Twin NASA spacecraft have provided scientists with a view of the speed, trajectory, and three-dimensional shape of powerful explosions from the sun known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. This new capability will dramatically enhance scientists' ability to predict if and how these solar tsunamis could affect Earth.

When directed toward our planet, these ejections can be breathtakingly beautiful and yet potentially cause damaging effects worldwide. The brightly colored phenomena known as auroras -- more commonly called Northern or Southern Lights -- are examples of Earth's upper atmosphere harmlessly being disturbed by a CME. However, ejections can produce a form of solar cosmic rays that can be hazardous to spacecraft, astronauts and technology on Earth.

Neanderthals, a distinct Middle Pleistocene population, inhabited a vast geographical area extending from Europe to western Asia and the Middle East from 30,000 to 100,000 years ago. Were they a homogenous group or separate sub-groups in which  differences could be observed?  

Paleoanthropological studies since the 1950s, based on morphological skeletal evidence, have offered some support for the existence of three different sub-groups: one in Western Europe, one in southern Europe and another in the Levant.

A UQ researcher has revealed a new treatment for a speech disorder that commonly affects those who have suffered a stroke or brain injury. 

PhD graduate Dr Rachel Wenke has shown in a recent study that the Lee Silverman Voice Treatment® may be an effective option for dysarthria patients suffering from stroke and traumatic brain injury (TBI). 

Dysarthria is a speech disorder which negatively affects a person's ability to communicate as they can be difficult to understand and may sound like they have slurred or unclear speech. 

The disorder affects 75% of individuals with Parkinson's disease, up to 30% of those who have experienced a stroke and about 60% of individuals with TBI. 

If Mark Twain were alive today he might rephrase his frequently cited observation about everyone talking about the weather but not doing anything about it to say, "Everyone reads or watches weather forecasts, but many people don't understand them." 

He'd do that because new research indicates that only about half the population knows what a forecast means when it predicts a 20 percent chance of rain, according to researchers at the University of Washington. 

Scientists have long been interested in the interplay of emotions and identity, and some have recently focused on cultural identity. One's heritage would seem to be especially stable and impervious to change, simply because it's been passed down generation after generation and is deeply ingrained in the collective psyche.

But how deeply, exactly?

Three recent African trials support male circumcision for reducing the risk of contracting HIV in heterosexual men. After including new data from these trials in their review, Cochrane Researchers have changed their previous conclusions that there was insufficient evidence to recommend circumcision as an intervention to prevent HIV infection in heterosexual men.