Astronomers studying hydrogen gas clouds found in and above the Milky Way Galaxy have discovered that the clouds have preferred locations in and around the galaxy, a fact which has given astronomers a key clue about galaxy evolution. 

Astronomers studied gas clouds in two distinct regions of the Galaxy. The clouds they studied are between 400 and 15,000 light-years outside the disk-like plane of the Galaxy. The disk contains most of the Galaxy's stars and gas, and is surrounded by a "halo" of gas more distant than the clouds the astronomers studied.

Scientists have reconstructed the formation of a chasm larger than the Grand Canyon and a series of spiral troughs under the northern ice cap of Mars—solving a pair of mysteries dating back four decades while finding new evidence of climate change on Mars.

In a pair of papers to be published in Nature, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Geophysics describe how they used radar data collected by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to reveal the subsurface geology of the red planet's northern ice cap.

On Earth, large ice sheets are shaped mainly by ice flow. But on Mars, according to this latest research, other forces have shaped, and continue to shape, the polar ice caps.

Check out these awesome videos from NASA's new Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).   If you aren't familiar with it, SDO is part of NASA's Living With a Star Program, which should help us understand the Sun's influence on Earth by studying the solar atmosphere in small time scales and in many wavelengths simultaneously.

The end goal is to help us understand solar variations that influence life on Earth by determining how the Sun's magnetic field is generated and structured and how this stored magnetic energy is converted and released into the heliosphere and geospace in the form of solar wind, energetic particles, and variations in the solar irradiance.

Dengue fever has emerged as a worldwide problem only since the 1950s.

The name ‘dengue’ is thought to have origins in the Swahili language, “Ki-Dinga pepo” used to describe a dengue-like illness reported in Africa during the 19th century.

The Dengue is cause of illness and death in the tropics and subtropics.

A study in Current Biology has confirmed that the brain chemical dopamine plays a role in decision making by influencing our expectations of the pleasure associated with the outcomes of our choices.

Dopamine's role in reward learning and reward-seeking behavior has been established in animals, said Tali Sharot of University College London. In humans, however, much less was known. Her team recently found that when we imagine future events, activity in a dopamine-laden part of the brain tracks people's estimates of the expected pleasure to be derived from those events. Based on these findings, the researchers suspected that they could alter people's expectations, and with them their choices, by manipulating dopamine levels in the subjects' brains.

Scientists have developed a new influenza vaccine that may one day eliminate the need for seasonal flu shots. The new findings were published in the inaugural issue of mBio.

The current seasonal influenza vaccine is strain-specific, targeting the globular head of the hemaglutinin (HA) molecule on the surface of the influenza virus. This globular head is highly variable and constantly changing from strain to strain. Each flu season presents a different strain, making it necessary to adjust the vaccine each year.

What is the best way to address the obesity epidemic? Several experts debated the subject in the most recent issue of the British Medical Journal. 

Researchers from the Children's Hospital at Westmead and the University of Sydney in Australia  argue that physical inactivity is just one marker and that there is substantial evidence that unhealthy diets low in fibre and high in sugar and large portion size are also responsible for obesity and the diseases associated with it.

A Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or above, a standard indicator of obesity, is not associated with poorer health among adults under age 40, according to a new study.

In addition, researchers found that across all age groups studied, from 25 to 70 years, there was little difference in the current health status in normal-weight vs. overweight people based on the medications they took.

The study was published in the International Journal of Obesity.

The researchers acknowledge that health problems in older adults with BMIs of 30 or higher might be traced back to carrying extra weight in young adulthood. Among people age 40 or older, use of medication was significantly higher among adults considered to be obese compared to adults with a normal weight.