Earth's magnetic field, a familiar directional indicator over long distances, is routinely probed in applications ranging from geology to archeology, and now it has provided the basis for a technique which could characterize the chemical composition of fluid mixtures in their native environments.

Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory conducted a proof-of-concept nuclear magnetic resonance experiment in which a mixture of hydrocarbons and water was analyzed using a high-sensitivity magnetometer and a magnetic field comparable to that of the Earth.

Ruxolitinib (trade name: Jakavi) has been approved since August 2012 for the treatment of adults with myelofibrosis.

Myelofibrosis is a rare disease of the bone marrow, in which the bone marrow is replaced by connective tissue. As a consequence of this so-called fibrosis, the bone marrow is no longer able to produce enough blood cells. Sometimes the spleen or the liver takes over some of the blood production.  Then these organs enlarge and can cause abdominal discomfort and pain. The typical symptoms also include feeling of fullness, night sweats and itching. Some patients with myelofibrosis develop leukemia.

Stem cell transplantation is currently the only option to cure myelofibrosis. The drug ruxolitinib aims to relieve the symptoms of myelofibrosis.

Researchers have created highly focused pathways that can channel electricity through the atmosphere.

It's not a new idea, Nikola Tesla worked on powering wireless lamps using electrostatic induction, but the new technique can potentially direct electricity up to 30 feet away, shattering previous distance records.

It may also finally put us on the path to channeling lightning with laser power. 

Survey results of over 10,000 mothers have led sociologists to conclude that women who breastfed their babies are at significantly lower risk of postnatal depression than those who do not.

The paper in Maternal and Child Health notes that mothers who planned to breastfeed and who actually went on to breastfeed were around 50% less likely to become depressed than mothers who had not planned to, and who did not, breastfeed. Mothers who planned to breastfeed, but who did not go on to breastfeed, were over twice as likely to become depressed as mothers who had not planned to, and who did not, breastfeed.

A new captured by the Wide Field Imager at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile shows two dramatic star formation regions in the southern Milky Way. On the left is the star cluster NGC 3603, located 20,000 light-years away in the Carina–Sagittarius spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy. On the right, about half as far from Earth, is a collection of glowing gas clouds known as NGC 3576.

Both were discovered by English astronomer John Herschel in 1834, during his three-year expedition to systematically survey the southern skies from near Cape Town. He described NGC 3603 as a remarkable object and thought that it might be a globular star cluster. Future studies showed that it is not an old globular, but a young open cluster, one of the richest known.

The antibiotic clarithromycin is widely used for treating common bacterial infections and has been linked to an increased risk of heart deaths by a study on BMJ.

The absolute risk is small and prescribing practice should not be changed until results have been confirmed in an independent study but the authors say their findings require urgent confirmation, given that many millions of people are prescribed the drug each year.