NASA research has indicated whenever "Hot Towering" thunderstorms are spotted within a tropical cyclone, it is more likely to strengthen. NASA's TRMM satellite saw hot towers within newborn Tropical Depression 06E when it passed overhead early on July 12 and it later became Tropical Storm Fabio. Tropical Depression 06E (TD06E) was seen by the TRMM satellite on July 12, 2012 at 0632 UTC (2:32 a.m. EDT). TD06E had mostly light to moderate rainfall where rain was falling between 20 and 40 millimeters (.78 to 1.57 inches) per hour. However, some heavy rainfall (red) and hot ...

NASA's Aqua satellite has several instruments onboard that are providing forecasters with different views of Hurricane Emilia in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. The infrared view hinted that Emilia would strengthen and it regained Category 3 Hurricane status today. On Wednesday, July 11, 2012 at 2120 UTC (5:20 p.m. EDT/2:20 p.m. PDT), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument captured a visible image of Hurricane Emilia that showed an eye with some high clouds overhead. The next day, Thursday, July 12, the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument ...

AMES, Iowa -- The April suicide of 14-year-old Kenneth Weishuhn Jr. -- a South O'Brien High School (Paulina, Iowa) student who was reportedly teased and bullied by classmates -- had Iowa lawmakers questioning the effectiveness of the state's five-year-old anti-bullying law. School officials can't always identify the bullies until it's too late. But a new study led by Douglas Gentile, an Iowa State University associate professor of psychology, may provide schools with a new tool to help them profile students who are more likely to commit aggressive acts against other students. ...

Massive explosions on the sun unleash radiation that could kill astronauts in space. Now, researchers from the U.S. and South Korea have developed a warning system capable of forecasting the radiation from these violent solar storms nearly three hours (166 minutes) in advance, giving astronauts, as well as air crews flying over Earth's polar regions, time to take protective action. Physicists from the University of Delaware and from Chungnam National University and Hanyang University developed the system and report on it in Space Weather: The International Journal ...

Fire in enclosed military environments such as ship holds, aircraft cockpits and ground vehicles is a major cause of material destruction and jeopardizes the lives of warfighters. For example, a shipboard fire on the aircraft carrier USS George Washington in May 2008 burned for 12 hours and caused an estimated $70 million in damage. For nearly 50 years, despite the severity of the threat from fire, no new methods for extinguishing or manipulating fire were developed. In 2008, DARPA launched the Instant Fire Suppression (IFS) program to develop a fundamental understanding ...

(Edmonton) A new study from the University of Alberta is challenging the notion that teaching the next generation of Sidney Crosbys how to take a bodycheck at an earlier age will help them avoid injury over the long term. Researchers with the Alberta Centre for Injury Control and Research in the School of Public Health studied hockey-related injuries using data from several emergency departments in the Edmonton region. They found little truth to the theory that introducing bodychecking at an earlier age helps prevent injuries because players gain an "instinctive ability" ...

Since the early days of iris recognition technologies, it has been assumed that the iris was a "stable" biometric over a person's lifetime — "one enrollment for life." However, new research from University of Notre Dame researchers has found that iris biometric enrollment is susceptible to an aging process that causes recognition performance to degrade slowly over time. "The biometric community has long accepted that there is no 'template aging effect' for iris recognition, meaning that once you are enrolled in an iris recognition system, your chances of experiencing ...

"Fracking" stories about shale gas extraction hit the news daily, fueling a growing conflagration between environmental protectionism and economic interests. Otherwise known as hydraulic fracturing, fracking has become a profitable venture thanks to advances in horizontal drilling technology, opening up large US reservoirs and vastly changing the natural gas market. Touted as a clean energy source and a bridge fuel to transition from fossil fuels, natural gas via fracking is also frought with public health and environmental concerns. A session at the upcoming annual ...

The continent of Antarctica is at risk from human activities and other forces, and environmental management is needed to protect the planet's last great wilderness area, says an international team of researchers, including a Texas A&M University oceanographer, in a paper published in the current issue of Science magazine. Mahlon "Chuck" Kennicutt II, professor of oceanography who has conducted research in the area for more than 25 years, says Antarctica faces growing threats from global warming, loss of sea ice and landed ice, increased tourism, over-fishing in the region, ...

LA JOLLA, CA – July 12, 2012 –Readers of the top-ranked scientific journals Science and Nature might have noticed a recent wave of articles, most recently in the July 13, 2012 issue of Science, with deep importance for biology and medicine. These papers, all published this year by collaborations headed by the Scripps Research Institute laboratory of Professor Raymond Stevens, illuminate a large and medically important family of proteins called G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). GPCRs sit in the cell membrane and sense various molecules outside the cell, including odors, ...

New York, NY – For the first time, the den sites of two female snow leopards and their cubs have been located in Mongolia's Tost Mountains, with the first known videos taken of a mother and cubs, located and recorded by scientists from Panthera, a wild cat conservation organization, and the Snow Leopard Trust (SLT). Watch the videos and view a photo gallery. Because of the snow leopard's secretive and elusive nature, coupled with the extreme and treacherous landscape which they inhabit, dens have been extremely difficult to locate. This is a tremendous discovery and ...

