When the Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core satellite passed over the western North Atlantic Ocean, it captured rainfall data on Tropical Storm Arthur as the storm was transitioning into an extra-tropical storm.
Early on May 18, 2020, Tropical Cyclone Amphan was a Category 5 storm in the Northern Indian Ocean. On May 19, satellite data from NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite revealed that the storm has weakened and the eye was covered by high clouds.
When early tetrapods transitioned from water to land the way they breathed air underwent an evolutionary revolution. Fish use muscles in their head to pump water over their gills. The first land animals utilized a similar technique--modern frogs still use their head and throat to force air into their lungs. Then another major transformation in vertebrate evolution took place that shifted breathing from the head to the torso. In reptiles and mammals, the ribs expand to create a space in the chest that draws in breath. But what caused the shift?
Cambridge, Mass., May 18, 2020 - In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have published a pair of studies in a COVID-19 special issue of the Harvard Data Science Review, freely available via open access, describing new methods for accelerating drug approvals during pandemics and for providing more accurate measures of the probabilities of success for clinical trials of vaccines and other anti-infective therapies.
By studying the chemical elements on Mars today -- including carbon and oxygen -- scientists can work backwards to piece together the history of a planet that once had the conditions necessary to support life.
AMES, Iowa - Scientists are using light waves to accelerate supercurrents and access the unique properties of the quantum world, including forbidden light emissions that one day could be applied to high-speed, quantum computers, communications and other technologies.
A collaboration between scientists at the Medical University of South Carolina and clinicians at the Greenwood Genetic Center has yielded new findings about how a particular gene might regulate brain development.
A paper published in Biological Psychiatry showcases how the researchers connected problems in mice with a defective copy of the MEF2C gene to issues suffered in real life by patients seen at the Greenwood Genetic Center who also have a defective copy of that gene.
A Russian paleontologist visiting the Natural History Museum in London desperately wanted a good look at the skeleton of an extinct aquatic reptile, but its glass case was too far up the wall. So he attached his digital camera to a fishing rod and -- with several clicks -- snagged a big one, scientifically speaking.
Images from the "selfie stick" revealed that the creature, whose bones were unearthed more than a century ago on a coast in southern England, seemed very similar to a genus of ichthyosaurs he recognized from Russian collections.
Sometimes proteins misfold. When that happens in the human brain, the pileup of misfolded proteins can lead to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and ALS.
Proteins do not misbehave and misfold out of the blue. There is a delicate ecosystem of biochemical interactions and environments that usually let them twist, unfold, refold and do their jobs as they're meant to.
However, as researchers from Michigan Technological University explore in an article published in ACS Chemical Neuroscience, even a small change may cause long-term consequences.
COLD SPRING HARBOR, NEW YORK -- In an important, comprehensive, and timely review, an expert team from the University of California Berkeley details the methodologies used in nucleic acid-based tests for detecting the presence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. They show that these tests vary widely in applicability to mass screening and urge further improvements in testing technologies to increase speed and availability.