Science news

• 'Million mile camera' views eclipse

  14-12-2015 23:23 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The American DSCOVR satellite stationed a million miles from Earth obtains a unique view of September's lunar eclipse.
  
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• A Turning Point in Combating Climate Change May Be Here

  14-12-2015 23:15 via rss.sciam.com
  
  Investigations against oil and coal companies raise optimism for a cleaner future
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• Study documents sea lion brain damage due to algae's toxin

  14-12-2015 23:14
  
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A toxin produced by marine algae is inflicting brain damage on sea lions along California's coast, causing neurological and behavioral changes that can impair their ability to navigate in the sea and survive in the wild, scientists said on Monday.
  
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• Algae toxin may erase sea lion memory: study

  14-12-2015 23:07
  
  A toxin in algae may be erasing the memory of sea lions, which wash ashore by the hundreds each year off the coast of California, disoriented and suffering seizures, scientists said Monday.
  
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• Forgetful male voles more likely to wander from mate

  14-12-2015 23:00
  
  Poor memory linked to a hormone receptor in the brain could make male prairie voles more promiscuous.
  
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• EU lawmakers blast plans to ease diesel pollution limits

  14-12-2015 22:53
  
  EU lawmakers on Monday firmly rejected plans by the European Commission to allow diesel car makers to continue to exceed pollution limits.
  
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• NASA, Google show off D-Wave quantum computer for 1st time

  14-12-2015 22:45 via cbc.ca
  
  For the first time, NASA has publicly shown off a $15-million quantum computer made by a B.C. company.
  
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• 'The Last Man on the Moon' to Launch Onto Movie Screens in 2016

  14-12-2015 22:44
  
  Forty-three years after he became the last man on the moon, Gene Cernan now has a launch date in movie theaters. Cernan, who as commander of NASA's Apollo 17 mission took the last — or at least most recent — step off the lunar surface on Dec. 14, 1972, recounts his journey in his own words in "The Last Man on the Moon," a new documentaryopening on U.S. screens on Feb. 26, 2016. "This film is the story of a boy from 'Any Town USA' who grew up in a family of modest means and with a see
  
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• China Celebrates Its Spaceflight History on New Banknote and Coin

  14-12-2015 22:44
  
  China's Central Bank has released bills and coins celebrating the country's spaceflight history. The designs of the new 100-yuan banknotes and 10-yuan coins feature crewed and robotic spacecraft that span 45 years of Chinese launches. Bank customers are limited to purchasing three coins and 10 banknotes each, according to Chinese media reports.
  
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• Comets-spewing-oxygen club gets new member

  14-12-2015 22:40
  
  Halley’s comet becomes possibly the second comet known to be carting around oxygen buried since the formation of the solar system.
  
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• Begin climate change action today: UN's Ban

  14-12-2015 21:27
  
  Calling the Paris climate deal "a health insurance policy for the planet," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged governments to waste no time in delivering on their commitments to fight global warming.
  
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• Dogs' sloppy drinking method actually maximises water lapped up

  14-12-2015 21:00
  
  Dogs are sloppy drinkers, but they are so for a reason, scientists have discovered. Publishing their findings in the journal PNAS, the team looked at how dogs lap, generating a physical model of how their tongue interacts with the air and fluid. The team measured lapping in 19 dogs to show how dogs exploit the fluid dynamics of the column of water they form using their tongues.
  
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• Single gene influences a petunia’s primary pollinator

  14-12-2015 20:17
  
  Mutations on a single gene determine how much ultraviolet light a petunia flower absorbs, and in turn, which animal pollinates the flower.
  
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• Apply now: NASA opens astronaut applications

  14-12-2015 19:26 via cbc.ca
  
  Need more office space? How about outer space? NASA opened its astronaut-application website Monday. It's accepting applications through Feb. 18.
  
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• SyFy's 'The Expanse' Launches High-Flying Space Adventure Tonight

  14-12-2015 18:45
  
  Based on the book by James S. A. Corey (a pen name for co-authors Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham), "The Expanse" takes place 200 years in the future, when humans have settled Mars and the asteroid belt. You can see a trailer for "The Expanse" here. As fans of the book series know, "The Expanse" is all about location — and the settings portrayed in the series are as detailed, multifaceted and intriguing as one could hope for.
  
