It was frigid Tuesday morning across Minnesota. Our next rain arrives on Wednesday.

Our next rain system brings scattered showers on Wednesday.

Showers will affect much of the state today, though the bulk of the rainfall will be in central and southwest Minnesota. Clouds linger into Thursday followed by milder air Friday. 

Andy Warhol transcended a photographer's copyright by transforming a picture of a vulnerable and uncomfortable Prince into an artwork that made the singer an "iconic, larger-than-life figure," a judge ruled Monday.

Stevie Wonder surprised concertgoers in London on Saturday night by announcing that he will take a break from performing so that he can receive a kidney transplant this fall.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources said deer harvest numbers are up from last year, despite some poor weather on the second day.

State environmental regulators and a group of northeastern Minnesota residents have filed separate lawsuits to block a proposed $45 million resort development near Ely and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.

Fulani herdsmen kidnapped four Christians in an attack on villages in north-central Nigeria.

Fulani herdsmen killed six Christians on Friday and Saturday in Benue state, Nigeria, after slaughtering 15 Christians in a nearby village two days earlier, sources said.

Bill Johnson’s Bethel Church in Redding, California, announced Sunday that it has planted a new church in Sydney, Australia, where Hillsong Church is headquartered. 

Brackets are busted. Hopes are high. Cinderella's are born. This is March Madness.

Red Canary, the managed detection and response (MDR) provider, has released a new report, Security Operations Trends Report, providing insight into critical challenges facing modern cybersecurity teams. Partnering with independent research company Coleman Parkes, Red Canary surveyed 700 security leaders from the US, UK, New Zealand, Australia and Nordics. 

[Culture] :
The Busan International Film Festival(BIFF) is set to start its ten-day run Wednesday.  Asia’s largest film festival will kick off with a grand opening ceremony at 7 p.m. at Busan Cinema Center in the southern port city of Busan, featuring 224 films from 63 countries. The 29th BIFF will open with ...

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[Economy] :
The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index tumbled 65-point-49 points, or two-point-64 percent, on Wednesday to close at two-thousand-417-point-08. The tech-heavy KOSDAQ sank 20-point-87 points, or two-point-94 percent, to close at 689-point-65.

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Ordnance Survey adds geological data to its Data Hub  Geographical Magazine

BGS geological data sets now available on Ordnance Survey hub  Ground Engineering

New geological collaboration for Ordnance Survey  Ordnance Survey

BGS announces collaboration with Ordnance Survey  British Geological Survey

α-d-2'-De­oxy­ribonucleosides are products of the γ-irradiation of DNA under oxygen-free conditions and are constituents of anomeric DNA. They are not found as natural building blocks of canonical DNA. Reports on their conformational properties are limited. Herein, the single-crystal X-ray structure of α-d-2'-de­oxy­adenosine (α-dA), C10H13N5O3, and its conformational parameters were determined. In the crystalline state, α-dA forms two conformers in the asymmetric unit which are connected by hydro­gen bonds. The sugar moiety of each conformer is arranged in a `clamp'-like fashion with respect to the other conformer, forming hydro­gen bonds to its nucleobase and sugar residue. For both conformers, a syn conformation of the nucleobase with respect to the sugar moiety was found. This is contrary to the anti conformation usually preferred by α-nucleosides. The sugar conformation of both conformers is C2'-endo, and the 5'-hydroxyl groups are in a +sc orientation, probably due to the hydro­gen bonds formed by the conformers. The formation of the supra­molecular assembly of α-dA is controlled by hydro­gen bonding and stacking inter­actions, which was verified by a Hirshfeld and curvedness surface analysis. Chains of hydro­gen-bonded nucleobases extend parallel to the b direction and are linked to equivalent chains by hydro­gen bonds involving the sugar moieties to form a sheet. A com­parison of the solid-state structures of the anomeric 2'-de­oxy­adenosines revealed significant differences of their conformational parameters.

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A National Science Foundation-funded study found that Charles Darwin's famous finches defy what has long been considered a key to evolutionary success: genetic diversity. The research on finches of the Galapagos Islands could change the way conservation biologists think about a species' potential for extinction in naturally fragmented populations. Researchers examined 212 tissue samples from museum specimens and living birds. Some of the museum specimens in the study were collected by Darwin himself in 1835. Only one of the extinct populations, a species called the vegetarian finch, had lower genetic diversity compared to modern survivors. Specifically, researchers believe a biological phenomenon called sink-source dynamics is at play in which larger populations of birds from other islands act as a "source" of immigrants to the island population that is naturally shrinking, the "sink." Without these immigrant individuals, the natural population on the island likely would continue to dwindle to local extinction. The immigrants have diverse genetics because they are coming from a variety of healthier islands, giving this struggling "sink" population inflated genetic diversity.

