Science news

• Pluto's 'Heart' Hints at Deep, Underground Ocean

  23-09-2016 23:50
  
  A new simulation of how Pluto got its "heart" suggests that the dwarf planet most likely has a deep ocean beneath its surface. Scientists have long suspected that Pluto has liquid water hidden underground. When New Horizons flew past Pluto in July 2015 and beamed its observations back to Earth, scientists found evidence suggesting that Pluto had water at some point.
  
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• UN mulls whether to lift global ivory ban or tighten elephant protections

  23-09-2016 23:31 via cbc.ca
  
  The fate of the elephant hangs in the balance this weekend as the UN body that regulates trade in endangered species gathers in South Africa.
  
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• Elephant ivory trade under scrutiny at upcoming wildlife conference

  23-09-2016 23:31 via cbc.ca
  
  The fate of the elephant hangs in the balance this weekend as the international body that regulates trade in endangered species gathers in South Africa.
  
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• Warplanes bomb Aleppo after Syrian army launches offensive

  23-09-2016 23:23
  By Ellen Francis and Tom Perry BEIRUT (Reuters) - Warplanes bombed Aleppo on Friday with what residents described as unprecedented ferocity after the Russian-backed Syrian army announced an offensive to fully capture Syria's biggest city, killing off any hope of reviving a ceasefire. "What's happening now is annihilation in every sense of the word," he told Reuters.
  
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• A salty sea could lurk beneath the heart of Pluto

  23-09-2016 23:00
  
  An ocean more than 100 kilometers thick might hide beneath Pluto’s surface.
  
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• New era of human embryo gene editing begins

  23-09-2016 22:30
  
  Gene editing of viable human embryos is happening, in and out of the public eye.
  
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• Seeing into the Distant Past with Mobile Astronomy Apps

  23-09-2016 22:04
  
  Did you know that if you gaze up at a clear evening sky, you're actually looking into the past? Even with the naked eye, you can see starlight that was emitted years — or even centuries — ago. And if you know where to look, you can see galaxies so far away that their light has been traveling since before humans walked the Earth. Add the magnifying power of a telescope, and you'll journey to the time when dinosaurs lived. In this edition of Mobile Astronomy, we'll travel the celestial
  
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• How SpaceX's 2018 'Red Dragon' Mission Could Help NASA Put Boots on Mars

  23-09-2016 22:04
  
  The California-based company aims to launch one of its uncrewed Dragon capsules toward the Red Planet in May 2018, to test out some of the technologies needed to make SpaceX's ambitious Mars-colonization goal a reality. No Red Planet effort has ever relied upon supersonic retropropulsion.
  
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• Four NASA Satellites Set Record for Formation Flying in Space

  23-09-2016 22:04
  
  Four individual satellites of NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale mission (MMS) recently set a record for the closest flying formation ever achieved by a multi-craft space mission to date. 
  
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• SpaceX blast investigation suggests breach in oxygen tank's helium system

  23-09-2016 21:55
  
  DALLAS (Reuters) - A SpaceX rocket that burst into flames on its launch pad at the beginning of this month likely suffered a large breach in its upper-stage helium system, the company said on Friday.
  
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• What We Need to Know Before Landing Astronauts on Mars

  23-09-2016 21:49
  
  Elon Musk and his SpaceX rocketeers are blueprinting a plan to land humans on Mars in 2025 and to land payloads onto the Red Planet's surface at each 26 month opportunity starting in 2018. The report, now in draft form, is called "Essential Precursor Activities for a Near-Term Human Mars Mission." It is the output from an independent virtual panel of researchers sponsored by Ceres Robotics of Montara, California. The exercise had neither encouragement nor approval from SpaceX nor NASA.
  
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• Colorful demise of a sun-like star

  23-09-2016 21:49
  Our sun will eventually burn out and shroud itself with stellar debris, but not for another 5 billion years.
  
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• Team compares effectiveness of four PD-L1 tests

  23-09-2016 21:24
  In a recent study, a research team compared the performance of the four available PD-L1 assay tests. They found that one of the assays failed to reveal comparable levels of PD-L1, a tumor-promoting protein, while three others revealed comparable levels.
  
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• Five Canadian communities threatened by climate change now

  23-09-2016 20:10 via cbc.ca
  
  CBC Radio's Day 6 kicks off its fall season with Facing the Change, a special series profiling five communities in Canada facing serious threats from climate change right now.
  
