Envisat satellite image captures fierce easterly desert winds blowing smoke from wildfires in Southern California. Gale-force winds have fed more than a dozen fires from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border since breaking out on Sunday, killing one person and forcing the evacuation of a quarter of a million people.

In the full image below, sand is visible being blown from Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula over the Gulf of California to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west.

In America, religion and politics or science and politics or politics and anything else don't mix well. According to a new University of Missouri-Columbia study, though, religion and health care work together just fine.

Research shows that religion and spirituality are linked to positive physical and mental health but most studies have focused on people with life threatening diseases. The new study determines that religion can help individuals with disabilities adjust to their impairments and give new meaning to their lives.

Persons facing impending death may use religion to help them accept their condition, come to terms with unresolved life issues, and prepare for death.

A new neurobiological study has found that a synthetic form of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis, is an effective anti-depressant at low doses. However, at higher doses, the effect reverses itself and can actually worsen depression and other psychiatric conditions like psychosis.

The study, published in the October 24 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, was led by Dr. Gabriella Gobbi of McGill University and Le Centre de Recherche Fernand Seguin of Hôpital Louis-H. Lafontaine, affiliated with l'Université de Montréal. First author is Dr. Gobbi's McGill PhD student Francis Bambico, along with Noam Katz and the late Dr.

In a landmark test flight, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and a team of research partners this month successfully launched a solar telescope to an altitude of 120,000 feet, borne by a balloon larger than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. The test clears the way for long-duration polar balloon flights beginning in 2009 that will capture unprecedented details of the Sun's surface.

"This unique research project will enable us to view features of the Sun that we've never seen before," says Michael Knölker, director of NCAR's High Altitude Observatory and a principal investigator on the project.

Different cultures have different standards and norms for appropriate body size and shape, which can effect how children perceive their body image.

Some cultures celebrate a fuller body shape more than others, but researchers at the Center for Obesity Research and Education (CORE) at Temple University have found that an overweight or obese child can still be unhappy with his or her body, despite acceptance from within their ethnic group.

“This unhappiness is yet another consequence of childhood obesity,” said Gary Foster, Ph.D., director of CORE and president-elect of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity.

Scientists have obtained core samples from deep inside California's San Andreas Fault for the first time, a finding that may lead to a better understanding of the underground molecular events associated with earthquakes, according to an article in the Oct. 22 issue of Chemical&Engineering News.

The 800-mile-long fault that bisects California is infamous as the source of the region's most devastating earthquakes. Conventional sampling of the fault yields slurries of rock chips that are fragmented and difficult to study.