Heavens

The Atlantic Ocean is in overdrive this week, and NASA satellite imagery captured the birth of the ninth tropical depression in the central Atlantic Ocean today, trailing to the east of Tropical Storm Fiona.

SEATTLE – When it comes to the mechanics of the human immune system, we are all more alike than previously thought, according to a new study by scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

This finding has significant implications for developing new ways to detect, diagnose and treat cancer and diseases of the immune system, according to Harlan Robins, Ph.D., corresponding author of a paper detailing the research in the Sept. 1 issue of Science Translational Medicine.

Infrared satellite imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite showed some strong convection building in Tropical Storm Fiona, and her maximum sustained winds increased from 40 mph yesterday to 60 mph this morning

NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, or TRMM satellite looked at the rate rain was falling in Hurricane Earl yesterday, and it was intense.

China's monopoly on the global supply of elements critical for production of computer hard disc drives, hybrid-electric cars, military weapons, and other key products — and its increasingly strict limits on exports — is setting the stage for a crisis in the United States. That's the topic of the cover story of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS' weekly newsmagazine.

Today (September 1), space scientists around the world are celebrating ten years of ground-breaking discoveries by 'Cluster', a mission that is illuminating the mysteries of the magnetosphere, the northern lights and the solar wind.

Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Commission for Racial Equality and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the research shows that black and mixed-race youths are over-represented in the youth justice system. This over-representation starts at the point of entry into the system, and is largely preserved as young suspects and defendants pass through it.

Global degradation of ecosystems is widely believed to threaten human welfare, yet accepted measures of well-being show that it is on average improving globally, both in poor countries and rich ones. A team of authors writing in the September issue of BioScience dissects explanations for this "environmentalist's paradox." Noting that understanding the paradox is "critical to guiding future management of ecosystem services," Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne and her colleagues confirm that improvements in aggregate well-being are real, despite convincing evidence of ecosystem decline.

A study published today in the scientific journal Addiction argues that privatising Sweden's government monopoly on the sale of alcohol will significantly increase alcohol-related violence and other harms. Depending on the type of privatisation, experts predict that total alcohol consumption in Sweden will increase by 17 - 37%, with thousands more alcohol-related deaths, assaults, and drunk driving offences per year and up to 11 million more days of sick leave.

Today (September 1), space scientists around the world are celebrating ten years of ground-breaking discoveries by 'Cluster', a mission that is illuminating the mysteries of the magnetosphere, the northern lights and the solar wind.

A substantial proportion (up to 86%) of the population living in low and middle income countries would be pushed into poverty as a result of purchasing common life-saving medicines. These are the findings of a study by Laurens Niëns from Erasmus University Rotterdam and colleagues and published in this week's PLoS Medicine. In addition, generic versions of such medicine were shown to be generally substantially more affordable than originator brand products.

University of Colorado at Boulder undergraduates, who have been helping to control five NASA satellites from campus, participated in the unusual decommissioning of a functioning satellite with a failed science payload in recent days, bringing the craft into Earth re-entry to burn up yesterday.

College Park, MD (August 31, 2010) -- A new imaging system using six different wavelengths to illuminate the interior of the eyeball (ocular fundus) may pave the way for doctors to easily screen patients for common diseases of the eye, such as age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. The system is described in the journal Review of Scientific Instruments, which is published by the American Institute of Physics.