Science news

• Minecraft players given free rein to build up, tear down Ottawa

  08-01-2016 23:52 via cbc.ca
  
  Thanks to the city's open data, Minecraft players can now interact with a Lego-like version of Canada's capital.
  
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• Body’s bacteria don’t outnumber human cells so much after all

  08-01-2016 23:47
  
  New calculations show human cells about equal bacteria in the body.
  
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• Unusual January tropical storm forms southwest of Hawaii

  08-01-2016 23:13
  HONOLULU (AP) — An El Nino-related tropical storm has formed southwest of Hawaii, only the third such system to develop in January in over 40 years.
  
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• Self-cleaning toilet makes splash in Las Vegas

  08-01-2016 23:12
  The demo high-tech toilets from Japan are unabashedly right in the middle of the floor at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
  
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• Newfound gas cloud may be graveyard of first stars

  08-01-2016 23:03
  
  A 12-billion-year-old gas cloud, rich in hydrogen and helium but nothing else, may house the remains of the universe’s first stars.
  
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• Pedal, solar power aims to be the new hybrid

  08-01-2016 22:12
  
  Is it a car, a bike or some other kind of contraption?
  
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• 'Age map' traces galactic history

  08-01-2016 21:39 via bbc.co.uk
  
  By measuring the age of 70,000 stars across the Milky Way, astronomers make a "growth chart" for our galaxy.
  
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• Monster Galaxy Cluster Is Biggest Ever in the Early Universe

  08-01-2016 21:12
  
  The most massive collection of galaxies in the early universe has been spotted. Although not the largest collection of galaxies ever found, it holds the record as the largest group in the early universe, appearing surprisingly old for the time. "Of all the structures we've ever seen, this is the most massive in the first 4 billion years of the universe," astronomer Mark Brodwin, of the University of Missouri at Kansas City, said at a news conference unveiling the discovery here at the 47th annua
  
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• On Pluto, 'X' Marks the Spot (Photo)

  08-01-2016 21:10
  
  There's a big "X" on Pluto, and it marks buried treasure of a scientific kind. The X-shaped feature, on the huge Pluto nitrogen-ice plain known as Sputnik Planum, is visible in photos recently beamed home by NASA's New Horizons probe, which performed history's first-ever flyby of the dwarf planet on July 14, 2015. Sputnik Planum's surface is composed of many polygonal ice blocks that are between 10 miles (16 kilometers) and 25 miles (40 km) wide.
  
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• High-Flying Balloon Captures Dazzling Views of Meteor Shower (Video)

  08-01-2016 21:10
  
  A high-flying balloon captured some dazzling video footage of the Quadrantid meteor shower as it peaked early Monday (Jan. 4), showing spectacular views of "shooting stars" from the stratosphere. The Quadrantid meteor shower occurs each year in early January, when the Earth passes through a stream of dust left over from the asteroid 2003 EH1. The research team behind the new balloon video of the meteor shower has been making such expeditions for years to refine its detection technology.
  
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• At last, some details on Stephen Hawking’s solution to black hole problem

  08-01-2016 21:00
  
  Stephen Hawking and colleagues have finally provided more information about how black holes might preserve information.
  
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• Ground shakes expose faraway earthquake hot spots

  08-01-2016 20:41
  
  A major earthquake in Costa Rica revealed faraway areas where fluids have weakened rock and boosted the risk of a major earthquake, new research suggests.
  
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• Visiting Mars on Earth: Chile's Atacama desert is a useful stand-in for Red Planet: Bob McDonald

  08-01-2016 20:23 via cbc.ca
  
  One of the best places on Earth to test spacecraft destined for Mars or the moon is the Atacama desert in Chile. Visiting there certainly feels like a trip to Mars, but it is definitely still planet Earth.
  
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• Got Allergies? Blame Neanderthals

  08-01-2016 20:18
  Genetic variants found in modern humans that originally came from Neanderthals may predispose the human immune system to overreact to environmental allergens, according to two new studies published today (Jan. 7) in the American Journal of Human Genetics. The studies also found that interbreeding with Neanderthals may have helped ancient humans, who came from Africa, get a head start in settling Europe. "Neanderthals, for example, had lived in Europe and western Asia for around 200,000 years bef
  
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• 3 High-Tech Ways to Track What You Eat

  08-01-2016 20:18
  One gadget, called DietSensor, claims to be able to scan your food with a beam of light and tell you its nutritional content, such as how much protein, fat and carbohydrates it contains. It does this by analyzing how the molecules in the food interact with the light, according to the company, which presented the device here at CES. This causes the molecules in the food to vibrate, and produce an optical signature that is unique for that food, the company says.
  
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• Young infants have perceptual superpowers

  08-01-2016 19:53
  
  Babies have superpowers that let them see and hear things that adults can’t.
  
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• New image suggests part of Pluto's surface is 'acting like a lava lamp'

  08-01-2016 18:58 via cbc.ca
  
  The newest image of Pluto's ice fields offers a fascinating glimpse of what researchers believe is the movement of huge, solid nitrogen ice blobs on the surface of the distant dwarf planet.
  