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• Ice Man, Ötzi: A treacherous murder with links to Central Italy

  23-09-2016 20:01
  The copper used to make Ötzi's axe blade did not come from the Alpine region as had previously been supposed, but from ore mined in southern Tuscany. Ötzi was probably not involved in working the metal himself, as the high levels of arsenic and copper found in his hair had, until now, led us to assume. His murder over 5,000 years ago seems to have been brought about due to a personal conflict a few days before his demise, and the man from the ice, despite his normal weight and active l
  
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• How to protect yourself after the Yahoo email hack, whether you use Yahoo or not

  23-09-2016 18:56 via cbc.ca
  
  If you have a Yahoo email address, or ever had one in the past, you could be affected by a massive hack of half a billion accounts. Here's what you can do to protect yourself.
  
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• Morocco, seeking support for Western Sahara plan, asks to rejoin African bloc

  23-09-2016 18:40
  Morocco has applied to rejoin the African Union 32 years after it left, the bloc said on Friday, as the North African kingdom seeks support for its plan to end a decades-old row over Western Sahara. Morocco, which claims the sparsely populated stretch of desert, left the African Union in 1984 when the bloc recognised a republic covering part of the territory declared by Polisario Front independence fighters. Morocco submitted its letter of intention to rejoin the union on Thursday, the AU said i
  
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• Greenland rising as ice melts

  23-09-2016 18:37
  A new study on the Greenland Ice Sheet provides valuable insight on climate change, using unique research methods to establish new estimates of ice loss for both modern and ancient times, says geologists.
  
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• 80-Day Mock Mars Mission Begins Saturday in Utah

  23-09-2016 18:32
  
  Seven explorers are about to embark upon an 80-day simulated mission to Mars. On Saturday (Sept. 24), the crewmembers of the Mars 80 mission — who hail from France, Japan, Russia, Australia, India and Canada — will begin work at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), a facility in the Utah desert run by the nonprofit Mars Society. Crewmembers will also test out spacesuit technologies and other gear that could help humanity get a foothold on the Red Planet, Mars Society represe
  
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• Melatonin, biological clock keep singing fish on time

  23-09-2016 18:26
  In the 1980s, people living on houseboats in the San Francisco Bay were puzzled by a droning hum of unknown origin that started abruptly in the late evening and stopped suddenly in the morning. A lengthy investigation revealed the culprit: male plainfin midshipman fish (Porichthys notatus) that sing at night to attract mates. The fish, which can grow to 15 inches in length, live along the Pacific coast from Alaska to Baja, California.
  
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• Engineers create room-temperature multiferroic material

  23-09-2016 18:22
  Multiferroics -- materials that exhibit both magnetic and electric order -- are of interest for next-generation computing but difficult to create because the conditions conducive to each of those states are usually mutually exclusive. And in most multiferroics found to date, their respective properties emerge only at extremely low temperatures. Now researchers have combined two non-multiferroic materials, using the best attributes of both to create a new room-temperature multiferroic.
  
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• Violence against police officers can trigger increased discrimination in police stops

  23-09-2016 18:10
  Incidents of extreme violence against police officers can lead to periods of substantially increased racial disparities in the use of force by police, new research indicates.
  
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• Scientists find twisting 3-D raceway for electrons in nanoscale crystal slices

  23-09-2016 18:10
  An exotic 3-D racetrack for electrons in ultrathin slices of a crystal has been observed for the first time, by a group of researchers. The ultimate goal of this research is to approach the lossless conduction of another class of materials, known as superconductors, but without the need for the extreme, freezing temperatures that superconductors require.
  
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• Science can shape healthy city planning

  23-09-2016 18:10
  The health gains achieved if cities were designed so that shops, facilities, work and public transportation were within walking distance of most residents have now been quantified by researchers. In a series of articles, researchers tackle how to implement timely research into city design, planning and policy to improve the health of a city’s residents.
  
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• Associating Colors with Letters: Clues to Synesthesia

  23-09-2016 17:54
  People with an unusual condition called synesthesia, which makes them experience a "mixing" of their senses, may automatically form stronger mental links between the sound of a word and the image that word conjures up in their mind, according to a small new study. For example, a person with synesthesia might always perceive the letter "Y" as blue or yellow, even when that individual sees it in black print. "There's been a debate about synesthesia," study co-author Dr. Krish Sathian, a neurologis
  
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• It's time to retire the five-second rule

  23-09-2016 17:53
  
  Wet food can slurp bacteria off the floor in less than a second.
  
