely cautioned against overprescribing antimicrobials. But when a patient has a confirmed bacterial infection, the advice is to treat aggressively to quash the infection before the bacteria can develop resistance. A new study questions the accepted wisdom that aggressive treatment with high drug dosages and long durations is always the best way to stem the emergence and spread of resistant pathogens. The review of nearly 70 studies of antimicrobial resistance, which was authored by researchers at Princeton ...

Two NASA satellites captured data on Typhoon Phanfone as it continues to strengthen as it moves through the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite flew over Typhoon Phanfone on Oct. 2, 2014 at 0939 UTC (5:39 a.m. EDT). The rainfall pattern observed using TRMM's Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) data showed that Phanfone was much better organized than a day earlier. This precipitation analysis revealed that intensifying typhoon Phanfone had formed a large eye. The heaviest rainfall was shown falling at a ...

NASA's Terra satellite spotted the birth of Tropical Storm Vongfong in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean on Oct. 3. Vongfong is the nineteenth tropical storm of the Northwestern Pacific typhoon season. The MODIS or Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument that flies aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Vongfong on Oct. 3 at 00:30 UTC (Oct. 2 at 8:30 p.m. EDT). At the time of the image, the center of Tropical Storm Vongfong was located just to the northeast of Pohnpei, one of four states in the Federated States of Micronesia. ...

Tropical Storm Simon is following the path of several other tropical storms that formed in the Eastern Pacific Ocean by crawling northward along the western coastline of Mexico. NOAA's GOES-West satellite captured an infrared image of Simon on Oct. 3 that showed the eastern side of the storm over Mexico. An infrared image taken from NOAA's GOES-West satellite on Oct .3 at 7:45 a.m. EDT showed strong thunderstorms circling Tropical Storm Simon's center and a fragmented band of thunderstorms in Simon's eastern quadrant bringing rainfall to western Mexico. Simon's center ...

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have created a new model to more accurately describe the greenhouse gases likely to be released from Arctic peatlands as they warm. Their findings, based on modeling how oxygen filters through soil, suggest that previous models probably underestimated methane emissions and overrepresented carbon dioxide emissions from these regions. Peatlands, common in the Arctic, are wetlands filled with dead and decaying organic matter. They are the result of millions of years of plants dying and breaking down ...

It has become common for people who have pets to refer to themselves as "pet parents," but how closely does the relationship between people and their non-human companions mirror the parent-child relationship? A small study from a group of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers makes a contribution to answering this complex question by investigating differences in how important brain structures are activated when women view images of their children and of their own dogs. Their report is being published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE. "Pets hold a special ...

West Orange, NJ. October 3, 2014. Stroke researchers have confirmed that damage to the right frontal-subcortical network may cause ipsilateral spatial neglect. Among individuals with ipsilateral neglect, a much greater proportion had frontal subcortical damage than anticipated by the investigators – 83% vs the expected 27%. A difference was also seen in spatial bias, ie, the type of spatial errors among this group tended to be 'where' (perceptual-attentional) rather than 'aiming' (motor-intentional) errors. Ipsilesional Neglect: Behavioral and Anatomical Correlates (doi: ...

A powerful scientific tool for editing the DNA instructions in a genome can now also be applied to RNA, the molecule that translates DNA's genetic instructions into the production of proteins. A team of researchers with Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley has demonstrated a means by which the CRISPR/Cas9 protein complex can be programmed to recognize and cleave RNA at sequence-specific target sites. This finding has the potential to transform the study of RNA function by paving the way for direct RNA transcript detection, analysis and manipulation. A ...

VIDEO: A software program developed by engineers at Drexel University, called Lineage Editing and Validation (LEVER), allows biologists to tag and track cell proliferation to validate lineage trees. Click here for more information. For hundreds of years biologists have studied cells through the lens of a microscope. With a little help from a team of engineers at Drexel University, these scientists could soon be donning 3-D glasses in a home-theater-like lab to take their own ...

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (October 3, 2014) — A new National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) study, published online in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, found that recommended safe handling practices for workers who administer antineoplastic drugs in healthcare settings are not always followed. Results are derived from the 2011 Health and Safety Practices Survey of Healthcare Workers, the largest federally-sponsored survey of healthcare workers in the U.S., which addresses safety and health practices relative to use of hazardous chemicals. ...

Washington, DC—The Endocrine Society today issued a Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) advising against the use of testosterone therapy in healthy women. The CPG, entitled "Androgen Therapy in Women: A Reappraisal: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline," was published online in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (JCEM), a publication of the Endocrine Society. The Society updated its 2006 recommendations to address new research concerning testosterone and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) therapy in women as well as advances in testosterone testing ...

Luis Fernando Velásquez-García's group at MIT's Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL) develops dense arrays of microscopic cones that harness electrostatic forces to eject streams of ions. The technology has a range of promising applications: depositing or etching features onto nanoscale mechanical devices; spinning out nanofibers for use in water filters, body armor, and "smart" textiles; or propulsion systems for fist-sized "nanosatellites." In the latest issue of the IEEE Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems, Velásquez-García, his graduate students Eric ...

