Science news

• 'Merciless' heat, humidity sticks to nearly all of US

  22-07-2016 23:45
  
  WASHINGTON (AP) — Call it the United Sweats of America. A heat wave spreading across the country is leaving few places to hide. Not even the cool of night.
  
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• 'Heat dome' baking Ontario and U.S.: What you need to know

  22-07-2016 20:04 via cbc.ca
  
  Extreme heat and humidity has engulfed southern Ontario and much of the U.S. Meteorologists are blaming the "heat dome." Here's what you need to know about it.
  
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• Mexican leader says respects U.S. presidential candidates

  22-07-2016 18:46
  MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said on Friday he respects both of the leading candidates to be the next president of the United States and will seek a "frank and open" dialogue with the eventual winner. Pena Nieto make the comments at a joint appearance with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington. (Reporting by Mexico City newsroom)
  
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• Brain activity, response to food cues differ in severely obese women, study shows

  22-07-2016 18:32
  The brain’s reward centers in severely obese women continue to respond to food cues even after they’ve eaten and are no longer hungry, in contrast to their lean counterparts, according to a recent study.
  
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• How to Reduce Police Violence

  22-07-2016 18:30 via rss.sciam.com
  
  Doubts cast on police implicit bias training
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• Debate accelerates on universe’s expansion speed

  22-07-2016 18:00
  
  A puzzling mismatch is plaguing two methods for measuring how fast the universe is expanding.
  
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• Pokemon Go launches in Japan with McDonald's as 1st sponsor

  22-07-2016 17:51 via cbc.ca
  
  The Japan launch of Pokemon Go on Friday included a first for the augmented-reality game: a partnership with an outside company, namely fast-food giant McDonald's.
  
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• Genes find their partners without matchmakers

  22-07-2016 17:23
  A new study provides more evidence that identical sections of DNA can match up with each other without the help of other molecules.
  
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• 'Star Trek Beyond' Features Clever War Games, Too Many Questions (Film Review)

  22-07-2016 17:22
  
  "Star Trek Beyond," which premieres today (July 22), opens with a very confusing scenario for Trekkies: A captain of a Federation starship is actually sick of space — enough to want to take a desk job. The last time we saw Capt. James T. Kirk (Chris Pine), in 2013's "Into Darkness," he was breaking Federation rules during his quest to get a coveted five-year mission.
  
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• Love of 'Star Trek' Inspires Highly Illogical Careers

  22-07-2016 17:22
  
  When "Star Trek Beyond" hits movie screens this week, it will play before one of the most engaged fandoms in the world. Trekkies will debate every angle of the film: whether it is too flashy for its philosophical routes, or if the new crew's adventures can stand on their own against those portrayed in the TV show that started it all.
  
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• How Big Bang Shaped Civilization: 'Deep Time' Documentary Premieres

  22-07-2016 17:22
  
  A new documentary series premiering today (July 22) explores the deep history of humankind, revealing unexpected links among astronomy, ancient geological events and the birth of human civilizations. Narrated by deep-time historian Jonathan Markley, the new series — "Deep Time History" — explores how key events such as the formation of the universe, exploding stars, clashing continents and evolution shaped the world as it is today. The three episodes are now available on CuriosityStr
  
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• You know it's not a good sign for Donald Trump when a study compares him to Lord Voldemort

  22-07-2016 17:16
  
  Apparently, reading Harry Potter lowers Americans’ opinions of the Republican presidential hopeful.
  
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• Alcohol Can Cause Certain Cancers, Study Says

  22-07-2016 17:13
  Drinking alcohol may cause seven different types of cancer, a new meta-analysis finds. Previous studies have found an association between drinking alcohol and a higher risk of developing certain cancers, according to the study. In the new meta-analysis, published today (July 21) in the journal Addiction, researchers looked at the major review studies done over the last decade on alcohol and cancer, including reviews from the American Institute for Cancer Research and the International Agency for
  
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• Human Gut Microbes Took Root Before We Were Human

  22-07-2016 17:11
  
  The relationship between humans and the bacteria in our guts extends far back into the past — to the time before modern humans even existed, a new study finds. Microbes in two bacterial families — Bacteroidaceae and Bifidobacteriaceae, which are present in humans and African apes — likely colonized the guts of a shared ancestor of both groups around 15 million years ago, the researchers discovered. The researchers' genetic data also tell a story of parallel evolution — in
  
