Heavens

Empty water reservoirs, severe water rationing, and electrical blackouts are the new status quo in major cities across southeastern Brazil where the worst drought in 35 years has desiccated the region. A new NASA study estimates that the region has lost an average 15 trillion gallons of water per year from 2012 to 2015.

Augusto Getirana, a hydrologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland, analyzed the amount water stored in aquifers and rivers across Brazil from 2002 to 2015, interested in understanding the depth of the current drought.

The remnant moisture from what was once Hurricane Patricia and moisture from the Gulf of Mexico were being transported north by a trough of low pressure over Wisconsin. The clouds and moisture were streaming into the Eastern third of the U.S. on October 28, 2015. The hybrid system was generating windy conditions which were seen from NASA's RapidScat instrument, while NOAA's GOES-East satellite captured an image of the impressive and sizeable cloud cover.

Champion sprinter Linford Christie once said that he started races 'on the B of the bang', but research from Oxford and Utrecht universities says the pause before the bang could also make the difference between success and failure. Their results are published on 28 October in the open access journal Frontiers in Psychology.

Haze due to weak winds and air pollution is reducing surface solar radiation in China, which has major consequences for the climate, the environment and the economy. These are the findings of a research report now being published in Scientific Reports. An international team of researchers including those from the University of Gothenburg is behind the study.

In the world as a whole, surface solar radiation has increased since 1990, although in China, it has decreased.

Slowing winds increase air pollution

Chemists have created a star-shaped molecule previously thought to be too unstable to be made.

The team created the five-pronged molecule [5]radialene, in work that could lead to more efficient ways to make medicinal agents, said lead researcher, Professor Michael Sherburn from The Australian National University (ANU).

"This proof that we can make a compound that so many people thought couldn't be made opens up a world of new possibilities," said Professor Sherburn, a synthetic chemist in the ANU Research School of Chemistry.

The cooling of the Nordic Seas towards modern temperatures started in the early Pliocene, half a million years before the global oceans cooled. A new study of fossil marine plankton published in Nature Communications today demonstrates this.

In the Pliocene, 5.3 to 2.6 million years ago, the world was generally warmer than today. The cooling of the oceans toward the modern situation started from 4 million years ago, but a new study now shows that the Nordic Seas cooled 500,000 year earlier.

As the days get colder and shorter, we carve jack-o-lanterns and drink pumpkin spice lattes. But one fall tradition can actually keep you healthy: getting your flu shot. Like all vaccines, the flu shot trains the immune system to fend off infection, but some need help to produce the full effect. Today, in ACS Central Science, researchers report a new way to help improve vaccines using molecules that more effectively direct the immune system.

The Vista Variables in the Vía Láctea Survey (VVV) [1] ESO public survey is using the VISTA telescope at the Paranal Observatory to take multiple images at different times of the central parts of the galaxy at infrared wavelengths [2].

We have long known the power of a good sing-along. Now, research from the University of Oxford has shown that singing is a great ice-breaker and can get groups of people to bond together more quickly than other activities can.

The new study, published in the Royal Society's Open Science journal, looked at how people attending adult education classes grew closer over seven months. The conclusion - singing groups bonded more quickly than creative writing or craft classes.

A North Carolina State University physicist and his German colleagues have created a new, more precise algorithm for simulating particle interactions when a single impurity is introduced into a Fermi sea. The algorithm shows that when these particles interact, the transition from quasiparticle to bound molecule in a polarized two-dimensional system is smooth. The new method may have implications for understanding the behavior of impurities in a variety of systems.

NASA's RapidScat analyzed the winds in the Gulf of Mexico that were associated with the hybrid storm the included the remnants of former Eastern Pacific Ocean Hurricane Patricia. NOAA's GOES-East satellite showed the extent of the hybrid system's cloud cover over the southeastern U.S. on October 27.

Patricia's remnants merged with an upper-level low pressure area after it made landfall, and that system has plagued the U.S. Gulf coast states with heavy rains and gusty winds since Sunday, Oct. 25.

Jupiter's moon Europa is believed to possess a large salty ocean beneath its icy exterior, and that ocean, scientists say, has the potential to harbor life. Indeed, a mission recently suggested by NASA would visit the icy moon's surface to search for compounds that might be indicative of life. But where is the best place to look?

After maintaining hurricane intensity for over a week former category four hurricane Olaf is now a post-tropical storm and moved into hurricane history. The GPM core observatory satellite flew above Olaf and analyzed the rainfall within the storm.

The Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core satellite is managed by both NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. It flew over Olaf on October 26, 2015 at 0510 UTC (1:10 a.m. EDT).

Ottawa (October 27, 2015) - A new expert panel report, Technology and Policy Options for a Low-Emission Energy System in Canada, released today by the Council of Canadian Academies, provides a review of options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and moving Canada toward a low-emission future.

Boulder, Colo. -- Oct. 26, 2015 -- Using a new process in planetary formation modeling, where planets grow from tiny bodies called "pebbles," Southwest Research Institute scientists can explain why Mars is so much smaller than Earth. This same process also explains the rapid formation of the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, as reported earlier this year.