Science news

• Eagle Lake east of Calgary affected by toxic blue-green algae bloom

  23-06-2016 22:52 via cbc.ca
  
  An advisory has been issued for blue-green algae on Eagle Lake, located east of Calgary near Strathmore, Alta.
  
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• Offensives against Islamic State could displace 2.3 million Iraqis - U.N.

  23-06-2016 22:33
  By Stephen Kalin BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Upcoming military offensives in Iraq against Islamic State, including an assault on the northern city of Mosul, could displace at least 2.3 million people, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Iraq said on Thursday. The prediction of such a vast humanitarian emergency creates additional complications for the Iraqi government and its U.S. allies, who have announced plans for offensives to drive Islamic State fighters this year from most of their Ira
  
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• Hints of new particle rumored to fade, but data analysis continues

  23-06-2016 21:37
  
  It’s still too early to know whether hints of a new particle are real, CERN scientists say.
  
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• Driverless Cars Will Face Moral Dilemmas

  23-06-2016 21:25 via rss.sciam.com
  
  Autonomous vehicles may put people in life-or-death situations. Will the outcomes be decided by ethics or data?
  -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
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• U.S. radar captures swarm of fish flies emerging from Ontario lake

  23-06-2016 21:23 via cbc.ca
  
  The National Weather Service tweeted a picture of the hatch June 18. The image shows dark blue patches, representing thousands of fish flies, over Lake St. Clair and the western edge of Lake Erie.
  
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• Rise of the fish flies: U.S. radar captures swarm emerging from Ontario lake

  23-06-2016 21:23 via cbc.ca
  
  The National Weather Service tweeted a picture of the hatch June 18. The image shows dark blue patches, representing thousands of fish flies, over Lake St. Clair and the western edge of Lake Erie.
  
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• The Latest: Colorado disappointed with New Mexico lawsuit

  23-06-2016 21:19
  
  ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The Latest on New Mexico's lawsuit against Colorado over the Gold King Mine spill (all times local):
  
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• Cleanup underway after California oil pipeline spill

  23-06-2016 21:12
  
  VENTURA, Calif. (AP) — Thousands of gallons of crude oil spilled Thursday from a pipeline and flowed down a ravine in Southern California but did not reach the ocean, officials said.
  
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• New Mexico sues Colorado over huge 2015 mine waste spill

  23-06-2016 21:05
  
  ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico is suing the state of Colorado, saying its northern neighbor should be held responsible for the contamination from a massive mine waste spill last year as well as decades of toxic drainage from mines near the headwaters of a shared river.
  
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• U.S. diplomat's talks in Venezuela 'good,' 'constructive' - State Department

  23-06-2016 20:35
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The talks held by a top U.S. diplomat in Venezuela, which included meetings with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and opposition figures and civil society activists, were good and constructive, a State Department spokesman said on Thursday. Diplomat Tom Shannon's talks in Venezuela this week were "good discussions, constructive discussion," State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters. "I think he feels positive about the engagements that he had down there." (Re
  
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• California pipeline spills thousands of gallons of crude oil

  23-06-2016 20:16
  VENTURA, Calif. (AP) — Thousands of gallons of crude oil spilled Thursday from a pipeline and flowed down a ravine in Southern California but did not reach the ocean, officials said.
  
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• Chocoholic? Electric field could soon reduce fat in creamy treat

  23-06-2016 20:01 via cbc.ca
  
  What if there was a way to make chocolate a little bit less fatty without losing its creamy texture? CBC Radio science columnist Torah Kachur looks at a new technique that may change chocolate for the better.
  
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• Your life or theirs? Scientists mull ethical dilemmas of driverless cars

  23-06-2016 20:00 via cbc.ca
  
  Would you buy a car that would sacrifice your life in order to save the lives of 10 pedestrians? Or would you buy one that would save you, above all else? That’s the question researchers are mulling in a new report about driverless cars, released today in the journal Science.
  
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• Should driverless cars sacrifice one life to save more?

  23-06-2016 20:00
  
  It’s a complex ethical dilemma.
  
