• NASA Spies Wind Shear Still Affecting Tropical Storm Nalgae

    Tropical Storm Nalgae can’t seem to get a break from vertical wind shear. The storm has been dealing with wind shear since it formed and NASA’s Terra satellite observed that was still the case on August 4.

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  • Seasonal Effects: "Winter foals" are smaller than foals born in summer

    Seasonal and diurnal rhythms determine the life cycle of many animal species. In equids this is not only true for wild species such as the Przewalski but season-dependent metabolic changes also exist in domesticated horses. Horses can reduce their metabolic activity during the cold season and thus reduce heat loss. The effects of such seasonal changes on pregnancy and foetal development, however, have not been investigated so far. Researchers from Vetmeduni Vienna could now demonstrate that foals born in winter are smaller than herd mates born later in the year.

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  • NASA Sees High Clouds Fill Typhoon Noru's Eye

    NASA's Terra satellite passed over Typhoon Noru early on August 3 and saw that high clouds had moved over the eye.

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  • Two Weeks in the Life of a Sunspot

    On July 5, 2017, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory watched an active region — an area of intense and complex magnetic fields — rotate into view on the Sun. The satellite continued to track the region as it grew and eventually rotated across the Sun and out of view on July 17. 

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  • York researchers contribute to Canadian-led study detailing antimatter forensics

    A Canadian-led investigation involving York researchers has opened a new chapter in antimatter research.

    In a study published in Nature today (Aug. 3), the ALPHA Collaboration – a group of international physicists including physics Professor Scott Menary in the Faculty of Science at York University – reported the first detailed observation of spectral lines from an antimatter atom.

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  • Ongoing monitoring program finds potato psyllids but no evidence of bacteria that causes zebra chip disease

    University of Lethbridge biogeography professor Dr. Dan Johnson and his team have been monitoring Prairie potato fields for the past few years, looking for evidence of the potato psyllid insect and a bacterium it can carry that can lead to zebra chip disease in potato crops.

    “We found hundreds of potato psyllids last year, but we have found under 10 so far this year and none have the bacteria that cause zebra chip,” says Johnson, who coordinates the Canadian Potato Psyllid and Zebra Chip Monitoring Network.

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  • Lizard blizzard survivors tell story of natural selection

    An unusually cold winter in the U.S. in 2014 took a toll on the green anole lizard, a tree-dwelling creature common to the southeastern United States. A new study offers a rare view of natural selection in this species, showing how the lizard survivors at the southernmost part of their range in Texas came to be more like their cold-adapted counterparts further north.

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  • Study reveals exactly how low-cost fuel cell catalysts work

    In order to reduce the cost of next-generation polymer electrolyte fuel cells for vehicles, researchers have been developing alternatives to the prohibitively expensive platinum and platinum-group metal (PGM) catalysts currently used in fuel cell electrodes. New work at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge national laboratories is resolving difficult fuel-cell performance questions, both in determining efficient new materials and understanding how they work at an atomic level. The research is described this week in the journal Science.

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  • Study in Nature demonstrates method for repairing genes in human embryos that prevents inherited diseases

    Scientists have demonstrated an effective way of using a gene-editing tool to correct a disease-causing gene mutation in human embryos and stop it from passing to future generations.

    The new technique uses the gene-editing tool CRISPR to target a mutation in nuclear DNA that causes hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a common genetic heart disease that can cause sudden cardiac death and heart failure. The research, published Aug. 2 in the journal Nature, demonstrates a new method for repairing a disease-causing mutation and preventing it from being inherited by succeeding generations. This is the first time scientists have successfully tested the method on donated clinical-quality human eggs.

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  • Deadly heat waves could hit South Asia this century

    In South Asia, a region of deep poverty where one-fifth of the world’s people live, new research suggests that by the end of this century climate change could lead to summer heat waves with levels of heat and humidity that exceed what humans can survive without protection.

    There is still time to avert such severe warming if measures are implemented now to reduce the most dire consequences of global warming. However, under business-as-usual scenarios, without significant reductions in carbon emissions, the study shows these deadly heat waves could begin within as little as a few decades to strike regions of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, including the fertile Indus and Ganges river basins that produce much of the region’s food supply.

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