NASA's Aqua satellite saw the area of strong thunderstorms with colder cloud tops had grown within the Eastern Pacific Ocean's Tropical Storm Rachel. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the large Tropical Storm Rachel on Sept. 25 at 4:41 p.m. EDT and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument, saw that the extent of colder cloud tops had increased, indicating thunderstorm heights were increasing and it was strengthening. The expansion of those stronger thunderstorms also suggests that the northeasterly wind shear may be relaxing a little. The strongest thunderstorms ...

Last week, at the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, MIT researchers unveiled an oval-shaped submersible robot, a little smaller than a football, with a flattened panel on one side that it can slide along an underwater surface to perform ultrasound scans. Originally designed to look for cracks in nuclear reactors' water tanks, the robot could also inspect ships for the false hulls and propeller shafts that smugglers frequently use to hide contraband. Because of its small size and unique propulsion mechanism — which leaves no visible wake — the ...

An interdisciplinary team of University of Pennsylvania researchers has now applied a cutting-edge technique for rapid gene sequencing toward measuring other nanoscopic structures. By passing nanoscale spheres and rods through a tiny hole in a membrane, the team was able to measure the electrical properties of those structures' surfaces. Their findings suggest new ways of using this technique, known as "nanopore translocation," to analyze objects at the smallest scale. The research was led by Marija Drndić, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy ...

Hanover, NH - A study published in the journal Science provides support for a new—and still controversial—understanding of the immune system. The research was conducted by collaborators in the U.S. and Europe, including Robert Cramer, PhD, an assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at the Geisel School of Medicine and member of the Dartmouth Lung Biology Center, and Kelly Shepherdson, PhD, at the time a graduate student in Cramer's lab. Typically, scientists divide the immune system into two categories: the innate immune response and the adaptive immune response. ...

Researchers from The University of Texas at Dallas have created technology that could be the first step toward wearable computers with self-contained power sources or, more immediately, a smartphone that doesn't die after a few hours of heavy use. This technology, published online in Nature Communications, taps into the power of a single electron to control energy consumption inside transistors, which are at the core of most modern electronic systems. Researchers from the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science found that by adding a specific atomic ...

University of Hawaii at Manoa College of Engineering mechanical engineer Yi Zuo has developed a new, high-throughput method for sorting cells capable of separating 10 billion bacterial cells in 30 minutes. The finding has already proven useful for studying bacterial cells and microalgae, and could one day have direct applications for biomedical research and environmental science—basically any field in which a large quantity of microbial samples need to be processed. The new method was described in a September 2014 publication in the scientific journal Analytical Chemistry, ...

An article published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Animal Science concludes feeding livestock diets that contain genetically engineered (GE) crops has no impact on the health or productivity of those animals. In a thorough review of scientific literature and field data sets, the article documents evidence that the performance and health of food-producing animals fed GE crops are comparable with those of animals fed non-GE crops. Since their introduction in 1996, GE feed crops have become an increasing component of livestock diets. Today, more than 95 percent of U.S. ...

Environmental scientists are being urged to broaden the advice they give on global climate change, say experts who are also frustrated that decision makers are not taking enough action. Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, The University of Manchester researchers argue that scientists are expressing a strong desire to fix the problems highlighted by their studies into human-induced climate change The authors suggest there are problems with environmental scientists offering practical solutions that can help societies adapt to a fast-changing Earth - one where ...

A hormone that governs sleep and jet lag in humans may also drive the mass migration of plankton in the ocean, scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, have found. The molecule in question, melatonin, is essential to maintain our daily rhythm, and the European scientists have now discovered that it governs the nightly migration of a plankton species from the surface to deeper waters. The findings, published online today in Cell, indicate that melatonin's role in controlling daily rhythms probably evolved early in the history ...

The researchers headed by Prof Dr Nicole Frankenberg-Dinkel have been the first ones to reveal similarities and differences in the assembly of the light-harvesting machinery of the cryptophyte Guillardia theta compared to cyanobacteria and red algae. The publication of their results in the current issue of "The Journal of Biological Chemistry" is among the two per cent of the publications that were selected as "Paper of the week". Cryptophytes: Matryoshka dolls of the waters Unlike traditional eukaryotic cells – i.e. all cells with a nucleus – cryptophyte cells resemble ...

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden and other institutions have worked out how the pigment of the skin manages to protect the body from the sun's dangerous UV rays. The skin pigment converts the UV radiation into heat through a rapid chemical reaction that shoots protons from the molecules of the pigment. In a new study, the team from Lund University, working with colleagues in France and Italy, have studied pigment in the skin and its building blocks. Pigment in both skin and hair comprises two different types of melanin: eumelanin and pheomelanin. Eumelanin makes ...

World leading Cystic Fibrosis experts, from Queen's University Belfast, have called for greater research to address the major concern of antibacterial resistance. Professor Stuart Elborn, an international authority on respiratory medicine, said that more funding and further research are required into antibiotic resistance in order to improve patient outcomes for people with Cystic Fibrosis. In his paper, Infections in chronic lung diseases 2, which was recently published in The Lancet, Professor Elborn reviews current research into infections in chronic lung diseases. ...

This news release is available in German. The scanning electron microscope is not only used for precisely surveying the surface topology of samples, but also for determining their chemical compositions. This is done by exciting the atoms to fluoresce under irradiation by an electron beam while scanning the sample. This secondary emission provides information about the location and type of element, insofar as the analysis is sufficiently precise. However, the lighter elements of the periodic table such as lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, and nitrogen emit secondary ...

