Curated News: Featured: SciWire

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A temporary seismic array in Marie Byrd Land in West Antarctica recorded two bursts of activity in 2010 and 2011. Careful analysis of the events shows they originate from a subglacial volcano at the leading end of a volcanic mountain chain. The volcano is unlikely to erupt through the kilometer of ice that covers it but it will melt enough ice to change the way the ice in its vicinity flows.

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Diseases affecting the kidneys represent a major and unsolved health issue worldwide. The kidneys rarely recover function once they are damaged by disease, highlighting the urgent need for better knowledge of kidney development and physiology.

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Researchers now have stronger evidence of granite on Mars and a new theory for how the granite – an igneous rock common on Earth -- could have formed there, according to a new study. The findings suggest a much more geologically complex Mars than previously believed.

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Scientists have developed a new computer modeling technique that offers the promise, for the first time, of producing continually updated daylong predictions of wildfire growth throughout the lifetime of long-lived blazes. The technique, developed by a research team led by NCAR, combines detailed computer simulations with newly available satellite observations.

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Astronomers studying gas halos around nearby galaxies were surprised when detailed studies with the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) showed that one of their subjects is not a single galaxy, but rather two, nearly perfectly superimposed on the sky to masquerade as one.

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NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has provided the first visual evidence showing how our home galaxy, the Milky Way, assembled itself into the majestic pinwheel of stars we see today. Perusing Hubble's deep-sky surveys, astronomers traced 400 galaxies similar to our Milky Way at various stages of construction over a time span of 11 billion years.

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New book is first of its kind addressing Southeast climate change.

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A pair of carbon nanotube arrays will be flying in space by the end of the year to test technology that could provide more efficient micro-propulsion for future spacecraft. The arrays will support what is expected to be the first-ever space-based testing of carbon nanotubes as electron emitters.

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The deletion of any single gene in yeast cells puts pressure on the organism’s genome to compensate, leading to a mutation in another gene. The discovery is likely applicable to human genetics and cancer, and could have significant consequences for the way genetic research is done.

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A natural shift to stronger warm El Niño events in the Pacific Ocean might be responsible for a substantial portion of the global warming recorded during the past 50 years, according to new research at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).

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Tiny electrical wires protrude from some bacteria and contribute to rock and dirt formation. Researchers studying the protein that makes up one such wire have determined the protein's structure. The finding is important to such diverse fields as producing energy, recycling Earth's carbon and miniaturizing computers.

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Invisibility cloaking is no longer the stuff of science fiction: two researchers in The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering have demonstrated an effective invisibility cloak that is thin, scalable and adaptive to different types and sizes of objects.

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A pair of microbes on the ocean floor “eats” methane in a unique way, and a new study provides insights into their surprising nutritional requirements. Learning how these methane-munching organisms make a living in these extreme environments could provide clues about how the deep-sea environment might change in a warming world.

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Australian researchers have found that zinc can ‘starve’ one of the world’s most deadly bacteria by preventing its uptake of an essential metal.

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A study led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine shines a new light on molecular tools our cells use to govern regulated gene expression.

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Ocean conditions like current directions and water temperature play a huge role in determining the behavior of young migrating salmon as they move from rivers and hit ocean waters for the first time. How the fish fare during their first few weeks in the ocean has a profound impact on their ability to survive.

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Although we don’t often think about it, fluid dynamics touches almost every aspect of our lives, from a billowing breeze that buffets a flag, to swirling river currents that shape canyons to the surging blood that sustains our lives. One of the basest of bodily functions -- urination -- is governed primarily by the equations of fluid motion.

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Two groups of scientists at the Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern (CRI) have made complementary discoveries that break new ground on efforts to turn back the body’s clock on cellular activity, paving the way for a better understanding of stem cells, tissue growth, and regeneration.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a chain reaction that triggers the regrowth of some damaged nerve cell branches, a discovery that one day may help improve treatments for nerve injuries that can cause loss of sensation or paralysis.

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Hubble researchers say they were "literally dumbfounded" when they took a close-up look at P/2013 P5, an object that lives in the asteroid belt but superficially looks like a comet. It has no less than six dust tails that seem to be forming sequentially. The entire structure rotates like a bicycle wheel with spokes on one side.

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Red Panda Cubs Debut at Bronx Zoo and Prospect Park Zoo

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In a study led by Duke researchers, monkeys have learned to control the movement of both arms on an avatar using just their brain activity.

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As more businesses find their way into the cloud, few engage in security measures beyond those provided by the associated cloud storage firm, a new report from Georgia Tech notes. Even fewer seek heightened data protection because of concerns that usability and access to remote data would be significantly reduced.

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A newly discovered dinosaur, belonging to the same evolutionary branch as the famous Tyrannosaurus rex, was announced today in the open-access scientific journal PLoS ONE and unveiled on exhibit at the Natural History Museum of Utah.

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For the first time, UCLA researchers created a a virtual world that allowed them to manipulate a rodent's environment, and found that separate areas of a brain can work together, or be at odds.

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Cornell University engineers have taught a robot to work in a mock-supermarket checkout line, modifying a Baxter robot from Rethink Robotics in Boston to “coactively learn” from humans and make adjustments while an action is in progress.

