Science news

• Yellowstone tourists put bison calf in car, spurring warning

  16-05-2016 23:33
  HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A bison calf that tourists loaded into their vehicle at Yellowstone National Park because they were concerned for its welfare could not be reunited with its herd and had to be euthanized, park officials said Monday as they reasserted the importance of avoiding wildlife.
  
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• Alien Megastructure? Dimming Star May Have Less Exotic Explanation

  16-05-2016 23:02
  
  Last fall, a star named KIC 8462852 made news when scientists found unusual fluctuations in the object's light. But astronomer Tabetha "Tabby" Boyajian of Yale University in Connecticut and her colleagues, along with citizen scientists from the Planet Hunters crowdsourcing program, found something odd. Such analyses raised the possibility that astronomers had detected signs of alien life — specifically, a Dyson sphere, a megastructure built around a star to capture as much of the sun's ene
  
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• Roman-Era Shipwreck Yields Moon Goddess Statue, Coin Stashes

  16-05-2016 22:52
  
  A ship in Israel's Caesarea Harbor was filled with bronze statues headed for recycling when it sank about 1,600 years ago. Now, thanks to a chance discovery by a pair of divers, archaeologists have salvaged a haul of statuary fragments, figurines and coins from the seafloor. The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced today (May 16) the discovery of the Late Roman-era artifacts, which include a figurine of a moon goddess and a lamp carrying the likeness of a sun god.
  
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• 1st US penis transplant could raise hope for maimed soldiers

  16-05-2016 22:45
  
  BOSTON (AP) — A 64-year-old cancer patient has received the nation's first penis transplant, a groundbreaking operation that may also help accident victims and some of the many U.S. veterans maimed by roadside bombs.
  
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• 'Space's Deepest Secrets': Could a Sub Explore the Seas of Saturn Moon Titan? (Exclusive Clip)

  16-05-2016 22:38
  
  The exclusive clip comes from the show's fourth episode, which airs Tuesday (May 17) at 10 p.m. EDT (9 p.m. CDT) on Science Channel. The episode explores water in the solar system and the ways researchers can learn about it — understanding the warm, wet environment of early Mars, probing the moonwide, ice-encrusted sea on Jupiter's moon Europa and more. In the clip, exclusively released to Space.com today (May 16), researchers talk about designing a submarine to explore Titan: a moon of Sa
  
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• Scientists wrestle with possibility of second Zika-spreading mosquito

  16-05-2016 22:30
  
  It’s hard to say yet whether Asian tiger mosquitoes will worsen the ongoing Zika outbreak in the Americas.
  
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• Dying Stars May Transform Frozen Worlds Into Havens for Life

  16-05-2016 22:07
  
  Many stars in the universe become red giants, and some can remain that way for billions of years. The new work provides an in-depth look at how long planets can remain habitable around red giant stars — in some cases, for up to 9 billion years, which is twice Earth's current age.
  
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• Meet David Saint-Jacques, the next Canadian headed to space

  16-05-2016 21:37 via cbc.ca
  
  Growing up in St-Lambert near Montreal, David Saint-Jacques can still remember the first time he got a good look at the stars, fuelling a life-long dream of becoming an astronaut. Now, he's preparing to fly to the International Space Station.
  
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• Tesla vows to address labour issues after report alleges cheap and unsafe jobs for foreign workers

  16-05-2016 20:50 via cbc.ca
  
  Tesla says it will look into allegations that a subcontractor at one of its paint facilities was paid as little as $5 US an hour in an unsafe work environment.
  
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• EVERYBODY CALM DOWN! Tea is coming in abundance, as Cornish plantations expect best yield on record

  16-05-2016 20:45
  
  Everything is going to be OK.
  
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• International Space Station makes 100,000th orbit of Earth

  16-05-2016 20:32
  
  It's 100,000 laps around Earth and counting for the International Space Station.
  
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• Leaving your light on could throw off bird migrations

  16-05-2016 20:18 via cbc.ca
  
  Three times more birds are taking their nighttime migratory paths through lighted towns and cities, a study from the University of Windsor has found.
  
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• Cancer patient receives first US penis transplant

  16-05-2016 19:21
  
  Thomas Manning underwent the procedure in Massachusetts after a battle with an aggressive and potentially fatal penile cancer.
  
