Science news

• Chad appoints new prime minister two months before election

  13-02-2016 23:50
  N'DJAMENA (Reuters) - Chad has appointed MP Albert Pahimi Padacke as prime minister of the Central African country following the resignation of his predecessor, state television said on Saturday, heralding a Cabinet reshuffle just two months ahead of presidential elections. President Idriss Deby, a key Western military ally in power for more than a quarter of a century, is set to bid for a fifth term as leader of the oil-producing country in April.
  
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• Planets may emerge from stellar duo gathering icy dust

  13-02-2016 22:54
  
  Gas freezing onto dust grains around a binary star could be setting up a site where comets or even planets might someday form.
  
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• Saving salamanders from amphibian killer may take extreme measures

  13-02-2016 22:25
  
  Experience from lethal Bd fungus outbreak is helping researchers defend North America’s salamander paradise from new Bsal threat.
  
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• Earth's rarest minerals catalogued

  13-02-2016 19:23 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Scientists categorise the Earth's rarest minerals with some so rare that the total global supply could fit in a thimble.
  
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• Early exposure to signing helps deaf kids on mental task

  13-02-2016 19:21
  
  Deaf kids exposed to sign language from birth performed better on a task that required attention and impulse control.
  
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• Valentines Day: What a beating heart is really doing

  13-02-2016 18:15 via cbc.ca
  
  It may not be what love looks like, but thanks to a McMaster engineering specialist, here's a chance to see what a beating heart really looks like.
  
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• Machines could make half of humans unemployed in 30 years - scientist

  13-02-2016 16:00
  More than half of the human race could be unemployed in 30 years time as job vacancies are filled by machines, a scientist has predicted.
  
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• 'Star Wars' Fans Feel the Force at New Jersey's Liberty Science Center

  13-02-2016 15:37
  
  "Star Wars" remixes and tribute songs filled the air as crowds of dressed-up fans and their parents (and children) packed into the learning center in New Jersey Friday to kick off "Science, Sabers and Star Wars," a celebration of the movies' world. Once there, they can train to be a Jedi, design a droid, blast rockets at the Death Star, meet R2-D2, and even see arcs of electricity pulsate to the beat in a "Star Wars"-themed Tesla Coil show — all activities aimed at teaching a bit of scienc
  
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• Gravitational Waves: What Their Discovery Means for Science and Humanity

  13-02-2016 15:35
  
  People around the world cheered yesterday morning (Feb. 11) when scientists announced the first direct detection of gravitational waves — ripples in the fabric of space-time whose existence was first proposed by Albert Einstein, in 1916. The waves came from two black holes circling each other, closer and closer, until they finally collided. The recently upgraded Large Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) captured the signal on Sept. 14, 2015.
  
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• More than 5,000 pregnant women in Colombia have Zika virus - government

  13-02-2016 15:25
  
  More than 5,000 pregnant Colombian women are infected with the mosquito-borne Zika virus, the country's national health institute said on Saturday, as the disease continues its rapid spread across the Americas. Zika, which has spread to more than 30 countries, has been linked to birth defect microcephaly and to neurological disease Guillain-Barre syndrome. Total reported Zika cases increased by 23 percent over last week's figures, while the number of pregnant women with the virus was up 57.8 per
  
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• Why Studying Fertility in Sea Urchins Makes Sense [Excerpt]

  13-02-2016 15:00 via rss.sciam.com
  
  Google “sea urchin fertilization” and you’ll find dozens of animations and videos of lone sea urchin sperm finding its way home to an egg 
  -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
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• Under fire for Syria bombings, Russia denies hitting civilians

  13-02-2016 14:36
  By Paul Carrel and Warren Strobel MUNICH (Reuters) - The United States and France criticised Russia on Saturday for bombing civilians in Syria, a charge Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev rejected as major powers bickered openly a day after agreeing to a pause in combat. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry accused Russia of hitting legitimate opposition groups and civilians with its bombing campaign and said Moscow must change its targets to respect the ceasefire deal clinched on Friday. Medv
  