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• Food for Thought: Americans Just Can't Stop Throwing Out Food

  22-07-2016 17:11
  Food waste is piling up in America, and although the vast majority of Americans feel bad about throwing out food, most of us also think it would be hard to reduce the amount of food we throw away, a new survey finds. The survey of 500 people in the U.S. found that 77 percent of respondents said they felt guilty about throwing away food. In addition to being a waste of resources, throwing away food has a negative impact on the environment, according to the study, published today (July 21) in the
  
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• The Unexplored Brain: Nearly 100 Uncharted Areas Revealed

  22-07-2016 17:10
  A detailed new map of the human brain's outer layer identifies nearly 100 brain areas that have not been previously reported, according to a new study. In the study, researchers identified a total of 180 areas of the cerebral cortex — the outermost layer of the brain — in each brain hemisphere, said lead study author Matthew Glasser, a neuroscience researcher at Washington University in Saint Louis. The addition of the 97 new cortical areas shows that "the human cortex is even more c
  
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• What's in Your Food? A Peek Under the Cover of the FDA's Handbook

  22-07-2016 17:09
  It's a read that's not safe for the squeamish: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s Defect Levels Handbook vividly details the imperfections that the agency allows in the foods we eat. Altogether, the FDA lists 179 different defects that can pop up in various foods, such as mold and insect body parts. Out of sheer morbid fascination, Live Science totaled up all of the different types of defects listed, to see which ones are the most commonly allowed in our foods, and what types of defe
  
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• Epidurals: How They've Changed, and How They Work

  22-07-2016 17:05
  These days, about two-thirds of women in the U.S. have epidurals during labor, said Dr. Aaron Caughey, professor and chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Oregon Health and Science University. In the most recent change, made in the early 2000s, anesthesiologists greatly lowered the dose of the drugs used in an epidural, and they gave women a button they could press if they needed more pain relief. "We're using less drug, and more of it is patient-controlled," said Dr. Stephen H
  
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• How dinosaurs hopped across an ocean

  22-07-2016 16:48
  
  Land bridges may have once allowed dinosaurs and other animals to travel between North America and Europe around 150 million years ago, a researcher proposes.
  
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• U. S. land capacity for feeding people could expand with dietary changes

  22-07-2016 16:45
  A new “food-print” model that measures the per-person land requirements of different diets suggests that, with dietary changes, the U.S. could feed significantly more people from existing agricultural land.
  
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• Maternal intake of past-its-prime fish oil linked to newborn death, rat study finds

  22-07-2016 16:45
  Nearly 30 percent of newborn pups born to pregnant rats fed highly-oxidized ("off") fish oil died within two days after birth, finds a new study.
  
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• Scientists release recommendations for building land in coastal Louisiana

  22-07-2016 16:43
  A team of leading scientists and community experts with decades of experience released key recommendations to maintain and build land in coastal Louisiana. Their recommendations focus on operating Mississippi River sediment diversions and consider the needs of communities, wildlife and fisheries.
  
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• Three-drug combinations could help counter antibiotic resistance, biologists report

  22-07-2016 16:41
  Bacteria resistance to antibiotics can be offset by combining three antibiotics that interact well together, even when none of the individual three, nor pairs among them, might be very effective in fighting harmful bacteria, life scientists report. This is an important advance because approximately 700,000 people each year die from drug-resistant infections.
  
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• Researchers identify way to predict, prevent damage in donated kidneys

  22-07-2016 16:41
  A panel of genes has been identified that can help predict whether a transplanted kidney will later develop fibrosis, an injury which can cause the organ to fail.
  
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• Physicists discover a new approach for building quantum computers

  22-07-2016 16:41
  The main reason why quantum computers are so hard to manufacture is that now scientists still haven't find a simple way to control complex systems of qubits. This research discovers a different approach:Instead of uniting multiple two-state systems into one, authors use one system with multiple states. This approach proves to be more effiective, since it is easier to make a stable multi-level system, than to maintain stability in a complex system.
  
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• Pathogenic bacteria hitchhiking on tiny plastic particles to North and Baltic Seas?

  22-07-2016 16:41
  With increasing water temperatures comes an increasing likelihood of potentially pathogenic bacteria appearing in the North and Baltic Seas. Scientists have now demonstrated that a group of such bacteria known as vibrios can survive on microplastic particles.
  
