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Spine disc related low back and leg pain is a major challenge and is the second most common reason that patients visit the doctor in the United States—outnumbered only be respiratory infections—and is the leading cause of disability worldwide. Compression of the spinal nerves is one of the most common diagnoses and is frequently reversible with surgery.

NASA's P-3 research plane begins flights this month through both clouds and smoke over the South Atlantic Ocean to understand how tiny airborne particles called aerosols change the properties of clouds and how they influence the amount of incoming sunlight the clouds reflect or absorb.

It is “extremely unlikely” 2014, 2015 and 2016 would have been the warmest consecutive years on record without the influence of human-caused climate change, according to the authors of a new study.

Drought-stricken areas anxiously await the arrival of rain. Full recovery of the ecosystem, however, can extend long past the first rain drops on thirsty ground.

According to a study published August 10 in Nature, the length of drought recovery depends on several factors, including the region of the world and the post-drought weather conditions. The authors, including William Anderegg of the University of Utah, warn that more frequent droughts in the future may not allow time for ecosystems to fully recover before the next drought hits.

Find a video abstract of this study here. The study was funded by the National Science Foundation and by NASA.

New research from the University of New Hampshire has led to the development of a novel technique to determine the surface area and volume of small particles, the size of a grain of sand or smaller. Due to their tiny size, irregular shape and limited viewing angle, commonly used microscopic imaging techniques cannot always capture the whole object’s shape often leaving out valuable information that can be important in numerous areas of science, engineering and medicine.