NASA's Terra satellite captured the newest Typhoon in the western North Pacific Ocean, Tembin, as it moves parallel to Luzon, Philippines. Warm waters were the trigger in rapid intensification of the typhoon. Typhoon Tembin grew from the fifteenth tropical depression over the weekend of August 18-19, and by Monday, August 20 was a powerful typhoon. At 5 a.m. EDT on August 20, forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center noted that Tembin "rapidly intensified over the past 24 hours" going from a 35-knot (40.2 mph/64.8 kmh) intensity on August 19 at 2 a.m. EDT to 95 ...

A computer model that can identify the best molecular candidates for removing carbon dioxide, molecular nitrogen and other greenhouse gases from power plant flues has been developed by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), the University of California (UC) Berkeley and the University of Minnesota. The model is the first computational method to provide accurate simulations of the interactions between flue gases and a special variety of the gas-capturing molecular systems known as metal-organic frameworks ...

PASADENA, Calif.—In orbit around Earth is a wide range of satellites that we rely on for everything from television and radio feeds to GPS navigation. Although these spacecraft soar high above storms on Earth, they are still vulnerable to weather—only it's weather from the sun. Large solar flares—or plasma that erupts from the sun's surface—can cause widespread damage, both in space and on Earth, which is why researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) are working to learn more about the possible precursors to solar flares called plasma loops. Now, they ...

Life in the world's oceans faces far greater change and risk of large-scale extinctions than at any previous time in human history, a team of the world's leading marine scientists has warned. The researchers from Australia, the US, Canada, Germany, Panama, Norway and the UK have compared events which drove massive extinctions of sea life in the past with what is observed to be taking place in the seas and oceans globally today. Three of the five largest extinctions of the past 500 million years were associated with global warming and acidification of the oceans – trends ...

LIVERMORE, Calif. -- Many marine species will be harmed or won't survive if the levels of carbon dioxide continue to increase. Current protection policies and management practices are unlikely to be enough to save them. Unconventional, non-passive methods to conserve marine ecosystems need to be considered if various marine species are to survive. This is the conclusion of a group of scientists led by University of California, Santa Cruz researcher and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory visiting scientist Greg Rau, and includes Elizabeth McLeod of The Nature Conservancy ...

Fierce galactic winds powered by an intense burst of star formation may blow gas right out of massive galaxies, shutting down their ability to make new stars. Sifting through images and data from three telescopes, a team of astronomers found 29 objects with outflowing winds measuring up to 2,500 kilometers per second, an order of magnitude faster than most observed galactic winds. "They're nearly blowing themselves apart," said Aleksandar Diamond-Stanic, a fellow at the University of California's Southern California Center for Galaxy Evolution, who led the study. "Most ...

Sparse halos of neutrinos within the hearts of exploding stars exert a previously unrecognized influence on the physics of the explosion and may alter which elements can be forged by these violent events. John Cherry, a graduate student at UC San Diego, models stellar explosions, including a type called a core-collapse supernova. As these stars run out of fuel, their cores suddenly collapse to form a neutron star, which quickly rebounds sending seas of neutrinos through the surrounding stellar envelope and out into space. Even as the collapsed core is rebounding, the ...

We know that stars group together to form galaxies, galaxies clump to make clusters and clusters gather to create structures known as superclusters. At what scale though, if at all, does this Russian doll-like structure stop? Scientists have been debating this very question for decades because clustering on large scales would be in conflict with our 'standard model' of cosmology. The current model is based on Einstein's equations assuming everything is smooth on the largest scales. If matter were instead clumpy on very large scales, then the entire model would need to be ...

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 21, 2012 — A scientific instrument featured on CSI and CSI: Miami for instant fingerprint analysis is forging another life in real-world medicine, helping during brain surgery and ensuring that cancer patients get effective doses of chemotherapy, a scientist said here today. The report on technology already incorporated into instruments that miniaturize room-size lab instrumentation into devices the size of a shoebox was part of the 244th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. The meeting, ...

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 21, 2012 — Members of a panel today commemorating the 150th anniversary of federal legislation that transformed college education for people in the 19th and 20th centuries said that a 21st century counterpart to the Morrill Act of 1862 could ease the staggering load of student debt and help colleges and universities cope with state funding cutbacks. "A 21st century Morrill Act would be a wonderful symbolic and tangible move toward reinvesting in public higher education," Amy Bix, Ph.D., said in an interview prior to her presentation at the 244th National ...

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 21, 2012 — The focus of nutrition for good health is quietly shifting to include consumption of food ingredients specifically designed to nourish the non-human cells that comprise 80 percent of the cells in the typical person, an authority on the topic said here today. Speaking at the 244th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, Robert Rastall, Ph.D., cited several factors driving these so-called "prebiotic" ingredients toward more foods. Food scientists, for instance, are developing new ...

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 21, 2012 — With enough sunlight falling on home roofs to supply at least half of America's electricity, scientists today described advances toward the less-expensive solar energy technology needed to roof many of those homes with shingles that generate electricity. Shingles that generate electricity from the sun, and can be installed like traditional roofing, already are a commercial reality. But the advance ― a new world performance record for solar cells made with "earth-abundant" materials ― could make them more affordable and ease the ...

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 21, 2012 — The American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society, is holding a special symposium today honoring Rudy M. Baum, editor-in-chief of its weekly newsmagazine, whose thought-provoking editorials and editorial leadership made Baum an icon among ACS' more than 164,000 members. "Rudy Baum's editorials focused on some of the greatest challenges facing humanity," said ACS President Bassam Z. Shakhashiri, Ph.D., who organized the symposium. It is part of the 244th ACS National Meeting & Exposition, a scientific extravaganza ...

