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NASA's infrared satellite images reveal Ketsana's deadly western Pacific march

NASA's Aqua satellite flew over Typhoon Ketsana during its lifetime and captured infrared imagery on a daily basis. The images showed high, cold, thunderstorm cloud tops (purple) as cold as -63F, as they dumped heavy rains over the northern Philippines and Vietnam.

Although Ketsana was a tropical depression when it made landfall in the northern Philippines, it brought record rainfall, creating deadly flooding and mudslides. Flooding killed 246 people in the Philippines, and affected more than 2 million homes there.

Denial of service denial

A way to filter out denial of service attacks on computer networks, including cloud computing systems, could significantly improve security on government, commercial, and educational systems. Such a filter is reported in the Int. J. Information and Computer Security by researchers from Auburn University in Alabama.

First human gets new antibody aimed at rabies virus

Boston, Mass. — MassBiologics of the University of Massachusetts Medical School today announced the beginning of a Phase 1 clinical trial, testing the safety and activity of a human monoclonal antibody (MAB) developed to neutralize the rabies virus.

The clinical trial is being conducted at the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, India, and is sponsored by the Serum Institute of India, which is working in a collaborative partnership with MassBiologics to manufacture and test the new antibody.

Juvenile bluefin tunas can dive to depths of more than 1000 meters

According to the AZTI-Tecnalia researchers, the first estimations of the geographical location of the recovered tag revealed that this fish had undertaken migrations between the Azores and Portugal during the winter, later to return to the Gulf of Bizkaia in spring and also that it had dived, during the winter, to depths of more than 1000 metres.

Study outlines strategies to test new payment models for health care

A new RAND Corporation study outlines methods that might be used to test a novel payment system for medical care that would provide doctors, hospitals and other health providers a set fee for treating an ailment such as hip replacement surgery.

Proposals to pay health providers for so-called "episodes of care" have gained momentum during the ongoing debate about national health care reform as a strategy that could both curb medical spending and improve the quality of care.

Study highlights HIV/AIDS challenge in American prison system

Saving the planet with our trash

SINGAPORE —September 2009 – Converting the trash that fills the world's landfills into biofuel may be the answer to both the growing energy crisis and to tackling carbon emissions, claim scientists in Singapore and Switzerland. New research published in Global Change Biology: Bioenergy, reveals how replacing gasoline with biofuel from processed waste could cut global carbon emissions by 80%.

Sugar and herbicide--energy of the future?

A spoonful of herbicide helps the sugar break down in a most delightful way.

Researchers at Brigham Young University have developed a fuel cell – basically a battery with a gas tank – that harvests electricity from glucose and other sugars known as carbohydrates.

The human body's preferred energy source could someday power our gadgets, cars or homes.

"Carbohydrates are very energy rich," said BYU chemistry professor Gerald Watt. "What we needed was a catalyst that would extract the electrons from glucose and transfer them to an electrode."

Young in reformatories think that it will help them to find a job and give up delinquency

Training clinicians helps reduce rates of early childhood cavities

(Boston) - Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found that pediatricians provided with the proper communication, educational and information technology tools and training could reduce the rates of children developing early childhood caries (ECC) or cavities by 77 percent. This study appears in the October issue of the Journal Medical Care.

Considering usual medical care in clinical trial design

In this week's PLoS Medicine, Liza Dawson (National Institutes of Health) and colleagues discuss the scientific and ethical issues associated with choosing clinical trial designs when there is no consensus on what constitutes usual care. For example, in 2002 a clinical trial designed to evaluate the best way of ventilating patients with a severe lung condition called acute respiratory distress syndrome sparked a major controversy.

Dr. Richard Feinman to speak on the science of diabetes and diet on Oct. 2

Richard Feinman, PhD, professor of biochemistry and of family medicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, will speak at the annual conference of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) on October 2, 2009. EASD is holding its annual conference September 28 – October 2 in Vienna, Austria.

Dr. Feinman will be one of four speakers covering the topic, Controversies in Dietary Strategies in the Treatment of Diabetes.

Electronic alerts about abnormal imaging test results do not always result in timely follow-up

Abnormal results on outpatient imaging tests sometimes may not receive timely follow-up even when clinicians receive and read results in an advanced, integrated electronic medical record system, according to a report in the September 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Storm killers: LSU's Earth Scan Lab tracks cold water upwellings in Gulf

BATON ROUGE – Complex interactions between the ocean and overlying atmosphere cause hurricanes to form, and also have a tremendous amount of influence on the path, intensity and duration of a hurricane or tropical weather event. As researchers develop new ways to better understand and predict the nature of individual storms, a largely unstudied phenomenon has caught the attention of scientists at LSU's Earth Scan Laboratory, or ESL.

Lack of social support tied to parental depression

MINNEAPOLIS—September 28, 2009—The latest research from Family Relations shows that parents in low-income environments are more prone to depression when there is a lack of social support. This is especially prevalent in rural regions, where mental health and social resources can be deficient.