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• COP21: Paris climate deal must protect future generations from our toxic legacy

  14-12-2015 18:32
  
  Demand for energy will triple by the end of the century, and water scarcity is likely to become increasingly acute as we use up our fossil water reservoirs and expand agricultural output. There was much self-congratulation among delegates at the Paris climate conference (COP21) over the weekend as international agreement on resolutions aimed at staving off climate change were reached. Over the past few years Norway, a major carbon emitter due to its huge petrochemical industry, has been involved
  
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• X Prize to spur deep-ocean robots

  14-12-2015 17:57 via bbc.co.uk
  
  There is a new X Prize that challenges teams to map a 4km-deep, 500-sq-km area of sea floor using autonomous robots.
  
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• British astronaut swaps family Christmas for space mission

  14-12-2015 17:39
  
  Astronaut Timothy Peake, set to become the first Briton to travel to the International Space Station, said on the eve of his departure that he would look down on Earth at Christmas time and think of his family -- hopefully while tucking into some Christmas pudding himself.
  
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• It's not too late to see Geminid meteor shower

  14-12-2015 17:38 via cbc.ca
  
  Did you miss the much-anticipated Geminid meteor shower last night? Here are some great photos to encourage you to try again tonight.
  
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• Awesome photos of the Geminid meteor shower

  14-12-2015 17:38 via cbc.ca
  
  Did you miss the much-anticipated Geminid meteor shower last night? Here are some great photos to encourage you to try again tonight.
  
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• NASA Want Ad: Astronauts needed to help get to Mars

  14-12-2015 17:25
  
  CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Need more office space? How about outer space?
  
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• VIDEO: Tim Peake rocket 'blessed' ahead of launch

  14-12-2015 17:09 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Sarah Rainsford reports as British astronaut Tim Peake prepares to blast off to the International Space Station.
  
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• Clouds may hide water on alien worlds

  14-12-2015 17:00
  
  New study surveys exoplanets and hints at a solution to an atmospheric mystery
  
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• Traveling for the Holidays with Kids? How to Keep Them Safe

  14-12-2015 16:11
  
  If you're a parent traveling with young children this year, or a host welcoming friends' or relatives' babies into your home, check out the following tips from pediatricians on how to create a safe environment and ease holiday stress. The biggest dangers in a non-baby-proofed house are typically everyday things, pediatricians say. Electrical wires, steep stairs and choking hazards are common dangers, said Dr. Justin Smith, a pediatrician at Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas.
  
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• Too Much Sleeping & Sitting as Bad as Smoking & Drinking

  14-12-2015 16:11
  
  For each participant, the researchers counted how many unhealthy behaviors he or she engaged in, including smoking, drinking alcohol, eating unhealthy foods, being physical inactive, exhibiting sedentary behaviors and sleeping too much (which the researchers defined as more than 9 hours per night). But the study also showed that the combination of physical inactivity with sedentary behavior, or physical inactivity with too much sleep, were as strongly linked to mortality among the participants a
  
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• Earth May Spin Faster as Glaciers Melt

  14-12-2015 16:00
  
  Melting ice triggered by global warming may make Earth whirl faster than before and could shift the axis on which the planet spins, researchers say. Prior research found the rate at which Earth spins has changed over time. In general, the gravitational pull of the moon and sun on Earth is relentlessly slowing the planet's rate of spin.
  
