Alexandria, VA – Hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," has changed the energy landscape. We can now affordably produce natural gas from previously inaccessible rock formations, which has led to increasing natural gas consumption. Thanks to its low prices and abundant domestic supply, natural gas may have a chance to overtake coal as the primary energy source for electricity in the United States.
Heavens
Black holes are surrounded by many mysteries, but now researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute, among others, have come up with new groundbreaking theories that can explain several of their properties. The research shows that black holes have properties that resemble the dynamics of both solids and liquids. The results are published in the prestigious scientific journal, Physical Review Letters.
A team of Italian astronomers performed a very difficult measurement for which it was necessary to use the most advanced instrumentation in combination with an unusual technique, so as to involve even the Moon as a natural astronomical mirror. The challenge was the observation of effect occurred during the transit of Venus across the Sun on June 6th, dubbed "Rossiter-McLaughlin effect".
A team of Italian astronomers performed a very difficult measurement for which it was necessary to use the most advanced instrumentation in combination with an unusual technique, so as to involve even the Moon as a natural astronomical mirror. The challenge was the observation of effect occurred during the transit of Venus across the Sun on June 6th, dubbed "Rossiter-McLaughlin effect".
One common idea about why there are fewer women professors in the sciences than men is that women are less willing to work the long hours needed to succeed. Writing in the January Issue of BioScience, Shelley Adamo of Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada, rejects this argument. She points out that women physicians work longer hours than most scientists, under arguably more stressful conditions, but that this does not deter women from entering medicine.
Infrared data from NASA's Aqua satellite have watched the strong thunderstorms in Typhoon Bopha fizzle and shrink in area over the weekend as wind shear increased. Bopha has now dissipated in the South China Sea, just west of Luzon, Philippines.
NASA's Aqua satellite has been providing data on Bopha since the day it formed on Nov. 26. In the storm's last days, Aqua's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument captured infrared data of the storm and showed that cloud top temperatures warmed from Dec. 8 through Dec. 9 as cloud heights fell and thunderstorms lost their punch.
NASA's Aqua satellite got "eyeballed" from Cyclone Claudia in the Southern Indian Ocean when two instruments captured the storm's eye in infrared and visible light. Satellite data indicates that Claudia's eye is about 10 nautical miles wide.
BOSTON, MA—Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have uncovered how North American porcupine quills easily penetrate tissues and why, once lodged in flesh, they are often difficult to remove.
The autonomic nervous system, which is the part of the nervous system beyond conscious control, plays an important role in the release of insulin from beta cells in the endocrine part of the pancreas. The process by which this occurs has been a mystery, since it is difficult to give detailed study to such an inaccessible organ. However, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have now managed to graft beta cells into the eyes of mice in order to study them in a living organism over a prolonged period of time.
For three years, University of Utah researchers have been deploying a computer-based design program called SketchUp in workshops to teach and develop life skills for youth on the autism spectrum. An earlier study showed that using the program helps kids develop their spatial and visual acuity, as well as to leverage those strengths to build positive social interactions.
The deadly typhoon that caused almost 300 deaths in the southern Philippines is making a loop in the South China Sea, and infrared NASA satellite data indicated that Bopha re-intensified.
The third tropical cyclone in the Southern Indian Ocean has been renamed Tropical Cyclone Claudia as NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead.The AIRS instrument on Aqua captured infrared imagery of Claudia over two days that showed the western quadrant is most powerful part of the cyclone.
The deadly typhoon that caused almost 300 deaths in the southern Philippines is making a loop in the South China Sea, and infrared NASA satellite data indicated that Bopha re-intensified.
A team of astronomers led by the University of Leicester has uncovered new evidence that suggests that X-ray detectors in space could be the first to witness new supernovae that signal the death of massive stars.
Astronomers have measured an excess of X-ray radiation in the first few minutes of collapsing massive stars, which may be the signature of the supernova shock wave first escaping from the star.
It is well known that plant growth patterns are influenced by a variety of stimuli, gravity being one amongst many. On Earth plant roots exhibit characteristic behaviours called 'waving' and 'skewing', which were thought to be gravity-dependent events. However, Arabidopsis plants grown on the International Space Station (ISS) have proved this theory wrong, according to a study published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Plant Biology: root 'waving' and 'skewing' occur in spaceflight plants independently of gravity.