One of the known facts about landfalling hurricanes is their rapid decay, yet some of them retain tropical storm winds and gusts well inland. While studies have shown that the reduction in surface evaporation is a reason for hurricane decay during landfall, little is known about the effect of land surface water on the intensity of hurricanes.

In a recent issue of the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, URI Graduate School of Oceanography (GSO) physical oceanographer Isaac Ginis, Weixing Shen, f

When a stroke affects the language areas in the left side of the brain, the right side takes over and learns how to perform language tasks, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The study found that patients’ right side of the brain is more active than normal during a verbal language task, and that the right side’s activity decreases with practice, similar to what happens on the left side of the brain in healthy individuals.

“This is the f

Scientists may soon be able to influence muscle formation more easily as a result of research conducted in the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases’ Laboratory of Muscle Biology. The researchers there and at institutions in California and Italy have found that inhibitors of the enzyme deacetylase can switch the pathway of muscle precursor cells (myoblasts) from simply reproducing themselves to becoming mature cells that form muscle fibers (myotubules).

It has

Orbit affects climate on Mars similar to the way it affects climate on Earth, say three scientists, who used a model of climate change on Earth to explain the layers of deposits in the polar regions of the Red Planet.

Their study appears in the Sept. 26 issue of Nature, and suggests that a climate change theory for Earth can also be applied to Mars and possibly to other Earth-like planets.

“The orbital theory of climate change has been successful in explaining changes in the Earth&

An international team of scientists led by researchers at The Wistar Institute has combined two different imaging techniques to uncover the molecular-level framework of a common bacteriophage, a virus that infects bacteria. The results, reported in the October issue of Nature Structural Biology, suggest that viruses developed a continuum of progressively more complex architectural strategies to cope with their increasing size as they evolved. An image from the study is featured on the journal’s

A University of Toronto botanist has identified a protein that ultimately could provide chemical-free ways to protect crops from disease.

“Finding this protein, called DIR1, could help make it possible to genetically engineer crops that resist disease-causing organisms,” says Robin Cameron, a professor of botany at U of T and the senior investigator of the study, which appears in the Sept. 26 issue of Nature. “In the long run, having a better understanding of the whole process of disease re