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Iowa State engineers study how hills, nearby turbines affect wind energy production

AMES, Iowa – Hui Hu pulled a model wind turbine from the top of an office filing cabinet.

The turbine tower was just 10 inches high. Its three blades were 10 inches in diameter. It was a perfect 1:320 scale reproduction of the 80-meter diameter wind turbines spinning across Iowa, the country's second-ranked state in installed wind power capacity. That mini turbine is helping a research team led by Hu, an Iowa State University associate professor of aerospace engineering, understand how hills, valleys and the placement of turbines affect the productivity of onshore wind farms.

Lying and sitting more comfortably

Anyone confined to a wheelchair or a bed has to deal with numerous complications. Frequently, they suffer from bedsores or decubitus ulcers as physicians call them. Bony prominences, such as the sacrum, coccyx and ischium, are especially endangered spots. Unrelieved pressure can lead to tissue necrosis. Damage can extend into the periosteum and, at the worst, into bones themselves. The ulcers are entryways for germs, which can trigger sepsis. While hitherto available passive aids such as air, gel or vacuum cushions relieve pressure, they do not relieve the affected area optimally.

Young star rebels against its parent cloud

Despite the celestial colours of this picture, there is nothing peaceful about star forming region Sh 2-106, or S106 for short. A devilish young star, named S106 IR, lies in it and ejects material at high speed, which disrupts the gas and dust around it. The star has a mass about 15 times that of the Sun and is in the final stages of its formation. It will soon quieten down by entering the main sequence, the adult stage of stellar life.

It's all in the wrapping

A manmade package filled with nature's bone-building ingredients delivers the goods over time and space to heal serious bone injuries faster than products currently available, Cleveland researchers have found.

The case of the dying aspens

Stanford, CA— Over the past 10 years, the death of forest trees due to drought and increased temperatures has been documented on all continents except Antarctica. This can in turn drive global warming by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere by trees and by releasing carbon locked up in their wood. New research led by Carnegie researcher and Stanford University PhD student William Anderegg offers evidence for the physiological mechanism governing tree death in a drought.

Why do people defend unjust, inept, and corrupt systems?

Why do we stick up for a system or institution we live in—a government, company, or marriage—even when anyone else can see it is failing miserably? Why do we resist change even when the system is corrupt or unjust? A new article in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science, illuminates the conditions under which we're motivated to defend the status quo—a process called "system justification."

Sleeping giants discovered

Astronomers recently discovered the most massive black holes to date. Found in two separate nearby galaxies roughly 300 million light years away from Earth, each black hole has a mass equivalent to 10 billion suns.

"We knew that really large quasars, which are powered by matter falling into black holes, existed in the early universe," said Chung-Pei Ma, an astrophysicist at the University of California, Berkeley and co-author of an article that will be published in Nature on December 8.

Early black holes grew big eating cold, fast food

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's Bruce and Astrid McWilliams Center for Cosmology have discovered what caused the rapid growth of early supermassive black holes — a steady diet of cold, fast food.

Growing US violent extremism by the numbers: UMD database

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Over the past decade, attacks and plots by homegrown terrorists in the United States have increased, the work of extremists from across the political spectrum - roughly 40 percent of it by so-called 'lone wolf,' non-aligned actors - says an analysis by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) based at the University of Maryland.

2010 spike in Greenland ice loss lifted bedrock, GPS reveals

SAN FRANCISCO – An unusually hot melting season in 2010 accelerated ice loss in southern Greenland by 100 billion tons – and large portions of the island's bedrock rose an additional quarter of an inch in response.

That's the finding from a network of nearly 50 GPS stations planted along the Greenland coast to measure the bedrock's natural response to the ever-diminishing weight of ice above it.

Study challenges decades-old treatment guidelines for anorexia

Adolescents hospitalized with anorexia nervosa who receive treatment based on current recommendations for refeeding fail to gain significant weight during their first week in the hospital, according to a new study by UCSF researchers.

The findings, published in the January issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health with an accompanying editorial, challenge the current conservative approach to feeding adolescents with anorexia nervosa during hospitalization for malnutrition.

LRO observes final lunar eclipse of the year

Orbiting 31 miles above the lunar surface, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft will get a "front-row seat" to the total lunar eclipse on Dec. 10, 2011.

LRO's Diviner instrument will record how quickly targeted areas on the moon's day side cool off during the eclipse. The degree of cooling is dependent on factors such as how rocky the surface is, how densely packed the soil is, and its mineral composition. By studying the lunar surface during the eclipse, scientists can learn even more about our nearest celestial neighbor.

NASA sees Alenga become a cyclone in the Southern Indian Ocean

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Cyclone Alenga and captured a visible image of the rounded and more powerful storm is it makes its way toward Western Australia.

Alenga had grown from a tropical storm to a cyclone by 0300 UTC on Dec. 8 (10 p.m. EST, Dec. 7) when its maximum sustained winds reached 90 knots (103 mph/166 kmh).

Study shows more shrubbery in a warming world

Scientists have used satellite data from NASA-built Landsat missions to confirm that more than 20 years of warming temperatures in northern Quebec, Canada, have resulted in an increase in the amount and extent of shrubs and grasses.

"For the first time, we've been able to map this change in detail, and it's because of the spatial resolution and length-of-record that you can get with Landsat," says Jeff Masek, the program's project scientist. He's based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

New Columbia engineering technique diagnoses non-periodic arrhythmias in a single heartbeat

New York, NY—December 7, 2011—Thanks to a new study from Columbia Engineering School, doctors may now be able to diagnose in their offices non-periodic arrhythmias—noninvasively and at low cost—within a single heartbeat. Non-periodic arrhythmias include atrial and ventricular fibrillation, which are associated with severely abnormal heart rhythm that can in some cases be life-threatening.