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• Get ready for a long hot summer, says Met Office

  16-05-2016 19:19
  
  We can expect better weather to hit in early June.
  
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• Zika Shown to Penetrate the Placenta, Strengthening Its Link to Birth Defects

  16-05-2016 19:00 via rss.sciam.com
  
  The Zika virus infects and crosses the placenta, causing microcephaly in mice
  -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
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• Earth smashes 7th monthly heat record in a row

  16-05-2016 18:25 via cbc.ca
  
  Governments began work on Monday on a rule book to implement the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming, with the United Nations urging stronger action after a string of record-smashing monthly temperatures.
  
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• Sunrise captured from International Space Station

  16-05-2016 18:18 via cbc.ca
  
  Astronaut tweets time lapse video of sunrise
  
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• Nintendo eyes filmmaking for growth after Seattle Mariners sale

  16-05-2016 18:16 via cbc.ca
  
  Nintendo isn't planning to become a full-fledged movie studio, but filmmaking is an area the video game maker has chosen for future investment after selling its stake in the Seattle Mariners major league baseball team.
  
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• ‘America’s Snake’ chronicles life and times of iconic timber rattlesnake

  16-05-2016 18:00
  
  America’s Snake looks past timber rattlesnake’s fearsome reputation and delves into the fascinating biology of this iconic serpent.
  
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• Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway buys $1B US stake in Apple

  16-05-2016 17:40 via cbc.ca
  
  Shares of Apple Inc. gained ground Monday after Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway disclosed it has taken a new $1 billion US position in the maker of the iPhone.
  
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• The Latest: Penis donor's family praying for US recipient

  16-05-2016 17:33
  BOSTON (AP) — The Latest on the first penis transplant carried out in the United States (all times local):
  
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• Elephantiasis: What Causes This Strange Condition?

  16-05-2016 16:59
  
  A Brazilian man with elephantiasis, a rare condition in which people's limbs become discolored and swell to enormous sizes, was recently featured on the popular Animal Planet show "River Monsters," which often films in tropical, heavily forested locales. As the name "elephantiasis" implies, the condition causes a person's limb to resemble that of an elephant. Elephantiasis is actually a complication of a parasitic infection called lymphatic filariasis.
  
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• One Organ Holds The Key to Zika's Devastating Birth Defects

  16-05-2016 16:20 via rss.sciam.com
  
  The hidden placenta connects a fetus to outside dangers—and scientists have found new ways to study it
  -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
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• 1 Organ Holds the Key to Zika's Devastating Birth Defects

  16-05-2016 16:20 via rss.sciam.com
  
  The hidden placenta connects a fetus to outside dangers—and scientists have found new ways to study it
  -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
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• Governments seek rules for Paris climate deal; temperatures soar

  16-05-2016 16:08
  By Alister Doyle OSLO (Reuters) - Governments began work on Monday on a rule book to implement the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming, with the United Nations urging stronger action after a string of record-smashing monthly temperatures. NASA said at the weekend that last month was the warmest April in statistics dating back to the 19th century, the seventh month in a row to break temperature records. The meeting of government experts is the first since 195 nations reached a deal in Pa
  
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• Cancer patient receives first penis transplant in US

  16-05-2016 15:47
  
  BOSTON (AP) — A cancer patient received the first penis transplant in the United States, a Boston hospital said.
  
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• Newfound Ax Blade May Be World's Oldest, Researchers Say

  16-05-2016 15:23
  
  What could be the world's oldest stone ax blade has been identified from fragments found in an ancient rock shelter in northwest Australia, according to archaeologists. The ax fragments were found in layers of sediment at Carpenter's Gap, a large rock shelter in Windjana Gorge National Park,in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Using carbon dating, the fragments are estimated to be between 46,000 and 49,000 years old — much older than similar composite stone axes found elsewhere in
  
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• Next Canadian going into space is a doctor, engineer and astrophysicist

  16-05-2016 15:08 via cbc.ca
  
  One of Canada's two newest astronauts finally has a confirmed ticket to space. He's David Saint-Jacques, who has a background in engineering, astrophysics and medicine.
  