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 21, 2012 — Scientists today reported progress toward a 40-year-old dream of extracting uranium for nuclear power from seawater, which holds at least 4 billion tons of the precious material. They described some of the most promising technology and an economic analysis showing uranium from the oceans could help solidify nuclear energy potential as a sustainable electricity source for the 21st century. Their reports were part of a symposium at the 244th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, ...

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 21, 2012 — Working with units of material so small that it would take 50,000 to make up one drop, scientists are developing the profiles of the contents of individual brain cells in a search for the root causes of chronic pain, memory loss and other maladies that affect millions of people. They described the latest results of this one-by-one exploration of cells or "neurons" from among the millions present in an animal brain at the 244th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society. The ...

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 21, 2012 — The refreshing chill of today's fudge-brownie cookie-crumble ice cream cone ― will it really last? Or can ice cream actually stoke the body's metabolic furnace and make you feel even hotter? How about a few ice-cold brews? Or should you add a dash of the counter-intuitive to your summer menu with the sweat-inducing, mouth-on-fire, tear-provoking taste of chili peppers? With millions of people already weather-worn after a summer punctuated by record heat, and some of the hottest days still ahead, the American Chemical Society (ACS) ...

New York City (August 21, 2012) – Treating very young infants with antibiotics may predispose them to being overweight in childhood, according to a study of more than 10,000 children by researchers at the NYU School of Medicine and the NYU Wagner School of Public Service and published in the online August 21, 2012, issue of the International Journal of Obesity. The study found that on average, children exposed to antibiotics from birth to 5 months of age weighed more for their height than children who weren't exposed. Between the ages of 10 to 20 months, this translated ...

August 21, 2012, Shenzhen, China – An international team led by New York University School of Medicine and BGI, the largest genomics organization in the world, has completed the first genome-wide and single-nucleotide resolution DNA methylomes of two ant species: Camponotus floridanus and Harpegnathos saltator. It provides new insights into the relationship between epigenetic regulation and caste differentiation of ants and also shed light on the epigenetic mechanism involved in social behavior, neurobiology and life-span of other animals. The latest study was published ...

SEATTLE - (August 21, 2012) – Research on a unique vertebrate called the sea lamprey shows that more than a thousand genes are shed during its early development. These genes are paradoxically lost all throughout the developing embryo except in a specialized compartment called "primordial germ cells" or PGCs. The PGCs can be thought of as embryonic stem cells and are used, ultimately, for making the next generation of lampreys. Based on computational analysis, a significant number of genes that are lost in the embryo have signatures of "pluripotency," which suggests that ...

How abnormal protein deposits in the brains of Alzheimer's patients disrupt the signalling between nerve cells has now been reported by researchers in Bochum and Munich, led by Dr. Thorsten Müller from the Medizinisches Proteom-Center of the Ruhr-Universität, in the journal Molecular and Cellular Proteomics. They varied the amount of APP protein and related proteins associated with Alzheimer's disease in cell cultures, and then analysed how this manipulation affected other proteins in the cell. The result: the amount of APP present was related to the amount of an enzyme ...

The research relates to a family of molecules firstly discovered in Melbourne that applied to blood cell development. One of these, granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor or GM-CSF, acts as a messenger between cells acting at a site of inflammation. Professor John Hamilton has posed the question: could blocking GM-CSF action lead to a new treatment for inflammatory diseases? In experimental models of rheumatoid arthritis, Professor Hamilton and Dr Andrew Cook had previously shown that blocking GM-CSF function with an antibody suppressed the disease leading to ...

Numerous viruses are used in the service of science today. They serve as gene taxis to transfer therapeutic genes into body cells or as therapeutic viruses targeted to infect and destroy cancer cells. For such applications, the viruses are often equipped with additional genes, such as for immune mediators or for proteins inducing programmed cell death. However, these gene products can harm the body if they are released at the wrong moment or at excessive levels. "Ideally, we want to be able to turn on and off the transferred genes at a specific time," says Dr. Dirk Nettelbeck, ...

A pioneering surgical blood salvage technology developed at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, is set to transform the way major surgery is carried out by reducing blood loss in patients. HemoSep is set to revolutionise the health care sector after gaining the CE mark and receiving Canadian national approval, following highly successful clinical trials in the world leading University of Kirikkale University Hospital in Ankara, Turkey. The device is designed to recover blood spilled during open-heart and major trauma surgery and concentrate the blood cells for transfusion ...

The first systematic, multidisciplinary results to come out of research conducted on the edge of the Serengeti at the rich palaeoanthropological site in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania since that produced by Louis and Mary Leakey's team, have recently been published in a special issue of the prestigious Journal of Human Evolution. Professor Marion Bamford, deputy director of the Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, and Professor Ron Clarke from the Institute of Human Evolution – both at the University of the Witwatersrand – contributed papers to the 191-page ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — How do stem cells preserve their ability to become any type of cell in the body? And how do they "decide" to give up that magical state and start specializing? If researchers could answer these questions, our ability to harness stem cells to treat disease could explode. Now, a University of Michigan Medical School team has published a key discovery that could help that goal become reality. In the current issue of the prestigious journal Cell Stem Cell, researcher Yali Dou, Ph.D., and her team show the crucial role of a protein called Mof in preserving ...