Science news

• Holes in the Sun! One's Real, the Other Not So Much (Video)

  21-11-2016 23:30
  
  There's a huge hole in the sun, but it has nothing to do with alien spaceships or any other conspiracy theory. Last week, NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft captured an image showing a white sphere covering a small part of the sun. Happens sometimes," C. Alex Young, a heliophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said today (Nov. 21) via Twitter, where he posts information about the sun and space weather using the handle @TheSunToday.
  
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• For some early monks, impaired hearing amplified sounds of silence

  21-11-2016 23:24
  
  Middle-ear ailments probably had little impact on early Christian monks’ lives.
  
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• Cape Sharp Tidal turbine in Bay of Fundy ready to connect to the grid

  21-11-2016 22:26 via cbc.ca
  
  Cape Sharp Tidal's turbine technology will be tested on Tuesday when it is hooked up to the grid at Fundy Ocean Resource Centre in Parrsboro.
  
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• Japan hit by earthquake considered an aftershock of 2011 Fukushima disaster

  21-11-2016 22:23 via cbc.ca
  
  A powerful earthquake rocked northern Japan on Tuesday, briefly disrupting cooling functions at a nuclear plant and generating a tsunami that hit the same region devastated by a massive quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in 2011.
  
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• People are sharing glorious photos of rare and beautiful white rainbows in Scotland

  21-11-2016 21:42
  
  Fogbows were seen across certain snow-covered regions in Scotland.
  
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• Cretaceous bird find holds new color clue

  21-11-2016 21:30
  
  New molecular clues in 130-million-year-old bird fossil could help paleontologists firm up case for ancient color in dinosaurs.
  
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• Get used to heat records; study predicts far more in future

  21-11-2016 21:16
  
  WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study predicts daily heat records are going to be broken far more often than cold ones in the United States.
  
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• Researchers have found a way to send text messages using household chemicals

  21-11-2016 20:09
  
  Liquids can be made to follow binary communication protocol.
  
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• Satellite to help planes avoid turbulence

  21-11-2016 19:52 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A new weather satellite that maps cloud "waves" could help pilots avoid turbulence.
  
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• Ottawa a hotspot for wasps in North America

  21-11-2016 18:42 via cbc.ca
  
  Three-quarters of the subspecies of wasps in Canada are found in Ottawa, a new study has found.
  
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• Singer JiHAE Finds Her Inner 'Space Geek' on National Geographic 'MARS'

  21-11-2016 18:21
  
  The National Geographic Channel miniseries "MARS," about the present planning and future achievement of landing astronauts on the Red Planet, has claimed its first "victim."
  
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• Ginkgo 'living fossil' genome decoded

  21-11-2016 18:07 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The genetic code that underpins the Ginkgo tree has been laid bare by a team of researchers led from China.
  
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• Brazilian free-tailed bats are the fastest fliers

  21-11-2016 18:00
  
  Ultrafast flying by one bat species leaves birds in the dust.
  
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• NASA Probe Snaps Stunning New Pics of Dwarf Planet Ceres

  21-11-2016 16:30
  
  NASA's Dawn probe is snapping stunning new views of the dwarf planet Ceres as the spacecraft pushes ever higher above the small world. In one image, Ceres' huge Occator Crater shows its central bright region, the brightest on Ceres. Another asteroid slamming into Ceres could also cause upwelling, which is what some think happened at Occator Crater.
  
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• NASA Loans Lunar Landing 'Flying Bedstead', Shuttle Transport for Display

  21-11-2016 16:30
  
  Two NASA artifacts that were used to help astronauts who were landing from space, albeit on two different worlds in two different eras, have themselves landed at a museum near where they were last used. A Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV) that was used to practice lunar landings for NASA's Apollo program in the 1960s and a Crew Transport Vehicle (CTV) used to move astronauts from space shuttle orbiters after they landed in California in the 1990s have been loaned by the Armstrong Flight Rese
  
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• Denver to Allow Marijuana in Bars: What's the Health Impact?

