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Video Clip SS270763 (Kelvin-Helmholtz Wave Clouds, Timelapse)

Time-lapse footage of strong wind shears curling high-altitude clouds into a distinctive and ephemeral Kelvin-Helmholtz wave pattern. 

This distinct corkscrew pattern is formed by layers of air moving across each other in opposite directions, creating a series of circular air movements in between them. 

This type of cloud generally forms at high altitude and dissipates rapidly. The formation seen here is associated with a jet stream in the lee of the Rocky Mountains. 

Filmed on a winter’s afternoon in Colorado, USA.

© Weathervideohd.tv / Science Source 

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Image SS2690104 (Candida Albicans, TEM)

Candida albicans is an opportunistic pathogenic yeast that is a common member of the human gut flora. It does not proliferate outside the human body. Healthy candida levels are vital for proper nutrient absorption and to protect the intestinal tract from other infections. C. albicans recognize and destroy harmful bacteria.

Learn More About Candida Yeast 

The growth of C. albicans is usually controlled by the immune system and “friendly” bacteria. However, if the number of bacteria is decreased (through antibiotics), or the immune systems is weakened, C. albicans will shift from yeast to mycelial fungal form and start to invade the body. 

In this invasive fungal state it can produce rhizoids, root-like structures that can penetrate intestinal walls, allowing toxins, undigested food, bacteria, and yeast to enter the bloodstream. 

Overgrowth of C. albicans can lead to oral thrush, vaginal yeast infections, diaper rash in infants, and various other skin infections in moist areas of the body.  Yeast infections that return often may be a sign of more serious diseases such as diabetes, leukemia, or AIDS.

Image above: ©James Cavallini / Science Source

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Video Clip SS270763 (Kelvin-Helmholtz Wave Clouds, Timelapse)

Time-lapse footage of strong wind shears curling high-altitude clouds into a distinctive and ephemeral Kelvin-Helmholtz wave pattern. 

This distinct corkscrew pattern is formed by layers of air moving across each other in opposite directions, creating a series of circular air movements in between them. 

This type of cloud generally forms at high altitude and dissipates rapidly. The formation seen here is associated with a jet stream in the lee of the Rocky Mountains. 

Filmed on a winter's afternoon in Colorado, USA.

© Weathervideohd.tv / Science Source 

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Video Clip SS241672 (Dendritic Ice Crystal Growth)

Macro timelapse footage of Dendritic Ice Crystals Growing.

At sub zero temperatures, moisture from the surrounding atmosphere condenses almost immediately. The dendritic (tree-like) form of the crystallization is a natural fractal pattern.

As a rule, except in conditions where supercooled droplets are present in the air, frost will form only if the deposition surface is colder than the surrounding air. For instance frost may be observed around cracks in cold wooden sidewalks when humid air escapes from the warmer ground beneath. Other objects on which frost commonly forms are those with low specific heat or high thermal emissivity, such as blackened metals; hence the accumulation of frost on the heads of rusty nails.

© Francis Chee / Science Source

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8 Years Of Staring Directly At The Sun

The Solar Dynamics Observatory was the first mission to be launched for NASA’s Living With a Star (LWS) Program, a program designed to understand the causes of solar variability and its impacts on Earth. 

SDO is designed to help us understand the Sun’s influence on Earth and Near-Earth space by studying the solar atmosphere on small scales of space and time and in many wavelengths simultaneously.

VIEW More Videos Taken By NASA’s SDO 

SDO’s goal is to understand, driving towards a predictive capability, the solar variations that influence life on Earth and humanity’s technological systems by determining

The Solar Dynamics Observatory celebrated its 8th anniversary since it launched on February 11, 2010. This time-lapse video captures one frame every 8 hours starting when data became available in June 2010 and finishing February 8, 2015. 

The different colors represent the various wavelengths (sometimes blended, sometimes alone) in which SDO observes the sun.

©  NASA-Goddard / Science Source

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How U.S. Countertop Workers Started Getting Sick

by Nell Greenfieldboyce / NPR Health 

Ublester Rodriguez could not have anticipated that his life would be profoundly changed by kitchen and bathroom countertops.

He says that he grew up poor, in a small Mexican town, and came to the United States when he was 14. He spoke no English, but he immediately got a job.

"In the beginning I was working in a Chinese restaurant, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. It was all day, so I never had time to go to school," he recalls. "I was a dishwasher."

He labored in restaurant kitchens for about eight years. But he wanted Sundays off to go to church and play soccer. So when his brother-in-law offered to help him get a new job, he jumped at the chance.

That's how he ended up in a workshop that cuts and polishes slabs of an artificial stone to make kitchen and bathroom countertops.

"It was something totally different for me," says Rodriguez.

Back then, in 2000, the material he was cutting was also something totally different for the American countertop industry. The stuff looked a lot like natural granite. In reality, it was made in a factory, from bits of quartz bound together by a resin.