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• A Look at Holiday Weight Gain in 3 Countries

  23-09-2016 17:52
  Holiday weight gain isn't unique to the United States: A new analysis finds that people in Germany and Japan also pack on pounds during festive seasons. In the study, which was published today (Sept. 21) in the New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers gave wireless digital scales to nearly 3,000 participants in Germany, Japan and the United States. People in all three countries gained weight, on average, around Christmas, according to the study.
  
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• Eggo Waffle Recall: How To Find Listeria

  23-09-2016 17:48
  Kellogg announced on Monday that it is recalling approximately 10,000 cases of Eggo Nutri-Grain Whole Wheat Waffles due to possible contamination with the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes. There are several ways that bacteria such as Listeria can get into food products, said Benjamin Chapman, a food safety specialist and an associate professor at North Carolina State University. One way is if the bacteria make their way into the food-processing plant, Chapman said.
  
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• Men with Vasectomies Can Still Spread Zika Via Sex, Report Suggests

  23-09-2016 17:47
  A man in Spain may have passed the Zika virus to his wife through sex, even though he'd previously had a vasectomy, according to a new report of the case. The 53-year-old man and his 51-year-old wife had gone on vacation to the Maldives islands in the Indian Ocean in early February this year, the report said. In men who've undergone a vasectomy, sperm from the testes cannot make their way into semen.
  
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• Fat Flora? Gut Bacteria Differ in Obese Kids

  23-09-2016 17:45
  Obese children have a different population of microorganisms living in their intestinal tracts, compared with lean children, researchers have found. The study is the first to find a connection between the gut microbiota and fat distribution in children. The gut microorganisms in obese children are similar to those seen in previous studies of obese adults, providing evidence that bacteria play a role in excess weight gain starting at an an early age.
  
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• The Science of Boredom

  23-09-2016 17:43
  Although boredom is as familiar a feeling as excitement or fear, science has only begun to understand what makes people bored. Recently, six scientists who emerged after living for a year in isolation on the Mauna Loa volcano as part of the HI-SEAS (Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation) experiment, which simulated the isolation that future space travelers might experience traveling to and living on Mars, said that boredom was their biggest challenge. Boredom "has been understudied unti
  
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• Book on astronaut Tim Peake's space adventures 'chock-full of awe and wonder'

  23-09-2016 17:40
  
  The title is based on the time Tim Peake misdialled a 79-year-old lady’s number by mistake from space.
  
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• Stronger turbine blades with molybdenum silicides

  23-09-2016 17:20
  Molybdenum silicides can improve the efficiency of turbine blades in ultrahigh-temperature combustion systems, researchers have discovered.
  
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• Twitter shares jump more than 21% on report of takeover talks

  23-09-2016 16:15 via cbc.ca
  
  Shares in social media company Twitter jumped by more than 21 per cent on Friday after a report that Google's parent company may be considering buying it.
  
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• Twitter shares jump more than 20% on report of takeover talks

  23-09-2016 16:15 via cbc.ca
  
  Shares in social media company Twitter jumped by more than 20 per cent on Friday after a report that Google's parent company may be considering buying it.
  
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• Oxygen levels were key to early animal evolution, strongest evidence now shows

  23-09-2016 16:07
  It has long puzzled scientists why, after 3 billion years of nothing more complex than algae, complex animals suddenly started to appear on Earth. Now, a team of researchers has put forward some of the strongest evidence yet to support the hypothesis that high levels of oxygen in the oceans were crucial for the emergence of skeletal animals 550 million years ago.
  
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• How to power up graphene implants without frying cells

  23-09-2016 16:05
  In the future, our health may be monitored and maintained by tiny sensors and drug dispensers, deployed within the body and made from graphene -- one of the strongest, lightest materials in the world. Graphene is composed of a single sheet of carbon atoms, linked together like razor-thin chicken wire, and its properties may be tuned in countless ways, making it a versatile material for tiny, next-generation implants.
  
