Environmental problems, such as depleting natural resources, highlight the need to establish a renewable chemical industry. Metabolic engineering enhances the production of chemicals made by microbes in so-called "cell factories". Next Monday, world class scientist Professor Sang Yup Lee of KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) will explain how metabolic engineering could lead to the development of solutions to these environmental problems.
Heavens
NASA's Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel or HS3 scientists had a fascinating tropical cyclone to study in long-lived Hurricane Nadine. NASA's Global Hawk aircraft has investigated Nadine five times during the storm's lifetime.
NASA's Global Hawk also circled around the eastern side of Hurricane Leslie when it initially flew from NASA's Dryden Research Flight Center, Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. to the HS3 base at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va. on Sept. 6-7, 2012.
From Sept. 6 to Sept. 29, 2012, NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) moved into its semi-annual eclipse season, a time when Earth blocks the telescope's view of the sun for a period of time each day. Scientists choose orbits for solar telescopes to minimize eclipses as much as possible, but they are a fact of life -– one that comes with a period of fuzzy imagery directly after the eclipse.
It is easy to see the effect of the strong northeasterly wind shear battering Tropical Storm Gaemi in satellite imagery from NASA. Visible imagery on Oct. 5 shows a large oval-shaped area of showers and thunderstorms associated with the storm, southwest of the exposed center of circulation.
Satellite data is showing that northwesterly wind shear is taking a toll on Tropical Storm Oscar in the central Atlantic and it is expected to dissipate the storm late on Oct. 5, 2012.
NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm Oscar on Oct. 4 at 1335 UTC (9:35 a.m. EDT) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument captured a true-color image of the storm. The imagery showed bulk of Oscar's clouds and showers were southeast of the center of circulation as a result of wind shear.
Twenty-three days after Nadine was born, the tropical cyclone's life came to an end in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean. NASA's TRMM satellite caught a look at the fading Nadine one final time on Oct. 3 before it dissipated.
NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite passed above long-lasting Nadine for the last time before the tropical storm's dissipation on October 4, 2012 at 0249 UTC (10:49 p.m. EDT October 3, 2012).
WASHINGTON -- NASA's Swift satellite recently detected a rising tide of high-energy X-rays from a source toward the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The outburst, produced by a rare X-ray nova, announced the presence of a previously unknown stellar-mass black hole.
"Bright X-ray novae are so rare that they're essentially once-a-mission events and this is the first one Swift has seen," said Neil Gehrels, the mission's principal investigator, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "This is really something we've been waiting for."
At 11:24 p.m. EDT on Oct. 4, 2012, the sun unleashed a coronal mass ejection (CME). Not to be confused with a solar flare, which is a burst of light and radiation, CMEs are a phenomenon that can send solar particles into space and can reach Earth one to three days later. Experimental NASA research models show the CME to be traveling at about 400 miles per second.
When Earth-directed, CMEs can affect electronic systems in satellites and on Earth. CMEs of this speed, however, have not generally caused major effects in the past. Further updates will be provided if needed.
DURHAM, N.C. -- High-pressure systems over oceans, which largely determine the tracks of tropical cyclones and hydrological extremes in much of the northern hemisphere, are likely to intensify this century, according to a Duke University-led study.
California, Nevada, and Florida have already made driverless cars street-legal, and continuing advances in the technology have led many to predict that the commercialization of automated vehicles is a real possibility in the not-so-distant future. As driverless vehicles become more commonplace, it is important to understand how humans interact with this new technology. The Human Factors special issue on automation, featuring the latest articles on designing automated vehicles with the driver in mind, is now available online.
Twenty-three days after Nadine was born, the tropical cyclone's life came to an end in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean. NASA's TRMM satellite caught a look at the fading Nadine one final time on Oct. 3 before it dissipated.
NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite passed above long-lasting Nadine for the last time before the tropical storm's dissipation on October 4, 2012 at 0249 UTC (10:49 p.m. EDT October 3, 2012).
Satellite data is showing that northwesterly wind shear is taking a toll on Tropical Storm Oscar in the central Atlantic and it is expected to dissipate the storm late on Oct. 5, 2012.
NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm Oscar on Oct. 4 at 1335 UTC (9:35 a.m. EDT) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument captured a true-color image of the storm. The imagery showed bulk of Oscar's clouds and showers were southeast of the center of circulation as a result of wind shear.
Reinhold Dauskardt, PhD, of Stanford's Department of Materials Science and Engineering has been studying skin for years. But when he sent his students to look for data on the mechanical properties of skin, they came back empty-handed. A lot was known about skin structure and disease, but few papers actually talked about its mechanical function – its ability to stretch and resist tension without tearing. "That motivated us to get more interested in the skin itself," said Dauskardt.
Tropical Storm Maliksi is putting the final touches on Japan, that is, the edge of the storm was seen brushing the country's northern coast as it pulled away on NASA satellite imagery.
NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm Maliksi on Oct. 4 at 0329 UTC (11:29 p.m. EDT, Oct. 3, EDT) and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument captured an infrared image of the storm brushing the Tohoku and Hokkaido prefectures of northern Japan.
NASA's Aqua satellite provided two different infrared views of the two tropical storms swirling in the Atlantic Ocean. Oscar is battling wind shear that appears destined to tear it apart, while Nadine is merging with a cold front.