NASA mini-balloon mission maps migratory magnetic boundary
During this solar storm, three BARREL balloons were flying through parts of Earth’s magnetic field that directly connect a region of Antarctica to Earth’s north magnetic pole - these...
IRIS releases new imagery of Mercury transit
On May 9, 2016, a NASA solar telescope called the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, observed Mercury crossing in front of the sun – an astronomical phenomenon known as ...
Heatwaves and Hospital Admissions for Mental Disorders in Northern Vietnam
Thus, in the present study, a definition of heatwaves similar to that of other studies was used to estimate the effect of heatwaves in relation to hospital admissions for mental dise...
Extraterrestrial oceans – beneath the surface
Icy objects in our solar system have large oceans under their surfaces and here life could evolve and flourish. There has long been speculation as to whether Jupiter’s large, icy moo...
Solving a long-standing atomic mass difference puzzle paves way to the neutrino mass
To measure the mass of neutrinos, scientists study radioactive decays in which they are emitted. This decay energy must be known with highest precision. Neutrinos are everywhere. Wit...
Scientists discover the evolutionary link between protein structure and function
Geologists have found remnants of life preserved in rock billions of years old. For the first time, we have traced evolution onto a biological network, Caetano-Anollés notes. When lo...
Scientists track last 2,000 years of British evolution
Over the past 2,000 years, British people have adapted to become taller and blonder, more likely to have blue eyes and better able to digest milk, according to researchers who have d...
What neuroscience can learn from computer science
After visiting the International Conference on Perceptual Organization (ICPO) in June 2015, I made a list of trends in neuroscience-inspired computer applications that I will explore...
Scotland to ban GM crops
Scotland is set to ban the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops, officials announce Scotland is set to ban the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops, officials an...
Mutations linked to genetic disorders shed light on a crucial DNA repair pathway
In two separate studies, the most recent described in Molecular Cell on August 6, they have identified two new genes in which mutations can produce one such rare genetic disorder, Fa...
Megacity: Beijing Quadrupled in Size in 10 Years
Data from NASA’s QuikScat satellite show the changing extent of Beijing between 2000 and 2009 through changes to its infrastructure. Then, they estimated how these urban developments...
Meals ready to eat: Expedition 44 crew members sample leafy greens grown on space station
Fresh food grown in the microgravity environment of space officially is on the menu for the first time for NASA astronauts on the International Space Station. Fresh food grown in the...
Maize genome ‘dark matter’ discovery a boon for breeders
Now, plant scientists have discovered a different kind of dark matter in the maize genome: a tiny percentage of regulatory DNA that accounts for roughly half of the variation in obse...
How a female X chromosome is inactivated
A team of researchers lead by Anton Wutz, Professor of Genetics at ETH Zurich, have now discovered several of these inactivation molecules. Virus insertions that destroyed a gene, wh...
World’s first bilateral hand transplant on child
The success of Penn’s first bilateral hand transplant on an adult, performed in 2011, gave us a foundation to adapt the intricate techniques and coordinated plans required to perform...
What is photosynthesis?
The oxygenic photosynthesis equation is: 6CO2 + 12H2O + Light Energy → C6H12O6 + 6O2 + 6H2O Here, six molecules of carbon dioxide (CO2) combine with 12 molecules of water (H2O) usi...
What is magnetism? Facts about magnetic fields and magnetic force
Other forms of magnetism Magnetism takes many other forms, but except for ferromagnetism, they are usually too weak to be observed except by sensitive laboratory instruments or at v...
Toward a safe antiobesity drug that could block fat absorption
To help address the global obesity epidemic, scientists are developing a new class of compounds called micelle sequestrant polymers, or MSPs, that could prevent fat particles from ge...
The Planet Saturn
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI Atmosphere: The outer atmosphere of Saturn contains 96.3% molecular hydrogen and 3.25% helium by volume. Such storms had not been observed on any...
The planet Mercury
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington Mercury is the closest planet to our sun, the smallest of the eight planets, and ...
The moons of Saturn
Inner Large Moons: Saturn’s Inner Large Moons, which orbit within the E Ring (see below), includes the larger satellites Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, and Dione. At 1066 km in diameter,...
Taking plants off-planet – how do they grow in zero gravity?
Already they’ve given us some surprises about growing in zero gravity – and shaken up some of our thinking about how plants grow on Earth. A typical experiment begins on Earth in our...
Study of birds’ sense of smell reveals important clues for behavior and adaptation
Now, a large comparative genomic study of the olfactory genes tied to a bird’s sense of smell has revealed important differences that correlate with their ecological niches and speci...
Researchers design first artificial ribosome
When the cell makes a protein, mRNA (messenger RNA) is copied from DNA. No one has ever developed something of this nature. The researchers devised a novel designer ribosome with tet...
Powerful DNA ‘Editing’ Has Arrived, Are We Ready for It?
Editing DNA to cure disease While most human diseases (opens in new tab) are caused, at least partially, by mutations in our DNA, current therapies treat the symptoms of these mutat...