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A Texas Tech astrophysicist was part of a team of researchers that discovered the first examples of black holes in globular star clusters in our own galaxy, upsetting 40 years of theories against their possible existence.

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The Wildlife Conservation Society’s Central Park Zoo is debuting their first-ever snow leopard cubs.

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Doom may be averted for the Smith Cloud, a gigantic streamer of hydrogen gas that is on a collision course with the Milky Way Galaxy. Astronomers using the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) have discovered a magnetic field deep in the cloud’s interior, which may protect it during its meteoric plunge into the disk of our Galaxy.

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Researchers at Johns Hopkins say they have found that a gene already implicated in human speech disorders and epilepsy is also needed for vocalizations and synapse formation in mice. The finding, they say, adds to scientific understanding of how language develops, as well as the way synapses — the connections among brain cells that enable us to think — are formed.

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Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and Weill Cornell Medical College of have determined the first atomic-level structure of the tripartite HIV envelope protein—long considered one of the most difficult targets in structural biology and of great value for medical science.

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Only a few genetic changes are needed to spur the evolution of new species—even if the original populations are still in contact and exchanging genes. Once started, however, evolutionary divergence evolves rapidly, ultimately leading to fully genetically isolated species, report scientists from the University of Chicago in the Oct 31 Cell Reports.

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Although a significant build-up in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would alter worldwide precipitation patterns, geoengineering would also interfere with rainfall and snowfall. An international study, led by NCAR scientists, finds that “geoengineering” could result in monsoonal rains in North America, East Asia, and other regions dropping by 5-7 percent compared to preindustrial conditions because of less evaporation and reduced plant emissions of water.

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Imagine a 1950s horror movie monster—a creeping, gluey tangle of gunk that strangles everything around it. That’s what amyloid plaques are like when they form in body tissues. These gooey protein clumps are associated with many chronic and debilitating disorders, and scientists have made enormous strides in understanding how these structures play roles in disease.

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With the help of computerized eye trackers, a new cognitive science study finds that at least 50 percent of people can see the movement of their own hand even in the absence of all light.

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Oysters begin their lives as tiny drifters, but when they mature they settle on reefs. New research from North Carolina State University shows that the sounds of the reef may attract the young oysters, helping them locate their permanent home.

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Researchers at the University of Delaware found staggering and spacing out turbines in an offshore wind farm can improve performance by as much as 33 percent.

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Scientists say they’ve produced “the clearest evidence yet” the SARS virus originated in Chinese horseshoe bats and that direct bat-to-human transmission is “plausible.” The 2002 severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) pandemic was one of the most significant public health events in recent history and researchers have been studying the virus to better understand how it is transmitted to prepare for future outbreaks.

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Scientists have confirmed that humpback whales in the southern Gulf of Maine are spending more feeding time on the ocean floor than in any of their known feeding behaviors, putting them at risk for entanglement in bottom-set fishing gear like lobster traps.

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A species of humpback dolphin previously unknown to science is swimming in the waters off northern Australia, according to a team of researchers working for the Wildlife Conservation Society, the American Museum of Natural History, and numerous other groups that contributed to the study.

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Scientists have found a way to use coastal redwood trees as a window into historic climate, using oxygen and carbon atoms in the wood to detect fog and rainfall in previous seasons.

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Meteorite bombardment left large craters that contained water and chemical building blocks for life, which ultimately led to the first organisms.

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In a pair of landmark studies that exploit the genetic sequencing of the “missing link” cold virus, rhinovirus C, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have constructed a three-dimensional model of the pathogen that shows why there is no cure yet for the common cold.

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Gas and oil deposits in shale have no place to hide from an Oak Ridge National Laboratory technique that provides an inside look at pores and reveals structural information potentially vital to the nation’s energy needs.

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Sandpipers exhibit different feeding behaviour depending on position in group

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Dendrites, parts of neurons, were once thought to be passive wiring in the brain. But now researchers at the University of North Carolina have shown that dendrites actively process information, multiplying the brain’s computing power. Published in the journal Nature, the finding could help researchers better understand neurological disorders.

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Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope have taken a new look at the Boomerang Nebula, the so-called "coldest place in the Universe" to learn more about its frigid properties and determine its true shape, which has an eerily ghost-like appearance.

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In an ambitious collaborative program, called The Frontier Fields, NASA's Great Observatories are teaming up to look deeper into the universe than ever before. With a boost from natural "zoom lenses" found in space, they should be able to uncover galaxies that are as much as 100 times fainter than what the Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra space telescopes can typically see. Join several members of the Frontier Fields collaboration during the live Hubble Hangout event at 4:00pm (EDT) on Thursday, October 24 to discuss more on what's to come from these observations, how the clusters were chosen, and what we hope to learn from them.

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Our ability to hear relies on hair cells, sensory receptors that mechanically amplify low-level sound that enters the inner ear through a transduction channel. A new study in The Journal of General Physiology could help lead to a definitive identification of this mystery channel.

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For the first time ever, scientists have documented a widespread extinction of bees that occurred 65 million years ago, concurrent with the massive event that wiped out land dinosaurs and many flowering plants. Their findings, published this week in the journal PLOS ONE, could shed light on the current decline in bee species.