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• Russia, facing widespread criticism, denies bombing civilians in Syria

  13-02-2016 12:08
  By Paul Carrel and Shadia Nasralla MUNICH (Reuters) - France led international criticism of Russia on Saturday for bombing civilians in Syria, a charge Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev rejected as major powers bickered openly just a day after they agreed a pause in combat in Syria. The differences between the stakeholders in a Syria settlement highlighted their lingering divisions despite Friday's "cessation of hostilities" agreement, which was not signed by any of the warring parties on t
  
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• Explore Wyoming forest and uncover a mystery in Firewatch

  13-02-2016 11:00 via cbc.ca
  
  A sleepy job looking out for fires in 1989 Wyoming quickly becomes a tense mystery story in Firewatch, a new video game by independent studio Campo Santo.
  
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• Climate deal will live on, despite US blow: experts

  13-02-2016 08:46
  
  In freezing President Barack Obama's plan to tackle carbon emissions, the US Supreme Court delivered a blow to a global climate deal - but experts say that US commitments to the deal will survive.
  
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• Research finds harmful algae toxins in Alaska marine mammals

  13-02-2016 08:35
  ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A review of more than 900 marine mammals hunted, stranded or captured for research along Alaska's coast has found toxins from harmful algae in 13 species, creating concern that the natural poisonous substances could increase as water temperatures warm and sea ice diminishes.
  
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• North Korea to halt search for Japanese abductees - KCNA

  13-02-2016 08:17
  North Korea has declared void an agreement to reopen a probe into the fate of abducted Japanese citizens after Japan imposed sanctions in the wake of Pyongyang's rocket launch, according to North Korea's official KCNA news agency. North Korea planned to disband a committee set up in 2014 to look into the whereabouts of Japanese abductees, KCNA said, adding that Japan's "provocative acts of hostility" toward North Korea would ensure further countermeasures.
  
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• Peacock-culling plan ruffles feathers in India's Goa

  13-02-2016 07:40
  The chief minister of India's popular tourist state of Goa moved to smooth ruffled feathers on Saturday after a proposal to reclassify the national bird, the peacock, as vermin sparked an outcry.
  
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• Polluted air 'causes 5.5m deaths a year'

  13-02-2016 06:34 via bbc.co.uk
  
  More than 5.5 million people worldwide are dying prematurely every year as a result of air pollution, according to new research.
  
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• When machines can do any job, what will humans do?

  13-02-2016 06:00
  
  (Rice University) Rice University computer scientist Moshe Vardi expects that within 30 years, machines will be capable of doing almost any job that humans can. In anticipation of this development, he is asking his colleagues, "What will humans do?"
  
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• UK science leads the way in nuclear research

  13-02-2016 06:00
  
  (Diamond Light Source) The UK's synchrotron science facility, Diamond Light Source, is a hub for renewable energy and energy recycling research, but less well known are its applications as a hub for nuclear research. Work in this area is transforming our energy future by making the nuclear fuel cycle safer, more efficient and more straightforward to use.
  
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• Scientists and American Indian tribal members talk climate change realities at AAAS

  13-02-2016 06:00
  
  (Desert Research Institute) Despite an above average snowpack and several months of wet weather, drought and changing climate conditions continue to plague farmers and ranchers across Nevada and other western states. For American Indian communities in Northern Nevada, the consequences of a changing ecosystem are severe and will impact generations to come, according to new research and outreach presented today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting in Was
  
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• Proto-planet has 2 masters

  13-02-2016 06:00
  
  (Rice University) Rice University astrophysicist Andrea Isella will discuss evidence of planetary formation around a binary star at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Washington, D.C., today.
  
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• Planet formation around binary star

  13-02-2016 06:00
  
  (National Radio Astronomy Observatory) Using ALMA, astronomers have taken a new, detailed look at the very early stages of planet formation around a binary star. Embedded in the outer reaches of a double star's protoplanetary disk, the researchers discovered a striking crescent-shape region of dust that is conspicuously devoid of gas. This result, presented at the AAAS meeting in Washington, D.C., provides fresh insights into the planet-forming potential of a binary system.
  
