The Skunk Fire continues to burn on the San Carlos Apache Reservation in southeastern Arizona and NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image of the smoke on May 17 at 20:15 UTC (4:15 p.m. EDT/1:15 p.m. MST). A Fire Weather Watch has been posted for the region for May 20. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured this photograph of the smoke. The extent of the fire (the heat) is outlined in red in this image). According to Inciweb, the multi-U.S. agency Incident Information System website that ...

Bethesda, MD (May 19, 2014) — The editors of Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute, are pleased to announce the publication of this year's highly anticipated special 13th issue on the intestinal microbiome, which is considered one of the hottest areas of science today. "We are beginning to understand the ways by which the microbial environment of the gut may play a role in both the maintance of human health and the development of certain diseases. Data in this special issue of Gastroenterology may lead ...

Imagine a future in which our electrical gadgets are no longer limited by plugs and external power sources. This intriguing prospect is one of the reasons for the current interest in building the capacity to store electrical energy directly into a wide range of products, such as a laptop whose casing serves as its battery, or an electric car powered by energy stored in its chassis, or a home where the dry wall and siding store the electricity that runs the lights and appliances. It also makes the small, dull grey wafers that graduate student Andrew Westover and Assistant ...

Observations made over the past 29 years in Kenya as part of one of the world's longest-running studies of a wild primate show how having offspring influences the health of female baboons. These observations highlight that females are mostly injured on days when they are likely to conceive. In addition, injuries heal the slowest when they are suckling their young. The study, published in Springer's journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, is led by Elizabeth Archie of the University of Notre Dame in the US and the National Museums of Kenya. Reproduction can be dangerous ...

A team from the Renewable Energy and Vehicular Technology Laboratory(REVT) at UT Dallas was one of a few research groups selected for advanced participation in a Department of Energy conference aimed at presenting the next generation of energy technologies. The DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program hosts an annual summit in Washington, D.C., for researchers, entrepreneurs, investors, corporate executives and government officials to share transformational research funded through the program. Dr. Babak Fahimi, professor of electrical engineering ...

Premature babies' risk of brain injury is influenced by their genes, a new study suggests. Researchers have identified a link between injury to the developing brain and common variation in genes associated with schizophrenia and the metabolism of fat. The study builds on previous research, which has shown that being born prematurely – before 37 weeks – is a leading cause of learning and behavioural difficulties in childhood. Around half of infants weighing less than 1500g at birth go on to experience difficulties in learning and attention at school age. Scientists ...

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed new modifications for technology that helps pilots of small aircraft avoid midair collisions. The modified tools significantly improved pilot response times in making decisions to avert crashes. At issue are "cockpit displays of traffic information" (CDTIs). These are GPS displays used by private pilots to track other aircraft in their vicinity. However, pilots often focus on the closest aircraft on the display – a habit that can pose a significant hazard. If the pilot of Plane A sees two planes on the CDTI, ...

An octopus's arms are covered in hundreds of suckers that will stick to just about anything, with one important exception: those suckers generally won't grab onto the octopus itself, otherwise the impressively flexible animals would quickly find themselves all tangled up. Now, researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem report that they discovered how octopuses manage this feat, even as the creatures' brains are unaware of what their arms are doing. A chemical produced by octopus skin temporarily prevents their suckers from sucking. "We were surprised that ...

Smithsonian scientists describe a colorful new species of small coral reef sea bass from depths of 182–241 m off Curaçao, southern Caribbean. With predominantly yellow body and fins, the new species, Liopropoma santi, closely resembles the other two "golden basses" found together with it at Curaçao: L. aberrans and L. olneyi. The scientists originally thought there was a single species of golden bass on deep reefs off Curaçao, but DNA data, distinct color patterns, and morphology revealed three. The study describing one of those, L. santi—the deepest known species of ...

Scientists have used small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) and neutron spin-echo (NSE) techniques for the first time to understand how monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), a class of targeted biopharmaceuticals used to treat autoimmune disorders and cancer, dynamically cluster and move in high concentration solutions. Certain mAb cluster arrangements can thicken pharmaceutical solutions; they could thus limit the feasible concentration of injectables administered to patients around the world. The insights provided by a team of neutron scientists from the National Center of Neutron ...

The San Diego County fires that began on Wednesday May 14 as a single fire that erupted into nine fires that burned out of control for days. According to News Channel 8, the ABC affiliate in San Diego, the following summarizes what the current conditions are for the fires still left burning: "Cocos Fire - San Marcos: This fire has burned 1,995 acres and is 87 percent contained Monday morning. All evacuation orders and road closures were lifted as of 11 a.m. Sunday, according to the City of San Marcos. San Mateo Fire - Camp Pendleton: The San Mateo Fire that was reported ...

Results of a 10-year long multinational research project on Technologies for Anal Sphincter analysis and Incontinence (TASI) are available in: Corrado Cescon, Diego Riva , Vita Začesta, Kristina Drusany-Starič, Konstantinos Martsidis, Olexander Protsepko, Kaven Baessler, Roberto Merletti Effect of vaginal delivery on the external anal sphincter muscle innervation pattern evaluated by multichannel surface EMG: results of the multicentre study TASI-2 International Urogynecology Journal, DOI 10.1007/s00192-014-2375-0. Episiotomy is a controversial surgical ...

LOS ANGELES (May 18, 2014) – Researchers in separate clinical trials found two drugs slow the progression of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a fatal lung disease with no effective treatment or cure, and for which there is currently no therapy approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Paul W. Noble, MD, chair of the Department of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai and director of the Women's Guild Lung Institute, is the senior author of the multicenter study that found that the investigational drug pirfenidone significantly slowed the loss of lung function and reduced the ...

