NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Cyclone 15S as it formed in the Mozambique Channel on Feb. 18
at 10:53 a.m. EST
and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder
(AIRS) instrument aboard gathered infrared data on its cloud top temperatures and potential.

The data on the tropical system showed the highest cloud tops and strongest thunderstorms were in a band that stretched from the east to the south of the center. Cloud top temperatures were near -63F/-52C, indicating high, powerful thunderstorms with potential for heavy rainfall. The eastern-most edge was over western Madagascar and the southwestern extent reached Mozambique on the African mainland.

If we see or read about a child on a life-sustaining medical device, such as a ventilators or breathing or feeding tube,  we naturally think about the child

And when it comes to parents, we use platitudes like 'strong' but the physical and psychological distress of juggling treatments, appointments, therapies and daily family pressures doesn't get much consideration.

How smart do you have to be to convince Albert Einstein to change his mind?

Pretty smart. He never invoked 'the science is settled' or ridiculed the political party of physicists who insisted the universe was expanding. It was static until someone proved otherwise.

Eventually they did, but it was not the urban legend that claimed in 1931 American astronomer Edwin Hubble showed Einstein his observations of redshift in the light emitted by far away nebulae - what we call galaxies now. The tipping point was instead a tortuous thought process following many encounters with some of the most influential astrophysicists of his generation.

As if pretty people didn't have enough advantages, they may also give us a glance at their reproductive health, according to a paper in the American Journal of Human Biology reveals a link between Body Mass Index (BMI) and the amount of bacteria colonizing noses.

The results show that heavier men harbor more potentially pathogenic species of bacteria in their nose, compared with slimmer, more traditionally attractive men.

A mouse's heart beats about the same number of times in its lifetime as an elephant's, but a mouse only lives for about a year while an elephant will live to be about 70.

Why do small plants and animals mature faster than large ones? Why has nature chosen such radically different forms as the loose-limbed beauty of a flowering tree and the fearful symmetry of a tiger? 

Does cortisol, the stress hormone, cause risk aversion and 'irrational pessimism' in bankers and fund managers during financial crises?

The authors of a paper in
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
correlate the fact that traders exhibit risk averse behavior during periods of extreme market volatility – when a crashing market most needs them to take risks, according to academics not responsible for billions of dollars of someone else's money – and that this change in their appetite for risk may be "physiologically-driven", specifically by the body's response to cortisol. They suggest that stress could be an "under-appreciated" cause of market instability.

Older football veterans contend that modern equipment, and its ability to protect players from injury, ironically lead to more of it. Rugby players agree. 

They may be right. A new study finds that modern football helmets do little to protect against hits to the side of the head and the rotational force that is often a dangerous source of brain injury and encephalopathy. 

If we want to see worldwide trends in public health, look to the South Pacific archipelago of Samoa and American Samoa.

About 75 percent of the U.S. territory's adult population is obese, the highest rate in the world. Rates of type 2 diabetes top 20 percent and a recent study found that the elevated obesity rates are now even present in newborns.

This obesity epidemic began there a few decades ago. Brown University epidemiologist Stephen McGarvey has investigated the obvious question: How did all this happen?