VIDEO: Cornstarch and water is a smart material derived from simple components. This video shows a bowling ball bouncing off the surface of the mixture, which also can catch a dropped... Click here for more information. Most people buy cornstarch to make custard or gravy, but Scott Waitukaitis and Heinrich Jaeger have used it to solve a longstanding physics problem with a substance known to generations of Dr. Seuss readers as "Oobleck," and to scientists as a non-Newtonian liquid. This ...

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- They might be called a blessing or a curse -- tannins, which are present in certain sorghums, contain health-promoting antioxidant properties, but also provide a bitter taste and decreased protein digestibility. To better understand tannins, their role in sorghum and how they can be altered to improve sorghum's use as food and feed, a team of scientists led by Kansas State University and U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers, has cloned the tannin gene in sorghum. Tannins' high antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and UV-protective functions promote ...

Cardiologists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a noninvasive imaging technique that may help determine whether children who have had heart transplants are showing early signs of rejection. The technique could reduce the need for these patients to undergo invasive imaging tests every one to two years. The new method is described online in the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation. The invasive imaging test, a coronary angiogram, involves inserting a catheter into a blood vessel and injecting a dye to look for dangerous plaque ...

Boulder, Colo., USA – Geology highlights include understanding new evidence for rock pulverization by catastrophic events near major faults in California and Japan; modern-day examples of active arc-continent collision in Taiwan; discovery and study of the highest-latitude coral reefs presently known on Earth, located in Japan; the puzzling record of the changing isotope ratio of calcium in seawater over the last 500 million years; and a possible refutation of hypotheses concerning shallow-water methane seep fauna. Highlights are provided below. Geology articles published ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. ¬— Online advertising has become prevalent in the past five years, and social media sites, such as Facebook, have played a major role. Now, a study at the University of Missouri School of Journalism has developed a method that could help advertisers target online audiences easier by knowing their personality types. Using a new personality scale, researchers determine how people with certain personality types use social media websites. Heather Shoenberger, a doctoral student in the MU School of Journalism, found that those individuals who liked high-risk ...

SEATTLE – Women who want to lose weight should faithfully keep a food journal, and avoid skipping meals and eating in restaurants – especially at lunch – suggests new research from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The findings by Anne McTiernan, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues – from the first study to look at the impact of a wide range of self-monitoring and diet-related behaviors and meal patterns on weight change among overweight and obese postmenopausal women – are published online in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly the Journal of ...

Osteoarthritis progression is not more likely in patients who have undergone single-bundle ACL reconstruction, says researchers presenting their work today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's Annual Meeting in Baltimore. "While previous studies have shown the benefits of double bundle ACL reconstruction compared to single bundle, none have focused on the long-term effects of osteoarthritis(OA)," noted Jongkeun Seon, MD, corresponding author from Chonnam National University Hwasun Hospital. "A final follow-up in our study showed 9.6 percent of the ...

BALTIMORE, MD – A sports hernia is a common cause of groin pain in athletes, however until lately little has been known as to why they occur. Researchers presenting their study today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in Baltimore suggest that a type of hip condition (Femoral Acetabular Impingement (FAI) might be a contributing cause. "Our study illustrated that those patients with FAI tend to have a change in hip biomechanics which in turn leads to increased stress across the groin. With these stresses a sports hernia ...

Vitamin D deficiency is associated with poorer lung function in asthmatic children treated with inhaled corticosteroids, according to a new study from researchers in Boston. "In our study of 1,024 children with mild to moderate persistent asthma, those who were deficient in vitamin D levels showed less improvement in pre-bronchodilator forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) after one year of treatment with inhaled corticosteroids than children with sufficient levels of vitamin D," said Ann Chen Wu, MD, MPH, assistant professor in the Department of Population Medicine ...

A new study demonstrates the superiority of a specific technique to perform anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction in children. In recent years, the number of ACL surgeries in pediatric athletes has skyrocketed. The study, conducted by researchers at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) in New York City, shows that a technique called the All-Inside, All-Epiphyseal ACL Reconstruction (AE) provides great knee stability and effectively controls joint stress. "The AE technique is not available except in a few select centers around the country including HSS," said ...

Boston, MA – A study lead by researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) shows an association between increased concentrations of phthalates in the body and an increased risk of diabetes in women. Phthalates are endocrine disrupting chemicals that are commonly found in personal care products such as moisturizers, nail polishes, soaps, hair sprays and perfumes. They are also used in adhesives, electronics, toys and a variety of other products. This finding is published in the July 13, 2012 online edition of Environmental Health Perspectives Researchers, lead ...

July 13, 2012, New York, NY—Twenty percent of U.S. women (18.7 million) ages 19-64 were uninsured in 2010, up from 15 percent (12.8 million) in 2000, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report on women's health care. An additional 16.7 million women were underinsured in 2010, compared with 10.3 million in 2003. The report estimates that once fully implemented, the Affordable Care Act will cover nearly all women, reducing the uninsured rate among women from 20 percent to 8 percent. "Women, particularly those in their childbearing years, are uniquely at risk for being ...

Shaun King is back again, delivering more visuals to fans with the music video release for his hit single, "2 Up 2 Down." The official video release is set for today, Thursday, July 12, 2012 at 12PM Eastern Standard Time. Fans will be able to watch the video on Shaun's YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/ShaunKingTV and on VEVO. "I really enjoyed shooting this video and the hood showed a lot of love," states Shaun. "I will never forget growing up in Virginia and feel that I owe it to VA to put my home back on the map." "2 Up ...

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