  21-11-2016 16:21
  
  The city of Denver will soon allow people to smoke or consume marijuana in some bars and restaurants, thanks to the passage of a new initiative in the 2016 election. The new law, called Initiative 300, mandates a four-year pilot plan in the city that allows bar and restaurant owners to apply for permits to allow marijuana use on their premises. The measure — which could start becoming implemented in 2017, according to the Denverite — has won praise from some in the tourism industry,
  
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• Leonard Cohen's Death: What Causes Falls in the Elderly?

  21-11-2016 16:20
  
  Legendary singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen died after falling in his home, his manager has now revealed, but can falls signal poor health in older adults? "There's usually not just one thing that’s causing the problem," said Dr. Tanya Gure, a specialist in geriatric medicine at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. "[Falls] are often a sign of a medical condition, or several things that may have run amok," she said.
  
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• Work at a Desk Job? This Trick Could Boost Your Energy

  21-11-2016 16:19
  
  Here's another reason not to sit all day: Getting up from your desk for a few minutes at a time throughout the day may boost your mood and energy levels, a small new study suggests. The researchers noted that their study included only healthy people in the normal weight range, and so more research is needed to see if the findings apply to other populations, such as people who are obese.
  
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• Age of First Stroke Is Getting Younger, Study Finds

  21-11-2016 16:17
  
  Strokes are striking people in the U.S. at younger ages, a new study finds. Overall, the rates of stroke in the U.S. have gone down in the past few decades, said Chengwei Li, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and the lead author of the study. A decline in the average age of people having strokes can have big implications for public health, according to the study.
  
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• Spoil Sprouts: How Little Greens Can Make You Sick

  21-11-2016 16:15
  
  "Sprout contamination continues to pose a serious public health concern," the researchers from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wrote in their report. The arm of the FDA that wrote the new report focuses on investigating outbreaks and finding ways to prevent them. The findings on sprouts were presented on Oct. 28 at IDWeek 2016, a meeting in New Orleans of several organizations focused on infectious diseases.
  
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• Teen Depression on the Rise in US

  21-11-2016 16:08
  
  Depression is on the rise in U.S. teens, a new study finds. Between 2005 and 2014, the percentage of teens who reported having a major depressive episode in the past year increased from 8.7 percent to 11.3 percent, according to the study. "Each year, almost one in 11 adolescents and young adults has [a major depressive episode]," the researchers wrote in the study, published Monday, Nov. 14, in the journal Pediatrics.
  
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• Bright Idea: Glow-in-the-Dark Dye Could Power Cars

  21-11-2016 15:37
  
  If the world one day sees a boom in electric cars and renewable energy, people will need more efficient batteries than are currently available. The chemical is boron-dipyrromethene, otherwise known as BODIPY, and it consists of a set of carbon rings linked to a boron atom and two fluorine atoms. In the new study, a team of chemists at the University at Buffalo tested BODIPY's power-generating abilities with a special type of battery called a reduction-oxidation battery (or redox).
  
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• Parking spaces becoming larger to fit the modern car

  21-11-2016 15:15
  Cars are getting too big for Britain's parking bays - amid a growing number of accidents and calls for larger parking spaces. According to a new study, the average parking space is 4.8m long and 2.4m wide, but popular larger vehicles such as the Audi Q7 and the Mercedes-Benz GL-Class measure in at more than 5m long and just under 2m wide. Scott Hamilton-Cooper, director of operations at Accident Exchange, which produced the study, said: "Drivers are having to squeeze increasingly large
  
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• Tech giants rush to invest in Montreal artificial intelligence research lab

  21-11-2016 15:04 via cbc.ca
  
  Artificial intelligence, once relegated to the realm of science fiction, is now found in everything from translation services to virtual assistants to video games.
  
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• Saudi-led forces say broken Yemen truce will not be renewed

  21-11-2016 15:04
  By Mohammed Ghobari SANAA (Reuters) - A two-day ceasefire after nearly two years of war in Yemen expired at midday (0900 GMT) on Monday would not be renewed, a spokesman for a Saudi-led military coalition told al-Arabiya TV, with each side blaming the other for violations. The 48-hour truce, announced unilaterally by the Saudi coalition on Friday, failed to halt fighting across the country between the Iran-aligned Houthis and Saudi-led forces. Gulf Arab states led by Saudi Arabia launched a mili
  
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• PM signals £2bn a year science funding increase

  21-11-2016 15:04 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Prime Minister Theresa May announces an additional £2bn a year by 2020 for UK research and innovation.
  