Scientists from A*STAR's Bioprocessing Technology Institute (BTI) have established a clearer relationship between two cells which serve our body's natural defence mechanisms against diseases and infections. Their findings, published in the prestigious journal CELL REPORTS, will help the medical community better understand autoimmunity and could pave the way for treatment of autoimmune diseases. Natural killer T (NKT) cells and B cells are two of many immune cell types that work in tandem to help the body fight against foreign infectious agents. NKT cells have very potent ...

Permafrost thaw drives forest loss in Canada, while drought has killed trees in Panama, southern India and Borneo. In the U.S., in Virginia, over-abundant deer eat trees before they reach maturity, while nitrogen pollution has changed soil chemistry in Canada and Panama. Continents apart, these changes have all been documented by the Smithsonian-led Center for Tropical Forest Science-Forest Global Earth Observatory, CTFS-ForestGEO, which released a new report revealing how forests are changing worldwide. "With 107 collaborators we've published a major overview of what ...

Neurons programmed to fire at specific faces—such as the famously reported "Jennifer Aniston neuron"—may be more in line with the conscious recognition of faces than the actual images seen. Subjects presented with a blended face, such as an amalgamation of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, had significantly more firing of such face-specific neurons when they recognized the blended or morphed face as one person or the other. Results of the study led by Christof Koch at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and carried out by neuroscientists Rodrigo Quian Quiroga at the University ...

A joint NOAA/NASA satellite is one of several satellites providing valuable information to aviators about volcanic hazards. An aviation "orange" alert was posted on August 18, 2014, for Bárðarbunga, a stratovolcano located under the Vatnajökull glacier in Iceland, indicating the "volcano shows heightened or escalating unrest with increased potential of eruption." Much of the information leading to that alert came from satellites including Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument on board the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/NASA ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Engineers at Oregon State University have developed and successfully demonstrated the value of a simple pulley mechanism to improve hand function after surgery. The device, tested in cadaver hands, is one of the first instruments ever created that could improve the transmission of mechanical forces and movement while implanted inside the body. After continued research, technology such as this may offer new options to people who have lost the use of their hands due to nerve trauma, and ultimately be expanded to improve function of a wide range of damaged ...

Research by UCLA biochemists may lead to a new treatment — or even a cure — for PH1, a rare and potentially deadly genetic kidney disease that afflicts children. Their findings also may provide important insights into treatments for Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and other degenerative diseases. Led by Carla Koehler, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry in the UCLA College, the researchers identified a compound called dequalinium chloride, or DECA, that can prevent a metabolic enzyme from going to the wrong location within a cell. Ensuring that the enzyme ...

BELLINGHAM, Washington, USA – A new special section on single-photon detection, generation, and applications in Optical Engineering highlights research on technologies with applications in areas as diverse as space exploration and quantum computing, furthering the field by providing more accurate measurement methods and new analysis techniques. The peer-reviewed journal is published by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, in print and in the SPIE Digital Library. The section appears in the August issue, and include nine articles and an editorial outlining ...

A new scientific review from the University of California, Davis, reports that the performance and health of food-producing animals consuming genetically engineered feed, first introduced 18 years ago, has been comparable to that of animals consuming non-GE feed. The review study also found that scientific studies have detected no differences in the nutritional makeup of the meat, milk or other food products derived from animals that ate genetically engineered feed. The review, led by UC Davis animal scientist Alison Van Eenennaam, examined nearly 30 years of livestock-feeding ...

Empathy is typically seen as eliciting warmth and compassion—a generally positive state that makes people do good things to others. However, empathy may also motivate aggression on behalf of the vulnerable other. Researchers at the State University of New York at Buffalo, examined whether assessed or elicited empathy would lead to situation-specific aggression on behalf of another person, and to explore the potential role of two neurohormones in explaining a connection between empathy and aggression. The study is published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. ...

Access to potentially life-extending cancer drugs varies significantly in different regions of the world, two new studies show at the ESMO 2014 Congress in Madrid, Spain. Researchers say the results demonstrate the need for better collaboration between doctors and health authorities on an international scale, to ensure patients have access to the best treatments. Coordinated action is needed at an international level to ensure new cancer-fighting drugs are approved in a timely manner, oncologists said at the Congress. Their call came after a survey revealed that patients ...

Imperial chemists have gained fresh insights into how a disease-causing enzyme makes changes to proteins and how it can be stopped. The scientists hope their findings will help them to design drugs that could target the enzyme, known as N-myristoyltransferase (NMT), and potentially lead to new treatments for cancer and inflammatory conditions. They have already identified a molecule that blocks NMT's activity, and have identified specific protein substrates where this molecule has a potent impact. NMT makes irreversible changes to proteins and is known to be involved ...

Across Europe, more than 70% of young cancer specialists are showing signs of burnout, the largest survey of its kind has revealed. The results, reported at the Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO 2014) in Madrid, have prompted calls for serious action to address the issue at all levels. "Oncology is an exceptionally rewarding career, but it can be demanding and stressful at times," said Dr Susana Banerjee, lead author of the study and a consultant medical oncologist at The Royal Marsden NHS Trust in London, UK. "Oncologists make complex decisions ...