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• Bombardment of rebel-held Aleppo areas kills 70 - Civil defence chief

  23-09-2016 16:03
  BEIRUT (Reuters) - Heavy bombardment of rebel-held areas of eastern Aleppo has killed more than 70 people and has destroyed at least 40 buildings since Friday morning, Ammar al Selmo, the head of civil defence there, told Reuters. Warplanes targeted rebel-held districts of Aleppo in a second day of intense bombardment on Friday after the Syrian army declared an offensive to fully capture what was Syria's biggest city before the war. (Reporting by Ellen Francis; Editing by Gareth Jones)
  
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• Earth's Atmospheric Oxygen Levels Continue Long Slide

  23-09-2016 15:57
  
  Atmospheric oxygen levels have declined over the past 1 million years, although not nearly enough to trigger any major problems for life on Earth, a new study finds. Atmospheric oxygen levels are fundamentally linked to the evolution of life on Earth, as well as changes in geochemical cycles related to climate variations. As such, scientists have long sought to reconstruct how atmospheric oxygen levels fluctuated in the past, and what might control these shifts.
  
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• Chromium-6 in Tap Water: Why the 'Erin Brockovich' Chemical Is Dangerous

  23-09-2016 15:55
  Nearly 200 million Americans across all 50 states have been exposed through their tap water to higher-than-recommended levels of chromium-6, a cancer-causing chemical, according to a new report. Chromium-6 was made famous in the 2000 biographical film "Erin Brockovich," starring Julia Roberts as the titular activist. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the two most common forms of chromium found in water are trivalent chromium (chromium-3) and hexavalent chromium (chromium-6)
  
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• Male Widow Spiders Survive Sex by Mounting Immature Virgins

  23-09-2016 15:53
  
  Scientists recently discovered that widow spider males Latrodectus hasselti and Latrodectus geometricus prefer to mate with females that are not yet sexually mature but which still have internal structures that are capable of storing sperm, which the males access by piercing the female's exoskeleton. Sexual cannibalism is common in widow spiders, but males mating with immature females to avoid being cannibalized is behavior that was previously unheard of, the researchers wrote in a new study. St
  
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• Automated screening for childhood communication disorders

  23-09-2016 15:53
  For children with speech and language disorders, early-childhood intervention can make a great difference in their later academic and social success. But many such children -- one study estimates 60 percent -- go undiagnosed until kindergarten or even later.
  
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• To produce biopharmaceuticals on demand, just add water

  23-09-2016 15:46
  Researchers have created tiny freeze-dried pellets that include all of the molecular machinery needed to translate DNA into proteins, which could form the basis for on-demand production of drugs and vaccines.
  
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• Landmark map reveals the genetic wiring of cellular life

  23-09-2016 15:44
  A new map breaks away from the old way of studying genes one at a time, showing how genes interact in groups to shed light on the genetic roots of diseases.
  
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• Putting pants on rats and walking like a goat net scientists Ig Nobel awards

  23-09-2016 15:38 via cbc.ca
  
  A Swede who wrote a trilogy about collecting bugs, an Egyptian doctor who put pants on rats to study their sex lives and a British researcher who lived like an animal have been named winners of the Ig Nobels, the annual spoof prizes for quirky scientific achievement.
  
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• Vitamin B levels during pregnancy linked to eczema risk in child

  23-09-2016 15:29
  Infants whose mothers had a higher level of a particular type of vitamin B during pregnancy have a lower risk of eczema at age 12 months, new research has shown. The study is the first to link maternal serum levels of nicotinamide, a naturally occurring vitamin, and related metabolites to the risk of atopic eczema in the child.
  
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• 'Man-goat' among winners of spoof Nobel prizes

  23-09-2016 14:49
  
  A man who lived as a goat in the Alps and a scientist who studied how pants affect the sex drive of rodents are among this year's spoof Nobel prizes.
  
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• Pediatric atopic dermatitis may benefit from early immune intervention

  23-09-2016 14:38
  An association between pediatric eczema and large abnormalities in non-lesional skin and multi T lymphocyte axes activation has been uncovered by researchers.
  
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• Caspian terns discovered nesting 1,000 miles farther to the north than ever recorded in Alaska

  23-09-2016 14:38
  In the late summer of 2016, a field team monitored Caspian tern chicks through to fledging in Cape Krusenstern National Monument in Alaska. This discovery of Caspian terns breeding above the Arctic Circle in the Chukchi Sea is nearly 1,000 miles farther north than previously recorded – a strikingly large jump in the range of nesting for this (or any) species.
  
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• Apple, lettuce can remedy garlic breath

  23-09-2016 14:38
  Garlic -- consumers either love or hate the taste, but one thing is for certain, no one likes it when the scent of it sticks around on their breath. Now, garlic lovers may have a new solution to their halitosis problem. A study has found that eating raw apple or lettuce may help reduce garlic breath.
  
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