Heavens

The majestic auroras have captivated humans for thousands of years, but their nature -- the fact that the lights are electromagnetic and respond to solar activity -- was only realized in the last 150 years. Thanks to coordinated multi-satellite observations and a worldwide network of magnetic sensors and cameras, close study of auroras has become possible over recent decades. Yet, auroras continue to mystify, dancing far above the ground to some, thus far, undetected rhythm.

That's the ques­tion that North­eastern researchers, led by assis­tant pro­fessor David Choffnes, ask in new research that explores how free app- and web- based ser­vices on Android and iOS mobile devices com­pare with respect to pro­tecting users' privacy.

In par­tic­ular, the team inves­ti­gated the degree to which each plat­form leaks per­son­ally iden­ti­fi­able information--ranging from birth­dates and loca­tions to passwords--to the adver­tisers and data ana­lytics com­pa­nies that the ser­vices rely on to help finance their operations.

The newest tropical depression in the northwestern Pacific Ocean formed Sunday, Sept. 11 far to the east of the big island of Japan. Tropical Depression 17W didn't have a long life, however, as the final warning on the system was issued 12 hours later. By Sept. 12 the storm lost its tropical characteristics.

At 5 a.m. (0900 UTC) on Sunday, Sept. 11 Tropical Depression17W formed about 590 nautical miles east-southeast of Misawa, Japan. Infrared data from Japan's Himawari satellite showed that the depression appeared somewhat elongated.

Early on Sept. 12 Tropical Depression 19W formed east of Vietnam. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the South China Sea and captured a visible image of the storm that had quickly started moving over Vietnam.

When Aqua passed over the South China Sea, the center or Tropical Depression 19W (TD19W) was located over the sea, and just east of central Vietnam. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard Aqua captured a picture of the storm that showed bands of thunderstorms wrapping around the western side of the center were already over land.

Satellite data from NASA revealed that powerful storms in Super Typhoon Meranti were generating almost a foot or almost 300 millimeters of rainfall per hour. The Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core satellite measured the heavy rainfall on one side of the Category 5 super typhoon.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Two papers published by an assistant professor at the University of California, Riverside and several collaborators explain why the universe has enough energy to become transparent.

The study led by Naveen Reddy, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UC Riverside, marks the first quantitative study of how the gas content within galaxies scales with the amount of interstellar dust.

Pasadena, CA-- Quasars are supermassive black holes that sit at the center of enormous galaxies, accreting matter. They shine so brightly that they are often referred to as beacons and are among the most-distant objects in the universe that we can currently study. New work from a team led by Carnegie's Eduardo Bañados has discovered 63 new quasars from when the universe was only a billion years old. (It's about 14 billion years old today.)

From the printing press to the jet engine, mechanical machines with moving parts have been a mainstay of technology for centuries. As U.S. industry develops smaller mechanical systems, they face bigger challenges -- microscopic parts are more likely to stick together and wear out when they make contact with each other.

To help make microscopic mechanical (micromechanical) systems perform reliably for advanced technologies, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are getting get back to basics, carefully measuring how parts move and interact.

Tropical Depression 16W in the northwestern Pacific Ocean was spotted by the Terra satellite on September 08, 2016. The storm is currently moving northwest toward the island of Guam at 8 mph. It is slowly intensifying as it establishes a steady west-northwest track. Its speed is also expected to intensify in the next few days. Currently TD16W is located 220 miles west-northwest of Guam. There are no threatened landmasses at this time.

Philadelphia, PA, September 8, 2016 - With population estimates of 9 billion people worldwide by 2050, the intensification of agriculture practices in recent decades has been necessary. Significant environmental concerns exist with the intensification of agriculture, however. In dairy farming, particularly on pasture-based dairies, leaching of nitrate-N (NO3-N) to groundwater is a primary concern, leading to certain countries placing limits on herd size on a fixed land area (i.e., stocking rate) to avoid loss of nutrients to groundwater.

The inside of a present day plant or animal cell quite closely resembles a busy city. Like an urban metropolis with different districts interlinked by a traffic network, a cell has distinct compartments connected to each other by a dynamic transport system.

One set of such interlinked compartments - the Golgi complex - is essential for many cellular functions, and a question that has long puzzled scientists is: how did such a complex compartment and traffic system arise within a cell?

A study by animal welfare specialists has provided new evidence that using electronic containment systems to restrict where pet cats venture does not result in long-term wellbeing problems.

Researchers of Aalto University have made a breakthrough in controlling the motion of multiple objects on a vibrating plate with a single acoustic source. By playing carefully constructed melodies, the scientists can simultaneously and independently move multiple objects on the plate towards desired targets. This has enabled scientists, for instance, writing words consisting of separate letters with loose metal pieces on the plate by playing a melody.

MIT researchers and their colleagues are designing an imaging system that can read closed books.

In the latest issue of Nature Communications, the researchers describe a prototype of the system, which they tested on a stack of papers, each with one letter printed on it. The system was able to correctly identify the letters on the top nine sheets.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- In the first study of its kind, public health researchers show that young adults who reported having negative experiences on Facebook -- including bullying, meanness, misunderstandings or unwanted contacts -- were at significantly higher risk of depression, even accounting for many possible confounding factors.