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• Edward Snowden gives thumbs up to Oliver Stone film about him

  22-07-2016 16:15 via cbc.ca
  
  Edward Snowden appeared live from Moscow via Google Hangouts Thursday night at San Diego Comic-Con, following the first public screening of Oliver Stone's film, Snowden, to answer audience questions and interact with the cast, including star Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
  
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• Twitter abuse can be unrelenting for outspoken black women

  22-07-2016 16:11 via cbc.ca
  
  Septembre Anderson says many black women, herself included, know exactly how Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones feels. They've dealt with an onslaught of racial and gender violence, both individual and co-ordinated attacks, for tweets ranging from the benign to the controversial.
  
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• How Pokemon Go went from Google prank to mobile gaming phenomenon

  22-07-2016 15:53 via cbc.ca
  
  Pokemon Go originated with a popular Google April Fool's joke in 2014. Here's the fascinating story of how it went from prank to (augmented) reality.
  
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• Students expand perspective of birds

  22-07-2016 15:37
  Northern Michigan University students who participated in a recent field ornithology class recorded interactions with more than 175 bird species in various habitats. They saw raptors pepper the sky over Brockway Mountain during the spring migration, owls being banded by researchers at the Whitefish Point Bird Observatory and barn swallows nesting beneath the bridge where the AuTrain River spills into Lake Superior. Some were surprised to spot American white pelicans this far north.
  
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• Third of pregnant women iron deficient, risk thyroid-related pregnancy complications

  22-07-2016 15:35
  A third of pregnant women have iron deficiency, putting them at increased risk of having a thyroid disorder and suffering complications such as miscarriages and preterm births, a new study suggests.
  
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• Blood disorders cost €23 billion to European economy

  22-07-2016 15:35
  Healthcare costs per patient with blood cancers are two times higher than average cancer costs, due to long hospital stays and complex treatment and diagnosis, a new report outlines.
  
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• Why apnea patients are prone to suffer from glaucoma

  22-07-2016 15:32
  Scientists have successfully measured the eye pressure of sleeping patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome for the first time, finding an unexpected correlation with glaucoma.
  
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• Most surgical meniscus repairs are unnecessary

  22-07-2016 15:32
  Three out of four people could avoid knee surgery with a new form of exercise therapy, with significant cost savings for society, say researchers in a new report.
  
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• Mapping electromagnetic waveforms

  22-07-2016 15:32
  Physicists have developed a novel electron microscope that can visualize electromagnetic fields oscillating at frequencies of billions of cycles per second.
  
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• Can't see the wood for the climbers: Vines threatening tropical forests

  22-07-2016 15:32
  Woody climbing vines, known as lianas, are preventing tropical forests from recovering and are hampering the ability of forests to store carbon, scientists are warning. Instead of taking decades to recover, tropical forests are at risk of taking hundreds of years to re-grow because of lianas, which spread rapidly following extensive tree-felling.
  
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• A hydrophobic membrane with nanopores for highly efficient energy storage

  22-07-2016 15:32
  Storing fluctuating and delivering stable electric power supply are central issues when using energy from solar plants or wind power stations. Here, efficient and flexible energy storage systems need to accommodate for fluctuations in energy gain. Scientists have now significantly improved a key component for the development of new energy storage systems.
  
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• Shaken baby syndrome accepted as diagnosis by majority of physicians

  22-07-2016 15:29
  Survey data reveals a high degree of medical consensus that shaking a young child is capable of producing subdural hematoma (a life-threatening pooling of blood outside the brain), severe retinal hemorrhage, coma or death, according to a study.
  
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• Forms of HIV can cross from chimps to humans, study confirms

  22-07-2016 15:29
  The first in vivo evidence that strains of chimpanzee-carried simian immunodeficiency viruses can infect human cells has been reported by a team of scientists.
  
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• Designer protein gives new hope to scientists studying Alzheimer's disease

  22-07-2016 15:29
  Researchers have designed a new protein which strongly resembles Abeta. In people with Alzheimer's, Amyloid-beta (Abeta) proteins stick together to make amyloid fibrils which form clumps between neurons in the brain. It's believed the build-up of these clumps causes brain cells to die, leading to the cognitive decline in patients suffering from the disease.
  
