Science news

• Political bots spread misinformation, rhetoric during U.S. campaign

  07-11-2016 23:57 via cbc.ca
  
  Many Americans (and Canadians) have turned to social media for analysis and commentary during this year's U.S. election. But much of the online conversation hasn't come from humans. Instead, a significant number of social media posts are generated by robots.
  
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• Political bots spread misinformation during U.S. campaign

  07-11-2016 23:57 via cbc.ca
  
  Many Americans (and Canadians) have turned to social media for analysis and commentary during this year's U.S. election. But much of the online conversation hasn't come from humans. Instead, a significant number of social media posts are generated by robots.
  
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• Martian Samples Risk Earth Contamination in Search for Life

  07-11-2016 23:43
  
  NASA's upcoming Mars 2020 rover is designed not only to hunt for signs of life on the Red Planet, but also to collect samples that might one day get returned to Earth. However, whereas Curiosity sought to find out how habitable Mars once was — that is, how capable it was of supporting life as it is known on Earth — "the motivating aspect of the Mars 2020 mission is astrobiology: to look for biosignatures, the signatures of life," according to Kenneth Farley, a project scientist for t
  
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• High-Flying NASA Mission Sets New GPS World Record

  07-11-2016 23:43
  
  A NASA mission's GPS prowess is now part of the record books: The Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission just broke a Guinness World Record for highest altitude fix of a GPS signal. The four MMS satellites set the new space record by using GPS navigation at an altitude of 43,500 miles (70,000 kilometers) above Earth's surface. The satellites use GPS, which is a navigation system that pinpoints locations by checking in with devoted satellites in orbit, to stay in a tight flying formation as they
  
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• Most illegal ivory is less than three years old

  07-11-2016 23:00
  
  Most of the ivory seized by law enforcement in the last decade doesn’t come from elephants poached many years ago.
  
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• Most seized elephant ivory comes from recent poaching, study finds

  07-11-2016 22:50 via cbc.ca
  
  Seized illicit shipments of elephant ivory are almost entirely made up of tusks fromrecently poached animals rather than siphoned from government stockpiles, scientists using a forensic technique reported on Monday.
  
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• Why Are Thousands of Snowballs Popping Up on a Siberian Beach?

  07-11-2016 22:25
  
  The best place to stock up on ammo may be a beach in Siberia, where thousands of huge, perfectly round snowballs are piling up, according to news reports. Villagers near the Gulf of Ob in Siberia discovered the snowballs along an 11-mile (18 kilometers) stretch of the beach, reported the Siberian Times. According to news reports, the snowballs first formed in late October, after water in the Gulf of Ob rose and covered the beach in ice.
  
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• Cosmic clue to UK coastal erosion

  07-11-2016 22:05 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Recent centuries have seen a big jump in the rates of erosion in the iconic chalk cliffs on England’s south coast, a new study finds.
  
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• Antibody protects against Zika virus in tests in mice

  07-11-2016 21:47
  
  A new treatment for Zika relies on human antibodies and can help protect pregnant mice from the virus’s damaging effects.
  
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• Tesla to end unlimited free use of supercharging stations

  07-11-2016 21:16 via cbc.ca
  
  Electric car maker Tesla Motors has decided to stop offering unlimited free use of its 734 fast charging stations worldwide, just months before it's scheduled to start selling a mass-market electric car.
  
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• Justin Trudeau announces $1.5B ocean protection plan

  07-11-2016 21:03 via cbc.ca
  
  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced a $1.5-billion ocean protection plan for responding to tanker and fuel spills in the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans. This follows a fuel spill from a sunken tug on the B.C. coast last month and proposed marine traffic increases if pipeline projects are approved.
  
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• At UN climate talks, members try not to 'over-emphasize the importance of Donald Trump'

  07-11-2016 20:56 via cbc.ca
  
  Almost 200 nations began work on Monday to turn promises for fighting climate change into action at a U.N. conference that played down threats to a 2015 global agreement if Republican Donald Trump wins the U.S. presidency.
  
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• The Problems with Poor Ballot Design

  07-11-2016 20:30 via rss.sciam.com
  
  A Q&A with psychologist Philip Kortum
  -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
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• Pollution near equator has biggest impact on global ozone levels, study finds

  07-11-2016 20:29 via cbc.ca
  
  When it comes to air pollution, a new study has found countries close to the equator do more damage than their northern neighbours, even when those in the tropics produce fewer emissions.
  
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• 'I voted from space': Lone American off planet casts ballot

  07-11-2016 20:10
  
  The lone American off the planet has cast his vote from space, keeping with NASA's motto of "Vote while you float." NASA said Monday that astronaut Shane Kimbrough filed his ballot in Tuesday's ...
  