Cincinnati, OH, October 3, 2014 -- Increasing rates of adolescent obesity and the likelihood that obesity will carry forward into adulthood, have led to various preventive initiatives. It has been suggested that family meals, which tend to include fruits, vegetables, calcium, and whole grains, could be protective against obesity. In a new study scheduled for publication in the Journal of Pediatrics, researchers studied whether frequent family meals during adolescence were protective for overweight and obesity in adulthood. Jerica M. Berge, PhD, MPH, LMFT, CFLE, and ...

In the field of medicine there has often been a divide between those who focus on modern medicine and those who prefer alternative practices. But pediatrician Sunita Vohra is a firm believer there should be room for both. A new study from Vohra, a professor in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry's Department of Pediatrics at the University of Alberta, and a pediatric physician for Clinical Pharmacology with Alberta Health Services, is giving insight into the use of alternative medicines by pediatric cardiac patients and how effective they are seen to be. "We wanted to ...

Tel Aviv — The incidence of type 1 childhood diabetes has been increasing rapidly worldwide. If blood sugar levels aren't well-controlled, juvenile diabetes can affect nearly every organ of a child's body. And while long-term complications of the disease develop gradually, they may become disabling and even life-threatening. The exact cause of juvenile diabetes has eluded scientists, but a new study from Tel Aviv University suggests a likely trigger before birth. In a recent paper published in Diabetic Medicine, Prof. Zvi Laron, Professor Emeritus of Pediatric Endocrinology ...

A team of researchers, led by the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton, has demonstrated a breakthrough technique that offers the first possibility of silicon detectors for telecommunications. For decades, silicon has been the foundation of the microelectronics revolution and, owing to its excellent optical properties in the near- and mid-infrared range, is now promising to have a similar impact on photonics. The team's research, reported in the journal Nature Materials, describes engineering the electronic band structure of laser-crystallised ...

A study conducted in more than 100 Mongolian schoolchildren found that daily treatment with a vitamin D supplement significantly reduced the symptoms of winter-related atopic dermatitis, a type of eczema. Led by a Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) physician, the report in the October issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology supports the results of a preliminary study that showed similar results in a small group of children in Boston. "While we don't know the exact proportion of patients with atopic dermatitis whose symptoms worsen in the winter, the ...

As global life expectancy increases, adults want to maintain healthy and active lifestyles well into retirement. In fact, research shows that adults think, feel and behave five to ten years younger than their actual age.1-2 But new findings from a review paper published in Age and Ageing show that approximately one out of three adults age 50 and older suffer from sarcopenia, a condition that could interfere with aging adults' ability to live a full and active life.3 Sarcopenia, as it is known in the medical field, is a condition when a person has progressive loss of ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass--When someone crumples a sheet of paper, that usually means it's about to be thrown away. But researchers have now found that crumpling a piece of graphene "paper" — a material formed by bonding together layers of the two-dimensional form of carbon — can actually yield new properties that could be useful for creating extremely stretchable supercapacitors to store energy for flexible electronic devices. The finding is reported in the journal Scientific Reports by MIT's Xuanhe Zhao, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and civil and environmental ...

October 3, 2014 – Children who require long-term parenteral nutrition are at risk of a potentially devastating complication called intestinal failure-associated liver disease (IAFLD). The diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of IAFLD are discussed in a new position paper in the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, official journal of the European Society for Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (ESPGHAN) and the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams ...

TORONTO, October 3, 2014 – Ache, agony, distress and pain draw more attention than non-pain related words when it comes to people who suffer from chronic pain, a York University research using state-of-the-art eye-tracking technology has found. "People suffering from chronic pain pay more frequent and longer attention to pain-related words than individuals who are pain-free," says Samantha Fashler, a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Health and the lead author of the study. "Our eye movements — the things we look at — generally reflect what we attend to, and knowing how ...

Previously undiscovered secrets of how human cells interact with a bacterium which causes a serious human disease have been revealed in new research by microbiologists at The University of Nottingham. The scientists at the University's Centre for Biomolecular Sciences have shed new light on how two proteins found on many human cells are targeted by the human pathogen Neisseria meningitidis which can cause life-threatening meningitis and septicaemia. The proteins, laminin receptor (LAMR1) and galectin-3 (Gal-3) are found in and on the surface of many human cells. Previous ...

The world's fiber-optic network spans more than 550,000 miles of undersea cable that transmits e-mail, websites, and other packets of data between continents, all at the speed of light. A rip or tangle in any part of this network can significantly slow telecommunications around the world. Now engineers at MIT, along with computer scientists at Columbia University, have developed a method that predicts the pattern of coils and tangles that a cable may form when deployed onto a rigid surface. The research combined laboratory experiments with custom-designed cables, computer-graphics ...

By creating a global database an international consortium of scientists has increased the detailed knowledge of the variation in the cattle genome by several orders of magnitude. The first generation of the new data resource, which will be open access, forms an essential tool for scientists working with cattle genetics and livestock history. The results are published in an article in the prestigious scientific journal Nature Genetics. It's momentous, says one of the scientists behind the international effort, associate professor Bernt Guldbrandtsen from the Center for ...