Exposure to moderate amounts of sunshine may slow the development of obesity and diabetes, a study suggests.
Scientists who looked at the effect of sunlight on mice say further research will be needed to confirm whether it has the same effect on people.
The researchers showed that shining UV light at overfed mice slowed their weight gain. The mice displayed fewer of the warning signs linked to diabetes, such as abnormal glucose levels and resistance to insulin.
LA JOLLA, CA – October 23, 2014 - Breaking carbon-hydrogen (C-H) bonds to alter existing molecules to create new ones is an increasingly important avenue for drug development. Of particular interest is mirror-image or "one-handed" compounds, but C-H breaking methods for making pure batches of these molecules have worked with only a limited range of starting materials.
The strong southwesterly wind shear that has been battering Tropical Storm Ana has abated and has given the storm a chance to re-organize. Ana appeared more rounded on imagery from NASA's Terra satellite as thunderstorms again circled the low-level center.
COLUMBUS, Ohio: Astronomers have gotten the closest look yet at what happens when a black hole takes a bite out of a star—and the star lives to tell the tale.
Loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) from Cape Verde start their life with a swimming sprint and a ride on favourable ocean currents. In this way, they escape quickly from predator-rich coastal areas and make their way to the safer open ocean where they spend several years feeding and growing. In this study, tiny acoustic transmitters provided direct insight into these pathways for the first time. "Thanks to the new technology we can start to fill in key information gaps about the so-called 'lost years' Dr. Rebecca Scott states.
Successful techniques for cryopreserving bulk biomaterials and organ systems would transform current approaches to transplantation and regenerative medicine. However, while vitrified cryopreservation holds great promise, practical application has been limited to smaller systems (cells and thin tissues) due to diffusive heat and mass transfer limitations, which are typically manifested as devitrification and cracking failures during thaw.
Narrowband or hyperspectral imaging is a valuable technique used in planetary science for characterizing surfaces and surrounding environments. For example, it can be used to spatially map molecular species of interest on the surface of a solid or icy body, or to sound to different depths in a giant planet atmosphere. However, conducting narrowband or hyperspectral imaging of solar system targets from a balloon-borne platform presents several technical challenges, including mechanical failures and power requirements.
The analysis showed that Gonzalo generated several areas over the Atlantic Ocean where rainfall totals topped 12 inches (300 mm). Fay's maximum rainfall was between 4 and 8 inches (100-200 mm).
This rainfall analysis showed that Gonzalo generated several areas over the Atlantic Ocean where rainfall totals topped 12 inches (red). Fay's maximum rainfall appeared between 4 and 8 inches (green).
(Photo Credit: NASA/SSAI, Hal Pierce)
Tropical Storm Ana was being battered by wind shear when NASA's Terra satellite passed overhead and saw the bulk of showers and thunderstorms pushed north and east of the center.
While studying the atmosphere on Saturn's moon Titan, scientists discovered intriguing zones of organic molecules unexpectedly shifted away from its north and south poles. These misaligned features seem to defy conventional thinking about Titan's windy atmosphere, which should quickly smear out such off-axis concentrations.
The sun erupted with another significant flare today, peaking at 10:28 a.m. EDT on Oct. 22, 2014. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured images of the event, which occurred in the lower half of the sun. This flare is classified as an X1.6 class flare. X-class flares denote the most extreme flares. This is the third substantial flare from the same region of the sun since Oct. 19.
New maps of Saturn's moon Titan reveal large patches of trace gases shining brightly near the north and south poles. These regions are curiously shifted off the poles, to the east or west, so that dawn is breaking over the southern region while dusk is falling over the northern one.
The pair of patches was spotted by a NASA-led international team of researchers investigating the chemical make-up of Titan's atmosphere.
While space debris was the uncontrolled adversary in the award-winning space thriller film "Gravity," space debris, also known as "space junk," is an ongoing real-life concern for teams managing satellites orbiting Earth, including NOAA-NASA's Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership, or Suomi NPP, satellite. It is not unusual for satellites that have the capability of maneuvering to be repositioned to avoid debris or to maintain the proper orbit.
Beta Pictoris is a young star located about 63 light-years from the Sun. It is only about 20 million years old and is surrounded by a huge disc of material — a very active young planetary system where gas and dust are produced by the evaporation of comets and the collisions of asteroids.
Flavien Kiefer (IAP/CNRS/UPMC), lead author of the new study sets the scene: "Beta Pictoris is a very exciting target! The detailed observations of its exocomets give us clues to help understand what processes occur in this kind of young planetary system."
Using two world-class supercomputers, the researchers were able to demonstrate the effectiveness of their approach by simulating the formation of a massive galaxy at the dawn of cosmic time. The ALMA radio telescope – which stands at an elevation of 5,000 meters in the Atacama Desert of Chile, one of the driest places on earth – was then used to forge observations of the galaxy, showing how their method improves upon previous efforts.