Just as drivers observe the rules of the road, most pedestrians follow certain social codes when navigating a hallway or a crowded thoroughfare: Keep to the right, pass on the left, maintain a respectable berth, and be ready to weave or change course to avoid oncoming obstacles while keeping up a steady walking pace.Now engineers…

Preventing injuries may not be the only reason children shouldn’t use off-road vehicles (ORVs).In a new study, public health scientists raise concerns that people who use ORVs in many regions of the country may face exposure to hazardous mineral fibers. These include naturally occurring asbestos and erionite – an asbestos-like material that occurs in sedimentary…

NASA analyzed the soil moisture in southeastern Texas before and after Harvey made landfall and found the ground was already somewhat saturated. NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP Satellite provided a night-time look at Harvey after it moved into the Gulf of Mexico, and NOAA’s GOES East satellite provided a look at the storm after it made its…

A University of Alberta forestry professor has cracked a key mystery surrounding the mountain pine beetle.After studying lodgepole pine trees in the Grande Prairie area that survived a pine beetle attack, U of A professor Nadir Erbilgin and his team discovered certain chemicals in the trees that produce high levels of resin—sticky sap—that overwhelms the…

An herb widely used in traditional Chinese medicine might hold the key to a new osteoporosis therapy that could prevent bone loss without causing side effects.Using a compound derived from red sage, UBC researchers have found a way to selectively block an enzyme called Cathepsin K (CatK), which plays a major role in the breakdown…

Immunotherapy is an emerging field in the global fight against cancer, even though scientists and clinicians have been working for decades to find ways to help the body’s immune system detect and attack cancerous cells. Doug Mahoney’s lab at the University of Calgary recently discovered an immunotherapy that uses existing cancer drugs in a whole new way.

A natural process that occurs during photosynthesis could lead to the design of more efficient artificial solar cells, according to researchers at Georgia State University.During photosynthesis, plants and other organisms, such as algae and cyanobacteria, convert solar energy into chemical energy that can later be used as fuel for activities. In plants, light energy from…

Earth’s largest inland body of water has been slowly evaporating for the past two decades due to rising temperatures associated with climate change, a new study finds.

At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, an analysis of Hurricane Harvey's tremendous rainfall was created using eight days of satellite data.NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM or IMERG product is used to make estimates of precipitation from a combination of space-borne passive microwave sensors, including the GMI microwave sensor onboard the Global…

A team of researchers from the University of Windsor and the University of Saskatchewan have discovered that methane can naturally migrate upwards through shale over millions of years and reach groundwater without any industry influence.“Upward migration of methane through low-porosity zones raises awareness that groundwater wells can be naturally contaminated by deeper sources of methane,”…