Heavens

Heart failure affects over one million people in France. Although the blood system is the first to have been explored for the purpose of improving heart function, a study by Inserm has revealed the potential of a secondary system that had previously received scant attention. The researchers analysed the heart lymphatic system in an animal model. They showed that this system was highly impaired following a myocardial infarction. Using a biotherapy based on the injection of innovative microparticles, they succeeded in regenerating lymphatic vessels in a targeted manner.

Powerful thunderstorms circled the low-level center of newborn Tropical Cyclone Fantana in infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite.

At 1800 GMT (2 p.m. EDT) on April 11, Tropical Cyclone Fantala formed from System 99S near 13.0 degrees south and 71.2 degrees east in the Southern Indian Ocean. It was 354 nautical miles southeast of Diego Garcia.

Older adults, who are Facebook's fastest growing demographic, are joining the social network to stay connected and make new connections, just like college kids who joined the site decades ago, according to Penn State researchers.

"Earlier studies suggest a positive relationship between bonding and bridging social capital and Facebook use among college students," said Eun Hwa Jung, a doctoral candidate in mass communications. "Our study extends this finding to senior citizens."

GAITHERSBURG, MD - April 12, 2016 - The Institute for In Vitro Sciences (IIVS) brought together stakeholders from industry, government and academia to discuss considerations for exposure and dosimetry for non-animal testing during its 2.5-day workshop, "In Vitro Exposure Systems and Dosimetry Assessment Tools for Inhaled Tobacco Products", held April 4-6, 2016 in Bethesda, MD. Uniquely focused on in vitro testing, the workshop is the only known event of its kind.

A group of scientists from ITMO University in Saint Petersburg, Russia has developed a novel approach to the construction of quantum communication systems for secure data exchange. The experimental device based on the results of the research is capable of transmitting single-photon quantum signals across distances of 250 kilometers or more, which is on par with other cutting edge analogues. The research paper was published in the Optics Express journal.

Pasadena, CA-- You can never predict what treasure might be hiding in your own basement. We didn't know it a year ago, but it turns out that a 1917 image on an astronomical glass plate from our Carnegie Observatories' collection shows the first-ever evidence of a planetary system beyond our own Sun. This unexpected find was recognized in the process of researching an article about planetary systems surrounding white dwarf stars in New Astronomy Reviews.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Moving bodies can be attracted to each other, even when they're quite far apart and separated by many other objects: That, in a nutshell, is the somewhat unexpected finding by a team of researchers at MIT.

A milestone has been reached in the research of zinc loading in crop seeds with large potential benefits to people in the developing world. A team of scientists, led by Professor Michael Broberg Palmgren from the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at University of Copenhagen, has just published an article about their findings in Nature Plants, which might well lead the way to growing crops with more zinc accumulated in the seeds.

Michael Broberg Palmgren explains about the breakthrough:

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- Whites with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in California receive more state funding than Hispanics, African Americans, Asians and others, new research from UC Davis Health System has found. The study also showed that state spending on ASD increases dramatically with age.

Previous evaluations of the state's investment in ASD services have not included adults, a major oversight, according to lead author Paul Leigh, professor of public health sciences and researcher with the Center for Healthcare Policy and Research at UC Davis.

Washington, DC-- Planet-hunting is an ongoing process that's resulting in the discovery of more and more planets orbiting distant stars. But as the hunters learn more about the variety among the tremendous number of predicted planets out there, it's important to refine their techniques. New work led by Carnegie's Jonathan Gagné, Caltech's Peter Gao, and Peter Plavchan from Missouri State University reports on a technological upgrade for one method of finding planets or confirming other planetary detections. The result is published by The Astrophysical Journal.

That top predators are important for the regulation of the ecosystem in natural landscapes is well known. The study is one of few that examine the impact of human activities on natural predator-prey relationships of wild animals and the regulation of wildlife populations.

The number of connections reaches a maximum at the age of 25 for both genders.

Unnamed call records, gender and age information of 3 million mobile phone users from a European country were used to provide a probabilistic interpretation about the communication patterns of individuals. The findings reveal that patterns in communication reflect the social goals of individuals. There is a clear difference in which men and women maintain their relationships.

Using your skin as a touchscreen has been brought a step closer after UK scientists successfully created tactile sensations on the palm using ultrasound sent through the hand.

The University of Sussex-led study - funded by the Nokia Research Centre and the European Research Council - is the first to find a way for users to feel what they are doing when interacting with displays projected on their hand.

A way of estimating more accurate distances to the thousands of so-called "planetary nebulae" dispersed across our Galaxy has just been announced by a team of three astronomers based at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). Dr David Frew, Professor Quentin Parker and Dr Ivan Bojicic, based on a culmination of ten years of research work, developed a new method for measuring more accurate distances between "planetary nebulae" and the Earth. With this technique, "planetary nebulae" finally get a more meaningful physical presence.

Astrophysicists at the University of Birmingham have used data from the NASA Kepler space telescope to discover a class of extrasolar planets whose atmospheres have been stripped away by their host stars, according to research published in the journal Nature Communications today (11 April 2016).