Science news

• U.S. urges engagement, calm after Saudi Arabia cuts Iran ties

  03-01-2016 23:03
  The United States on Sunday responded to Saudi Arabia's decision to cut diplomatic ties with Iran by encouraging diplomatic engagement and calling for leaders throughout the region to take "affirmative steps" to reduce tensions. "We're aware of reports that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has ordered the closure of Iranian diplomatic missions in the Kingdom," an Obama administration official said.
  
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• Volcano in Nicaragua spews gas and lava

  03-01-2016 20:51
  
  A volcano in Nicaragua that has been dormant for 110 years spewed gas and lava Sunday for the second time in a month.
  
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• Never rains but it pours for guano-hit Rome

  03-01-2016 20:01
  Weekend rain washed away the dangerous pollution that has afflicted Rome in recent weeks but left city authorities with a new headache: roads and pavements made treacherous by bird droppings.
  
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• EU warns new Mideast tension risks Syria peace effort

  03-01-2016 19:15
  The European Union's foreign policy chief warned Iran's foreign minister on Sunday that renewed tension between Shi'ite Iran and Saudi Arabia's Sunni monarchy could wreck efforts to find a political solution for the crisis in Syria. Federica Mogherini said in a statement that she had spoken by telephone with Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif, at length on Sunday morning after violence erupted in Iran following Saudi Arabia's execution of a Shi'ite cleric.
  
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• Polar bear photograph taken by Manitoban named one of the world's best of 2015

  03-01-2016 16:26 via cbc.ca
  
  A photograph taken by a Manitoba man has been named one of the world's best of 2015 by a prestigious online publication based in New York.
  
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• The First Meteor Shower of 2016 Is Peaking, and It's an Exceptional One

  03-01-2016 16:01
  
  The first meteor display of 2016 – the Quadrantid meteor shower - will hit its peak early Monday morning (Jan. 4), with a strong display of "shooting stars" likely for Europe and North America. Weather permitting, observers in the eastern regions of the United States and Canada will be in position for the maximum activity from the Quadrantid meteor shower, which is expected about 3 a.m. EST, when the radiant of the shower will be well up the dark northeastern sky. But back in the late-18th
  
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• Ant-hill brain sculpture is Alberta artist's gift to life-saving surgeon

  03-01-2016 16:00 via cbc.ca
  
  When Pierre Bolduc's brain aneurysm burst on an operating table, his surgeon sprang into action, clamping veins and arteries and saving the Alberta artist's life. Naturally, Bolduc was thankful — and he came up with a unique way of saying so.
  
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• Dark matter helped destroy the dinosaurs, physicist posits

  03-01-2016 15:00
  
  In ‘Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs,’ Lisa Randall finds connections between particle physics, cosmology, geology and paleontology.
  
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• 9 food trends we'll devour in 2016

  03-01-2016 11:00 via cbc.ca
  
  High-tech delivery, vegetables, values and maybe even bugs are in, while anything artificial, tipping and the centre of grocery stores seem on the way out, in this look at the foods trends of 2016.
  
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• Iran leader sees 'divine vengeance' for Saudi cleric execution

  03-01-2016 09:35
  Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, attacking Saudi Arabia for the second straight day over its execution of a prominent Shi'ite cleric, said on Sunday politicians in the Sunni kingdom would face divine retribution for his death. "The unjustly spilled blood of this oppressed martyr will no doubt soon show its effect and divine vengeance will befall Saudi politicians," state TV reported Khamenei as saying. Saudi Arabia executed Nimr al-Nimr and three other Shi'ites alongside dozens of
  
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• Ascension Island to be marine reserve

  03-01-2016 08:21 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The government is to create a marine reserve almost as big as the UK in the Atlantic waters of Ascension Island.
  
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• It's official! Element 113 was discovered at RIKEN

  03-01-2016 06:00
  
  (RIKEN) Element 113, discovered by a RIKEN group led by Kosuke Morita, has become the first element on the periodic table found in Asia. Rewarding nearly a decade of painstaking work by Morita's group, a Joint Working Party of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) has recommended that the group be given recognition for the discovery of the new element.
  
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• Coulomb blockade in organic conductors found, a world first

  03-01-2016 06:00
  
  (Osaka University) A research group of Osaka University succeeded in showing experimental evidence to prove Coulomb blockade taking place on two-dimensional organic conducting polymer films, a world first. They also demonstrated its theoretical evidence through quantum calculations and the verification of conductivity models of experimental results. This group's research results will possibly overturn conventional understanding of conduction mechanism of organic conductors and help one to unders
  
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• Belgian nuclear reactor shut down three days after restarting

  03-01-2016 01:13
  An ageing Belgian nuclear reactor shut down on Saturday afternoon, just three days after it was restarted, but there was no safety risk, the power utility that operates it said.
  
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• VIDEO: Goat and tiger's unlikely friendship

  03-01-2016 01:06 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A goat and tiger live in the same enclosure at a Russian safari park but how long can it last?
  
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• Final preparations under way for space mission searching for life on Mars

  03-01-2016 01:01
  Scientists are making final preparations for a European space mission that will look for evidence of past or present life on Mars.
  
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• Astronaut Tim Peake says Happy New Year to 'beautiful planet Earth'

  03-01-2016 01:01
  British astronaut Tim Peake has wished "beautiful planet Earth" a happy New Year in a special message from space.
  
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