Scientists using NASA satellite data have found the most intense global pollution from fires occurred during droughts caused by El Niño. The most intense fires took place in 1997-1998 in association with the strongest El Niño event of the 20th century.

Bryan Duncan, Randall Martin, Amanda Staudt, Rosemarie Yevich and Jennifer Logan, from Harvard University, used data observed by NASA’s Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) satellite to quantify the amount of smoke pollution from biomass b

Special modification of reverse genetics created at St. Jude allowed vaccine to be custom-made within weeks of emergence of virus

Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital announced today the development of a vaccine against H5N1, a new lethal influenza virus that triggered the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a pandemic alert in February 2003.

The virus appeared in birds in Hong Kong late last year and subsequently killed one of two infected people

New physical phenomenon will likely impact atomic physics, chemistry and nanotechnology

In a discovery that is likely to impact fields as diverse as atomic physics, chemistry and nanotechnology, researchers have identified a new physical phenomenon, electrostatic rotation, that, in the absence of friction, leads to spin. Because the electric force is one of the fundamental forces of nature, this leap forward in understanding may help reveal how the smallest building blocks in nature r

Results of a study by researchers at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) and Dartmouth Thayer School of Engineering could have implications for choosing which patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms should have surgery and which ones should simply have follow-up with noninvasive studies.

In an article published in the April issue of the Journal of Vascular Surgery, Dr. Mark Fillinger and colleagues describe a new noninvasive method for evaluating abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA). Th

Scientists Identify a Protein Channel that Mediates the Body’s Ability to Feel Frigid

A group of researchers from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) have identified and isolated a novel protein that mediates the body’s ability to sense cold through the skin.

In an article that will appear in this week’s issue of the journal Cell, the group describes the “ion channel” protein, called ANKTM1, which is the

Andrei Linde lauds the new era of precision cosmology

For most of us, “inflation” is a term that comes up only in conversations about the economy or flat tires. But for many cosmologists, inflation is the ultimate word in understanding how the universe was created.

In the beginning, according to inflation theory, the universe was tinier than an atom. Then, in an unimaginably brief period of time – .00000000000000000000000000000001 second, to be precise – it expanded (“inflat