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• Scientists find clue to why mitochondrial DNA comes only from mom

  23-06-2016 20:00
  
  Scientists have identified a protein that chops up the mitochondrial DNA in a dad’s sperm after it fertilizes an egg. The finding helps explain why mitochondrial DNA is usually passed on only by mothers.
  
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• Moral dilemma could put brakes on driverless cars

  23-06-2016 20:00
  
  Driverless cars race into a moral conflict over saving passengers or pedestrians.
  
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• [Working Life] A winding path to satisfaction

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Sarah Fankhauser
  
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• [This Week in Science] Versatile embryonic neural crest cells

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Pamela J. Hines
  
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• [This Week in Science] The microbial key to coral reef health

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Julia Fahrenkamp-Uppenbrink
  
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• [This Week in Science] Single-nucleus gene expression

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Laura M. Zahn
  
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• [This Week in Science] Simplifying DNA origami design

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Phil Szuromi
  
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• [This Week in Science] Shining brightly in the early universe

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Keith T. Smith
  
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• [This Week in Science] Quantum enhanced metrology

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Ian S. Osborne
  
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• [This Week in Science] Nanoparticles restore tolerance

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: John F. Foley
  
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• [This Week in Science] Multimetal nanoparticle synthesis

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Phil Szuromi
  
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• [This Week in Science] Mounting the intestinal barricades

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Caroline Ash
  
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• [This Week in Science] Mini-guts for testing drug therapy

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Orla M. Smith
  
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• [This Week in Science] Mind the mobilities

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Phil Szuromi
  
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• [This Week in Science] Making error-free DNA from RNA

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Guy Riddihough
  
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• [This Week in Science] Location matters for immunosuppression

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Kristen L. Mueller
  
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• [This Week in Science] How to single out the right atoms

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Jelena Stajic
  
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• [This Week in Science] Holding kinases at the ready

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Valda Vinson
  
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• [This Week in Science] Highly branched polymers deliver

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Philip Yeagle
  
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• [This Week in Science] Gut microbiota and undernutrition

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Caroline Ash
  
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• [This Week in Science] Coming to a drought near you

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Julia Fahrenkamp-Uppenbrink
  
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• [This Week in Science] Codes of conduct in autonomous vehicles

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Barbara R. Jasny
  
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• [This Week in Science] Clues to cancer from an identity change

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Paula A. Kiberstis
  
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• [This Week in Science] Catalysis gets all tied up in knots

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Jake Yeston
  
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• [This Week in Science] Bosons refusing to thermalize in 2D

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Author: Jelena Stajic
  
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• [Technical Response] Response to Comment on “The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation without a role for ocean circulation”

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Zhang et al. interpret the mixed-layer energy budget in models as showing that “ocean dynamics play a central role in the AMO.” Here, we show that their diagnostics cannot reveal the causes of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and that their results can be explained with minimal ocean influence. Hence, we reaffirm our findings that the AMO in models can be understood primarily as the upper-ocean thermal response to stochastic atmospheric forcing.
  Authors: Amy Clement, Mark A. Cane,
  
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• [Technical Comment] Comment on “The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation without a role for ocean circulation”

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Clement et al. (Reports, 16 October 2015, p. 320) claim that the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) is a thermodynamic response of the ocean mixed layer to stochastic atmospheric forcing and that ocean circulation changes have no role in causing the AMO. These claims are not justified. We show that ocean dynamics play a central role in the AMO.
  Authors: Rong Zhang, Rowan Sutton, Gokhan Danabasoglu, Thomas L. Delworth, Who M. Kim, Jon Robson, Stephen G. Yeager
  
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• [Review] Childhood undernutrition, the gut microbiota, and microbiota-directed therapeutics

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Childhood undernutrition is a major global health challenge. Although current therapeutic approaches have reduced mortality in individuals with severe disease, they have had limited efficacy in ameliorating long-term sequelae, notably stunting, immune dysfunction, and neurocognitive deficits. Recent work is providing insights about the role of impaired development of the human gut microbiota in disease pathogenesis, leading to new concepts for treatment and prevention. These findings raise intri
  
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• [Research Article] Exploring the many-body localization transition in two dimensions

