Hurricane Earl is still a powerful category four hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as it approaches the North Carolina coast today. NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite observed the high rates rain was falling within Earl, in some areas more than 2 inches per hour. Today, the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft is also flying into the eye of Hurricane Earl at altitudes of 60,000 feet to gather information about the storm. Hurricane Earl became the most powerful hurricane of the 2010 Atlantic season early on September 2 when its sustained winds reached ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Protecting helicopters in combat from heat-seeking missiles is the goal of new laser technology created at the University of Michigan and Omni Sciences, Inc., which is a U-M spin-off company. "Battlefield terrain in places like Afghanistan and Iraq can be so rough that our troops have often had to rely on helicopters, and they can be easy targets for enemies with shoulder-launched missiles," said Mohammed Islam, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. "Our lasers give off a signal that's like throwing sand in ...

Bermuda has warnings up as Tropical Storm Fiona approaches, and GOES-13 satellite imagery from today shows that Fiona, although packing a punch, is a much smaller system that her brother, the Category 4 Hurricane Earl. A tropical storm warning is in effect for Bermuda today, Sept. 2, as tropical storm force winds are expected there by late Friday. Bermuda can expect between 1 to 3 inches of rainfall from Fiona. When the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite called GOES-13 captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Fiona approaching Bermuda this afternoon ...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Cigarette smoke shuts off a key enzyme in airways that regulates the body's response to inflammation, according to findings from the University of Alabama at Birmingham published online today at Science Express. The UAB researchers say smoke inhibits the enzyme, called Leukotriene A4 Hydrolase (LTA4H), causing it to fail in its job of shutting down white blood cells following a successful response to inflammation. The team says the research study identified a previously unknown substrate of LTA4H called proline-glycine-proline (PGP). In a normal ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – There is yet no straightforward way to determine the optimal dose level and treatment schedules for high-dose radiation therapies such as stereotactic radiation therapy, used to treat brain and lung cancer, or for high-dose brachytherapy for prostate and other cancers. Radiation oncologists at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center-Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC-James) may have solved the problem by developing a new mathematical model that encompasses all dose levels. Typically, radiation ...

BETHESDA, Md., Sept. 2, 2010 – The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology expressed its disapproval and disappointment this week in response to the Aug. 23 ruling in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that granted a preliminary injunction barring federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research. In a statement, the society said the decision, which came in response to a lawsuit filed by two adult stem-cell researchers, effectively halts human embryonic stem-cell research in the United States and "represents a crossroads in American scientific ...

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – A new report by terrorism researchers at the University of Maryland concludes that the deadly hostage-taking incident at the Discovery Communications headquarters in suburban Washington, D.C. meets the criteria of a terrorist act – a rare one for media organizations and the nation's capital region. Hostage-taking, though, is a familiar pattern in capital-region terror, the researchers add. The report from the University of Maryland's START Center – the federally funded National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism – also ...

Tropical Depression Nine strengthened yesterday into Tropical Storm Gaston, but today it ran into dry and stable air and weakened back into a depression again. When NASA's Aqua satellite flew over Gaston early this morning, Sept. 2 at 0423 UTC (12:23 a.m. EDT), the infrared image taken from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument showed that Tropical Depression Gaston seemed to have a compact circulation with some high, cold thunderstorm cloud tops around its center of circulation. Those clouds reached so high into the troposphere that they were colder than ...

AMES, Iowa – Iowa State University researchers have found a way to produce high-value chemicals such as ethylene glycol and propylene glycol from biomass rather than petroleum sources. Walter Trahanovsky, an Iowa State professor of chemistry who likes to write out the chemical structures of compounds when he talks about his science, was looking to produce sugar derivatives from cellulose and other forms of biomass using high-temperature chemistry. And so he and members of his research group studied the reactions of cellulosic materials in alcohols at high temperatures ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — School children who consume foods purchased in vending machines are more likely to develop poor diet quality – and that may be associated with being overweight, obese or at risk for chronic health problems such as diabetes and coronary artery disease, according to research from the University of Michigan Medical School. The study also looked at foods sold in school stores, snack bars and other related sales that compete with USDA lunch program offerings and found that these pose the same health and diet risks in school-aged children. "The foods that ...

NASA's Terra satellite captured the changing Tropical Storm Kompasu over Korea and China very early today, as it makes its way east to northern Japan. It is becoming extratropical. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Kompasu at 02:15 UTC on Sept. 2 (10:15 p.m. EDT Sept. 1) as it was moving over Korea and China. The storm appeared disorganized as there was no visible center of circulation. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center, the organization that forecasts tropical ...

Singapore, September 3, 2010 — Novartis announced today that scientists at the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases (NITD), in collaboration with researchers from the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF), the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute and The Scripps Research Institute have discovered a novel compound that shows promise as a next generation treatment for drug resistant malaria. Major support for the project was provided by the Wellcome Trust, the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), A*STAR, Singapore and the U.S. government. Published ...

Female induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, reprogrammed from human skin cells into cells that have the embryonic-like potential to become any cell in the body, retain an inactive X chromosome, stem cell researchers at UCLA have found. The finding could have implications for studying X chromosome-linked diseases such as Rett syndrome, caused by mutations in a gene located on the X chromosome. The findings differ from those seen in mouse skin cells that are reprogrammed into iPS cells, in which the inactive X chromosome reactivates, said Kathrin Plath, senior author ...

