Science news

• Bird nest riddle: Which shape came first?

  19-08-2016 23:56
  
  Today’s simple cup-shaped songbird nests look as if they just had to have evolved before roofed nests. But that could be backward.
  
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• NASA Test-Fires Engine for Most Powerful Rocket Ever

  19-08-2016 23:26
  
  NASA engineers blasted an RS-25 rocket engine for 7 minutes yesterday (Aug. 18) at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi as part of a development test for hardware that will make up the most powerful rocket ever. Four RS-25 engines, built by Aerojet Rocketdyne, plus two solid rocket boosters, will propel NASA's new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket off of Earth and onward into deep space. The rocket is NASA's chosen vehicle to reach Mars.
  
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• Civilians flee Syrian city as Kurdish forces fight government

  19-08-2016 22:31
  By Tom Perry BEIRUT (Reuters) - Civilians fled a city in northeastern Syria where government warplanes bombed Kurdish-held areas for a second day on Friday, as the Syrian army accused Kurdish forces of igniting the conflict by trying to take over the area. The fighting this week in Hasaka, which is divided into zones of Kurdish and Syrian government control, marks the most violent confrontation between the Kurdish YPG militia and Damascus in more than five years of civil war. The YPG is at the h
  
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• The comet that disappeared: What happened to Ison?

  19-08-2016 22:23
  Comet ISON, a bright ball of frozen matter from the earliest days of the universe, was inbound from the Oort Cloud at the edge of the solar system and expected to pierce the Sun's corona on November 28. Scientists were expecting quite a show. A new study suggests the comet actually broke up before reaching the sun.
  
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• Standing up for beliefs in face of group opposition is worth the effort, study shows

  19-08-2016 22:23
  A new study that assessed bodily responses suggests that standing up for your beliefs, expressing your opinions and demonstrating your core values can be a positive psychological experience, report researchers.
  
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• New discovery about sensory system of deep-sea fish

  19-08-2016 22:23
  Little is known about most of the fishes that live deep in the oceans, where the pressures are extreme, light is nearly absent, and the water temperatures are especially low. These fishes are difficult to observe in their natural environment, and it is equally difficult to bring undamaged specimens to the surface or conduct experiments on them. New research provides new information on the dragonfish, a deep-sea fish, suggesting that it has a highly evolved system for detecting water flows.
  
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• How to keep the superhot plasma inside tokamaks from chirping

  19-08-2016 22:23
  Physicists have learned which conditions within fusion plasma make the occurrence of chirping modes more likely.
  
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• MRI technology quantifies liver response in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis patients

  19-08-2016 22:22
  Researchers have found that a form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that non-invasively measures fat density in the liver corresponds with histological (microscopic tissue analyses) responses in patients with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).
  
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• Keeping mosquitoes away: Insect repellent and children

  19-08-2016 21:33
  Summer is here and backyard barbecues, camping trips and youth camp sessions are in full swing. Amidst all of these fun activities is often a far less welcoming sign of summer: mosquitoes.
  
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• Researchers find herpes strain in the nervous system

  19-08-2016 21:32
  There are a couple strains of herpes so common that researchers estimate 90% of the human population have them. These strains, human herpes 6 and human herpes 7, usually do not cause severe symptoms when people acquire them. But researchers know that under certain circumstances, dormant herpes viruses in the body can unexpectedly come roaring back and cause complications not typically associated with herpes virus.
  
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• Proton pump found to regulate blood pH in stingrays

  19-08-2016 21:30
  Researchers have discovered the same enzyme used by 'boneworms' to dissolve whale carcasses, and that helps promote photosynthesis in corals, also regulates blood pH in stingrays. The study could help scientists better understand the enzyme's function in human kidneys to regulate blood and urine functions.
  
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• New study challenges assumption of asbestos' ability to move in soil

  19-08-2016 21:30
  A new study challenges the long-held belief that asbestos fibers cannot move through soil. The findings have important implications for current remediation strategies aimed at capping asbestos-laden soils to prevent human exposure of the cancer-causing material.
  
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• Increased eye cancer risk linked to pigmentation genes that dictate eye color

  19-08-2016 21:30
  New research links specific inherited genetic differences to an increased risk for eye (uveal) melanoma, a rare form of melanoma that arises from pigment cells that determine eye color. scientists report the first evidence of a strong association between genes linked to eye color and development of uveal melanoma. Reported data suggests that inherited genetic factors associated with eye and skin pigmentation could increase a person's risk for uveal melanoma.
  