  23-06-2016 19:52
  A fundamental assumption in statistical physics is that generic closed quantum many-body systems thermalize under their own dynamics. Recently, the emergence of many-body localized systems has questioned this concept and challenged our understanding of the connection between statistical physics and quantum mechanics. Here we report on the observation of a many-body localization transition between thermal and localized phases for bosons in a two-dimensional disordered optical lattice. With our si
  
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• [Research Article] Designer nanoscale DNA assemblies programmed from the top down

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Scaffolded DNA origami is a versatile means of synthesizing complex molecular architectures. However, the approach is limited by the need to forward-design specific Watson-Crick base pairing manually for any given target structure. Here, we report a general, top-down strategy to design nearly arbitrary DNA architectures autonomously based only on target shape. Objects are represented as closed surfaces rendered as polyhedral networks of parallel DNA duplexes, which enables complete DNA scaffold
  
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• [Research Article] Atomic structure of Hsp90-Cdc37-Cdk4 reveals that Hsp90 traps and stabilizes an unfolded kinase

  23-06-2016 19:52
  The Hsp90 molecular chaperone and its Cdc37 cochaperone help stabilize and activate more than half of the human kinome. However, both the mechanism by which these chaperones assist their “client” kinases and the reason why some kinases are addicted to Hsp90 while closely related family members are independent are unknown. Our structural understanding of these interactions is lacking, as no full-length structures of human Hsp90, Cdc37, or either of these proteins with a kinase have been eluci
  
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• [Research Article] A sentinel goblet cell guards the colonic crypt by triggering Nlrp6-dependent Muc2 secretion

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Innate immune signaling pathways contribute to the protection of host tissue when bacterially challenged. Colonic goblet cells are responsible for generating the two mucus layers that physically separate the luminal microbiota from the host epithelium. Analysis of colonic tissues from multiple mouse strains allowed us to identify a “sentinel” goblet cell (senGC) localized to the colonic crypt entrance. This cell nonspecifically endocytoses and reacts to the TLR2/1, TLR4, and TLR5 ligands by
  
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• [Report] Tissue adaptation of regulatory and intraepithelial CD4+ T cells controls gut inflammation

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Foxp3+ regulatory T cells in peripheral tissues (pTregs) are instrumental in limiting inflammatory responses to nonself antigens. Within the intestine, pTregs are located primarily in the lamina propria, whereas intraepithelial CD4+ T cells (CD4IELs), which also exhibit anti-inflammatory properties and depend on similar environmental cues, reside in the epithelium. Using intravital microscopy, we show distinct cell dynamics of intestinal Tregs and CD4IELs. Upon migration to the epithelium, Tregs
  
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• [Report] The social dilemma of autonomous vehicles

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Autonomous vehicles (AVs) should reduce traffic accidents, but they will sometimes have to choose between two evils, such as running over pedestrians or sacrificing themselves and their passenger to save the pedestrians. Defining the algorithms that will help AVs make these moral decisions is a formidable challenge. We found that participants in six Amazon Mechanical Turk studies approved of utilitarian AVs (that is, AVs that sacrifice their passengers for the greater good) and would like others
  
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• [Report] Synthetic evolutionary origin of a proofreading reverse transcriptase

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Most reverse transcriptase (RT) enzymes belong to a single protein family of ancient evolutionary origin. These polymerases are inherently error prone, owing to their lack of a proofreading (3′- 5′ exonuclease) domain. To determine if the lack of proofreading is a historical coincidence or a functional limitation of reverse transcription, we attempted to evolve a high-fidelity, thermostable DNA polymerase to use RNA templates efficiently. The evolutionarily distinct reverse transcription xen
  
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• [Report] Single-qubit gates based on targeted phase shifts in a 3D neutral atom array

  23-06-2016 19:52
  Although the quality of individual quantum bits (qubits) and quantum gates has been steadily improving, the number of qubits in a single system has increased quite slowly. Here, we demonstrate arbitrary single-qubit gates based on targeted phase shifts, an approach that can be applied to atom, ion, or other atom-like systems. These gates are highly insensitive to addressing beam imperfections and have little cross-talk, allowing for a dramatic scaling up of qubit number. We have performed gates
  
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