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• Use of cluster bombs in Yemen may be war crime - U.N. chief

  08-01-2016 18:53
  The United Nations has received "troubling reports" that cluster bombs have been used on civilian areas in the capital of Yemen this week and warned that the use of such indiscriminate weapons could be a war crime, a U.N. spokesman said on Friday. "The Secretary-General (Ban Ki-moon) is particularly concerned about reports of intense airstrikes in residential areas and on civilian buildings in Sanaa, including the Chamber of Commerce, a wedding hall and a centre for the blind," U.N. spokesman St
  
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• Motörhead's Lemmy and the chemistry in naming new elements

  08-01-2016 18:44 via cbc.ca
  
  From Motörhead-frontman 'Lemmy' to groundbreaking female scientists, the verification of four new elements to the periodic table has everyone asking one thing: What should they be named? We navigate our way through the strict rules and naming conventions.
  
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• ‘Personhood’ chimpanzees retuned to owners, ending animal rights litigation

  08-01-2016 18:30
  
  Hercules and Leo have been transferred back to the New Iberia Research Center
  
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• Why Crows Hold Funerals

  08-01-2016 17:49
  The scientists cited an earlier study showing that American crows gather and act aggressively, behavior known as "mobbing," in response to audio playback of a crow's distress call, played near a dead crow. The researchers wanted to know if they would also learn to associate dead crows — and threats to themselves — with specific predators.
  
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• Podcast: Dancing dinosaurs, naked black holes, and more

  08-01-2016 17:15
  
  Listen to a roundup of some of our favorite stories from the week
  
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• The Big Picture: What the New Diet Guidelines Mean for You

  08-01-2016 17:12
  Samantha Heller, a senior clinical nutritionist at New York University Langone Medical Center, thinks this approach is a good start. A healthy eating pattern is "an easier concept for people to understand," than, for example, delineating serving sizes, calorie counts and daily totals, Heller told Live Science. Elisabetta Politi, the nutrition director at the Duke Diet & Fitness Center in North Carolina, agreed.
  
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• More Young People Report Same-Sex Attractions

  08-01-2016 17:12
  In particular, more men now say they are "mostly attracted to the opposite sex," rather than "only" attracted to the opposite sex compared to previous years, according to the survey from researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The new trend may result from greater societal acceptance of same-sex relationships, said Ritch Savin-Williams, a professor of developmental psychology at Cornell University who researches sexual orientation and behavior. This change, however, probab
  
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• New space robot would hop—not drive—across other worlds

  08-01-2016 17:00
  
  Explorer could leap 4 meters in a single bound on Mars
  
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• Low-cost airlines may offer greener way to travel

  08-01-2016 16:56 via cbc.ca
  
  More seats, fuller flights and less weight from things like screens in seats, reusable cutlery for business class passengers and fewer bags help lower the environmental impact of budget airlines, a University of Waterloo researcher says.
  
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• Sorry, America – study shows Canadians really are more polite

  08-01-2016 16:39 via cbc.ca
  
  Canadians tweeted words such as "great," "amazing" and "beautiful." Americans, by contrast, commonly used negative words such as "hate," "hell," "tired," "hurt" and "annoying."
  
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• Xeroxed lung gene helps salamanders breathe through their skin

  08-01-2016 16:00
  
  Shift in where the gene is active led to major life change for many amphibians
  
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• Campbells Soup willing to list all GMO ingredients

  08-01-2016 15:46 via cbc.ca
  
  Campbell Soup Company said it supports the enactment of federal legislation for a single mandatory labelling standard for foods derived from genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
  
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• U.S. marshals raid booth of Chinese hoverboard maker at CES

  08-01-2016 15:45 via cbc.ca
  
  U.S. marshals seized the assets and marketing materials from the floor of the CES gadget show in Las Vegas Thursday
  
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• Paper airplanes go high-tech at CES

  08-01-2016 15:40
  
  The humble paper airplane has just been given a digital upgrade.
  
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• European scientists make last-ditch attempt to contact comet lander

  08-01-2016 15:36
  By Victoria Bryan BERLIN (Reuters) - European scientists will send a command into space on Sunday to try to move and restore contact with the comet lander Philae that has fallen silent since the summer. After coming to rest in the shadows when it landed on a comet in November, Philae woke up in June as the comet approached the sun, giving scientists hope that the lander could complete some experiments that it had not done before its solar-powered batteries ran out.
  
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• VIDEO: Earth 'enters new geological age'

  08-01-2016 15:25 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The evidence suggesting we have entered a new geological epoch defined by humanity's impact on the Earth is now overwhelming, believes an international scientific panel.
  
