Heavens

New research shows that promotional messages that use alliteration - the phonetic overlap of the beginnings of words - hold a greater appeal for consumers than non-alliterative messages, even accounting for cost differences.

Imagine digital cameras or smartphones without the bulky lenses or eyeglasses with lenses that are paper thin.

After Tropical Cyclone Winston formed between Vanuatu and Fiji in the Southern Pacific Ocean NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead and saw powerful thunderstorms had quickly developed.

Recent increases in the storage of excess groundwater may be helping to offset sea level rise by as much as 15%, a new study finds. While the capacity of land to store water is known to be an important factor affecting sea level rise, the magnitude of its storage contributions are not fully understood. Land masses store water in numerous ways, though some human-induced changes -- including to groundwater extraction, irrigation, impoundment in reservoirs, wetland drainage, and deforestation - are affecting this process, as are climate-driven changes in rainfall, evaporation, and runoff.

As Tropical Cyclone Tatiana was developing in the Coral Sea, east of Queensland, Australia, NASA's RapidScat measured the surface winds in the intensifying tropical cyclone.

RapidScat saw strongest sustained winds near 18 meters per second (40 mph/64 kph) in the western and southern sides of developing Tropical Cyclone Tatiana on Feb. 10. RapidScat flies aboard the International Space Station and can measure winds on the ocean's surface. Forecasters are able to use RapidScat data to pinpoint the strongest winds within a storm, as they are not always equally distributed.

Two of NASA's "eyes" have been watching Tropical Cyclone Daya and providing data to forecasters. As Tropical Cyclone Daya continued to move away from La Reunion Island in the Southern Indian Ocean, NASA's RapidScat instrument and NASA's Aqua satellite gathered visible imagery and infrared temperature data on the developing storm that showed its strength and development.

Black holes are the subject of much fascination, not just in science but also in popular media. For example, the 2014 movie "Interstellar" portrays a fast-rotating, supermassive black hole, into which the protagonist falls in order to probe its center.

News broke earlier today that elusive ripples in space-time--known as gravitational waves--have been detected for the first time here on Earth by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO).

To get behind the scenes of this major discovery, The Kavli Foundation hosted an exclusive roundtable discussion with three key LIGO researchers, who are all part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MKI).

Research conducted by Rochester Institute of Technology scientists was integral to the breakthrough detection of gravitational waves from binary black holes that was announced today by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration.

The placid appearance of NGC 4889 can fool the unsuspecting observer. But the elliptical galaxy, pictured in this new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, harbours a dark secret. At its heart lurks one of the most massive black holes ever discovered.

Two new hominin fossils have been found in a previously uninvestigated chamber in the Sterkfontein Caves, just North West of Johannesburg in South Africa.

The two new specimens, a finger bone and a molar, are part of a set of four specimens, which seem to be from early hominins that can be associated with early stone tool-bearing sediments that entered the cave more than two million years ago.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (http://www.ucr.edu) -- Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have developed a new, more computationally efficient way to process data from the Global Positioning System (GPS), to enhance location accuracy from the meter-level down to a few centimeters.

A new record for the fastest ever data rate for digital information has been set by UCL researchers in the Optical Networks Group. They achieved a rate of 1.125 Tb/s as part of research on the capacity limits of optical transmission systems, designed to address the growing demand for fast data rates.

URBANA, Ill. - A University of Illinois researcher has identified four distinct approaches that dating couples use to develop deeper commitment.

"The four types of dating couples that we found included the dramatic couple, the conflict-ridden couple, the socially involved couple, and the partner-focused couple," said Brian Ogolsky, a U of I assistant professor of human development and family studies.

Tropical Storm 10S developed as NASA's Terra satellite passed over the Southern Indian Ocean. The tropical storm developed from tropical low pressure area 96S between Madagascar and La Reunion Island.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of newborn Tropical Storm 10S on Feb. 10 at 0620 UTC (1:20 a.m. EST). The image showed bands of thunderstorms wrapping into the well- defined low-level center from the northern and southern quadrants of the storm.