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• Researchers listen under the ice for fish-distracting sounds

  07-11-2016 19:12 via cbc.ca
  
  The ice is starting to form on Great Slave Lake, and a recent paper shows that creatures living under the ice can hear what we do above it.
  
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• This hyperrealistic art installation is the Mars trip you've been dreaming of all your life

  07-11-2016 18:58
  
  You’ll also see Bridget – the prototype rover Tim Peake remotely controlled from the ISS.
  
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• NASA to Launch 'Swarms' of Small, Earth-Observing Satellites

  07-11-2016 18:57
  
  NASA plans to launch a suite of tiny, next-generation satellites into Earth's orbit to study weather patterns and climate change. The space agency hosted a teleconference today (Nov. 7) from its headquarters in Washington, D.C., to discuss some of the new small satellites, or "smallsats," that will launch in the coming months. Ellen Stofan, chief scientist at NASA Headquarters, explained that small satellites can reduce the costs of space-based Earth observations.
  
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• Algeria's Bouteflika in France for medical check-up - state media

  07-11-2016 18:33
  Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has been seen only occasionally in public since suffering a stroke in 2013, left on Monday for a periodic medical checkup in France, the presidency said in a statement carried by APS state media. Bouteflika, 79, has visited hospital in Europe several times since his illness, which left him hospitalised in France for months. The veteran of Algeria's 1954-62 independence war has governed the North African OPEC state for more than 15 years.
  
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• CRTC wants phone companies to offer tools to help block telemarketers

  07-11-2016 18:32 via cbc.ca
  
  The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission said Monday it is giving telecom companies 90 days to come up with 'technical solutions … to block illegitimate nuisance calls within their networks.'
  
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• Supersolids produced in exotic state of quantum matter

  07-11-2016 18:23
  
  Bose-Einstein condensates display properties of liquid and solid simultaneously.
  
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• Play-Doh goes digital: Experts urge parents to tune in as playtime and screen time merge

  07-11-2016 18:15 via cbc.ca
  
  Nostalgic brands like Play-Doh and Pokémon are bringing the experiences of traditional and digital playtime together, raising yet another question for parents trying to manage their children's relationship with technology.
  
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• Is blending playtime and screen time good for our kids?

  07-11-2016 18:15 via cbc.ca
  
  Nostalgic brands like Play-Doh and Pokémon are bringing the experiences of traditional and digital playtime together, raising yet another question for parents trying to manage their children's relationship with technology.
  
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• Iran's foreign minister is first to meet Lebanon's new president

  07-11-2016 17:50
  Iran's Mohammad Javad Zarif on Monday became the first foreign minister to meet Lebanon's new president, a move that underscored Tehran's tussle for influence in Beirut with its regional arch rival Saudi Arabia. A Christian leader and close ally of Lebanon's Iran-backed Shi'ite Muslim group Hezbollah who was elected president last week, Aoun also met an envoy sent by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad earlier in the day.
  
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• Inside Ireland's Oldest Grave, an 'Exceptional' Find

  07-11-2016 17:40
  
  Ireland's oldest human grave has become even more exceptional for one of its contents: The oldest polished ax on record in Europe was likely created solely for a burial, archaeologists say. The finding sheds new light on the beliefs and complex funerary rituals of the early Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who lived in Ireland about 9,500 years ago, from about 7530 B.C., the researchers said. "This type of insight into burial practices is incredibly rare for this part of the world," the study's lead
  
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• First-Ever Dinosaur Brain Tissue Found

  07-11-2016 17:40
  
  What was going on in dinosaurs' noggins as they dwelled in Cretaceous forests, stalking fierce prey or sitting on a nest of giant eggs? Paleontologists may never know the answer to these questions, but they just got one step closer with the first-ever discovery of brain tissue from a dinosaur. Discovering any soft tissue from a dinosaur is rare since that material degrades faster than other types of tissue, and dinosaurs lived more than 66 million years ago.
  
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• Weird 'Gravity' Waves Above Antarctica Caused by Ice Vibrations

  07-11-2016 17:39
  
  Stretching between Antarctica and the Ross Sea, the Ross Ice Shelf is the world’s largest body of ice. Since ice thickness is one factor that determines the size of the resulting atmospheric ripples, scientists could someday use measurements in the air disruptions to monitor the Ross Ice Shelf, said lead study author Oleg Godin, a professor of physics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. The atmospheric waves, also sometimes referred to as gravity waves, were found in
  
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• Mistaken Identity? Debate Over Ancient 4-Legged Snake Heats Up

  07-11-2016 17:39
  
  "Tetrapodophis doesn't show any of those features that you would expect to see in a snake," said Michael Caldwell, a professor and chair of biological sciences at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, who is leading the new investigation into the enigmatic fossil. For instance, Tetrapodophis amplectus doesn't have hooked teeth like a snake does, nor does it have a snake-like skull and skeleton, Caldwell said. It's unclear exactly how dolichosaurids are related to snakes, but some eviden
  