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• Cars are submerged in floodwater as heavy rain follows Storm Angus

  21-11-2016 13:15
  
  Amber weather warnings were issued in Devon and parts of Somerset.
  
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• Santa's Sweltering: North Pole Soars 36 Degrees Above Normal

  21-11-2016 13:05
  
  Santa may need to take off some of his jolly layers this Christmas: The North Pole — the northernmost point on the globe (where Mr. Claus lives) — is more than 36 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius) warmer than it has been in past decades, a new report finds. Moreover, the entire Arctic, a region that includes the North Pole, is almost 13 F (7.2 C) warmer today (Nov. 18) than in past years, the report found. Birkel calculates his forecast temperature anomaly maps for the Arctic b
  
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• Myanmar government faces new crisis as ethnic armies attack military

  21-11-2016 13:01
  By Wa Lone and Brenda Goh YANGON/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Myanmar's eight-month-old government faced a fresh crisis on Monday, after four ethnic armed groups attacked security forces in the north of the country, dealing a major blow to leader Aung San Suu Kyi's top goal of reaching peace with ethnic minorities. Eight people were killed and 29 wounded when a coalition of northern rebels attacked military and police outposts and a business centre near an important trading hub on Myanmar's border with
  
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• Is this the PM's 'white heat' of technology moment?

  21-11-2016 12:36 via bbc.co.uk
  
  UK scientists will be cock-a-hoop about Theresa May's promise of an extra $2bn in research funds, but the money will not allay their concerns about the approaching Brexit.
  
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• Saudi-led coalition says Yemen truce will not be renewed - TV

  21-11-2016 12:16
  A two-day ceasefire after nearly two years of war in Yemen expired at midday (0900 GMT) on Monday and would not be renewed, a spokesman for a Saudi-led military coalition told al-Arabiya TV, with each side blaming the other for violations. The 48-hour truce, announced unilaterally by the Saudi coalition on Friday, failed to halt fighting across the country between the Iran-aligned Houthis and Saudi-led forces, which intervened on the side of the exiled government in March 2015. Sanaa is controll
  
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• Olive killer disease arrives on Mallorca

  21-11-2016 11:36 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A disease posing a "very serious threat" to the EU's olive industry is recorded on the Spanish island of Mallorca for the first time.
  
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• Hair-hunting computer benefits from deep learning

  21-11-2016 11:00 via cbc.ca
  
  Toronto researchers are teaching computers to recognize hair. They hope the technique might one day be applied to more important applications, like the visual detection of skin cancer, or even the development of safer self-driving cars.
  
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• Theresa May wants post-Brexit UK at 'cutting edge'

  21-11-2016 10:59 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The PM is to pledge an extra £2bn a year for scientific research and development projects in the UK.
  
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• More weather misery as Storm Angus risks flooding across the UK

  21-11-2016 08:52
  
  The Environment Agency is preparing to put up temporary defences.
  
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• Beastie Boys 'take a stand' after swastikas were sprayed at New York park

  21-11-2016 07:29
  The Beastie Boys have joined fans, faith leaders and politicians in New York to take a "stand against hate messages". It came after an attempt at swastika graffiti and the words "Go Trump" were spray painted on playground equipment at Adam Yauch Park, in Brooklyn Heights. The graffiti has since been removed and the space re-decorated by local children with cut-out hearts, chalk drawings and flowers.
  
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• Beastie Boys 'take a stand' after swastikas were sprayed at a park

  21-11-2016 07:09
  The Beastie Boys have joined fans, faith leaders and politicians in New York to take a "stand against hate messages". It came after an attempt at swastika graffiti and the words "Go Trump" were spray painted on playground equipment at Adam Yauch Park, Brooklyn Heights. The graffiti has since been removed and the space re-decorated by local children with cut-out hearts, chalk drawings and flowers.
  
