Heavens

(Jan. 25, 2012) – HOBOKEN, NJ – Human skin is the body's first line of defense and often mirrors the health, nutritional status and age of a person. Over time, skin shows signs of aging due to the gradual breakdown of collagen and elastin. However, skin can be rebuilt and made healthier no matter one's age. Natural supplement Pycnogenol® (pic-noj-en-all), an antioxidant plant extract from the bark of the French maritime pine tree, was found to improve skin hydration and elasticity in women in a clinical trial published this month in Skin Pharmacology and Physiology.

Each fall at technical universities across the world, a new crop of aeronautical and astronautical engineering graduate students settle in for the work that will consume them for the next several years. For many, their first experience in these early months is not with titanium or aluminum or advanced carbon-fiber materials that are the stuff of airplanes, but with computer code.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Greenhouse bedding plant growers can save themselves time, money or possibly both by giving cuttings in propagation more light, according to a Purdue University study.

Flower growers use cuttings from Central America and Africa to start spring bedding plants in greenhouses during winter and early spring. Those cloudy days and cool temperatures make propagation time- and energy-intensive.

Regression models presented in the American Society of Civil Engineers' Journal of Infrastructure Systems by researchers at Syracuse University's L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science are expected to help utility companies predict the service life of wastewater pipeline infrastructure and take a proactive approach to pipeline replacements and maintenance.

Scientists have developed a new way to create electromagnetic Terahertz (THz) waves or T-rays - the technology behind full-body security scanners. The researchers behind the study, published recently in the journal Nature Photonics, say their new stronger and more efficient continuous wave T-rays could be used to make better medical scanning gadgets and may one day lead to innovations similar to the 'tricorder' scanner used in Star Trek.

On July 6, 2011, a comet was caught doing something never seen before: die a scorching death as it flew too close to the sun. That the comet met its fate this way was no surprise – but the chance to watch it first-hand amazed even the most seasoned comet watchers.

"Comets are usually too dim to be seen in the glare of the sun's light," says Dean Pesnell at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who is the project scientist for NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO), which snapped images of the comet. "We've been telling people we'd never see one in SDO data."

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm Ethel on January 19, 2012 after she was born in the Southern Indian Ocean. The island of Rodrigues is now under Tropical Cyclone Warnings as Ethel approaches and strengthens.

Residents of Mozambique are still recovering from the flooding caused by Tropical Depression Dando earlier this week and now newly formed Tropical Cyclone Funso threatens to bring more rainfall to the country. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Cyclone Funso on January 19 and provided forecasters with two different views of the intensifying storm.

ESO's VISTA telescope, at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, has captured a striking new image of the Helix Nebula. This picture, taken in infrared light, reveals strands of cold nebular gas that are invisible in images taken in visible light, as well as bringing to light a rich background of stars and galaxies.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Maryland planners, developers and land-use advocates consider the state's smart growth tools too weak, frustrating their desire for development within existing urban areas, finds a new University of Maryland study based on interviews with a representative group of stakeholders.

People living along the coast of Peru were eating popcorn 1,000 years earlier than previously reported and before ceramic pottery was used there, according to a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences co-authored by Dolores Piperno, curator of New World archaeology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and emeritus staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

A faint "satellite galaxy" 10 billion light years from Earth is the lowest-mass object ever detected at such a distance, says University of California, Davis, physics professor Chris Fassnacht, who aided in the satellite's discovery.

The find, described in a paper published online today (Jan. 18) in the journal Nature, could help astronomers find similar objects and confirm or reject theories about the structure of the cosmos.

A large Scandinavian study that has been running for 30 years has finally provided convincing evidence that the combined oral contraceptive pill does, indeed, alleviate the symptoms of painful menstrual periods – dysmenorrhoea. The research is published online in Europe's leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction [1] today (Wednesday).

Grant MacKenzie of the MRC Unit in The Gambia and colleagues describe in this week's PLoS Medicine how they set up a population-based surveillance system to assess the impact of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) on invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) and radiological pneumonia in children in The Gambia. The surveillance system is expected to inform immunisation policy and serves as a potential model for those introducing routine PCV vaccination in diverse settings.

Toronto / Vancouver - Basketball fans in Cleveland may disagree, but two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Lebron James' decision to play with a higher-profile Miami Heat team and all-star teammates shows sound marketing and career-management acumen, according to newly-published business school research focused on the evolution and importance of star status for today's professional athletes. In order to maximize their earnings and endorsements, today's celebrity athletes -- from James to David Beckham to Peyton Manning -- need to be mindful of the evolution of their star status.