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• Shiny! NASA Shares a New Icy Arctic View

  07-11-2016 17:38
  
  Satellite photos of Earth against the dark backdrop of space inspired the nickname "the blue marble," referring to the expanses of ocean that cover 71 percent of the planet's surface. In an image shared online today (Oct. 28) by NASA's Earth Observatory, the Arctic is front and center, showcasing the region of the planet covered by varying amounts of ice year-round. NASA scientists created the image to commemorate the first meeting of an international consortium of scientists planning global par
  
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• 295-Million-Year-Old Frog Relative Immaculately Preserved in Fossil

  07-11-2016 17:38
  
  The amphibian was still in its larval stage when it died (in frogs, this creature's distant relatives, the larval phase is known as the tadpole stage), and it expired on its back, belly-up, said study lead researcher Johan Gren, a doctoral student of geology at Lund University in Sweden.
  
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• Ancient 'Seal' Used Pool-Ball-Size Eyes for Deep-Sea Hunting

  07-11-2016 17:37
  
  The seal-like creature is also the youngest known member of Desmatophocidae, a prehistoric family of pinnipeds that went extinct during the Miocene epoch (23 million to 5.3 million years ago), the researchers said. "Desmatophocids are probably the only major group of pinnipeds that have completely gone extinct," said study lead author Robert Boessenecker, an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Geology and Environmental Geosciences at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. At 8.2 feet (2.
  
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• Jackpot! Hiker Discovers Ancient Reptile Footprints Near Las Vegas

  07-11-2016 17:36
  
  The ancient environment preserved this creature's footprints in a fossilized trackway that researchers are calling Chelichnus gigas. That's because like many four-legged (or tetrapodal) animals, this ancient critter's back feet would have stepped directly on top of the freshly made footprints of its front feet, meaning that the front footprints are obscured by the back ones, said study lead researcher Stephen Rowland, a professor of geology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "The hind footp
  
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• How One Man Fought Off a Great White Shark

  07-11-2016 17:34
  
  Joe Tanner was paddling on his surfboard off the Oregon coast, waiting to catch a wave, when he felt something grab his leg. It was a scenario any surfer or beachgoer would dread: Tanner looked down to find a toothy great white shark. "I remember thinking, 'Thank God I made it to shore,'" Tanner told Live Science.
  
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• An Entire Ecosystem of Creepy-Crawlies May Lurk in Your Home

  07-11-2016 17:34
  
  A new analysis of the insects, spiders and other creepy-crawlies in homes across the United States reveals that the Turkestan cockroach (Shelfordella lateralis), a small introduced species native to Asia, has spread beyond homes in the U.S. South and West and now lives in Northeastern homes, too. The researchers also found a wide diversity of indoor arthropods, a group of animals with exoskeletons that includes insects and spiders. Three factors that were linked with more diversity included livi
  
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• Every US River Visualized in One Glorious Map

  07-11-2016 17:33
  
  A new, unforgettable image is revealing how water flows through every river basin in the United States. The new map was created by geographer Robert Szucs, who goes by the username Fejetlenfej on the image curation site Imgur. For instance, the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, which meet up near St. Louis, Missouri, are painted pink, while the Colorado River shows up in vibrant yellow.
  
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• Southern Hemisphere recovered faster from dino strike

  07-11-2016 17:27 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Life in the southern hemisphere appears to have recovered more quickly than expected from the asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs.
  
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• Samsung Galaxy J5 phone reported to have caught fire, exploded

  07-11-2016 17:18 via cbc.ca
  
  A Samsung phone user in France says her Galaxy J5 smartphone caught fire and exploded on Sunday. The model is different from the Galaxy Note 7 that has been recalled worldwide.
  
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• What Trump or Clinton Would Mean for Space: Experts Weigh In

  07-11-2016 17:00
  
  Ahead of tomorrow's presidential election, some voters may wonder what each candidate will do for America's space program. The president of the United States has a substantial influence on NASA's leadership, budget and program direction. The president nominates the NASA administrator and deputy administrator (the top two leadership positions in the agency).
  
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• British Airways shrinking seat space to increase capacity on Boeing 777 economy flights

  07-11-2016 16:36
  British Airways is planning to increase the number of seats on its Boeing 777 economy class flights from 280 to 332, by adding an extra seat per row. Currently passengers find nine economy seats per row, but the new proposals would mean shrinking seating space to create 10 seats per row and an extra 52 seats in the cabin.
  
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• Astronaut Don Pettit's 'Spaceborne' Offers Other-Worldly Look at Earth

  07-11-2016 16:26
  
  Three things have primarily changed how we see Earth in photographs from the International Space Station. The third was NASA astronaut Don Pettit. A photography enthusiast since he was a student in grade school, Pettit extended his passion to his perch 250 miles (400 km) above the planet as a flight engineer onboard the space station.
  
