Researchers have observed and characterized a weather process that was not previously known to occur in Antarctica's coastal regions. It turns out that the katabatic winds that blow from the interior to the margins of the continent reduce the amount of precipitation (mainly snowfall) -- which is a key factor in the formation of the ice cap. By forming a very dry layer of air in the first kilometer or so of atmosphere, the winds turn the falling snowflakes during their fall directly from their solid state into water vapor in a process known as sublimation.

Commuters, skiers, crossing guards and others who endure frozen fingers in cold weather may look forward to future relief as manufacturers are poised to take advantage of a new technique for creating electrically heated cloth developed by materials scientist Trisha Andrew and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. They have made gloves that keep fingers as warm as the palm of the hand.

Hurricane Lee began weakening as NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead and collected temperature information. Satellite data showed that Lee's strongest side was south of its center.

As NASA looks to explore deeper into our solar system, one of the key areas of interest is studying worlds that can help researchers better understand our solar system and the universe around us. One of the next destinations in this knowledge-gathering campaign is a rare world called Psyche, located in the asteroid belt.

NASA and NOAA satellites provided information and imagery to forecasters that showed Hurricane Maria weakened to a tropical storm on Sept. 28.

A NASA-produced map showing areas of eastern Puerto Rico that were likely damaged by Hurricane Maria has been provided to responding agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The hurricane, a Category 4 storm at landfall on Puerto Rico on Sept. 20, caused widespread damage and numerous casualties on the Caribbean island, an unincorporated U.S. territory with a population of about 3.4 million.

A new study appearing this week in Science reports the discovery of a startling new role of plastic marine debris -- the transport of non-native species in the world's oceans.

A revolutionary new approach to measuring changes in forest carbon density has helped WHRC scientists determine that the tropics now emit more carbon than they capture, countering their role as a net carbon “sink.”

• Bed bugs are huge problem for hotel and homeowners in some of the world’s busiest cities
• Insects finding their way into clothing and luggage is one possible cause of global spread of bed bugs

A team of researchers has engineered smart protein molecules that can reprogram white blood cells to ignore a self-defense signaling mechanism that cancer cells use to survive and spread in the body. Researchers say the advance could lead to a new method of re-engineering immune cells to fight cancer and infectious diseases. The team successfully tested this method in a live cell culture system.