Heavens

In the fight against desertification, so-called straw checkerboard barriers (SCB) play a significant role. SCB consists of half -exposed criss-crossing rows of straws of wheat, rice, reeds, and other plants. The trouble is that our understanding of the laws governing wind-sand movement in SCB and their surrounding area is insufficient. Now, Ning Huang and colleagues from Lanzhou University in China have performed a numerical simulation of the sand movement inside the SCB, described in a paper just published in EPJ E.

During the nearly 14 months that it has spent on the red planet, Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, has scooped soil, drilled rocks, and analyzed samples by exposing them to laser beams, X-rays, and alpha particles using the most sophisticated suite of scientific instruments ever deployed on another planet. One result of this effort was evidence reported last March that ancient Mars could have supported microbial life.

The effects of childhood abuse and lack of parental affection can last a lifetime, taking a toll both emotionally and physically.

There are many reports assessing the psychological damage resulting from childhood abuse, and the effects on physical health have also been well documented. For instance, this "toxic" stress has been linked to elevated cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome and other physical conditions posing a significant health risk. The research into the physical effects of abuse, however, has focused on separate, individual systems.

Scientists have provided the most comprehensive details yet of the journey energy from the sun takes as it hurtles around Earth's magnetosphere. Understanding the changes energy from the sun undergoes as it travels away and out into space is crucial for scientists to achieve their goal of some day predicting the onset of space weather that creates effects such as the shimmering lights of the aurora or interruptions in radio communications at Earth.

One of the instruments that flew aboard one of two unmanned Global Hawk aircraft during NASA's HS3 mission was the Hurricane Imaging Radiometer known as HIRAD. HIRAD identified an area of heavy rains and and likely strong winds in Hurricane Ingrid by measuring surface wind speeds and rain rates using its rectangular antenna to track activity on the ocean's surface.

Troy, N.Y. – The first scoop of soil analyzed by the analytical suite in the belly of NASA's Curiosity rover reveals that fine materials on the surface of the planet contain several percent water by weight. The results were published today in Science as one article in a five-paper special section on the Curiosity mission. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Dean of Science Laurie Leshin is the study's lead author.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The first rock that scientists analyzed on Mars with a pair of chemical instruments aboard the Curiosity rover turned out to be a doozy – a pyramid-shaped volcanic rock called a "mugearite" that is unlike any other Martian igneous rock ever found.

Solar storms — powerful eruptions of solar material and magnetic fields into interplanetary space — can cause what is known as "space weather" near Earth, resulting in hazards that range from interference with communications systems and GPS errors to extensive power blackouts and the complete failure of critical satellites.

New research published today increases our understanding of Earth's space environment and how space weather develops.

MADISON – For astrophysicists, the interplay of hydrogen — the most common molecule in the universe — and the vast clouds of dust that fill the voids of interstellar space has been an intractable puzzle of stellar evolution.

The dust, astronomers believe, is a key phase in the life cycle of stars, which are formed in dusty nurseries throughout the cosmos. But how the dust interacts with hydrogen and is oriented by the magnetic fields in deep space has proved a six-decade-long theoretical challenge.

Typhoon Pabuk weakened and the core of the storm was changing from a warm core tropical system to a cold core low pressure system as it continued paralleling the coast of Japan on Sept. 26. NASA's Aqua satellite provided a visible image of the transforming storm that had lost its eye.

NEW YORK--With nearly two billion people suffering from malnutrition across the planet, scientists and public health experts came together under an unprecedented alliance spearheaded by The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science at the New York Academy of Sciences to create A Global Research Agenda for Nutrition Science to identify the most critical knowledge gaps in the field of nutrition. The report supports the ongoing effort to accelerate global commitment, cooperative work, and funding to uncover and implement scientific and evidence-based solutions to malnutrition.

"We've been fortunate enough to see all stages of this process, with a range of ground and space telescopes. We've been looking for such evidence for more than a decade," said Dr Alessandro Papitto, the Nature paper's lead author. Dr Papitto is an astronomer of the Institute of Space Studies (ICE, CSIC-IEEC) of Barcelona.

A star is "blooming" in the southern sky — and astronomers using a CSIRO telescope are a step closer to knowing why.

An old star, IRAS 15445-5449, has begun to push out a jet of charged particles that glow with radio waves.

A few old stars are known to have jets, "but this is the first one where the radio waves tell us the jet is held together by a strong magnetic field", said Dr Jessica Chapman of CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science, a member of the research team.

"That's a clue to what makes these jets switch on."

Drugged driving has been a safety issue of increasing public concern in the United States and many other countries but its role in motor vehicle crashes had not been adequately examined. In a new study conducted at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, researchers assessed the association of driver drug use, as well as the combination of drugs and alcohol, with the risk of fatal crash. They found that drug use is associated with a significantly increased risk of fatal crash involvement, particularly when used in combination with alcohol.

Ever wonder what plants do when you're not around? How about an entire forest or grassland? Not even the most dedicated plant researcher can be continuously present to track environmental effects on plant behavior, and so numerous tools have been developed to measure and quantify these effects. Time-lapse photography has been used to study many aspects of plant behavior, but typically only a few plants can be captured with a single camera at the desired level of detail. This limitation has, for the most part, confined such observations to the laboratory.