Read the entire article

Image above (Lung silicosis, X-ray) ©CNRI / Science Source 

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Image SS2385580 (Blood Clot, SEM)

Colored scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of a human blood clot. 

Here it has formed inside a blood vessel following an injury. Red blood cells (a.k.a. erythrocytes) are seen trapped by a web of brown fibrin threads. The fibrin is an insoluble protein and these threads are an essential mechanism for the arrest of bleeding.

Platelets (a.k.a. thrombocytes) are a component of blood whose function (along with the coagulation factors) is to react to bleeding from blood vessel injury by clumping, thereby initiating a blood clot.

Learn More About Platelets

As the blood cells become trapped they lose their normal rounded shape (as at upper left). Blood clots form to repair blood vessels damaged by injury or disease. 

Abnormal clotting in intact arteries and veins (as occurs in a thrombus) is the principal cause of heart attack and stroke.

On the other side of the coin, there is a bleeding disorder called, Hemophilia, where the blood does not clot properly. This can lead to spontaneous bleeding as well as bleeding following injuries or surgery. 

Magnification: x2500 at 6x6cm size.

©Eye of Science / Science Source

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How Immunotherapy Might Be Used to Treat Heart Failure

Modified immune cells may be trained not just to attack cancer, but any cells in the body that cause disease, a new study suggests.

by Gina Kolata / NY Times

A cutting-edge cancer treatment can also cure certain kinds of heart failure in mice, scientists reported on Wednesday.

The treatment is a type of immunotherapy known as CAR-T therapy, which has proved life-changing for some patients with blood cancers. CAR-T relies on engineered white blood cells, T cells, that seek out and destroy malignant cells in the body.

In the new study, published in the journal Nature, the technology was used to target scar tissue that stiffens the heart and prevents it from fully relaxing between beats in heart failure patients.

“It is potentially a breakthrough paper,” said Dr. Richard Lee, professor of stem cell and regenerative biology at Harvard who was not involved in the new study.

Medical experts like Dr. Lee agreed that the study is clever and innovative, and at least a proof of principle. But some asked if it would be feasible to use the therapy to treat heart patients, at least in the near future.

For cancer, CAR-T therapy costs about $450,000 per patient. When hospital stays are included, the price can soar to $1 million or more.

Read the entire article

Image above ©Eye of Science / Science Source

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Video Clip SS272144 (Phases of the Far Side of the Moon)

Animation showing a time-lapse wide-angle view of the phases of the far side of the Moon, with the Earth rotating behind it. 

The Earth rotates on its own axis in 24 hours. The Moon orbits the spinning Earth in approximately 27.3 days, but because the Moon rotates upon its own axis once during the same period, it always presents the same side to the Earth. 

See More From The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

As the Moon orbits the Earth, the area of its surface lit by the Sun changes, resulting in the lunar phases. The animation was created using data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Video above © NASA / Science Source

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Image SS21245872 (Blood-Brain Barrier, illustration)

Medical illustration of the hematoencephalic barrier between the blood flow and the central nervous system. This is called the Blood-Brain Barrier.

This system regulates the environment (homeostasis) in the brain by separating it from the blood. Both the endothelial cells (red) that line the capillaries and the surrounding astrocytes (pink) are essential components of this barrier.

Learn More About The Blood-Brain Barrier 

The blood-brain barrier stops harmful chemicals and bacteria from reaching the brain. The blue cells pictured are the neurons in the brain. 

Viruses and special types of drugs are able to pass the blood-brain barrier.

© Gunilla Elam / Science Source

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How Best To Use The Few New Drugs To Treat Antibiotic-Resistant Germs?

by Richard Harris / NPR Health

Five years ago, Mary Millard went to the hospital for heart surgery. A contaminated medical instrument gave her an infection that led to septic shock. Her heart struggled, and her lungs and kidneys started to fail.

"What I caught was pseudomonas, and it's a very virulent superbug," says the 60-year-old former nurse who lives in Baton Rouge, La. This bacterium no longer responds to most antibiotics, and "it lives in you permanently, so I'm on lifetime antibiotics," she says.

Her doctor prescribed one of the most powerful antibiotics available, and there is no clear backup for her if that stops working. "It's kind of a wait-and-see. And that's what's scary."

Millard is just one of about 2 million Americans who have been infected with a superbug. Tens of thousands die each year, and the numbers are vastly higher on a global scale.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a major new report about antibiotic resistant germs on Wednesday.

Read the entire article

Image above © SPL / Science Source

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Video Clip SS248345 (Chelyabinsk Meteor, 2013)

Amateur dashboard camera footage of the meteor that exploded above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk on the morning of 15th February 2013. 

The meteor entered the atmosphere and exploded at an altitude of some 29.7 kilometers, causing a shock wave that shattered windows and damaged buildings, and caused nearly 1500 injuries. 

