Heavens | Page 250 | Science Codex

NASA spots developing tropical system affecting Mozambique's Nampala Province

NASA's Aqua satellite captured infrared data on a developing area of tropical low pressure known as System 91S that was brushing the Nampala Province of Mozambique on January 28.

Nampula is a province in northern Mozambique and its eastern coast runs along the Mozambique Channel of the Southern Indian Ocean. When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the Mozambique Channel on January 28 at 10:35 UTC/5:35 a.m. EST the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder instrument known as AIRS captured infrared data on the clouds associated with System 91S.

NREL study: Active power control of wind turbines can improve power grid reliability

The Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), along with partners from the Electric Power Research Institute and the University of Colorado have completed a comprehensive study to understand how wind power technology can assist the power grid by controlling the active power output being placed onto the system. The rest of the power system's resources have traditionally been adjusted around wind to support a reliable and efficient system. The research that led to this report challenges that concept.

UH researchers create new flexible, transparent conductor

University of Houston researchers have developed a new stretchable and transparent electrical conductor, bringing the potential for a fully foldable cell phone or a flat-screen television that can be folded and carried under your arm closer to reality.

Geoscience Currents No. 83: The Challenges of Comparing Data on Minorities in the Geosciences

Much of the national data related to the geosciences in higher education come from federal datasets through the National Science Foundation and the Department of Education. Minority data are typical found through the Department of Education's Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). While this dataset is useful, it is important to understand the functional definitions used for collecting the data, particularly when looking at minority enrollments and awarded degrees.

River of hydrogen flowing through space seen with Green Bank Telescope

Using the National Science Foundation's Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT), astronomer D.J. Pisano from West Virginia University has discovered what could be a never-before-seen river of hydrogen flowing through space. This very faint, very tenuous filament of gas is streaming into the nearby galaxy NGC 6946 and may help explain how certain spiral galaxies keep up their steady pace of star formation.

Solving a 30-year-old problem in massive star formation

An international group of astrophysicists has found evidence strongly supporting a solution to a long-standing puzzle about the birth of some of the most massive stars in the universe.

Picture of how our climate is affected by greenhouse gases is a 'cloudy' one

Jerusalem, Jan. 26, 2014 – The warming effect of human-induced greenhouse gases is a given, but to what extent can we predict its future influence? That is an issue on which science is making progress, but the answers are still far from exact, say researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the US and Australia who have studied the issue and whose work which has just appeared in the journal Science.

Indeed, one could say that the picture is a "cloudy" one, since the determination of the greenhouse gas effect involves multifaceted interactions with cloud cover.

NASA spacecraft take aim at nearby supernova

An exceptionally close stellar explosion discovered on Jan. 21 has become the focus of observatories around and above the globe, including several NASA spacecraft. The blast, designated SN 2014J, occurred in the galaxy M82 and lies only about 12 million light-years away. This makes it the nearest optical supernova in two decades and potentially the closest type Ia supernova to occur during the life of currently operating space missions.

University of Hawaii scientists make a big splash

Researchers from the University of Hawaii – Manoa (UHM) School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and University of California – Berkeley discovered that interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) could deliver water and organics to the Earth and other terrestrial planets.

10 years on Mars leads to livable mud

Some of the oldest minerals ever analysed by NASA's Mars Opportunity Rover show that around four billion years ago Mars had liquid water so fresh it could have supported life.

The findings were announced in a special 'Exploring Mars Habitability' edition of the journal Science released today to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Mars Opportunity Rover and its twin, Spirit, landing on the red planet.

Material developed could speed up underwater communications by orders of magnitude

University of California, San Diego electrical engineering professor Zhaowei Liu and colleagues have taken the first steps in a project to develop fast-blinking LED systems for underwater optical communications.

In the January 6 issue of Nature Nanotechnology, Liu and colleagues show that an artificial metamaterial can increase the light intensity and "blink speed" of a fluorescent light-emitting dye molecule.

The rocky road to a better flu vaccine

Currently approved flu vaccines are less effective in the elderly, yet an estimated 90% of influenza-related deaths occur in people over 65. A paper published on January 23rd in PLOS Pathogens reports on the challenges scientists encountered when they were trying to develop a better flu vaccine.

Happy 10th anniversary Opportunity!

"But operating at 100 to 200 megabits per sol, we've attempted to reconstruct the past environment from the geologic record just as a field geologist would do. (Sols, or Martian days, are 39 minutes longer than Earth days.)

"We lost Spirit, Opportunity's twin, back in 2010," Arvidson said. Stuck in the sand, it was unable to point its solar arrays in the correct direction to survive winter, and it went quiet March 22, 2010, or sol 2,210.

Various microstructures fabricated by a solvent-cast 3-D printing technique

Various microstructures including straight filaments, layer-by-layer scaffolds and freeform helical spirals are fabricated by a solvent-cast three-dimensional printing technique, as reported by Professor Therriault and his co-researchers on page 4118. The fabrication capabilities of this powerful and flexible process are demonstrated by the printing of three microsystems featuring mechanical, microfluidic and electrical functionalities, such as a high-toughness microstructured fibre, a 3D microchannel and a Ka band antenna.

Near error-free wireless detection made possible

The accuracy and range of radio frequency identification (RFID) systems, which are used in everything from passports to luggage tracking, could be vastly improved thanks to a new system developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge.

The vastly increased range and accuracy of the system opens up a wide range of potential monitoring applications, including support for the sick and elderly, real-time environmental monitoring in areas prone to natural disasters, or paying for goods without the need for conventional checkouts.