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• Prairie Voles' Cheatin' Heart Tied to Genes

  14-12-2015 15:58
  
  The latter may be true for prairie voles, and this absentmindedness could be inherited, according to a new study. Unlike most mammals, prairie voles bond for life (which is pretty short — only one to two years.) Once they've paired off, the males establish territories that they fiercely defend against trespassers. To investigate what might lead some males to stray, the scientists zeroed in on a gene called avpr1a, already known for its associations with both sexual fidelity and spatial mem
  
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• 'Impossible' Feat: Scientists Measure Energy of Atoms During Reactions

  14-12-2015 15:57
  
  For the first time, scientists have accomplished a feat long thought impossible — they have measured the energy of incredibly short-lived arrangements of atoms that occur as chemical reactions are happening. This finding could help shed light on the precise inner workings of chemical reactions too complex to understand by other methods, the researchers said. The chemical reactions responsible for life, death and everything in between involve molecules transforming from one kind to another
  
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• Bon Voyage: US Navy's Futuristic Destroyer Sails Out to Sea

  14-12-2015 15:56
  
  The U.S. Navy's giant new warship finally sailed out to sea this week to complete its first-ever round of tests and trials in the Atlantic Ocean. On Monday (Dec. 7), the 610-foot-long (186 meters) destroyer, the USS Zumwalt, made its way from the Bath Iron Works shipyard in Bath, Maine, to the high seas. The massive ship tips the scales at 15,480 tons (that's nearly 31 million lbs., or more than 14 million kilograms) and cost more than $4 billion to design and build, according to a report by The
  
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• What does the climate deal mean for me?

  14-12-2015 15:25 via bbc.co.uk
  
  How the Paris agreement affects individuals and business
  
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• British astronaut hopes to see new Star Wars movie in space

  14-12-2015 15:01
  
  BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AP) — Timothy Peake, the first Briton to represent the European Space Agency aboard the International Space Station, will be away from the planet for six months but looks forward to Earthly pleasures like seeing the new Star Wars movie and having a Christmas pudding.
  
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• $7M XPrize aims to spur ocean exploration, mapping

  14-12-2015 15:00 via cbc.ca
  
  Competitors for the $7 million Shell Ocean Discovery XPrize will test their technologies at 2,000 and 4,000 m depths to explore 500 sq. km.
  
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• Bomb-proof bag could suppress explosion on aircraft

  14-12-2015 14:29
  
  A controlled explosion in the luggage hold of an aircraft was successfully contained by a bomb-proof lining developed by an international team of scientists. The technology shows how a plane's luggage hold may be able to contain the force of an explosion if a device hidden in an item of luggage detonates.
  
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• Wow! Spectacular Video Shows Test Launch of New Earth-Return Capsule

  14-12-2015 14:15
  
  A small rocket carried four technology experiments to suborbital space last month, and onboard cameras captured the flight in breathtaking detail. The rocket, built by Denver-based UP Aerospace, launched Sunday (Nov. 6) from Spaceport America in New Mexico carrying four separate payloads, including a capsule called Maraia that NASA is developing to return science gear from the International Space Station to Earth. You can watch an amazing video of the rocket launch and Maraia deployment, courtes
  
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• See the Milky Way Shine Over a Yellowstone Waterfall in This Awesome Photo

  14-12-2015 14:15
  
  The Milky Way, our own galaxy containing the solar system, is a barred spiral galaxy with roughly 400 billion stars. To see more amazing night sky photos submitted by readers, visit our astrophotography archive. Editor's note: If you have an amazing night sky photo you'd like to share with our readers and news partners in a possible story or image gallery, send images and comments in to managing editor Tariq Malik at [email protected].
  
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• Half of Kepler's Giant Exoplanet Candidates Are False Positives: Study

  14-12-2015 14:15
  
  More than half of the giant alien planet candidates detected by NASA's prolific Kepler space telescope are false positives, a new study suggests. A team of astronomers followed up on 129 huge potential exoplanets spotted by Kepler using a ground-based telescope and found that 52 percent of the objects are actually stars, while another 2 percent are strange "failed stars" known as brown dwarfs. “It was thought that the reliability of the Kepler exoplanets detection was very good &mdash
  
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• SpaceX, ULA Transforming Historic Launchpads for Commercial Crew Flights

  14-12-2015 14:14
  
  Now, two historic Florida launchpads are taking shape for their new missions: serving as the off (the Earth) ramps for commercial capsules lofting astronauts to the International Space Station. Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center and Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station are being readied to host NASA astronauts in the coming two to three years. SpaceX, which in 2014 leased use of Pad 39A from NASA, is preparing the former Apollo-Saturn V and space shuttle launch pad to launch its Fa
  
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• Sci-Fi Classic 'Childhood's End' TV Miniseries Debuts Tonight

  14-12-2015 14:14
  
  Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction classic "Childhood's End" has been reimagined for the 21st century, and brought to the small screen, in a new TV miniseries debuting tonight (Dec. 14). The visitors slowly begin to eliminate war, disease and poverty — but what will be the cost of building heaven on Earth? The first 2-hour episode in the three-part miniseries will debut tonight at 8 p.m. EST/PST.
  
