New Britain Region, Papua New Guinea-(ENEWSPF)- The United States Geological Survey is reporting that a 6.6 magnitude earthquake struck the New Britain Region of Papua New Guinea today at 7:03:36 CDT (Chicago). The event data, which has been reviewed by a seismologist, places the epicenter at a depth of 21.5[Read More…]

Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–June 14, 2011.  The Gulf of Mexico’s hypoxic zone is predicted to be the largest ever recorded due to extreme flooding of the Mississippi River this spring, according to an annual forecast by a team of NOAA-supported scientists from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, Louisiana State University and the[Read More…]

WASHINGTON–(ENEWSPF)–June 14 – An analysis of several studies conducted among Latinos reveal that this community faces a disproportionate risk from toxic mercury pollution because of a combination of cultural, economic and linguistic factors. The analysis – based largely on previously unreleased data from the polling firm Bendixen & Amandi’s 2008[Read More…]

WASHINGTON, DC–(ENEWSPF)–June 14, 2011.  As part of the Obama Administration’s efforts to improve commercial building efficiency 20 percent by 2020, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu yesterday announced a partnership with The Appraisal Foundation that will help expand access to energy efficiency and building performance information for commercial buildings and help[Read More…]

New York, NY-(ENEWSPF)- Scientists have known for years that neurogenesis takes place throughout adulthood in the hippocampus of the mammalian brain. Now Columbia researchers have found that under stressful conditions, neural stem cells in the adult hippocampus can produce not only neurons, but also new stem cells. The brain stockpiles[Read More…]

Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–June 13, 2011.  At a White House Grid Modernization event today, U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced that more than five million smart meters have been installed nationwide as part of Recovery Act-funded efforts to accelerate modernization of the Nation’s electric grid. Smart meters will provide utility[Read More…]

Maine–(ENEWSPF)–June 13, 2011. Slugs love the moist conditions currently in play in many regions of the nation. While our colleagues in Houston and elsewhere are reporting a drought of epic proportions, the near constant rain and high humidity on the Eastern seaboard has brought an onslaught of questions about slugs.[Read More…]

This movie shows surface details beginning to resolve as NASA’s Dawn spacecraft closes in on the giant asteroid Vesta. The framing camera aboard NASA’s Dawn spacecraft obtained the images used for this animation on June 1, 2011, from a distance of about 300,000 miles (483,000 kilometers). PASADENA, CA-(ENEWSPF)– Scientists working[Read More…]

Artist’s interpretation depicting the new view of the heliosphere. The heliosheath is filled with “magnetic bubbles” (shown in the red pattern) that fill out the region ahead of the heliopause. In this new view, the heliopause is not a continuous shield that separates the solar domain from the interstellar medium,[Read More…]

This is one of the Tagish Lake meteorite fragments. Credit: Michael Holly, Creative Services, University of Alberta. NASA—(ENEWSPF)— Some asteroids may have been like "molecular factories" cranking out life’s ingredients and shipping them to Earth via meteorite impacts, according to scientists who’ve made discoveries of molecules essential for life in[Read More…]