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• Nudging science toward openness

  13-02-2016 06:00
  
  (American Association for the Advancement of Science) The $1,000,000 Preregistration Challenge, launched one month ago by the Center for Open Science (COS), is testing how addressing scientists' incentives can elicit new behaviors and improve the reproducibility of published research. 1,000 researchers will earn $1,000 each for publishing the results of preregistered research.
  
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• Language juggling rewires bilingual brain

  13-02-2016 06:00
  
  (Penn State) Bilinguals use and learn language in ways that change their minds and brains, which has consequences -- many positive, according to Judith F. Kroll, a Penn State cognitive scientist.
  
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• Incentivizing citizen science discovery for a sustainable world

  13-02-2016 06:00
  
  (Cornell University) As part of the symposium on Citizen Science and Information Technology, Carla P. Gomes will present on UDiscoverit, a program of Cornell University's Institute for Computational Sustainability. The program seeks to accelerate scientific discovery by integrating citizen science data and crowdsourced information into advanced computational models and algorithms.How are scientists seeking to inspire volunteers and fellow scientists to develop global efforts?
  
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• How learning languages translates into health benefits for society

  13-02-2016 06:00
  
  (University of Edinburgh) The advantages of speaking a second language -- for health and mental ability -- are to come under the spotlight at an event at the AAAS annual meeting in Washington, DC.
  
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• Exploiting high speed light for super slow science

  13-02-2016 06:00
  
  (Diamond Light Source) Scientists at the world's premier science conference -- the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting -- will this year be discussing the advances enabled by the UK's pioneering Long-Duration Experiment facility (LDE). Unmatched anywhere in the world, the LDE allows scientists to closely study the atomic and molecular behavior of matter under different conditions and over a period of two years.
  
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• Dark matter scientists on brink of discovering elusive particles

  13-02-2016 06:00
  
  (University of Edinburgh) Technological advances are ushering in a new era of understanding in the search for fundamental physical particles -- including dark matter -- scientists will tell a public event.
  
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• Big data and patient-powered research aim to solve complex diseases

  13-02-2016 06:00
  
  (LymeDisease.org) Big data and patient-driven research networks have the power to accelerate our understanding of some of today's most complex diseases.Lorraine Johnson, CEO of Lymedisease.org, will give a presentation at the AAAS meeting on Feb. 13 on 'Big Data and Patient Powered Networks.' She will discuss how MyLymeData, thefirst and only national patient-powered research project on chronic Lyme disease, is being embraced by thousands of patients, anxiousfor answers that will improve their l
  
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• Best rep for Tsunamis: Avoid ignorance, heed warning signs

  13-02-2016 06:00
  
  (Northwestern University) Northwestern University tsunami expert Emile A. Okal will discuss "The Perils of Insularity When Studying Natural Hazards" at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Washington, D.C., Feb. 13, 2016.
  
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• Hawaii declares emergency over mosquito-borne illnesses

  13-02-2016 04:37
  
  HONOLULU (AP) — Hawaii Gov. David Ige declared a state of emergency to fight mosquito borne illnesses including dengue fever and the Zika virus.
  
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• US scientists warn on 'dustbowl' risk

  13-02-2016 03:03 via bbc.co.uk
  
  US scientists have modelled how a 1930s-like "dustbowl" drought might impact American agriculture today, and found it to be just as damaging.
  
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• Zika virus may hide in organs protected from the immune system

  13-02-2016 00:28
  By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) - The Zika virus may be particularly adept at entrenching itself in parts of the body that are shielded from the immune system, making it harder to fight off and possibly lengthening the timeframe in which it can be transmitted, top U.S. experts said on Friday. Researchers reported that Zika virus can be detected in semen for 62 days after a person is infected, adding to evidence of the virus’s presence in foetal brain tissue, placenta and amniotic fl
  
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