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• Superstitions that surround astronaut Tim Peake's blast off into space

  14-12-2015 14:05
  
  It was a sight that would have been unthinkable in the godless Soviet era, when progress was the only recognised religion.
  
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• Test your smarts on the greatest scientific breakthroughs—and breakdowns—of 2015

  14-12-2015 14:00
  
  Enter for your last chance to win a FREE trip to the AAAS annual meeting!
  
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• Test your smarts on the greatest scientific breakthroughs--and breakdowns--of 2015

  14-12-2015 14:00
  
  Enter for your last chance to win a FREE trip to the AAAS annual meeting!
  
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• This Book On Physics Is Selling More than ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’

  14-12-2015 13:45
  
  A short book on physics has become an unexpected hit, selling more copies than Fifty Shades of Grey in the author’s native country of Italy.
  
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• U.S., allies conduct 16 strikes against Islamic State - U.S. military

  14-12-2015 13:20
  
  The United States and its allies conducted 16 strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria on Sunday, according to the coalition leading the operations. In a statement on Monday, the Combined Joint Task Force said one air strike near Deir al-Zor in Syria hit a gas and oil separation plant used by the militant group, while two others hit two tactical units and other targets near Manbij and Mar'a. In Iraq, 13 strikes near six cities included one near Tikrit that destroyed two Islamic State oil
  
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• 'Star Wars' Creature: Giraffe Relative Named After Queen Amidala

  14-12-2015 13:16
  
  The "Star Wars" franchise may need to update its menagerie of wonky, alienlike creatures to include a boneheaded, short-necked relative of the giraffe. The extinct relative of giraffes, Xenokeryx amidalae, takes its moniker from Queen Padmé Amidala, the wife of Anakin Skywalker (aka Darth Vader) in the "Star Wars" prequels. The weird-looking creature may give Queen Amidala's hat maker a run for its money: X. amidalae had two ossicones (similar to horns) and a bizarre, T-shaped appendage s
  
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• New XPrize challenge seeks next-generation robots to map the ocean floor

  14-12-2015 13:15
  
  Competition wants to “get to the bottom of the ocean”
  
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• Elf on the Shelf: Cute or Creepy?

  14-12-2015 13:15
  
  Ten years ago, a self-published Christmas book launched a new holiday tradition: the Elf on the Shelf. In fact, experts say, the Elf on the Shelf could send some less-than-appealing messages on proper behavior, privacy and surveillance. "Think about it," said Emily Gifford, a psychologist at Child Development Associates in Scarsdale, New York.
  
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• VIDEO: What is Tim's Christmas space plan?

  14-12-2015 13:09 via bbc.co.uk
  
  British astronaut Tim Peake told reporters how he would be spending Christmas on the International Space Station
  
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• Japan asteroid probe enters 'target orbit' in space quest

  14-12-2015 12:01
  
  A Japanese space probe successfully entered "target orbit" and is on its way to rendezvousing with a far away asteroid, in a quest to study the origin of the solar system, authorities said Monday.
  
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• Which studies got the most media buzz in 2015?

  14-12-2015 12:00
  
  Altmetric’s top 100 list includes bold antibiotic claims, failed replication efforts … and a marriage proposal
  
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• For climate deal to succeed, Canada needs business and ordinary people to buy in: Nahlah Ayed

  14-12-2015 11:26 via cbc.ca
  
  For all the promises made at the 21st meeting of the Conference of Parties and within the resulting deal, they mean nothing without buy-in from businesses, industry, the private sector and ordinary people to put them into effect, writes Nahlah Ayed.
  
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