Troy, N.Y. – The first scoop of soil analyzed by the analytical suite in the belly of NASA's Curiosity rover reveals that fine materials on the surface of the planet contain several percent water by weight. The results were published today in Science as one article in a five-paper special section on the Curiosity mission. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Dean of Science Laurie Leshin is the study's lead author.
Heavens
CORVALLIS, Ore. – The first rock that scientists analyzed on Mars with a pair of chemical instruments aboard the Curiosity rover turned out to be a doozy – a pyramid-shaped volcanic rock called a "mugearite" that is unlike any other Martian igneous rock ever found.
Solar storms — powerful eruptions of solar material and magnetic fields into interplanetary space — can cause what is known as "space weather" near Earth, resulting in hazards that range from interference with communications systems and GPS errors to extensive power blackouts and the complete failure of critical satellites.
New research published today increases our understanding of Earth's space environment and how space weather develops.
MADISON – For astrophysicists, the interplay of hydrogen — the most common molecule in the universe — and the vast clouds of dust that fill the voids of interstellar space has been an intractable puzzle of stellar evolution.
The dust, astronomers believe, is a key phase in the life cycle of stars, which are formed in dusty nurseries throughout the cosmos. But how the dust interacts with hydrogen and is oriented by the magnetic fields in deep space has proved a six-decade-long theoretical challenge.
Typhoon Pabuk weakened and the core of the storm was changing from a warm core tropical system to a cold core low pressure system as it continued paralleling the coast of Japan on Sept. 26. NASA's Aqua satellite provided a visible image of the transforming storm that had lost its eye.
NEW YORK--With nearly two billion people suffering from malnutrition across the planet, scientists and public health experts came together under an unprecedented alliance spearheaded by The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science at the New York Academy of Sciences to create A Global Research Agenda for Nutrition Science to identify the most critical knowledge gaps in the field of nutrition. The report supports the ongoing effort to accelerate global commitment, cooperative work, and funding to uncover and implement scientific and evidence-based solutions to malnutrition.
"We've been fortunate enough to see all stages of this process, with a range of ground and space telescopes. We've been looking for such evidence for more than a decade," said Dr Alessandro Papitto, the Nature paper's lead author. Dr Papitto is an astronomer of the Institute of Space Studies (ICE, CSIC-IEEC) of Barcelona.
A star is "blooming" in the southern sky — and astronomers using a CSIRO telescope are a step closer to knowing why.
An old star, IRAS 15445-5449, has begun to push out a jet of charged particles that glow with radio waves.
A few old stars are known to have jets, "but this is the first one where the radio waves tell us the jet is held together by a strong magnetic field", said Dr Jessica Chapman of CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science, a member of the research team.
"That's a clue to what makes these jets switch on."
Drugged driving has been a safety issue of increasing public concern in the United States and many other countries but its role in motor vehicle crashes had not been adequately examined. In a new study conducted at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, researchers assessed the association of driver drug use, as well as the combination of drugs and alcohol, with the risk of fatal crash. They found that drug use is associated with a significantly increased risk of fatal crash involvement, particularly when used in combination with alcohol.
Ever wonder what plants do when you're not around? How about an entire forest or grassland? Not even the most dedicated plant researcher can be continuously present to track environmental effects on plant behavior, and so numerous tools have been developed to measure and quantify these effects. Time-lapse photography has been used to study many aspects of plant behavior, but typically only a few plants can be captured with a single camera at the desired level of detail. This limitation has, for the most part, confined such observations to the laboratory.
An international team of scientists using a fleet of orbiting X-ray telescopes, including NASA's Swift and Chandra X-ray Observatory, has discovered a millisecond pulsar with a dual identity. In a feat that has never before been observed, the star readily shifts back and forth between two mutually exclusive styles of pulsed emission -- one in X-rays, the other in radio.
The discovery, say scientists, represents a long-sought intermediate phase in the life of these powerful objects.
Astronomers have uncovered the strange case of a neutron star with the peculiar ability to transform from a radio pulsar into an X-ray pulsar and back again. This star's capricious behavior appears to be fueled by a nearby companion star and may give new insights into the birth of millisecond pulsars.
Ulsan, South Korea – A research team of Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), South Korea, developed a "wormlike" hematite photoanode that can convert sunlight and water to clean hydrogen energy with a record-breaking high efficiency of 5.3%.
This research was published in Scientific Reports, a science journal published by the Nature Publishing Group. (Title: "Single-crystalline, wormlike hematite photoanodes for efficient solar water splitting") on 17 September 2013).
Consumers are increasingly demanding higher standards for how their meat is sourced, with animal welfare and the impact on the environment factoring in many purchases. Unfortunately, many widely-used livestock production methods are currently unsustainable. However, new research out today from the University of Cambridge has identified what may be the future of sustainable livestock production: silvopastoral systems which include shrubs and trees with edible leaves or fruits as well as herbage.
Typhoon Pabuk's eye was clear on visible and infrared NASA satellite imagery on Sept. 24, and one day later high clouds covered the center and Pabuk's eye was "closed." Satellite data also showed that Pabuk's eye shrunk by about 5 nautical miles in the last day.