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• Flesh-eating infections in rheumatoid arthritis patients spur new discovery

  19-08-2016 21:30
  Rheumatoid arthritis patients taking medications that inhibit interleukin-1beta, a molecule that stimulates the immune system, are 300 times more likely to experience invasive Group A Streptococcal infections than patients not on the drug, according to researchers. Their study also uncovers a critical new role for IL-1beta as the body's independent early warning system for bacterial infections.
  
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• NASA Astronauts Successfully Install New Space Station Docking Port

  19-08-2016 21:17
  
  Two NASA astronauts successfully installed a new parking spot at the International Space Station today (Aug. 19), marking a key step toward accommodating new commercial space taxis that arrive at the orbiting lab. "The view is phenomenal," Rubins said, as she exited the space station's Quest airlock. Today's spacewalk marked a first for Rubins and the fourth of Williams' career.
  
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• Astronauts Jeffrey Williams and Kate Rubins install new door during their spacewalk

  19-08-2016 20:33
  
  It is the crucial first step in welcoming commercial crew capsules as soon as next year.
  
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• Electrical synapses in the brain offer new avenue for epilepsy research and possible treatment

  19-08-2016 20:19
  A child with absence epilepsy may be in the middle of doing something—she could be dancing, studying, talking—when all of a sudden she stares off into space for a few moments. Then, as quickly as she drifted off, the child snaps back into whatever she was doing, unaware that the episode occurred. That brief moment of disconnect from reality is called an absence seizure. Researchers now suggest that electrical signals directly exchanged between brain cells may hold promise as a potent
  
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• New Players in the Obesity Puzzle: The Brain's Glial Cells

  19-08-2016 20:00 via rss.sciam.com
  
  Discoveries about the roles they play in appetite and metabolism could unlock new strategies against obesity
  -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
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• Popular Yellowstone River closes after thousands of fish die

  19-08-2016 19:52
  BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Montana wildlife officials closed a 183-mile stretch of the Yellowstone River on Friday to fishing, rafting and other activities to prevent the spread of a parasite that is believed to have killed tens of thousands of fish.
  
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• It's going to be a wet and windy weekend - so don't take any of those risky 'storm selfies'

  19-08-2016 19:33
  
  The risks outweigh the likes, guys.
  
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• Vagrant Birds May Portend Species Distribution in Climate-Changed World

  19-08-2016 19:30 via rss.sciam.com
  
  Long dismissed as accidental tourists, birds that turn up outside their normal ranges may instead be pioneers 
  -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
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• This is Sting's brain on music

  19-08-2016 19:17 via cbc.ca
  
  Sting's song Englishman in New York and the Rolling Stones' (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction might not seem that similar to some, but scans of the Englishman's brain as he listened to the works showed similar activity for both.
  
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• Seawalls, forests show mixed effectiveness at reducing deaths, damage from tsunami

  19-08-2016 18:36
  The Pacific coast of the Tohoku region has been struck by four large tsunamis in just over a century - in 1896, 1933, 1960 and 2011. Many critics claim that seawalls are detrimental because they offer a false sense of security, and prevent residents from being able to see the approaching danger first-hand. Moreover, they also say that the presence of seawalls tends to encourage residents to build homes in vulnerable areas rather than in safer places further inland or uphill.
  
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• From pollution to caffeine intake: Researcher reveals dementia risks

  19-08-2016 18:36
  Dementia strikes 47 million people worldwide. Yet scientists are still urgently trying to find why the disease affects some but not others. Among the findings from the latest research are that eating a large amount of fatty foods and living in a polluted area may increase dementia risk, whereas taking regular exercise and keeping cholesterol at healthy levels may lower risk.
  
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• Maduro says any Venezuela coup bid would meet tougher reaction than Turkey's

  19-08-2016 18:27
  Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro said the purge by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan meted out on rivals after a failed coup would look like child's play compared with the action he would take if opposition tried something similar in the OPEC nation. "Did you see what happened in Turkey?" said Maduro, in a televised public event on Thursday evening. "Erdogan will seem like a nursing baby compared to what the Bolivarian revolution will do if the right wing steps over the line with a coup." Aft
  
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• Canadian Space Agency says 3,772 applied to be astronauts

  19-08-2016 18:21 via cbc.ca
  
  The Canadian Space Agency has received almost 4,000 applications from would-be astronauts.
  