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• Why Belief in Witchcraft Can Do Harm

  16-05-2016 14:50
  Belief in witchcraft is linked to a lack of trust for people in sub-Saharan Africa, new research finds. In regions where witchcraft belief is high, people are less likely to trust others, including their family, neighbors and local institutions, American University economist Boris Gershman reports in the May issue of the Journal of Development Economics. "What's more, the children of immigrants from countries with high prevalence of witchcraft beliefs are more distrusting than children of immigr
  
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• Newly Discovered Fetus Is Youngest Egyptian Mummy on Record

  16-05-2016 14:41
  
  A computed tomography (CT) scan of the coffin revealed that the coffin didn't hold mummified internal organs, as researchers had suspected, but instead contains the tiny mummy of a human fetus, according to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England. "This landmark discovery … is remarkable evidence of the importance that was placed on official burial rituals in ancient Egypt, even for those lives that were lost so early on in their existence," museum researchers said in a statement. Th
  
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• Bell offers $1M to settle lawsuit for charging Northerners for 911 service that doesn't exist

  16-05-2016 14:40 via cbc.ca
  
  A Yellowknife man who has been battling Bell Mobility in court for nearly a decade says he's glad the fight will soon be over, but some details of his settlement still need to be ironed out.
  
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• Insect Astronomers? Dung Beetles 'Photograph' the Sky While Dancing

  16-05-2016 14:39
  
  For dung beetles, that means a dance and a mental photograph. A new study finds that dung beetles take a snapshot of the positions of celestial bodies while "dancing" on top of a ball of dung. Previous research discovered that dung beetles, like other insects, use the light of the Milky Way to navigate.
  
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• Ancient Bison Bones Discovered at Florida Dig Site

  16-05-2016 14:36
  
  The bones of an ancient bison species that lived some 13,000 to 14,000 years ago have been discovered beneath the ground at Vero Beach, Florida, archaeologists announced. The bones were unearthed at one of the oldest and most significant archaeological digs in North America, the Old Vero Man Site. "About 100 years ago, the excavations at Vero … were the epicenter of the North American archaeological universe, because it was the very first site that was claimed with some support to demonst
  
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• Firefighting turns to technology to get the jump on wildfires

  16-05-2016 14:00 via cbc.ca
  
  From infrared scanners to growing fires in a computer lab, science and technology are helping to even the playing field when it comes to fighting wildfires.
  
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• Concern over couples being sold unnecessary 'add-ons' by fertility clinics

  16-05-2016 13:58
  
  The treatments include immune system-suppressing drugs, pre-implantation testing and time-lapse photography.
  
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• See the Sharpest-Ever View of Mercury's Transit Across the Sun

  16-05-2016 13:38
  
  But one view of Mercury's pilgrimage accomplished something unprecedented: the highest-ever spatial-resolution images of a Mercury transit. The images are featured in this awesome video, which begins with footage taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). It then fades into the high-res images, which show the tiny, black disk of Mercury against the bright solar background.
  
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• Mysterious Dwarf Planet 'Snow White' Much Bigger Than Thought: Study

  16-05-2016 13:38
  
  A faraway object nicknamed "Snow White" is considerably larger than scientists had thought, and is in fact the third-largest dwarf planet in the solar system, a new study suggests. If the new measurement is accurate, the only known dwarf planets bigger than Snow White are Pluto and Eris, which are 1,475 miles (2,374 km) and 1,445 miles (2,236 km) across, respectively.
  
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• Comet Whips Up Whirling Debris in Close-Up Hubble Telescope View

  16-05-2016 13:38
  When Comet 252P/LINEAR flew by Earth in late March, it passed within just 3.3 million miles (5.2 million kilometers) of Earth, or about 14 times the distance between Earth and the moon. The Hubble team created a new time-lapse movie of the comet flyby using the space telescope's imagery. Hubble caught this sequence of photos about two weeks after the comet's closest approach, spotlighting the sunlight reflecting off of the object's jet of ice and dust.
  
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• Volcanoes Spit Out 4.5-Billion-Year-Old Pieces of Earth

  16-05-2016 13:02
  
  Materials from Earth's mantle that were created within the first 50 million years of the solar system's birth have been discovered. In fact, the material — found within volcanic rock on Canada's Baffin Island and in a region near the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific — is about 4.5 billion years old, researchers said in a new study.
  
