News by Subject Earth Science

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided night-time and infrared views of developing Tropical Storm Nestor in the Gulf of Mexico and found over-shooting cloud tops and gravity waves. When the satellite passed over the potential tropical depression early on Oct. 18, it was consolidating. Less than 12 hours later, it became a tropical storm.

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center with a visible image of Tropical Storm Neoguri that showed it had become more organized over the previous 24 hours.

Fluctuations in atmospheric pressure can heavily influence how much natural gas leaks from wells below the ground surface at oil and gas sites, according to new University of British Columbia research. However, current monitoring strategies do not take this phenomenon into account, and therefore may be under- or over-estimating the true magnitude of gas emissions.

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided infrared data that showed the development of Tropical Storm Octave in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

The evolution of dietary and hygienic habits in Western countries is associated with a decrease in the bacteria that help in digestion. These very bacteria were also found in the Iceman, who lived 5300 years ago, and are still present in non-Westernized populations in various parts of the world. The depletion of the microbiome may be associated with the increased prevalence, in Western countries, of complex conditions like allergies, autoimmune and gastrointestinal diseases, obesity.

A research group at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, has developed an efficient process for breaking down any plastic waste to a molecular level. The resulting gases can then be transformed back into new plastics - of the same quality as the original. The new process could transform today's plastic factories into recycling refineries, within the framework of their existing infrastructure.