News Articles

Peering deep into the heart of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals a rich tapestry of more than half a million stars. Apart from a few, blue, foreground stars, almost all of the stars pictured in the image are members of the Milky Way nuclear star cluster, the densest and most massive star cluster in the galaxy. Hidden in the centre of this cluster is the Milky Way's resident supermassive black hole.

Most of us think nothing of rainfall or where it goes, unless it leads to flooding or landslides. But soil scientists have been studying how water moves across or through soil for decades. Daniel Hirmas, a professor at University of Kansas, and his team may be taking the study of soil hydrology to some exciting new territory. Territory that may help soil scientists manage water resources better.
Why is Hirmas trying to predict water movement in soil?
"There are a number of reasons why more accurate predictions of water flow is important. Better management of water resources is one," Hirmas says.

Lake Nona, Fla., March 30, 2016 -- Researchers at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) have identified a protein complex that is required for conversion of "bad" white fat to "good" brown fat. The findings, published online in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, could help treat metabolic disorders such as obesity.
"Our study points to mTORC1--a protein complex that senses nutrient levels--as a key regulator of fat browning," said Sheila Collins, Ph.D., professor in SBP's Integrative Metabolism Program and senior author of the paper. "Therapies that promote browning, or an increase in brown fat-like cells within the typical white fat tissue, are being actively pursued as a way to help people burn more calories independent of exercise."

A survey of a major oil and natural gas-producing region in Western Canada suggests there may be a link between induced earthquakes and hydraulic fracturing, not just wastewater injection, according to a new report out this week in the journal Seismological Research Letters.
Hydraulic fracturing is the process of drilling and injecting fluid into the ground at a high pressure in order to fracture shale rocks to release the oil and natural gas trapped inside. That release brings the oil and natural gas up to the surface and with it comes water, chemical additives and other substances picked up during the injection process. All that fluid has to be disposed of and, often, it's reinjected underground into what's referred to as a wastewater injection well.

Superconducting materials have the characteristic of letting an electric current flow without resistance. The study of superconductors with a high critical temperature discovered in the 1980s remains a very attractive research subject for physicists. Indeed, many experimental observations still lack an adequate theoretical description. Researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) in Switzerland and the Technical University Munich in Germany have managed to lift the veil on the electronic characteristics of high-temperature superconductors. Their research, published in Nature Communications, show that the electronic densities measured in these superconductors are a combination of two separate effects.

Scientists have identified DNA changes that can cut a person's lifespan by up to three years.
They have discovered two separate areas of the human genome where differences in the DNA code may affect how long a person lives.
The two changes - known as variants - are relatively common in the population. More than two thirds of us will inherit a single copy of one of them from either our mother or father.
Having a copy of one variant may reduce expected lifetime by up to a year, the study found. Around three in 1000 people will inherit two copies of both variants and can expect to die an average of three years earlier, the team predicts.

Up until now catching lightning in a bottle has been easier than reproducing a range of earthquakes in the laboratory, according to a team of seismologists who can now duplicate the range of fault slip modes found during earthquakes, quiet periods and slow earthquakes.
"We were never able to make slow stick slip happen in the laboratory," said Christopher Marone, professor of geosciences, Penn State. "Our ability to systematically control stick velocity starts with this paper."

A University of Guelph professor has uncovered the "secret" to staying strong as we age - superb fitness.
Geoff Power found elderly people who were elite athletes in their youth or later in life - and who still compete as masters athletes -- have much healthier muscles at the cellular level compared to those of non-athletes.
His research was published recently in the Journal of Applied Physiology.
The study compared world-class track and field athletes in their 80s with people of the same age who are living independently. There have been few such studies of aging and muscle weakening in masters athletes in this age group.

A study led by Olli Vapalahti, professor of zoonotic virology at the University of Helsinki, Finland, has found that small amounts of genetic material from the Zika virus can be detected from a blood sample taken from a pregnant woman even weeks after the acute rash caused by the infection has passed, when the development of brain damage in the fetus is underway. Severe brain abnormalities can be detected through neuroimaging already at this early stage, even before the development of the intracranial calcifications and microcephaly previously associated with Zika virus infections.

Tempe, Ariz. -- A lack of adequate nutrition is blamed as one of many possible causes for colony collapse disorder or CCD -- a mysterious syndrome that causes a honey bee colony to die. Parasites, pesticides, pathogens and environmental changes are also stressors believed responsible for the decline of honey bees.
Since bees are critical to the world's food supply, learning how bees cope with these stressors is critical to understanding honey bee health and performance.
In two new studies, researchers from Arizona State University's School of Life Sciences have discovered that the stress of short-term nutritional deprivation as larvae (baby bees) actually makes honey bees more resilient to starvation as adults.

So you think the gold in your ring or watch came from a mine in Africa or Australia? Well, think farther away. Much, much farther.
Michigan State University researchers, working with colleagues from Technical University Darmstadt in Germany, are zeroing in on the answer to one of science's most puzzling questions: Where did heavy elements, such as gold, originate?
Currently there are two candidates, neither of which are located on Earth - a supernova, a massive star that, in its old age, collapsed and then catastrophically exploded under its own weight; or a neutron-star merger, in which two of these small yet incredibly massive stars come together and spew out huge amounts of stellar debris.

Spanish researchers have analysed how the sodium lost through sweat during a marathon influences the maintenance of stable and physiologically sound conditions that allow the body to carry out its functions. Excessive electrolyte loss may lead to a medical problem known as hyponatraemia.
For years, scientists have emphasised the importance of staying properly hydrated during exercise. Maintaining the body's sodium levels has become a key priority for the success of elite athletes and enthusiasts alike.
The amount of sweat that is lost during the majority of athletic activities (football, basketball, volleyball) is relatively low due to the duration of these sports.