WASHINGTON --To prevent a single adverse drug event, one commercial electronic health record opioid warning system fired off 123 unnecessary and clinically inconsequential alerts, according to the results of a new study published online Friday in Annals of Emergency Medicine ("Clinically Inconsequential Alerts: The Characteristics of Opioid Drug Alerts and Their Utility in Preventing Adverse Drug Events in the Emergency Department").
Heavens
Peering into darkness can strike fear into the hearts of some, but a new space telescope will soon peer into the darkness of "near space" (within a few thousand light years of Earth). Scientists are using the telescope to seek answers related to the field of high-energy astrophysics.
SAN FRANCISCO--Buried in the shallow soft mud of a dry California lake bed, a seismometer was able to detect the tiny tilts of the ground as it was pulled up by passing dust devils. The experiment, described online November 10 in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, is one of the first reports of a seismic signature from a dust devil.
An enduring astronomical mystery is how stars and galaxies acquire their magnetic fields. Physicists Jonathan Squire and Amitava Bhattacharjee at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have found a clue to the answer in the collective behavior of small magnetic disturbances. In a paper published in October in Physical Review Letters, the scientists report that small magnetic perturbations can combine to form large-scale magnetic fields just like those found throughout the universe. This research was funded by the DOE Office of Science.
Boulder, Colo. - Nov. 9, 2015 - Scientists at Southwest Research Institute combined dynamical, thermal, and chemical models of the Moon's formation to explain the relative lack of volatile elements in lunar rocks. Lunar rocks closely resemble Earth rocks in many respects, but Moon rocks are more depleted in volatile elements like potassium, sodium, and zinc, which tend to have lower boiling points and vaporize readily.
Immersive media experiences that engage an audience's sense of touch are easier to create with the help of a new haptic design process, called tactile animation, developed by Disney Research.
The new process is akin to animation software, allowing the designer to focus on how a haptic effect will unfold over space and time rather than having to concentrate on individually controlling each actuator to create tactile feedback.
Running is one of the most popular sports. However, not many runners have received formal training on running. Associate Professor Shinichi YAMAGIWA of the University of Tsukuba and his colleagues have developed a system for improving running skills based on big data analysis.
Dr. YAMAGIWA, Associate Professor Yoshinobu KAWAHARA of Osaka University and Mizuno Corporation have jointly developed a technology that instructs the ideal running motions based on "big data of motions" collected by monitoring motions during running via sensors and videos.
The 1999 Odisha Cyclone struck the eastern coast of India, knocking out whole swaths of the Indian Railways Network, bringing the eastern IRN system to a halt. Cyclones Hudhud and Phailin caused similar mayhem in 2014 and 2013, while in 2012 power blackouts in northern and eastern India idled 300 intercity passenger trains and commuter lines. Closer to home, severe winter storms that hit Boston in 2014-2015 brought the MBTA mass-transit system to its knees.
NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission has identified the process that appears to have played a key role in the transition of the Martian climate from an early, warm and wet environment that might have supported surface life to the cold, arid planet Mars is today.
NASA's Swift spacecraft has detected its 1,000th gamma-ray burst (GRB). GRBs are the most powerful explosions in the universe, typically associated with the collapse of a massive star and the birth of a black hole.
"Detecting GRBs is Swift's bread and butter, and we're now at 1,000 and counting," said Neil Gehrels, the Swift principal investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "The spacecraft remains in great shape after nearly 11 years in space, and we expect to see many more GRBs to come."
Yemen's Socotra Island just endured Cyclone Chapala and just a week later is facing a second tropical cyclone: Megh. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Megh and captured data on the strengthening storm on Nov., 6.
When Aqua flew over Megh from space, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard took a visible picture of the storm. The MODIS image showed fragmented bands of thunderstorms wrapping into the low-level center, which was obscured by clouds.
A team of astronomers working at the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA, TIFR), Pune have discovered, using the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), an extremely rare galaxy of gigantic size. This galaxy -- located about 9 billion light years away towards the constellation Cetus -- emits powerful radio waves and has an end to end extent of a whopping 4 million light years! Such galaxies with extremely large 'radio size' are appropriately called giant radio galaxies.
KINGSTON, ON- An interactive swarm of flying 3D pixels (voxels) developed at Queen's University's Human Media Lab is set to revolutionize the way people interact with virtual reality. The system, called BitDrones, allows users to explore virtual 3D information by interacting with physical self-levitating building blocks.
Archaeologists with The Australian National University (ANU) have discovered fossils of seven giant rat species on East Timor, with the largest up to 10 times the size of modern rats.
Dr Julien Louys of the ANU School of Culture, History and Language, who is helping lead the project said these are the largest known rats to have ever existed.
"They are what you would call mega-fauna. The biggest one is about five kilos, the size of a small dog," Dr Louys said.
Despite being discovered 20 years ago, very little is known about brown dwarfs - notably why they fail to grow into stars.
Scientists say part of the answer probably lies in the physics of how dense plasmas merge inside them.
Now researchers, led by the York Plasma Institute at the University of York and the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council's (STFC) Central Laser Facility, have created "lumps" of plasma to recreate the conditions similar to those found deep inside brown dwarfs.