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• Weather the storm: Improving Great Lakes modeling

  21-11-2016 06:00
  
  (Michigan Technological University) Water and atmospheric processes are inseparable. Now, there is a supercomputer model that couples climate and hydrodynamic factors for the Great Lakes region. The new model will be useful for climate predictions, habitat modeling for invasive species, oil spill mitigation and other environmental research.
  
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• Watching how plants make oxygen

  21-11-2016 06:00
  
  (Uppsala University) In a new study, an international team of researchers made significant progress in visualizing the process how plants split water to produce oxygen. The results are published in Nature.
  
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• Wastewater research may help protect aquatic life

  21-11-2016 06:00
  
  (University of British Columbia Okanagan campus) New wastewater system design guidelines developed at UBC can help municipal governments better protect aquatic life and save millions of dollars a year.In a recent study, engineers at UBC's Okanagan campus developed guidelines that can tailor the design of specialized filters, called fluidized bed reactors, to local conditions and help prevent phosphorous deposits from forming in wastewater systems.
  
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• UTSA study examines CEO influence on corporate political activity

  21-11-2016 06:00
  
  (University of Texas at San Antonio) A new study by Bruce Rudy, assistant professor of management at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), examines the influence corporate CEOs have on their firm's political activity. Rudy's top-tier research focuseson corporate lobbying investment, finding that individual characteristics of the firm's leader influence such decisions.
  
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• Tufts University computer scientist elected AAAS Fellow

  21-11-2016 06:00
  
  (Tufts University) Diane Souvaine, Ph.D., a professor of computer science at Tufts University, has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world's largest scientific society. Election as a AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers.
  
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• The end of biotechnology as we know it

  21-11-2016 06:00
  
  (Austrian Research Centre of Industrial Biotechnology (ACIB)) More than 400 attendees from five continents discussed trends and improvements in biotechnology at the European Summit of Industrial Biotechnology (ESIB) in Graz/Austria and talked many topics like a dehumanized research process.
  
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• The cost of feeling like a fraud

  21-11-2016 06:00
  
  (Frontiers) The sensation of being a fake in the workplace, somehow in a position beyond one's true capabilities is known as 'the impostor phenomenon.' This study shows how it negatively affects career prospects and productivity: those who feel like fakes, though high-achieving, tend not to fulfill their full potential.
  
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• Tennessee wine and grape industry experiencing strong growth

  21-11-2016 06:00
  
  (University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture) A University of Tennessee Extension analysis of the most recent data released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that the Tennessee wine and grape industry continues to show strong growth. Direct 'covered' or hired jobs in the Tennessee winery industry have grown to 435 workers in the first quarter of 2016, which is an increase of more than 20 percent from the same time last year.
  
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• SVIN announces 'Stroke: Mission thrombectomy 2020'

  21-11-2016 06:00
  
  (Lazar Partners LTD) The Society of Vascular and Interventional Neurology (SVIN) announced the launch of Mission Thrombectomy 2020, an initiative to enhance global efforts to improve stroke care worldwide by increasing the rate of stroke thrombectomy for eligible patients from less than 100,000 procedures today to 202,000 annually by 2020 and thereby reducing global stroke disability.The initiative was unveiled at the SVIN 9th Annual Meeting and 4th Annual Stroke Center Workshop, which took plac
  
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• Study uncovers high prevalence of military sexual trauma among transgender veterans

  21-11-2016 06:00
  
  (Wiley) New research found a high prevalence of military sexual trauma (MST) among transgender veterans and an association between the experience of MST and certain mental health conditions.
  
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• Street triage halves the rate of Mental Health Act detentions

  21-11-2016 06:00
  
  (Newcastle University) An on-street assessment by a specialist team has been shown to more than half the number of police detentions under the Mental Health Act and potentially save large health trusts £1 million a year.
  
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• Sniffing out cultural differences

  21-11-2016 06:00
  
  (McGill University) When two people smell the same thing, they can have remarkably different reactions, depending on their cultural background. Researchers at the Neuro have found that even when two cultures share the same language and many traditions, their reactions to the same smells can be different.
  
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• Sexism may be harmful to men's mental health

  21-11-2016 06:00
  
  (American Psychological Association) Men who see themselves as playboys or as having power over women are more likely to have psychological problems than men who conform less to traditionally masculine norms, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.
  
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