UPDATE: LIGO has detected gravitational waves.

In recent releases announcing the forthcoming publication of new results on the detection of gravitational waves, the collaborations LIGO and VIRGO, as well as the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS, France), explicitly (and wrongly) attribute to Albert Einstein the original prediction of th

The age at which an adolescent begins using marijuana may affect typical brain development, according to researchers at the Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas. In a paper recently published in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, scientists describe how marijuana use, and the age at which use is initiated, may adversely alter brain structures that underlie higher order thinking.

The tropical low pressure area previously known as System 97P has developed into a tropical storm named 11P in the Southwestern Pacific Ocean. NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead and gathered cloud top temperatures that showed powerful storms within, while NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided a visible image of the storm east of Vanuatu.

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite measured temperatures in Tropical Storm 11P's cloud tops on Feb. 10 at 0229 UTC (Feb. 9 at 9:22 p.m. EST). AIRS provides valuable temperature data for tropical cyclones such as cloud top and sea surface temperatures.

Alzheimer´s disease (AD) is the most common disease underlying memory problems and dementia in the elderly. One of the invariable pathologies in AD is degeneration of cholinergic synapses in brain cortex and hippocampus. Despite enormous effort to find out an efficient treatment, current pharmacological interventions are limited to a few drugs that alleviate symptoms but do not slow down the underlying disease processes. These drugs include inhibitors of cholinesterases, enzymes that degrade the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, or memantine, a modulator of glutamate neurotransmission.

The enzyme Dicer processes RNA transcripts, cutting them into short segments that regulate the synthesis of specific proteins. An Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich team has shown that Dicer promotes the development of atherosclerosis, thus identifying a new drug target.

Infants aged between 5 and 7 months hold the representation of color categories in their brain, even before the acquisition of language, according to a study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Sapir-Wharf hypothesis claims that languages define our perceptions. This belief is widely accepted in various fields of study including psychology, linguistics and anthropology. Color perception is also considered to be subject to this theory, since colors are called by their names in daily communications. 

Though smoking has declined dramatically in America, it is still quite high in Asia. Yet there is hope, in that younger Chinese teenage boys are less likely to start smoking than those in previous generations.

The trend is significant because nearly one third of the world's smokers live in China. Two-thirds of Chinese men become daily smokers before they turn 25, with the vast majority starting the habit when they were between 15 and 20. By contrast, fewer than 4 percent of females in China smoke, which is why females were not included in the study.

The Large Hadron Collider is probably the world’s most famous science experiment. The 27 km-long ring-shaped particle accelerator beneath the edge of the Alps grabbed the world’s attention in 2013 when it proved the existence of the Higgs boson particle. This helped physicists confirm that one of their key theories about the way the universe worked was correct – a huge step for science.

But particle accelerators also have a big impact on our real lives. Even Christmas wouldn’t be the same without them.

Fibres from the Australian native spinifex grass are being used to improve latex that could be used to make condoms as thin as a human hair without any loss in strength.

Working in partnership with Aboriginal traditional owners of the Camooweal region in north-west Queensland, the Indjalandji-Dhidhanu People, researchers from The University of Queensland have developed a method of extracting nanocellulose -- which can be used as an additive in latex production -- from the grass.

Professor Darren Martin from UQ's Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) said the spinifex nanocellulose significantly improved the physical properties of latex.