Uninsured minority pedestrians hit by cars are at a significantly higher risk of death than their insured white counterparts, even if the injuries sustained are similar, new research from Johns Hopkins suggests. The death rate disparity is compounded by the fact that minority pedestrians are far more likely than white pedestrians to be struck by motor vehicles, according to a study published in the August issue of the journal Surgery. "It's a double whammy," says Adil H. Haider, M.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School ...

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have developed a new animal model for studying hemophilia A, with the goal of eventually treating people with the disorder. Hemophilia A, a hereditary defect that prevents blood from clotting normally, is caused by a variety of mutations in the factor VIII gene. Published online in the Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis, the study aimed to provide a better understanding of hemophilia A, according to first author and veterinarian Carmen Jane Booth, assistant professor of comparative medicine, and co-director of Mouse Research Pathology ...

Major depression is a common and disabling brain condition marked not only by the presence of depressed mood but also by its effects on sleep, energy, decision-making, memory and thoughts of death or of suicide. Major depression affects 15 million adults in the U.S., and the World Health Organization projects that by 2020, it will be the largest contributor to disability in the world after heart disease. While antidepressants have helped many to recover and resume their lives, only 30 percent of patients will experience full remission with the first medication they ...

Graphene, a one-atom-thick layer of graphitic carbon, has great potential to make electronic devices such as radios, computers and phones faster and smaller. But its unique properties have also led to difficulties in integrating the material into such devices. In a paper published Sept. 1 in the journal Nature, a group of UCLA researchers demonstrate how they have overcome some of these difficulties to fabricate the fastest graphene transistor to date. With the highest known carrier mobility — the speed at which electronic information is transmitted by a material ...

A new study from the University of Arizona shows that people in the midst of a divorce typically reveal how they are handling things – not so much by what they say but how they say it. In fact, data revealed that even complete strangers were able to figure out how people were coping with their emotions using relatively small amounts of information. The study, "Thin-Slicing Divorce: Thirty Seconds of Information Predict Changes in Psychological Adjustment Over 90 Days," published online in the journal Psychological Science, is one of a number of relatively recent person-perception ...

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego have revealed new details about how cannibalistic bacteria identify peers suitable for consumption. The work, which employed imaging mass spectrometry, is a first step toward a broader effort to map all signaling molecules between organisms. "These are the molecules that control biology," said Pieter C. Dorrestein, PhD, associate professor at UC San Diego's Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and corresponding author of a paper published this week in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National ...

Global agricultural expansion cut a wide swath through tropical forests during the 1980s and 1990s. Over half a million square miles of new farmland – an area roughly the size of Alaska – was created in the developing world between 1980 and 2000, of which over 80 percent was carved out of tropical forests, according to Stanford researcher Holly Gibbs. "This has huge implications for global warming, if we continue to expand our farmland into tropical forests at that rate," said Gibbs, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Environmental Earth System Science, who ...

MAYWOOD, Ill. -- One of the most severe complications of brain surgery is a life-threatening blood clot in the lungs called a pulmonary embolism. But a Loyola University Health System study published in the Journal of Neurosurgery suggests that screening methods hospitals typically use to access the risk of pulmonary embolisms may fall short. Hospitals typically screen for blood clots in legs, which can break free, travel to the lungs and cause pulmonary embolisms. But in the Loyola study, only seven of the 22 patients who experienced pulmonary embolisms showed evidence ...

Researchers at The University of Western Ontario have provided the first direct evidence using a biological marker, to show chronic stress plays an important role in heart attacks. Stressors such as job, marital and financial problems have been linked to the increased risk for developing cardiovascular disease including heart attack. But there hasn't been a biological marker to measure chronic stress. Drs. Gideon Koren and Stan Van Uum developed a method to measure cortisol levels in hair providing an accurate assessment of stress levels in the months prior to an acute ...

DALLAS – Sept. 3, 2010 – UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have identified unique metabolic properties that allow a specific type of stem cell in the body to survive and replicate in low-oxygen environments. In a study published in the September issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell, investigators found that the low-oxygen microenvironments that ordinarily deprive and starve other kinds of cells are tolerated by a type of stem cell used as the primary material for bone-marrow transplantation. These cells, called hematopoietic stem cells, are found in marrow ...

Researchers from across the U.S., as part of the Infantile Spasms Working Group (ISWG), established guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of infantile spasms (IS). The goal of the ISWG is to improve patient outcomes by creating protocols that educate pediatricians on early diagnosis and treatment options. Full details of this study appear online in Epilepsia, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the International League Against Epilepsy. Infantile spasms—known also as West syndrome and named after Dr. William James West who provided the first account ...

A large international study aimed at improving the care of muscular dystrophy patients worldwide is being launched by physicians, physical therapists, and researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Neurologist Robert "Berch" Griggs, M.D., is heading the study of treatments for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, the most common form of the disease that affects children. The condition, which affects boys almost exclusively, progresses rapidly. Boys' symptoms start when they are toddlers; untreated, they end up in a wheelchair before they become teenagers. With ...