Heavens

A group of researchers led by San Diego State University communication professor Peter Andersen, have teamed up with 40 resorts nationwide to encourage vacationers to be smart about sun protection through Go Sun Smart.

The program, funded by the National Institute of Health, kicked off in March at the PGA Golf Resort in Palm Beach, Florida, and Lago Mar Resort and Club in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It will continue to roll out to resorts all over North America this summer.

Cyclone Imelda reached hurricane strength on April 14 and its eye "opened" and became apparent on visible imagery on imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite. By April 15, the eye had "closed" and become filled in with clouds.

When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Cyclone Imelda on April 14 at 0955 UTC (5:55 a.m. EDT), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard captured a visible image that clearly showed the eye of the storm. The image was created by the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Agricultural fires are set all over the world at different times to prepare the soil for the planting of new crops. Several fires in India and many dozen fires in Nepal have been set and are burning in this image from April 13, 2013. This natural-color satellite image was collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined in red. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Lynn Jenner.

During geomagnetic storms, stable auroral red (SAR) arcs reach down from polar latitudes, their faint glow stretching equatorward of the traditional auroral oval.

An upper-level low pressure system is sapping the cloud and thunderstorm development on the western side of Cyclone Victoria in the Southern Indian Ocean. New NASA satellite imagery showed that the bulk of rainfall was located east of the storm's center.

Tropical Cyclone Victoria is now a remnant low pressure area in the Southern Indian Ocean after running into strong wind shear that has been tearing the storm apart. When NASA's TRMM satellite passed over the storm on April 12 it saw limited areas with moderate rainfall pushed far from the center of circulation.

On April 11, 2013, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Mexico and Central America, and acquired this true-color image of dozens of fires burning across the region.

Fires dot the landscapes of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras in this image. Each red mark that appears is an area where the thermal detectors on the MODIS instrument recognized temperatures higher than the background which means that most likely those dots are fires.

Durham, NC —Evolution skeptics argue that some biological structures, like the brain or the eye, are simply too complex for natural selection to explain. Biologists have proposed various ways that so-called 'irreducibly complex' structures could emerge incrementally over time, bit by bit. But a new study proposes an alternative route.

Stem cells can be coaxed to grow into new bone or new cartilage better and faster when given the right molecular cues and room inside a water-loving gel, researchers at Case Western Reserve University show.

By creating a three-dimensional checkerboard—one with alternating highly connected and less connected spaces within the hydrogel—the team found adjusting the size of the micropattern could affect stem cell behaviors, such as proliferation and differentiation.

April 11, 2013, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. -- Researchers are suggesting new ways to use existing Internet tools to recruit more study participants for clinical pain trials and to increase the likelihood they will remain throughout the study period. An innovative website allowed recruiters to reach out broadly to target and recruit potential subjects and to avoid many of the common difficulties of pain research, according to results presented today at the 29th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Pain Medicine.

Stem cells can be coaxed to grow into new bone or new cartilage better and faster when given the right molecular cues and room inside a water-loving gel, researchers at Case Western Reserve University show.

By creating a three-dimensional checkerboard—one with alternating highly connected and less connected spaces within the hydrogel—the team found adjusting the size of the micropattern could affect stem cell behaviors, such as proliferation and differentiation.

An ice cloud taking shape over Titan's south pole is the latest sign that the change of seasons is setting off a cascade of radical changes in the atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon. Made from an unknown ice, this type of cloud has long hung over Titan's north pole, where it is now fading, according to observations made by the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) on NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

The M6.5 flare on the morning of April 11, 2013, was also associated with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection (CME), another solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of solar particles into space and can reach Earth one to three days later. CMEs can affect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground. Experimental NASA research models show that the CME began at 3:36 a.m. EDT on April 11, leaving the sun at over 600 miles per second.

When NASA's Aqua satellite flew over Cyclone Victoria in the Southern Indian Ocean it captured a visible image of the storm and it appeared to look like the letter "J." A band of thunderstorms wrapping into the center from the east of low-level center of circulation extended north, creating the appearance of the letter.

An area of low pressure moving toward Cyclone Imelda from the west has turned the storm to the south from its westward track, as NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead and captured a visible and an infrared image of the powerful storm that showed the effects of wind shear.