PORTLAND, Ore. - Oct. 20, 2015 - To explore the potential health benefits associated with pear consumption and related health outcomes, Joanne Slavin, Ph.D., R.D., professor of food science and nutrition at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul, assisted by food science graduate Holly Reiland, conducted a systematic review of studies from PubMed (database of the National Library of Medicine with citations and abstracts of biomedical literature) and Agricola (database of the National Agricultural Library with citations of agricultural literature) from 1970 to present.
Heavens
Every two to seven years, an unusually warm pool of water -- sometimes two to three degrees Celsius higher than normal develops across the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean to create a natural short-term climate change event. This warm condition, known as El Niño, affects the local aquatic environment, but also spurs extreme weather patterns around the world, from flooding in California to droughts in Australia. This winter, the 2015-16 El Niño event will be better observed from space than any previous El Niño.
Jena (Germany) Asthma bronchiale, hayfever or neurodermatitis -- allergies are on the increase in Western European industrial countries. According to the Robert-Koch-Institute every third adult falls ill with an allergy at least once in their lives. The reasons for allergic reactions are inflammation processes of the immune system. The enzyme 5-Lipoxygenase, or in short, 5-LO, plays a pivotal role in this. "This enzyme regulates the inflammation activities by catalyzing the biosynthesis of pro-inflammatory mediators," as Dr.
Cardiovascular diseases are globally the main cause of death and vascular tissue integrity is important for the proper functionality and homeostasis of the blood system. Therefore, a profound understanding of vascular cell physiology is beneficial in successfully treating vascular diseases and for improving strategies for regenerative medicine. Blood vessels walls are mainly composed of smooth muscle cells (SMCs) and endothelial cells (ECs).
MADISON, Wis. -- Phenomenally durable crystals called zircons are used to date some of the earliest and most dramatic cataclysms of the solar system. One is the super-duty collision that ejected material from Earth to form the moon roughly 50 million years after Earth formed. Another is the late heavy bombardment, a wave of impacts that may have created hellish surface conditions on the young Earth, about 4 billion years ago.
Tropical storm Koppu was approaching the Philippines when the GPM core observatory satellite passed above on October 15, 2015 at 1436 UTC (10:36 a.m. EDT) and analyzed the intensifying storm's rainfall. By October 16, the storm intensified into a typhoon as it neared Luzon.
Seven new research programmes that aim to tackle some of the UK's major science and engineering challenges were given the green light today by the Universities and Science Minister, Jo Johnson.
Academics, industrialists and policy makers will address issues such as:
According to observations from the Tihany Magnetic Observatory in Hungary, the indices used by scientists to assess the Sun's geomagnetic perturbations to the Earth are unable to detect some of these events, which could put both power supply and communication networks at risk. The Tihany Magnetic Observatory registered a solar storm similar to the largest one ever recorded while other observatories were completely unaware of the event.
Nanoparticles with sizes the order of a wavelength interact with light in specific ways. A young investigator group at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, led by Professor Martina Schmid, is inquiring how to use arrangements of such nanoparticles to improve solar cells and other opto-electronic devices. Now the scientists report in the Journal of the American Chemical Society ACS Nano a considerable success with ultrathin CIGSe solar cells.
Problems add up below 1 micrometer
The sea ice cover of the Southern Ocean reached its yearly maximum extent on Oct. 6. At 7.27 million square miles (18.83 million square kilometers), the new maximum extent falls roughly in the middle of the record of Antarctic maximum extents compiled during the 37 years of satellite measurements - this year's maximum extent is both the 22nd lowest and the 16th highest. More remarkably, this year's maximum is quite a bit smaller than the previous three years, which correspond to the three highest maximum extents in the satellite era, and is also the lowest since 2008.
University of Maryland astronomers Silvia Protopapa and Douglas Hamilton are among the authors of the first published paper from the New Horizons flyby, which appears in the Oct. 16, 2015 issue of the journal Science. Protopapa helped map the composition of Pluto's surface and locate ices on it. Hamilton helped confirm the shapes, sizes and unique rotations of two of Pluto's moons and the finding that no other moons appear to orbit Pluto. The findings will help scientists understand the origins and subsequent history of Pluto and its moons.
Boulder, Colo. -- Oct. 15, 2015 -- The New Horizons team described a wide range of findings about the Pluto system in its first research paper, published today. "The Pluto System: Initial Results from its Exploration by New Horizons" appears in and on the cover of the Oct. 16 issue of the journal Science; the publication comes just three months after NASA's historic first exploration of the Pluto system in mid-July. The authors include more than 150 New Horizons project and NASA personnel; Principal Investigator Alan Stern of Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is first author.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- A giant mound near the Moon's south pole appears to be a volcanic structure unlike any other found on the lunar surface, according to new research by Brown University geologists.
The formation, known as Mafic Mound, stands about 800 meters tall and 75 kilometers across, smack in the middle of a giant impact crater known as the South Pole-Aitken Basin. This new study suggests that the mound is the result of a unique kind of volcanic activity set in motion by the colossal impact that formed the basin.
In an article published in the journal Nature, Professor Burgman and Professor William Sutherland from the University of Cambridge argue expert opinions are often considered infallible.
But expert advice or estimates are often compromised by "cognitive frailties", which include the expert's mood, values, whether they stand to gain or lose from a decision and the context in which their opinions are sought.
"Experts are typically unaware of these subjective influences," the article says.
ITHACA, N.Y. - Cornell University engineers have developed a method to re-create the arrangement of muscles of an octopus tentacle, using an elastomer and 3D printer.
The research was groundbreaking since until now, 3D printing methods could not directly print a soft robotic device with as much agility and degree of freedom as the new method provides, according to Rob Shepherd, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and senior author of the study.