Science news

• Shape-shifters found in the Belt Supergroup: Revelations about Tappania plana

  25-09-2016 20:29
  The rise of eukaryotic organisms (organisms with complex cells, or a single cell with a complex structure) is still a mystery, but researchers have compelling evidence that Tappania plana may represent one of the earliest eukaryotic fossils. Well-preserved Tappania plana fossils from a Montana field site could be a crown-group eukaryote, providing one of the first links from this period in the fossil record to extant eukaryotes.
  
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• China just started operating the world's largest radio telescope - and it's pretty epic

  25-09-2016 19:58
  
  Could this be the operation that finally discovers alien life? Chinese scientists are making their mark in the global hunt.
  
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• Stephen Hawking Is Still Afraid of Aliens

  25-09-2016 18:19
  
  Humanity should be wary of seeking out contact with alien civilizations, Stephen Hawking has warned once again. In 2010, the famed astrophysicist said that intelligent aliens may be rapacious marauders, roaming the cosmos in search of resources to plunder and planets to conquer and colonize. "One day, we might receive a signal from a planet like this," Hawking says in the documentary, referring to a potentially habitable alien world known as Gliese 832c.
  
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• Raids kill nine in central Yemen - medical official, residents

  25-09-2016 17:35
  Arab coalition air strikes killed nine people in Houthi-controlled Ibb city in central Yemen late on Saturday, a hospital manager and residents in the area told Reuters. Abdul Malik Al-Sanani, the manager of the city's al-Thawra Hospital, told Reuters: "Nine civilians were killed, and another nine were wounded, treated and discharged from the hospital." Residents said the nine dead in the attack on several areas of the city and its outskirts included three children and their parents. The coaliti
  
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• Giant radio telescope begins search for alien life in outer space

  25-09-2016 16:53
  The world's largest radio telescope has begun searching for signs of extra-terrestrial life in outer space. The £138m dish, which began operating on Sunday, measures 500 metres in diameter and took five years to construct in China's Guizhou region. As well as searching for signs of intelligent life outside the galaxy, the dish will observe distant pulsars - tiny, rapidly spinning neutron stars believed to be the products of supernova explosions.
  
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• Warplanes pound Syria's Aleppo, U.N. security council to meet

  25-09-2016 16:21
  By Suleiman Al-Khalidi AMMAN (Reuters) - Warplanes bombed a strategic camp on the northern edge of Aleppo on Sunday as Syrian government and rebel forces battled for control of the city in a Russian-backed offensive that appears to have buried any hope for diplomacy. The United Nations Security Council will meet at 11 a.m. (1500 GMT) to discuss the sharp escalation in violence since a ceasefire collapsed last week. Capturing the rebel-held half of Syria's largest city, where more than 250,000 ci
  
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• Sugar industry sought to sugarcoat causes of heart disease

  25-09-2016 15:00
  
  Sugar industry has long, sweet history of influencing science.
  
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• New report confirms grim outlook for elephants

  25-09-2016 13:55 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Elephant populations in Africa have declined by around 111,000 over the past ten years according to a new study presented at the Cites meeting in South Africa.
  
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• India to ratify Paris Agreement on climate change

  25-09-2016 13:29
  
  NEW DELHI (AP) — India's prime minister said Sunday that his country will ratify the Paris Agreement on climate change early next month.
  
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• Nuclear blasts, other human activity signal new epoch, group argues

  25-09-2016 12:00
  
  A group of scientists will formally propose the human-defined Anthropocene as a new epoch in Earth’s geologic history within a few years, probably pegging the start date to nuclear tests.
  
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• Russian and Syrian jets bomb Aleppo camp retaken by rebels

  25-09-2016 11:50
  Russian and Syrian forces bombed a strategic camp on the northern edge of Aleppo on Sunday after losing control of it overnight, both rebels and the Syrian army said. Rebels said the army used more powerful weapons in an attempt to recover Handarat, a Palestinian refugee camp a few kilometres north of the Aleppo which is on elevated ground overlooking one of the main roads into Aleppo that had been in rebel hands for years. The army which is being helped by Iranian-backed militias, Lebanon's Shi
  
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• China's colossal radio telescope begins testing

  25-09-2016 11:41 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The world's largest radio telescope has received its first signals from space and is now entering an intensive testing phase.
  
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• Fuel cells set to power up the drone industry

  25-09-2016 11:00 via cbc.ca
  
  Drones have been used for years by military organizations for intelligence gathering, surveillance, reconnaissance and striking targets. But their widespread use in commercial applications is only just starting to take off thanks to key advances in drone technology.
  
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• Coalition raids kill nine in central Yemen: medical sources, residents

  25-09-2016 08:57
  Arab coalition air strikes killed nine people in Houthi-controlled Ibb city in central Yemen late on Saturday, medical sources and residents in the area told Reuters. Nine people were also wounded in the attack on several areas of the city and its outskirts, they said, adding the nine dead included three children and their parents. A spokesman for the Saudi-led alliance of Arab countries could not immediately be contacted.
  
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• Acidity in atmosphere minimized to preindustrial levels

  25-09-2016 04:32
  New research shows that human pollution of the atmosphere with acid is now almost back to the level that it was before the pollution started with industrialization in the 1930s. The results come from studies of the Greenland ice sheet.
  
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• Pluto's 'heart' sheds light on possible buried ocean

  25-09-2016 04:24
  Ever since NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto last year, evidence has been mounting that the dwarf planet may have a liquid ocean beneath its icy shell. Now, by modeling the impact dynamics that created a massive crater on Pluto's surface, a team of researchers has made a new estimate of how thick that liquid layer might be.
  
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• Battle rages near Aleppo, air onslaught continues

  25-09-2016 04:14
  By Tom Perry BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian government and rebel forces battled for control of high ground on the Aleppo outskirts on Saturday as warplanes bombed the city's opposition-held east relentlessly in a Russian-backed offensive that has left Washington's Syria policy in tatters. In their first major ground advance of the offensive, the army and its militia allies seized control of the Handarat Palestinian refugee camp, a few kilometres north of Aleppo, only for rebels to counterattack a few
  
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• Poor food 'risks health of half the world'

  25-09-2016 03:28 via bbc.co.uk
  
  As the population grows over the next 20 years half the world will be left malnourished, an independent panel of experts on food and agriculture warns.
  
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• Grand Canyon in blue

  25-09-2016 01:38 via bbc.co.uk
  
  President Barack Obama has created the first underwater national monument off the US east coast, protecting a vast ecosystem of canyons and extinct volcanoes. It is home to thousands of rare species, but is also a source of controversy.
  
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• How to encourage hedgehogs into your garden

  25-09-2016 01:34 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A hedgehog officer explains how to help hedgehogs in your garden
  
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• Gabon opposition leader rejects ruling upholding Bongo poll win

  25-09-2016 00:06
  By Edward McAllister and Gerauds Wilfried Obangome LIBREVILLE (Reuters) - Gabon opposition leader Jean Ping on Saturday rejected what he said was an "unjust" ruling by the Constitutional Court which upheld the victory of President Ali Bongo in the Aug. 27 poll that he says was tarnished by fraud. The refusal by Ping, who says he won the presidential poll, to accept the court ruling raises the prospect of a potentially violent political crisis in the central African oil producer. The court had ag
  
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