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• Acetaminophen Linked to Lower Empathy Levels

  16-05-2016 13:02
  The people in the study who took acetaminophen (sold as Tylenol and various generic labels) showed lower levels of empathy toward other people who talked about feeling physical and emotional pain than those who took a placebo, the researchers found. "Acetaminophen can reduce empathy as well as serve as a painkiller," study co-author Dominik Mischkowski, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health who was a Ph.D. student at The Ohio State University at the time of the research, sai
  
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• Fast-moving star duo is heading out of the Milky Way

  16-05-2016 13:00
  
  A pair of hyperfast stars hurtling through a remote region of the Milky Way might have been orphaned after a long-ago galactic collision, a new study suggests.
  
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• Bloodhound Diary: Riding four 'gyroscopes'

  16-05-2016 12:57 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The effects from riding four 'gyroscopes'
  
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• GCHQ emerges from shadows of cyber space with 'Hello, world' tweet

  16-05-2016 12:36
  It is known as Britain's listening post, operating secretly to detect threats against national security. But now GCHQ has emerged from the shadows of cyber space to become the first of the country's spy agencies on Twitter.
  
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• Nigerian army says arrests suspected "Avengers" militants in Delta

  16-05-2016 10:38
  By Felix Onuah ABUJA, Nigeria (Reuters) - The Nigerian army said on Monday it had arrested members of a militant group which has claimed responsibility for a wave of attacks on pipelines in the restive Delta region. The detainees were thought to be part of the Niger Delta Avengers, it said, a movement blamed for assaults on oil infrastructure that have helped cut Nigeria's output to 1.65 million barrels a day from 2.2 million at the start of the year. "This is to confirm the arrest of some suspe
  
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• Nigerian army arrests suspected pipeline attackers in Delta - military source

  16-05-2016 09:35
  YENEGOA, Nigeria (Reuters) - The Nigerian army has arrested several people suspected of having been involved in a recent wave of attacks on pipelines in the restive Delta region, a military source said on Monday. Nigerian newspapers reported that the army had arrested several members of a militant group called Niger Delta Avengers which has claimed a string of attacks in the southern swamps. (Reporting by Tife Owolabi; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Dominic Evans)
  
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• Kabul locked down as Afghan authorities face power line protest

  16-05-2016 06:17
  By Mirwais Harooni KABUL (Reuters) - Stacked-up shipping containers blocked the streets leading to Kabul's government and diplomatic area on Monday as Afghan authorities prepared for a rally by thousands of members of the Hazara minority over a multi-million dollar power line project. Demonstrators are demanding that the route for the 500 kV transmission line linking Turkmenistan with Kabul be changed to pass through two provinces with large Hazara populations, an option the government says woul
  
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• Why is female sexuality more flexible than male sexuality?

  16-05-2016 06:00
  
  (Wiley) A new evolutionary theory argues that women may have been evolutionarily designed to be sexually fluid -- changing their sexual desires and identities from lesbian, to bisexual, to heterosexual and back again -- in order to allow them to have sex with their co-wives in polygamous marriages, therefore reducing conflict and tension inherent in such marriages while at the same time successfully reproducing with their husbands in heterosexual unions.
  
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• Trump poses new mission for Mexico's diplomats

  16-05-2016 06:00
  
  (Rice University) After months of near silence regarding Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's 'increasingly hostile' comments about Mexico, the country, through its foreign ministry, is now trying to protect its image and respond more vigorously to anti-Mexican rhetoric, according to a new issue brief from Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.
  
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• The 'Echoverse': A new way to think about brand-consumer interactions

  16-05-2016 06:00
  
  (University of Maryland) Most studies of the interactions between companies and consumers look at one piece of the puzzle: Advertising or social media or news coverage or 'consumer sentiment' as measured in surveys. A new study from researchers at the University of Maryland, University of Tennessee and Massey Universityexamines how messages about brands across various channels interact in a complex set of feedback loops the authors call the 'echoverse.' And the study offers advice for managers o
  
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• Technique improves the efficacy of fuel cells

  16-05-2016 06:00
  
  (Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences) Solid oxide fuel cells, which rely on low- cost ceramic materials, are among the most efficient and promising type of fuel cell. Now, researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have found a way to harness the quantum behavior of these fuel cells to make them even more efficient and robust. In doing so, they've observed a new type of phase transition in an oxide material.
  
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