You may have wondered why some people seem to need less sleep. Is it in their genes? It turns out that it likely is. A number of so called short-sleeper genes, which are associated with little need for sleep, have recently been identified through years of arduous research and serendipity.
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How many cookies fit on a baking sheet? How many oranges fit in a bag? In order to calculate how much carbon a tropical forest can store, scientists working with data from the Smithsonian's ForestGEO network came up with biologically sound explanations behind the simple mathematical rules of thumb that can be used to determine how many trees fit in a tropical forest and how big they get, essential information for calculating the ability of forests to store carbon.
Infrared data from NASA's Aqua satellite showed powerful thunderstorms persisting in the center of a newly developed out-of-season tropical depression in the Central Pacific Ocean.
The first Tropical Depression of the 2016 hurricane season formed about five months early in the 2016 hurricane season, or two months late after the 2015 Central Pacific Hurricane Season ended. NOAA's Central Pacific Hurricane Center or CPHC considers the depression the first of the 2016 season since it formed in the 2016 calendar year.
Tropical Storm Ula continued to weaken as it pulled farther away from Fiji in the Southern Pacific Ocean. NASA's RapidScat instrument found that the strongest winds in the storm were south of the center. NOAA's GOES-West satellite captured an infrared image of the storm that showed stronger thunderstorms had recently developed around its center.
A few months ago, researchers reported the surprising discovery that marine creatures living in one Arctic fjord keep busy through the permanently dark and frigid winter months. Now, a report in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on Jan. 7, 2016, extends this activity to the whole of the Arctic. They also find that, in the absence of any sunlight, it's the moon that drives the vertical migrations of tiny marine animals.
One dozen flight mirrors are now installed on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, out of the eighteen mirror segments that make up the primary mirror. The assembly of the primary mirror is an important milestone for the Webb telescope, but is just one component of this huge and complex observatory.
The early universe was a chaotic mess of gas and matter that only began to coalesce into distinct galaxies hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang. It would take several billion more years for such galaxies to assemble into massive galaxy clusters -- or so scientists had thought.
COLUMBIA, Mo. - As the number of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders continues to rise, medical professionals have emphasized early diagnosis, intervention and treatment. However, less attention has been given to children with autism once they reach their teen years and adulthood. Now, one University of Missouri researcher is working to find ways to support teens with autism and their caregivers so the teens can transition into adulthood successfully and independently.
Kyoto, Japan -- All you need is a 20 cm telescope to observe a nearby, active black hole.
An international research team reports that the activity of such phenomena can be observed by visible light during outbursts, and that flickering light emerging from gases surrounding black holes is a direct indicator of this. The team's results, published in Nature, indicate that optical rays and not just X-rays provide reliable observational data for black hole activity.
Eta Carinae, the most luminous and massive stellar system within 10,000 light-years, is best known for an enormous eruption seen in the mid-19th century that hurled at least 10 times the sun's mass into space. This expanding veil of gas and dust, which still shrouds Eta Carinae, makes it the only object of its kind known in our galaxy. Now a study using archival data from NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes has found five objects with similar properties in other galaxies for the first time.
In a new study, Stanford University School of Medicine researchers report finding an easy method to cure laboratory mice of a common, life-threatening skin disease: A pedicure.
Kyoto, Japan -- All you need is a 20 cm telescope to observe a nearby, active black hole.
An international research team reports that the activity of such phenomena can be observed by visible light during outbursts, and that flickering light emerging from gases surrounding black holes is a direct indicator of this. The team's results, published in Nature, indicate that optical rays and not just X-rays provide reliable observational data for black hole activity.
Drought and extreme heat events slashed cereal harvests in recent decades by 9% to 10% on average in affected countries - and the impact of these weather disasters was greatest in the developed nations of North America, Europe and Australasia, according to a new study led by researchers from McGill University and the University of British Columbia.
Tropical Cyclone Ula continued to move west, passing south of Fiji when NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead and captured an image of the weakening storm.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Cyclone Ula on Jan. 5, 2015 as it continued to move west, past Fiji in the South Pacific Ocean. The image showed bands of thunderstorms wrapping into the low-level center from the northeast and around the southern quadrant of the storm.
Globular star clusters are extraordinary in almost every way. They're densely packed, holding a million stars in a ball only about 100 light-years across on average. They're old, dating back almost to the birth of the Milky Way. And according to new research, they also could be extraordinarily good places to look for space-faring civilizations.
"A globular cluster might be the first place in which intelligent life is identified in our galaxy," says lead author Rosanne DiStefano of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).