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• Why the 'Heat Dome' Will Scorch Nearly the Entire US This Weekend

  22-07-2016 15:16
  
  A blast of sweltering heat will sweep across the United States over the next four days, and some places will see temperatures as much as 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit (5.6 to 8.3 degrees Celsius) above average for this time of year, according to the National Weather Service. Hot weather in July is to be expected, of course — after all, it's the middle of summer — but a so-called heat dome is kicking these hot and humid temperatures up a notch. A heat dome happens when a "dome" of high
  
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• Mighty Viking Ax Discovered in Tomb of Medieval 'Power Couple'

  22-07-2016 15:15
  
  Archaeologists have discovered one of the largest Viking axes ever found, in the tomb of a 10th-century "power couple" in Denmark. Kirsten Nellemann Nielsen, an archaeologist at the Silkeborg Museum who is leading excavations at the site near the town of Haarup, said Danish axes like the one found in the tomb were the most feared weapons of the Viking Age. It would have had a very long handle, and it took both hands to use it," Nielsen told Live Science.
  
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• A Volcano Might Be Brewing under Rome's Suburbs

  22-07-2016 15:05 via rss.sciam.com
  
  Testing the limits of predictions, some geologists say long-silent Colli Albani might be starting a new eruption phase
  -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
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• Why Did NASA Send a DNA Sequencer to Space?

  22-07-2016 14:54
  
  A DNA sequencer that was just delivered to the International Space Station can test not just known Earthly organisms. Turns out, the little device may also be able to analyze samples taken from alien life, NASA said. Among the goods delivered was the MinION — a palm-sized sequencer with a lot of promise that weighs just 120 grams (0.27 pounds).
  
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• Parasite Evolution: Here's How Some Animals Became Moochers

  22-07-2016 14:51
  
  Nobody likes a mooch, but new research finds that grifting off others is a sound evolutionary strategy. Parasitism — a survival strategy that involves hijacking a host's nutrients for one's own benefit — has emerged in the animal kingdom at least 223 times, according to a study published July 19 in the journal Biology Letters. The estimate of 223 independent origins of parasitism is nearly four times higher than the previous estimate of around 60.
  
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• 'Earthquake' in Florida Was Actually a Naval Explosion

  22-07-2016 14:50
  
  A tremor reported on July 16 off the coast of Florida was not an earthquake, but a Naval test explosion. The U.S. Geological Survey now lists the event on its earthquake hazards page as an "experimental explosion by the U.S. Navy." According to DefenseNews.com, the 10,000-pound explosion was set off to test the resilience of a combat ship, the USS Jackson. USGS instruments measured the blast as a magnitude-3.7 earthquake, which would have been a rare seismic event in the tectonically quiet regio
  
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• Children's Doodles Found in Margins of Medieval Manuscript

  22-07-2016 14:47
  
  The margins of a medieval manuscript from a convent in Naples, Italy, are decorated with doodles of what are apparently devils, a farm animal and a person that were likely drawn by children, a new study finds. Children probably scribbled these doodles on the 14th-century manuscript a few hundred years after the book was made, said the study’s author, Deborah Thorpe, a research fellow at the Centre for Chronic Diseases and Disorders at the University of York in the United Kingdom. "I was lo
  
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• Pew! Pew! Pew! Mars Rover Curiosity Can Now Fire Laser On Its Own

  22-07-2016 14:23
  
  Look out, Mars: NASA's Curiosity rover can now fire its onboard laser all by itself. The car-size Curiosity rover recently began autonomously choosing some of the targets for its ChemCam instrument, which blasts Martian rocks or soil with a laser and analyzes the composition of the resulting vapor. Mission scientists here on Earth still select most ChemCam targets, after poring over images captured by the rover, NASA officials said.
  
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• Rare Meteorites May Explain Mercury's Puzzling Surface Features

  22-07-2016 14:22
  
  A rare type of meteorite found on Earth may have been a critical ingredient in the geologic recipe that shaped the surface of Mercury, new research shows. New experiments on a type of meteorite known as enstatite chondrites show that with heat and pressure, these space rocks could be responsible for the plethora of surface features observed on Mercury today, according to the research presented at the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference in Yokohama, Japan, in June. Mercury's prominent core is a p
  
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• Space Explorers From Around the World to Land in Houston for 2019 Meeting

  22-07-2016 14:21
  
  The largest gathering of space explorers in the world will land in Houston in 2019, honoring the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. The Association of Space Explorers (ASE) announced on Wednesday (July 20) that it has selected Houston as the host city for its 32nd Planetary Congress. The world's only professional association for the men and women who have orbited the Earth and gone beyond, the ASE expects more than 100 astronauts and cosmonauts to travel to Texas for the week-long confe
  
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