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• Oldest Megamouth Shark on Record Had Chipped Tooth

  07-11-2016 16:13
  
  Based on that tooth, paleontologists have been able to name a previously unknown ancient species of megamouth shark, one that's related to the modern but rarely seen megamouth shark, Megachasma pelagios, the researchers said. The newfound species, called Megachasma alisonae, is the oldest megamouth shark on record, and pushes back the existence of megamouth sharks by 13 million years, said the study's lead researcher Kenshu Shimada, a paleobiologist at DePaul University in Chicago. The dist
  
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• World's Oldest Stone Tablet Containing Ten Commandments Up for Auction

  07-11-2016 16:10
  
  Thou shalt not covet … unless you are coveting the world's oldest known example of a stone tablet inscribed with the Ten Commandments. The world's oldest slab with the Decalogue will be up for auction until Nov. 16 in Beverly Hills, California. The 2-foot-long (60 centimeters), 200-lb. (90 kilograms) marble slab, dubbed the "Living Torah," is likely 1,500 to 1,700 years old, according to Heritage Autions, which is running the auction.
  
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• Cancer-Causing List: 7 New Substances Added by US

  07-11-2016 15:43
  
  Six of these substances are listed as "known" to cause cancer, while one is "reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen," according to a statement today (Nov. 3) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Five of the new substances on the list are viruses, and all of those are among the "known carcinogens," the NIH says. The viruses include human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1, Epstein-Barr virus, Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpesvirus, Merkel cell polyomavirus and human immunodeficienc
  
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• Turns Out, Faking a Smile Might Not Make You Happier After All

  07-11-2016 15:42
  
  The hypothesis, called the facial-feedback hypothesis, dates back to a 1988 study in which participants rated the humor of cartoons while inadvertently mimicking either a smile or a pout. The failure of an idea to hold up in a replication study, however, rarely settles the question of whether or not a result is valid. The originator of the facial-feedback hypothesis, psychologist Fritz Strack of the University of Würzburg in Germany, argued that the replication study changed enough of his o
  
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• What Makes an Earworm So Catchy?

  07-11-2016 15:40
  
  For examples, those "unusual intervals or repetitions" can be heard in the opening riff of "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple or in the chorus of "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga, Jakubowski said. Among the top tunes that people listed as earworms were "Bad Romance" and "Can't Get You Out of My Head" by Kylie Minogue, the researchers found. Once the researchers had a list of common earworms, they compared these tunes with other songs that, though they reached similar levels of popularity and were rel
  
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• Pap Smear Early in Pregnancy Could Reveal Genetic Disorders Earlier

  07-11-2016 15:40
  
  Prenatal screening for genetic disorders could be done as early as five weeks into a pregnancy with a simple Pap smear, according to a small new study. Current methods for screening fetuses for genetic disorders are more invasive, and cannot be used until a woman is nine to 12 weeks pregnant, the researchers said. The new findings suggest that Pap smears could one day help doctors diagnose and treat babies with genetic diseases, the researchers said in their study, published today (Nov. 2) in th
  
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• Did Too Many Energy Drinks Trigger Man's Liver Problems?

  07-11-2016 15:39
  
  A 50-year-old man developed a condition called acute hepatitis after consuming energy drinks regularly for three weeks, according to a new report of the man's case. Acute hepatitis, or inflammation of the liver, can be caused by the consumption of a wide range of drugs and dietary supplements, including certain vitamins, according to the report. In some cases, the condition can lead to acute liver failure, which can be deadly.
  
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• Fighting Hunger? Plant Protein May Keep You Feeling Full Longer than Meat

  07-11-2016 15:38
  
  Eating plant protein may help keep you feeling full longer — and help you eat less at your next meal — than eating animal protein, a new study suggests. The meals varied in the protein patty and mash that was included: The first included a high-protein meat patty and a potato mash, the second had a high-protein patty that was made from legumes (a plant group that includes beans and lentils) and a split pea mash, and the third had a low-protein legume patty with a combination split pe
  
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• These photos show just how terrifying the toxic smog in New Delhi looks right now

  07-11-2016 15:31
  
  The Indian capital is believed to be grappling one of the worst air pollution scenarios in 17 years.
  
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• Secret German World War II Base Rediscovered Near North Pole

  07-11-2016 15:30
  The remains of a secret World War II German base have been rediscovered on an island near the North Pole by a team of Russian researchers. The wartime "Schatzgrabber" ("Treasure Hunter" in German) weather station was built by the German military in 1943 on Alexandra Land, one of the isolated Franz Josef Land islands in the Barents Sea, located more than 680 miles (1,100 kilometers) north of the Russian city of Arkhangelsk. "This summer in the Arctic was very warm, so the entire area of Schatzgra
  
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