Berkeley, CA — The installed price of solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems in the United States fell substantially in 2011 and through the first half of 2012, according to the latest edition of Tracking the Sun, an annual PV cost-tracking report produced by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).
Heavens
Using ESA's Herschel space observatory, astronomers have discovered vast comet belts surrounding two nearby planetary systems known to host only Earth-to-Neptune-mass worlds. The comet reservoirs could have delivered life-giving oceans to the innermost planets.
In a previous Herschel study, scientists found that the dusty belt surrounding nearby star Fomalhaut must be maintained by collisions between comets.
In the new Herschel study, two more nearby planetary systems – GJ 581 and 61 Vir – have been found to host vast amounts of cometary debris.
BOULDER – Scientists at Columbia University and the National Center for Atmospheric Research have adapted techniques used in modern weather prediction to generate local forecasts of seasonal influenza outbreaks. By predicting the timing and severity of the outbreaks, this system can eventually help health officials and the general public better prepare for them.
"In Norway, we almost employ the opposite strategy. The main chunk of resources in special education in Norway is earmarked for secondary schools. We must look more closely at how we can shift and distribute these resources to the primary schools and kindergartens, without automatically removing them from the secondary school classes," says Pål Roland at the Centre for Behavioural Research.
You could call this "Pac-Man, the Sequel." Scientists with NASA's Cassini mission have spotted a second feature shaped like the 1980s video game icon in the Saturn system, this time on the moon Tethys. (The first was found on Mimas in 2010). The pattern appears in thermal data obtained by Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer, with warmer areas making up the Pac-Man shape.
The twenty-sixth tropical cyclone of the western North Pacific Ocean season formed and has some areas of heavy rain, according to data from NASA's TRMM satellite. Tropical Depression 26W is threatening islands within Micronesia and warnings and watches are currently in effect.
Micronesia is a region in the western North Pacific Ocean made up of thousands of small islands. West of the region is the Philippines, while Indonesia is located to the southwest.
Call it "PAC-MAN, the Sequel." Scientists with NASA's Cassini mission have spotted a second feature shaped like the 1980s video game icon in the Saturn system, this time on the moon Tethys.
The pattern appears in thermal data obtained by Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer, with warmer areas making up the PAC-MAN shape.
NEW YORK (November 26, 2012)—Scientists have developed a system to predict the timing and severity of seasonal influenza outbreaks that could one day help health officials and the general public better prepare for them. The system adapts techniques used in modern weather prediction to turn real-time, Web-based estimates of influenza infection into local forecasts of seasonal flu.
Results appear online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Where there's water there's life – even in brine beneath 60 feet of Antarctic ice, in permanent darkness and subzero temperatures.
While Lake Vida, located in the northernmost of the McMurdo Dry Valleys of East Antarctica, will never be a vacation destination, it is home to some newly discovered hearty microbes. In the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nathaniel Ostrom, Michigan State University zoologist, has co-authored "Microbial Life at -13ºC in the Brine of an Ice-Sealed Antarctic Lake."
This press release is available in Spanish.
Although citizen participation is starting to be an increasingly common practice in local administrations, some pieces of research have pointed out that this practice goes hand in hand with the emergence of citizen detachment with respect to the public institutions and an increase in political mistrust.
LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Nov. 26, 2012 — A team of researchers, including engineers from Los Alamos National Laboratory, has demonstrated a new concept for a reliable nuclear reactor that could be used on space flights.
Alexandria, VA – Considered individually, 2012's record high temperatures, droughts, wildfires, storms and diminished snowpack are not necessarily alarming. But combined, the fact that the first seven months of 2012 were hotter than the hottest on record, more than half of the U.S. counties were declared disaster areas due to drought, and the snowpacks were at all-time lows, these indicators are much more significant from a climate standpoint. Two questions then remain: Will we see the same thing in 2013?
On Nov. 23, 2012, at 8:54 a.m. EST, the sun erupted with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection or CME. Experimental NASA research models, based on observations from the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) and the ESA/NASA mission the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, show that the Nov. 23 CME left the sun at speeds of 375 miles per second, which is a slow to average speed for CMEs. This is the third Earth-directed CME since Nov. 20.
The possible kinematics and their corresponding geometries were once regarded as an already-solved problem. The de Sitter relativity research group formed by researchers from Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, and Beijing Normal University, restudied the problem and showed that additional, previously unknown realizations exist of possible kinematical algebras, each of which has so(3) isotropy and a ten-generators symmetry group.
It is a myth that snus (Swedish snuff) users today have fewer dental caries. On the contrary, some types of nicotine-free snus contain both carbohydrates and starch that increase the risk of cavities. Those are the findings of a thesis from Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.