See Footage & Photos of the Chelyabinsk Meteor 

Scientists estimated that the meteorite weighed around 12,000 tons, had a diameter of around 20 meters, and entered the atmosphere at a speed of 19 kilometers per second. 

The main air burst had an energy of nearly 500 kilotons, some thirty times greater than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

© Ria Novosti / Science Source

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Thank You For Your Sacrifice

- Tomb of The Unknown Soldier in Washington DC -

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Anna Coleman Ladd, Creator of Prosthetics For WW1 Veterans

Anna Coleman Ladd (1878-1939) was an American sculptor who founded the American Red Cross ‘Studio for Portrait-Masks’ in Paris, France.

She was born in Bryn Mawr, Philadelphia and educated in Europe, where she studied sculpture in Paris and Rome. In late 1917, Ladd moved to France with her husband, Dr. Maynard Ladd, who was appointed to direct the Children’s Bureau of the American Red Cross in Toul. 

View More Photos Of Her Work With Veterans

It was at this time she was introduced to the work of Francis Derwent Wood in the “Masks for Facial Disfigurement Department” in Paris. After meeting with Wood, Ladd founded her iwn studio to provide cosmetic masks to be worn by men who had been badly disfigured in World War I

Soldiers would come to Ladd’s studio to have a cast made of their face and their features sculpted onto clay or plasticine. This form was then used to construct the prosthetic piece from extremely thin galvanized copper. The metal was painted to resemble the recipient’s skin. 

Her services earned her the Legion d'Honneur Crois de Chevalier and the Serbian Order of Saint Sava.

© Jessica Wilson / Science Source

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Measles Virus May Wipe Out Immune Protection For Other Diseases

by Emily Vaughn / NPR Health

This year saw the largest outbreak of measles in the U.S. since 1994, with 1,250 cases reported as of Oct. 3, largely driven by families choosing not to vaccinate their kids. Worldwide, the disease has resurfaced in areas that had been declared measles-free.

Some families choosing not to vaccinate argue that measles is just a pesky childhood illness to be endured. But two new studies illustrate how skipping the measles vaccine carries a double risk. Not only does it leave a child vulnerable to a highly contagious disease, but also, for individuals who survive an initial measles attack, the virus increases their vulnerability to all kinds of other infections for months, possibly even years, after they recover.

The research begins to explain something surprising that happened when the measles vaccine was introduced in the U.S. in the 1960s. Rates of childhood deaths from other diseases fell precipitously. The same thing happened as the vaccine was introduced around the world.

But what is it about the measles vaccine that seems to provide protection from more than just measles? The new studies published this week in the journals Science and Science Immunology provide substance to what has been the leading theory: Measles can damage the immune system by erasing the body's memory of previously encountered antigens.

Read the entire article

Image above © James Cavallini / Science Source 

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Beware The Zombie Maker!

The insects above were all killed by a predatory species of fungi common in the forests of the upper Amazon basin. This fungi’s name, Cordyceps, is derived from the Latin words cord, meaning “club”, and ceps, meaning “head”. 

SEE GRISLY PHOTOS OF THESE “ZOMBIE” INSECTS

Specific types of Cordyceps, that infect ants and flies, can control their behavior and turn these hosts into Zombies. The fungus takes control of the ant or fly, making it climb to the highest place possible before it dies. When the fungus finally kills the invertebrate host, one or more fruiting bodies sprout from the invertebrate’s exoskeleton. Having died in this elevated position, where wind speeds are greater, the spores are more easily swept away to infect new hosts. Marks have been found on fossilized leaves suggesting that this ability to modify the host’s behavior evolved more than 48 million years ago.

Images above © Dr. Morley Read / Science Source

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Inca Mummies Of Peru

by Mark Cartwright

The Inca civilization of Peru, as with many other ancient Andean cultures, mummified many of their dead and buried them with valuable materials such as precious metal jewellery, fine pottery, and sumptuous textiles. Important mummies could also be periodically removed from their tombs to participate in ceremonies where they were also offered food as if they were still living persons. Those mummies (mallki) which escaped looters have, in most cases, been excellently preserved, thanks to the dry climate of the Andes region, and they provide a unique insight into the culture, religious practices, and everyday life of the Incas.

See More Inca Mummies Of Peru

Mummification was only one type of burial employed by the Incas and was an ancient Andean manifestation of ancestor worship which illustrates a deep reverence for older generations (ayllu) and kinship within communities. Considered a link between the living and the gods, these mummies could also be taken from their resting place and ‘consulted’ on important occasions so that their knowledge might serve the living community. Given places of honour and offered food and drink, mummies were involved in such ceremonies as marriages, sowing, and harvesting, or when long journeys had to be undertaken by individuals within the community.

Read the entire article

Images above © Pasquale Sorrentino / Science Source