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In sub-Saharan Africa, dozens of major ‘development corridors,’ including roads, railroads, pipelines, and port facilities, are in the works to increase agricultural production, mineral exports, and economic integration. And, if all goes according to plan, it’s going to be a disaster, say researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on Nov

(Phys.org)—Asteroid (4179) Toutatis, an Apollo-type near-Earth object (NEO) was thoroughly studied by Chinese Chang’e-2 spacecraft in 2012, when the space rock flew by Earth at a distance of 18 lunar distances. The probe, imaging the asteroid in high-resolution, has provided compelling information regarding Toutatis’ geological structure.

Astronomers using data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have detected hints of periodic changes in the brightness of a so-called “active” galaxy, whose emissions are powered by a supersized black hole. If confirmed, the discovery would mark the first years-long cyclic gamma-ray emission ever detected from any galaxy, which could provide new insights into physical processes near the black hole.

The European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft began orbiting comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August 2014, providing the closest and most detailed look at a comet to date. Now, a team led by astronomers at the University of Maryland has used data from Rosetta’s Optical, Spectroscopic and Infrared Remote Imaging System (OSIRIS) cameras to generate maps of multiple gas emissions just above the comet’s surface.

Continued deforestation of the Amazon rainforest could diminish the amount of rain that falls in the Amazon River basin, finds a new study. These declines in rainfall could potentially alter the region’s climate, disrupting rainforest ecosystems and impacting local economies, according to the study’s authors.

The National Institutes of Natural Sciences National Institute for Fusion Science applied the “Momentary Heating Propagation Method” to the DIII-D tokamak device operated for the United States Office of Science, Department of Energy, by the General Atomics and made the important discovery of a new plasma confinement state. This discovery was introduced in the November 4, 2015, issue of Scientific Reports, a journal of the British science journal Nature group, in an article titled “Self-regulated oscillation of transport and topology of magnetic islands in toroidal plasmas.”

There’s more to the snap, crackle and pop of Rice Krispies than meets the ear. A recent study by San Diego State University civil engineering professor Julio Valdes used the breakfast cereal to discover a new phenomenon in materials science: highly porous, brittle materials can deform in different ways depending on compaction velocity