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• Spacewalking astronauts install new front door for visitors

  19-08-2016 18:19
  CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Spacewalking astronauts installed a new front door for visitors at the International Space Station on Friday, the crucial first step in welcoming commercial crew capsules as soon as next year.
  
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• 2014 Napa earthquake continued to creep, weeks after main shock

  19-08-2016 18:04
  On August 24, 2014, just south of Napa, California, a fault in Earth suddenly slipped, violently shifting and splitting huge blocks of solid rock, 6 miles below the surface. The underground upheaval generated severe shaking at the surface, lasting 10 to 20 seconds. When the shaking subsided, the magnitude 6.0 earthquake left in its wake crumpled building facades, ruptured water mains, and fractured roadways. Scientists now report that this earthquake continued to creep, weeks after the main shoc
  
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• Cybersecurity student researches how to keep cars safe from hacking

  19-08-2016 17:49
  Cybersecurity student researches spent the summer researching how to keep cars safe from cyberattacks during an intensive eight-week cybersecurity summer research program.
  
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• Swimming is an effective part of the treatment for fibromyalgia, study suggests

  19-08-2016 17:46
  Swimming is as effective as walking to relieve pain and improve quality of life for patients with fibromyalgia, that experience chronic diffuse non-inflammatory pain in the musculoskeletal system deriving from malfunctioning of the system that transmits and modulates the transmission of nervous stimuli between the periphery of the body and the brain. The study involved 75 sedentary women who had fibromyalgia.
  
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• Researchers innovate brain preservation technique

  19-08-2016 17:46
  By figuring out how to preserve specimens in the remote locations in which they are found -- locations almost completely opposite those of a controlled laboratory or 21st century urban area -- researchers have given science one more way to study a wide range of creatures, particularly those threatened by global climate change.
  
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• Physicists discover 'apparent departure from the laws of thermodynamics'

  19-08-2016 17:46
  Physicists have revolutionized our understanding of a popular technique, known as buffer gas cooling, which is crucial in fields ranging from forensics to the production of antimatter.
  
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• Scientists have created a ceramic, resistant to extreme temperatures

  19-08-2016 17:42
  Scientists managed to create a new multi-layered ceramic material with heat resistance of the upper layer of more than 3,000 degrees Celsius.
  
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• Mathematical analysis conducted of a rare cavernicolous crustacean

  19-08-2016 17:42
  A scientific collaboration has discovered previously unknown regularities of arthropod limbs based on studies of the remipede Speleonectes tulumensis, a rare crustacean found in saline waters of caves.
  
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• Europe's oldest known living inhabitant

  19-08-2016 17:42
  A Bosnian pine (Pinus heldreichii) growing in the highlands of northern Greece has been dendrocronologically dated to be more than 1,075 years old. This makes it currently the oldest known living tree in Europe.
  
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• Differences in Brain Activity May Determine How Smart You Are

  19-08-2016 17:14
  Your brain activity differs depending on whether you're working on a task, or at rest — and just how much that activity differs may be linked to how smart you are, a new study finds. Researchers found that people who displayed similar brain activity while at rest compared to while they were completing a mental task performed those tasks more efficiently than people whose brain activity differed more between their resting state and when they were working on a task. In the study, the researc
  
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• Catastrophic Louisiana Flooding Measured from Space

  19-08-2016 17:14
  
  Intense rainfall is causing widespread and disastrous flooding in parts of Louisiana, and new measurements from a NASA satellite illustrate just how much precipitation has accumulated in this region of the Southern United States. Rain totals in southern Louisiana were at least 600 percent over normal levels over a seven-day period, according to the Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center of the U.S National Weather Service. Data collected from the Integrated Multi-Satellite Retrievals for GPM (I
  
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• Calcium Supplements Linked to Higher Risk of Dementia in Some Women

  19-08-2016 17:11
  For older women with certain health conditions, taking calcium supplements may be linked with an increased risk of dementia, according to a new study. Researchers found that women who had previously had a stroke and who regularly took calcium supplements at the start of the study were seven times more likely to develop dementia over the five-year period than women who had had a stroke but who did not take those supplements. Additionally, the researchers found that women who had signs of a disord
  
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• Zika: What States Can Expect in the Coming Months