Image credit: Jose Barreiro

Catawba County Public Health's annual report, emergency preparedness outreach have won national honors from the National Association of County Information Officers.

Robin Heilweil, 6, wears a mask while swinging around with her kindergarten class this month at Kenter Canyon School in Los Angeles.; Credit: Sarah Reingewirtz/Los Angeles Daily News/Southern California News Group via Getty Images

New research released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reinforces an old message: COVID-19 spreads less in schools where teachers and staff wear masks. Yet the study arrives as states and school districts across the country have begun scaling back or simply dropping their masking requirements for staff and students alike.

With the majority of school-age children still too young to qualify for vaccination, Friday's research is the latest salvo in a simmering fight between public health officials and politicians — with parents lining up on both sides.

The new study comes from Georgia and compares COVID-19 infection rates across 169 K-5 schools. Some schools required teachers, staff and sometimes students to wear masks; some did not.

Between Nov. 16 and Dec. 11, researchers found that infection rates were 37% lower in schools where teachers and staff members were required to wear masks. The difference between schools that did and did not require students to wear masks was not statistically significant.

This is one more study showing that masking, among other mitigation efforts, "can reduce infections and ultimately save lives," said Dr. Sean O'Leary, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado and vice chair of the Committee on Infectious Diseases for the American Academy of Pediatrics.

O'Leary points to a previous CDC study, of schools in Florida, that also found "a strong association with student mask requirements and lower rates of infections in students."

Like any study, Friday's release comes with caveats. Only 12% of schools invited to share their data did so. And it's always worth remembering: Correlation is not causation. Still, the results offer an important warning to states and school districts that are now lifting their school-based mask requirements, especially for adults: It's safer if you don't.

The latest, and perhaps broadest effort to change schools' masking policies comes from Texas, where Republican Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order Tuesday banning all mask mandates in the state's public schools. After June 4, the order says, "no student, teacher, parent or other staff member or visitor may be required to wear a face covering."

For Abbott, and many opponents of mask mandates, the move is about restoring a balance between safety and freedom. "We can continue to mitigate COVID-19 while defending Texans' liberty to choose whether or not they mask up," he said in announcing the order.

Zeph Capo, president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers, called the move "unconscionable" in a statement. "The governor's new verdict takes a blanket approach to addressing what is still extremely dangerous for some Texans — a return to school unmasked."

And Texas isn't alone. On Thursday, Iowa's Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, also signed a law banning schools from requiring masks. The justification is similar: "I am proud to be a governor of a state that values personal responsibility and individual liberties," Reynolds said in a statement.

"Whether a child wears a mask in school is a decision that should be left only to a student's parents," South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said last week as he issued an executive order allowing parents to opt their children out of school-based mask requirements.

Public health experts have been quick to sound the alarm.

"All along in this pandemic, we have seen the tragic consequences when politics start to play a role in public health decisions. And to me, this kind of maneuver smells like politics — to ban the requirements that are ultimately there to save lives," O'Leary said. "The body of evidence shows us that masks work."

And Dr. Aaron Milstone, a professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins, likens the banning of mask mandates to having a variable speed limit.

"Unfortunately, with contagious diseases the decisions I make impact someone else," Milstone said. "It would be like saying: You can drive 55 mph if you think that's safe for you, but if someone else thinks they can safely drive 90 mph, their choice may wind up risking your life."

While the CDC recently scaled back its masking guidance for people who are fully vaccinated, the agency also reiterated that schools should continue to require universal masking, at least through the end of the current school year. Though one vaccine has been approved for use for 12- to 15-year-olds, those kids won't be considered fully vaccinated for another month.

Milstone said it's simply too early to talk about schools without masking. "Until vaccines are eligible for all children, it's hard to abandon the practices that we know work the best to prevent the spread of COVID."

Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the White House, told CNBC this week that it is conceivable the CDC could recommend that middle and high schools be mask-free in the fall — if, that is, enough students 12 years of age and older get vaccinated.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

While confirming that the science behind DNA forensics is valid, a new report from a committee of the National Research Council recommends new ways of interpreting DNA evidence to help answer a key question for jurors -- how likely it is that two matching samples came from different people.

