Wind and solar power are increasingly popular sources for renewable energy. But intermittency issues keep them from connecting widely to the U.S. grid: They require energy-storage systems that, at the cheapest, run about $100 per kilowatt hour and function only in certain locations.

Excess solar flux could be harnessed and used to generate additional electricity at a tower CSP plant, by cladding part of the tower containing the receiver with photovoltaic (PV) panels, according to Sandia scientist Cliff Ho. He found that adding PV on the tower could generate over 10 MW, or 10% of the total capacity of a 100 MW CSP plant, using the same reflected sunlight off heliostats used to focus “suns” up onto the tower receiver for thermal solar generation.

When you picture a horse, you may imagine it grazing contentedly in a grassy pasture. Grazing lets horses move around naturally outdoors and socialize with other horses. And grass is an easily available, nutritious feed that horses like eating. If you have the land, providing pasture for horses is less costly than buying hay.

Scientists at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (CNIC) have identified a protein that holds promise as a target for therapies to reduce obesity. Drs. Guadalupe Sabio and Nuria Matesanz have demonstrated that MKK6 controls the conversion of fat stores, known as white fat, into brown fat, in which lipids are burned to maintain body temperature and reduce obesity. The study is published today in  Nature Communications.

A team of researchers from across the country will work together to design a satellite instrument, which will sit on board the International Space Station (ISS). The technology will monitor the complex interaction between the Earth’s upper atmosphere and the climate, and could advance our understanding of earth observations and aeronomy. 

The damage caused to beaches by extreme storms on exposed energetic coastlines and the rate at which they recover can now be accurately predicted thanks to new research led by the University of Plymouth.

A “smart bandage” that detects and treats infection using a smartphone app has the potential for transformative advances in wound care, says UVic bioengineer Mohsen Akbari, principal investigator of a study published this week which describes the science behind the innovation.

Akbari and his UVic-based research team with collaborators from Harvard Medical School and UBC are working with UVic Industry Partnerships to commercialize GelDerm, a patent-pending bandage that monitors pH levels at wound sites to detect the earliest signs of bacterial infection.

Tropical Storm Ophelia developed on Oct. 9 around 5 a.m. EDT as the seventeenth, tropical depression of the Atlantic Ocean hurricane season. It formed in the Central Atlantic Ocean about 875 miles (1,405 km) west-southwest of the Azores islands. NASA's Terra satellite provided forecasters with a visible image of the storm as it strengthened into a tropical storm. 

While burning coal today causes Earth to overheat, about 300 million years ago the formation of that same coal brought our planet close to global glaciation. For the first time, scientists show the massive effect in a study published in the renowned Proceedings of the US Academy of Sciences. When trees in vast forests died during a time called the Carboniferous and the Permian, the carbon dioxide (CO2) they took up from the atmosphere while growing got buried; the plants’ debris over time formed most of the coal that today is used as fossil fuel. Consequently, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere sank drastically and Earth cooled down to a degree it narrowly escaped what scientists call a ‘snowball state’.

Tropical Depression 23W formed on Monday, Oct. 9 and by Tuesday, Oct. 10 it made landfall in northern Vietnam. NASA's Aqua satellite analyzed the depression in infrared light and determined the strongest storms were located in two countries.