Heavens

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Typhoon Nepartak after it became a major typhoon in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean.

The second tropical cyclone of the northwestern Pacific Ocean season formed on July 3 and strengthened quickly into a tropical storm that was named Nepartak.

If conditions had been just a little different an eon ago, there might be plentiful life on Venus and none on Earth.

The idea isn't so far-fetched, according to a hypothesis by Rice University scientists and their colleagues who published their thoughts on life-sustaining planets, the planets' histories and the possibility of finding more in Astrobiology this month.

Nearly one in five Aboriginal children aged less than 16 years old in Western Australia had unregistered births according to new research that means thousands of Aboriginal children are likely to have no official identity.

Helsinki, July 4, 2016: Women who are overweight or obese pose an ongoing challenge for the fertility clinic. Many studies show that these patients are at increased risk of infertility and are less likely than normal-weight women to conceive after fertility treatment. For example, ovulating sub-fertile women with a body mass index (BMI) of 29 kg/m2 or higher have been found in one study to have a 4% lower pregnancy rate per kg/m2 increase per year, compared to ovulatory subfertile women with a BMI below 29.

Helsinki, July 6, 2016: Three in four women starting fertility treatment will have a baby within five years, whether as a result of the treatment or following natural conception. The figures emerged from a large cohort study analysing the birth records of almost 20,000 women having fertility treatment in Denmark between 2007 and 2010. The majority of these women (57%) had their baby as a result of the treatment, but a significant proportion (14%) conceived spontaneously without treatment. More than half (57%) gave birth within two years.

Astronomers are using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to study auroras -- stunning light shows in a planet's atmosphere -- on the poles of the largest planet in the Solar System, Jupiter. This observation programme is supported by measurements made by NASA's Juno spacecraft, currently on its way to Jupiter.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Two researchers at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture find that farmers located closer to city centers seem to have a locational advantage in transportation over their long distance, conventional food supply chain competitors.

Astronomers at The University of Nottingham have released spectacular new infrared images of the distant Universe, providing the deepest view ever obtained over a large area of sky. The team, led by Omar Almaini, Professor of Astrophysics in the School of Physics and Astronomy, is presenting their results at the National Astronomy Meeting taking place this week at the University's Jubilee Campus.

Scientists from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, and the National Research University Higher School of Economics have devised a method of distinguishing black holes from compact massive objects that are externally indistinguishable from one another. The method involves studying the energy spectrum of particles moving in the vicinity -- in one case it will be continuous and in the other it will be discrete. The findings have been published in Physical Review D.

Alexandria, VA - Last summer, while the abandoned Gold King Mine in Colorado was being studied for acid mine drainage, the earthen plug blew out, releasing millions of gallons of acid mine water into the Animas River, which eventually drains into the San Juan and Colorado rivers and ultimately Lake Powell. The images were startling, but this event added momentum to the national dialog on remediating abandoned mine lands. EARTH Magazine explores the role geoscience plays in this process.

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Engineers at Oregon State University have created a new computer modeling package that people anywhere in the world could use to assess the potential of a stream for small-scale, "run of river" hydropower, an option to produce electricity that's of special importance in the developing world.

The system is easy to use; does not require data that is often unavailable in foreign countries or remote locations; and can consider hydropower potential not only now, but in the future as projected changes in climate and stream runoff occur.

In less than a week, the spacecraft Juno will arrive at Jupiter, the culmination of a five-year, billion-dollar journey. It's mission: to peer deep inside the gas giant and unravel its origin and evolution. One of the biggest mysteries surrounding Jupiter is how it generates its powerful magnetic field, the strongest in the solar system.

Researchers have developed a new method for detecting and measuring one of the most powerful, and most mysterious, events in the Universe - a black hole being kicked out of its host galaxy and into intergalactic space at speeds as high as 5000 kilometres per second.

PULLMAN, Wash. - Washington State University researchers have developed a unique, multifunctional smart material that can change shape from heat or light and assemble and disassemble itself. They have filed a provisional patent on the work.

This is the first time researchers have been able to combine several smart abilities, including shape memory behavior, light-activated movement and self-healing behavior, into one material. They have published their work in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

BOSTON (Embargoed until 2 PM EDT, June 29, 2016)--Butter consumption was only weakly associated with total mortality, not associated with cardiovascular disease, and slightly inversely associated (protective) with diabetes, according to a new epidemiological study which analyzed the association of butter consumption with chronic disease and all-cause mortality.