FREMONT, CA (May 19, 2014): Newly published research demonstrates the ability of BioMAP® Systems, a unique set of primary human cell and co-culture assays that model human disease and pathway biology, to identify important safety aspects of drugs and chemicals more efficiently and accurately than can be achieved by animal testing. Data from BioMAP Systems analysis of 776 environmental chemicals, including reference pharmaceuticals and failed drugs, on their ability to disrupt physiologically important human biological pathways were published online this week in Nature ...

New research out of New Zealand's world-renowned Dunedin Multidisciplinary Study does not support claims that fluoridating water adversely affects children's mental development and adult IQ. The researchers were testing the contentious claim that exposure to levels of fluoride used in community water fluoridation is toxic to the developing brain and can cause IQ deficits. Their findings are newly published in the highly respected American Journal of Public Health. The Dunedin Study has followed nearly all aspects of the health and development of around 1000 people born ...

Shenzhen, May 18, 2014---Chinese scientists from Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and BGI successfully deciphered the genome sequence of another diploid cotton-- Gossypium arboreum (AA) after the completed sequencing of G. raimondii (DD) in 2012. G. arboreum, a cultivated cotton, is a putative contributor for the A subgenome of cotton. Its completed genome will play a vital contribution to the future molecular breeding and genetic improvement of cotton and its close relatives. The latest study today was published online in Nature Genetics. As one of the most ...

SALT LAKE CITY— In the body, a skin cell will always be skin, and a heart cell will always be heart. But in the first hours of life, cells in the nascent embryo become totipotent: they have the incredible flexibility to mature into skin, heart, gut, or any type of cell. It was long assumed that the joining of egg and sperm launched a dramatic change in how and which genes were expressed. Instead, new research shows that totipotency is a step-wise process, manifesting as early as in precursors to sperm, called adult germline stem cells (AGSCs), which reside in the testes. ...

University of Leicester researchers have captured stunning images of Saturn's auroras as the planet's magnetic field is battered by charged particles from the Sun. The team's findings provide a "smoking gun" for the theory that Saturn's auroral displays are often caused by the dramatic collapse of its "magnetic tail". Just like comets, planets such as Saturn and the Earth have a "tail" – known as the magnetotail – that is made up of electrified gas from the Sun and flows out in the planet's wake. When a particularly strong burst of particles from the Sun hits Saturn, ...

Installing state-of-the-art solar panels on a quarter of a million roofs could meet one-sixth of Scotland's electricity demands, experts say. Scientists say the strategy could ease the plight of one in three Scottish households, which currently struggle to provide themselves with adequate heat and hot water. Researchers, business leaders and public sector experts have contributed to a report which sets out how Scotland could benefit from solar power. They say harnessing energy from the sun on the roofs of south-facing buildings could have significant economic, ...

Three years of observations show that the Antarctic ice sheet is now losing 159 billion tonnes of ice each year – twice as much as when it was last surveyed. A team of scientists from the UK Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, led by researchers at the University of Leeds, have produced the first complete assessment of Antarctic ice sheet elevation change. They used measurements collected by the European Space Agency's CryoSat-2 satellite mission, which carries an altimeter specially designed for this task. In sharp contrast to past altimeter missions, CryoSat-2 ...

Boston, United States of America – May 19, 2014 – Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of Sanofi (EURONEXT: SAN and NYSE: SNY), presented Phase II (H-030-012) trial results for an investigational vaccine for the prevention of Clostridium difficile (C. diff) infection (CDI) at the 114th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM). The Phase II trial met its primary objectives, reactions were generally mild and of short duration, and the candidate vaccine generated an immune response against C. diff toxins A and B. These toxins are largely responsible ...

Coral Gables, Fla. (May 19, 2014)—A team of researchers led by Michael T. French, professor of health economics at the University of Miami (UM), finds that high school grade point average (GPA) is a strong predictor of future earnings. The findings, published recently in the Eastern Economic Journal, show that a one-point increase in high school GPA raises annual earnings in adulthood by around 12 percent for men and 14 percent for women. Although previous studies have found a relationship between higher levels of education and greater earnings, less is known about ...

Much like key players in social networks, University of Kansas scientists have found evidence that there are keywords in word networks that hold together groups of words in our memory. In a study published in the Journal of Memory and Language, Michael Vitevitch, KU professor of psychology, showed that research participants recognized these keywords more quickly and accurately than other words that were like the keywords in many respects except for their position in a network of 20,000 similar-sounding English words that he and colleagues created in 2008. "If words ...

NEW YORK, N.Y., May 19, 2014: It's estimated that more than 970 million people have hypertension1 and, globally, the disease is responsible for more than nine million deaths every year, making it one of the leading causes of death worldwide. In an effort to help manage the epidemic, leading scientists from the American Society of Hypertension (ASH), American Heart Association (AHA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) convened a joint panel to discuss a global project aiming to improve the treatment and control of hypertension worldwide. The joint ...

Athens, 19 May 2014: Home telemonitoring is equally effective in ICD and CRT-D patients, a subanalysis of the IN-TIME trial has shown. The findings were presented for the first time today at the Heart Failure Congress 2014, held 17-20 May in Athens, Greece. The Congress is the main annual meeting of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology. The prospective IN-TIME multicentre trial included 664 patients with chronic heart failure, class II or III New York Heart Association (NYHA) symptoms and left ventricular ejection fraction END ...