  19-08-2016 17:10
  Despite the half-dozen people who have caught the Zika virus from mosquitoes in Florida, experts say that it's unlikely Zika will begin to spread locally in many other places in the U.S. That's because the mosquitoes that can carry Zika cannot breed in most parts of the U.S. during the winter. Cases of local transmission of Zika may trigger fears about the virus, but rapid spread of the virus by mosquitoes is just not a likely scenario, said Joseph Eisenberg, chair and professor of epidemiology
  
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• Experts Clash on Age of Land Bridge Connecting Americas

  19-08-2016 17:10
  
  Despite reports that the land bridge connecting the Americas is "older than the hills," it is actually quite young, geologically speaking — only about 2.8 million years old, a new review of studies finds. The finding contrasts with several recent studies purporting that the land bridge, known as the Isthmus of Panama, formed between 6 million and 23 million years ago, and reveals important details about the evolution and migration of animal species in different regions of the Americas. "Ou
  
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• Do Thinner Friends Help You Lose Weight?

  19-08-2016 17:10
  People who want to lose weight might consider adding a few slender friends to their social networks: A new study shows that having such friends is linked with more successful weight loss. However, the study also showed that people who want to lose weight actually tend to acquire heavier friends over time. This may occur because people who are overweight or obese experience less stigma and weight discrimination when they have heavier friends, the researchers said.
  
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• Bunnies Were Butchered at Ancient City of Teotihuacan

  19-08-2016 17:09
  
  Humans may have raised rabbits and hares in Mexico's ancient city of Teotihuacan — but not to keep them as pets. "Because no large mammals such as goats, cows or horses were available for domestication in pre-Hispanic Mexico, many assume that Native Americans did not have as intensive human-animal relationships as did societies of the Old World," study author Andrew Somerville, an anthropologist at the University of California, San Diego, said in a statement. Teotihuacan, about 30 mil
  
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• 300-Year-Old Secret 'Lucky' Shoe Found in Cambridge University Wall

  19-08-2016 17:06
  
  A 300-year-old shoe found in the walls of a University of Cambridge building was likely put there to ward off evil spirits. Maintenance staff found the leather shoe — a men's size 6, by today's measurements — on Aug. 1 while installing electrical cables in a common room at St. John's College, one of the constituent colleges that make up the university. The shoe was found between a chimney and a window, Cambridge archaeologist Richard Newman said in a statement.
  
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• Ötzi the Iceman's Wild Wardrobe Revealed

  19-08-2016 17:05
  
  Ötzi the Iceman's hard-core leather outfit would have made animal rights activists shudder. The 5,300-year-old iceman mummy, whose remarkably preserved body was found frozen in the Tyrolean Alps in Austria, once sported an outfit made almost completely of animal skin, new genetic evidence suggests. "We have discovered that the iceman's clothes were composed of an array of different animals," said study co-author Niall O'Sullivan, a doctoral candidate in archaeology at the University College
  
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• Spacewalking astronauts install new door for visitors

  19-08-2016 17:03
  
  CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Spacewalking astronauts installed a new door for visitors at the International Space Station on Friday, the crucial first step in welcoming commercial crew capsules as soon as next year.
  
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• Drifting Tectonic Hotspot Overturns Himalayan Theory

  19-08-2016 16:56
  
  In a region that boasts the tallest peak in the eastern Himalayas and a body of water so impressive it has been nicknamed the "Everest of rivers," an enormous canyon has been carved through the rock over the course of millions of years. This imposing landscape is the result of powerful erosion and dramatic tectonic activity, but the interactions between the surface and interior processes in this part of the Himalayas have been the subject of major debate among scientists. Now, a new study provid
  
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• 'New port of call' installed at space station

  19-08-2016 16:21
  
  With more private spaceship traffic expected at the International Space Station in the coming years, two US astronauts embarked on a spacewalk Friday to install a special parking spot for them.
  
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• U.S. astronauts prepare station for commercial space taxis

  19-08-2016 16:06
  
  (Reuters) - Two NASA astronauts left the International Space Station on Friday for a 6-1/2-hour spacewalk to install a parking spot for upcoming commercial space taxis, which will end U.S. reliance on Russia for rides to the orbiting outpost.
  
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• This purple googly-eyed squid is like nothing you've seen before

  19-08-2016 15:45
  
  A stubby squid was spotted off the coast of California.
  
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