For the first time astronomers were able to analyse the atmosphere of an exoplanet in the class known as super-Earths. Using data gathered with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and new analysis techniques, the exoplanet 55 Cancri e is revealed to have a dry atmosphere without any indications of water vapour. The results, to be published in the Astrophysical Journal, indicate that the atmosphere consists mainly of hydrogen and helium.

The international team, led by scientists from University College London (UCL) in the UK, took observations of the nearby exoplanet 55 Cancri e, a super-Earth with a mass of eight Earth-masses [1]. It is located in the planetary system of 55 Cancri, a star about 40 light-years from Earth.

Cloud top temperatures in storms within Tropical Cyclone Uriah grew colder over the last couple of days, according to infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite. That's an indication of stronger uplift in a tropical cyclone and a stronger storm. NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite saw the storm when it was struggling against wind shear, and two days later NASA's Aqua satellite saw Uriah reach hurricane-strength after the shear weakened.

Mothers of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often experience stress and suffer from sleep deprivation. Sacrifices almost always follow as they abandon professional careers and personal ambitions, believing that care for their children "comes first."

But is maternal abandonment of aspirations and interests really beneficial for the ASD child? A new Tel Aviv University study finds that a mother's positive attitude to involvement in everyday activities and a sense of competency in the performance of parental tasks accounts for a significant proportion of her children's successful participation in day-to-day activities.

On February 15th, 2013, as the approach of asteroid (367943) Duende was being closely monitored,  something far more alarming happened. Duende approached the Earth was expected to pass nearly 27,700 km above the Earth's surface, well inside the boundaries of the ring of geosynchronous satellites but nearly perpendicular to it, but then the Chelyabinsk superbolide entry occurred, followed by the explosion and the fall of the large meteorite in the Russian Lake Chebarkul. 

It caused damage to hundreds of buildings and injuries to nearly 1,500 people. 

In 2012, a group of UCLA researchers set out to mine thousands of electronic health records for a more accurate and less expensive way to identify people who have undiagnosed Type 2 diabetes. The researchers got much more than they bargained for.

Not only did they develop a screening algorithm with the potential to vastly increase the number of correct diagnoses of the disease by refining the pool of candidates who are put forward for screening; they also uncovered several previously unknown risk factors for diabetes, including a history of sexual and gender identity disorders, intestinal infections and a category of illnesses that includes such sexually transmitted diseases as chlamydia.

The findings appear February 16 in the Journal of Biomedical Informatics.

The oldest and longest record of nematodes revived after dried storage was for 39 years, which was reported in 1946. Another record reported on the revival and subsequent reproduction of nematodes from moss after having been frozen for 25 years. In regard to tardigrades, the previous longest records of revival after the long-term storage were 9 years for eggs in dried storage at room temperature and 8 years for animals in dried storage under a frozen condition. These animals have the ability to temporarily shut down their metabolic activities induced by certain physiological stimuli including desiccation and freezing, which is called "cryptobiosis."

Analysis of artifacts found on the shores of Rapa Nui, Chile (Easter Island) declares that the spear points were likely general purpose tools and not weapons of war, disputing one popular belief as to why people left or died off.

The team of Bruno Giros, a researcher at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute and professor of psychiatry at McGill University, reports the first-ever connection between noradrenergic neurons and vulnerability to depression. Published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, this breakthrough paves the way for new depression treatments that target the adrenergic system.

Stressful life events--job loss, accident, death of a loved one--can trigger major depression in one person, but not in another. A deciding factor is resilience, a biological mechanism that determines an individual's capacity to rebound from stressful or traumatic events. Researchers are still learning how resilience works.