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• Ancient Citadel Finds New Home in Apartment Building

  08-01-2016 15:11
  A 3,400-year-old citadel near Israel's Mediterranean coast will soon be part of a modern, high-rise apartment building, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). Architects are designing a building that will enclose the citadel, which will reside in the basement, said the IAA, which plans to formally announce the project tomorrow (Jan. 7) at a joint archaeological conference of the Northern Region of the IAA and the University of Haifa in Israel. Archaeologists uncovered the citadel d
  
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• Strange New State of Hydrogen Created

  08-01-2016 15:10
  
  By crushing Earth's lightest element with mind-boggling pressures, scientists have revealed an entirely new state of matter: phase V hydrogen. The squished hydrogen is a precursor to a state of matter first proposed in the 1930s, called atomic solid metallic hydrogen. And so, in crushing hydrogen at such high pressures, the physicists also got a glimpse of the inner atmosphere of a gas giant, where pressures reach millions of (Earth) atmospheres.
  
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• Littlest chameleons pack powerful tongues

  08-01-2016 15:00
  
  A tiny chameleon from South Africa sets an acceleration and power record for amniotes.
  
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• Israel: Ancient citadel becomes part of high-rise building construction project

  08-01-2016 14:57
  A 3,400-year-old fort in northern Israel will soon be in the basement of a high-rise apartment building. The ancient citadel was recently excavated by archaeologists in the seaside town of Nahariya.
  
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• Doppelgängers beware: CBSA testing facial recognition tool

  08-01-2016 14:56 via cbc.ca
  
  Canada's border agency plans to compare images of people arriving in the country with photographs of suspects on watchlists to keep out alleged terrorists and other criminals.
  
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• Scientists think they've found evidence of 'frenzied' dinosaur mating ritual

  08-01-2016 14:44 via cbc.ca
  
  Scientists say they've discovered evidence of a frenzied mating ritual by dinosaurs: long grooves in the ground etched by the pawing of clawed feet.
  
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• AUDIO: How to take a picture of a black hole

  08-01-2016 14:41 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Astronomer Feryal Ozel speaks to the BBC's Jonathan Webb about the Event Horizon Telescope.
  
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• Blood Moon Over Yellowstone's Old Faithful Wows Photographer

  08-01-2016 13:42
  
  Scattered showers and thunderstorm littered the landscape at Yellowstone National Park, but photographer Jeffrey Berkes captured this stunning moment earlier this year as the moon entered full eclipse right when Old Faithful erupted. "I planned this shot over 1 year ago but did not know if the eruption of old faithful would line up with the maximum eclipse of the 2015 Blood Moon," Berkes said in an email to Space.com.
  
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• Ultrastrong Magnetic Fields Beat at the Heart of Dying Stars

  08-01-2016 13:41
  
  Many dying stars just a little bit more massive than the sun have superpowerful magnetic fields hidden away inside that likely play an important role in how such stars change over time, scientists say. The stellar findings, unveiled here at the 227th Meeting of the American Astronomy Society (AAS), identified strong magnetic fields near the cores of stars in the final stages of their lifecycle. "Today, for the first time, we have the ability to map the demographics of magnetic fields inside of s
  
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• China's Moon Rover Finds New Kind of Lunar Rock

  08-01-2016 13:41
  
  Data gleaned by China's Yutu rover on the moon has identified a new type of lunar rock, shedding insight on lunar volcanism. As noted by the state-run Xinhua news agency, the new type of basaltic rock was discovered at a fresh crater named Zi Wei. The measurements were made by Yutu's Active Particle-induced X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) and its Visible and Near-infrared Imaging Spectrometer (VNIS).
  
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• A New Pluto Wonder? Possible Ice Volcanoes Spotted (Video)

  08-01-2016 13:41
  
  The more scientists learn about Pluto, the more interesting the dwarf planet gets. Two of the towering mountains observed by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft during its historic July 14 flyby of Pluto — the 13,000-foot-high (3,960 meters) Wright Mons and the roughly 18,000-foot-high (5,500 m) Piccard Mons — appear to be ice volcanoes, mission team members said in a new video. "From New Horizons' vantage point, these features look just like volcanoes do on Earth when seen from orbit," m
  
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• Twitter's 10,000-character posts aren't what you think

  08-01-2016 13:24 via cbc.ca
  
  If there’s one thing people know about Twitter it’s that posts there can only be 140 characters long. But what if Twitter lifted that limit and tweets could be longer? Like, a lot longer.
  
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• Lake Erie's lack of ice means shipping companies save money this winter

  08-01-2016 13:00 via cbc.ca
  
  A lack of ice on Lake Erie is making life easier for shipping companies this winter.
  
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• People take more risks when wearing helmets, potentially negating safety benefits

  08-01-2016 12:45
  
  Study volunteers inflate virtual balloons to potentially dangerous levels when wearing bike helmet
  
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• Top stories: A scientific gender gap, Roman toilets, and fighting migraines

  08-01-2016 12:15
  
  A roundup of some of our favorite stories of the week
  
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• Vietnam probes mysterious 'space balls'

  08-01-2016 11:38
  
  Vietnam's military is investigating the appearance of three mysterious metal balls -- believed to be debris from space -- which landed in the country's remote north, a senior army official said Friday.
  
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• The Milky Way grew out as it grew up

  08-01-2016 11:15
  
  Stars at the edge are younger than stars in the center
  
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