The Gulf Research Program (GRP) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is collaborating with the Sea Grant Oil Spill Science Outreach Program to convene a series of workshops aimed at improving community preparedness for future oil spills.

When Sara Altschule took a 23andMe ancestry test, the results confirmed what she already suspected - She is 77 percent Ashkenazi Jewish.

A few years ago, Nikhil Shah and Hiep Nguyen were touring the German Aerospace Center after giving a presentation about the future of surgery. One of the in-house researchers showed off a model of an implantable heart, and they thought — Why can’t we do that with a kidney?

The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) has established an international committee (IC) in coordination with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Global Affairs (OGA) to inform and facilitate efforts to advance global influenza pandemic preparedness.

After more than a year of isolation, remote school, and disrupted routines, how can schools support students’ mental health and development? Read what youth have to say about how they’re doing, and what they need as they return to the classroom.

Science academies from the G-7 nations issued statements urging their governments to take action on four global challenges — developing antiviral drugs to prepare for future pandemics, speeding progress on decarbonization, protecting the oceans and sea ice, and implementing a One Health approach to zoonotic disease and antimicrobial resistance.

DNA, our genetic material, normally has the structure of a twisted rope ladder. Experts call this structure a double helix. Among other things, it is stabilized by stacking forces between base pairs. Scientists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have succeeded at measuring these forces for the very first time on the level of single base pairs. This new knowledge could help to construct precise molecular machines out of DNA.

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For the first time, researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and their collaborators have been able to identify in human cancers two characteristic patterns of DNA damage caused by ionising radiation. These fingerprint patterns may now enable doctors to identify which tumours have been caused by radiation, and investigate if they should be treated differently.

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The Ritz roster of NCAA athletes will share their exclusive first taste of the new sweet heat flavored chips and announce a chance to win a trip to the 2025 NCAA Men's or Women's Final Four.

Wholesome Goodness’ gluten-free Sweet Chili & Omega Tortilla Chips are made with a blend of whole-grain corn and a medley of whole ancient grains.

Located in Orem, Utah, Janey Lou’s exemplifies the state’s moniker—the Beehive State. Growing demand for the company’s scrumptious cinnamon rolls, generously-sized cookies, handmade Crispy Treats and numerous frozen dough products is keeping its management team and employees busy as bees.

How people react to risk can be imprinted in their DNA, and many of the qualities which help leaders reach their senior position, can also prove to be a weakness when it comes to health and safety. 

The Finnish Long Drink released its new Midnight Sun Variety Pack. Inspired by the natural phenomenon occurring in northern Finland during the summer, where the sun never sets below the horizon for up to four months and remains visible at midnight, this pack showcases flavors that reflect the hues of the Finnish Midnight Sun. 

DNA325 Honored with Prestigious Clutch Global Award for Exceptional HR & Recruitment Services

Sidna Trimmell is recognized for her expertise as the executive director of the Oklahoma Statewide Independent Living Council

The First Children's Book Aimed at Inspiring Young Women to Pick Up a Glove and Ball!

CD Bioparticles announced the launch of its new line of DNA Extraction and Purification Kits.

Michelle L. Costa, DNP, MS, RN, serves as the chief clinical officer at National Health Care Associates

Susan C. Engle, DNP RN, PHN, is noted for her distinguished tenure as a nurse and professor

With former heavy-weight champ Riddick Bowe and 2x NBA Champ & reality Star Lamar Odom

In a shocking turn of events, Carlethia 'Carlee' Nichole Russell, the nursing student who was reported missing after calling 911 claiming she saw a toddler walking along the interstate, has been charged with filing a false police report...

Scott Chudnoff, MD, MSc, has been recognized as a 2024 Castle Connolly Top Doctor — the second year he has received the prestigious Top Doctor honor.

Christopher Gardner channels years of expertise into his work with Innovative Ink Publishing, GenHybrid Systems, and the College of Southern Nevada

With new programming, more exhibitors, and expanded special events, this year's Expo is charting a new course for the fishing and workboat industry

Spencer Philip Gardner is lauded for his work as a franchise owner at Unishippers Global Logistics LLC

Release of Washington State Maritime Economic Impact Study, an in-depth education program including sessions on impact of off-shore wind development and climate change, more than 5,000 maritime professionals, a packed trade show floor highlight PME

Cornwithslime never runs out of fantastic slime offers! Based on different exciting themes, there are unique slimes for you to pick from.