Science news

• Virgin Galactic spaceship makes first glide flight

  03-12-2016 23:49
  
  SpaceShipTwo is a commercial version of SpaceShipOne, the first private spacecraft to reach the edge of space in 2004
  
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• Azeri security forces say kill man trying to detonate suicide belt

  03-12-2016 22:39
  Azerbaijan's security forces on Saturday shot dead an Azeri man who tried to detonate a suicide belt near a shopping mall in the capital Baku, the state security service said. Ex-Soviet Azerbaijan, a secular Muslim country with a population of about 10 million, is a major energy producer in the Caspian Sea region. "Azeri citizen Azizagaoglu Emin Jami (born 1978) ... was killed during a special operation carried out by the state security service," the service said in a statement.
  
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• Research points to Orb2 as a physical substrate for memory strength, retention

  03-12-2016 21:48
  How do you remember what happened today in the weeks and months that follow? Researchers have answered a piece of that question in a recent study.
  
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• 'Never Go to Bed Angry': Sleep Makes It Harder to Forget Bad Thoughts

  03-12-2016 21:46
  
  The results suggest that people should try to resolve any arguments before going to bed and not sleep on their anger, said study co-author Yunzhe Liu, a Ph.D. student in neuroscience at University College London. Originally published on Live Science.
  
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• Why Americans' Cholesterol Levels Are Improving

  03-12-2016 21:45
  
  Americans' cholesterol levels are heading in the right direction, a new study finds. Cholesterol is a waxy substance that can build up in blood vessels and increase a person's risk for heart disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For example, HDL (high-density lipoprotein) cholesterol, or "good" cholesterol, carries cholesterol to the liver so that it can be flushed from the body, the CDC says.
  
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• Stress-hormone differences identified among gay men

  03-12-2016 21:45
  Increased stigma and discrimination can affect circadian HPA-axis functioning, say researchers. The majority of previous studies have been conducted among white heterosexuals, with very little research examining HPA-axis functioning between different minorities. Individuals who identify as both sexual and racial minorities may experience increased stigma and discrimination that can affect this HPA-axis functioning. Now, researchers have examined differences in diurnal cortisol rhythm between you
  
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• Relationships between chemicals found on comets

  03-12-2016 21:45
  A new study has revealed similarities and relationships between certain types of chemicals found on 30 different comets, which vary widely in their overall composition compared to one another. The research is part of ongoing investigations into these primordial bodies, which contain material largely unchanged from the birth of the solar system some 4.6 billion years ago.
  
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• Good Sports: Longer Lives Linked to Swimming, Racquetball

  03-12-2016 21:45
  
  Many types of exercise are linked to a lower risk of premature death, but activities like racquet sports, swimming and aerobics seem best at improving people's chances of staving off an early demise, according to a new study. Researchers found that people in the study who regularly played racquet sports had a 47 percent lower risk of dying over the course of the nine-year study than people who did not regularly engage in such sports. Moreover, people who regularly did aerobics had a 27 percent l
  
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• Electronically picking your brain -- for market research

  03-12-2016 21:45
  A researcher wants to scrap the traditional electronic and paper survey approaches to gathering marketing and information systems data in favor of scanning your brainwaves.
  
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• CD19-targeting CAR T-cell immunotherapy yields high responses in treatment-resistant CLL

  03-12-2016 21:45
  In a small, early phase trial, a high percentage of patients who had exhausted most traditional treatments for chronic lymphocytic leukemia saw their tumors shrink or even disappear after an infusion of a highly targeted, experimental CAR T-cell immunotherapy.
  
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• Biomarker may predict which formerly treated cancer patients will develop highly fatal form of leukemia

  03-12-2016 21:45
  Patients successfully treated for breast, colon and other cancers can go on to develop an often-fatal form of leukemia, sometimes years after completion of treatment, due to a genetic mutation leading to secondary malignancies known as therapy-related myeloid neoplasms (t-MNs).
  
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• After one dose of gene therapy, hemophilia B patients maintain near-normal levels of clotting factor

  03-12-2016 21:45
  Researchers are reporting the highest and most sustained levels to date of an essential blood-clotting factor IX in patients with the inherited bleeding disorder hemophilia B. After receiving a single dose of an experimental gene therapy in a clinical trial, patients with hemophilia produced near-normal levels of clotting factor IX, allowing them to stop clotting factor infusions and to pursue normal activities of daily life without disabling bleeding episodes.
  
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• Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity Spaceship Makes 1st Solo Glide Flight

  03-12-2016 17:41
  
  Virgin Galactic's second SpaceShipTwo performed its first free flight Dec. 3, a glide test that begins the next phase in testing of the commercial suborbital spaceplane. SpaceShipTwo, named VSS Unity, and its carrier aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo, took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California at about 9:50 a.m. EST (1450 GMT). The spaceplane separated from WhiteKnightTwo at 10:40 a.m. EST (1540 GMT), gliding back to a runway landing in Mojave 10 minutes later, according to updates provide
  
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• Scientists gathering in Winnipeg to focus on 'complex' changing Arctic climate

  03-12-2016 17:30 via cbc.ca
  
  The largest single gathering of scientists focused on the rapidly changing Arctic gets underway in Winnipeg on Monday.
  
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• Indian X Prize Team Secures Launch Contract with ISRO

  03-12-2016 14:04
  
  TeamIndus, an Indian team competing in the Google Lunar X Prize, announced Dec. 1 it has a launch contract for its lunar lander mission with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The contract, which has been verified by the X Prize Foundation, is for the dedicated launch of TeamIndus' lander and rover on a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) planned for December 2017. As currently planned, the PSLV will place the TeamIndus spacecraft into an elliptical transfer orbit around the E
  
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• NASA Examines Key Role of 'Hidden Figures' Amid Langley Center Celebration

  03-12-2016 13:37
  
  NASA launched a celebration of the Langley Research Center's 100th anniversary yesterday (Dec. 1) with an educational panel on the upcoming movie "Hidden Figures" and the real-life Langley employees it depicts, answering student questions about their life and times and NASA history. "Hidden Figures" depicts the history of mathematician Katherine Johnson and other African- American women who performed calculations for the researchers on Langley's Hampton, Virginia, campus starting in 1943, althou
  
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• Dimming Mars and Crescent Moon Cross Paths in Sunday's Evening Sky

  03-12-2016 13:37
  
  Back in the spring, Mars was a dazzling yellow-orange light visible low in the southeastern sky just after sundown. On May 22, Mars was at opposition to the sun, and eight days later, the Red Planet made its closest approach to Earth since October 2005.
  
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• All Hab Systems Go at the Mars Desert Research Station

  03-12-2016 13:37
  
  The Mars Society is conducting the ambitious two-phase Mars 160 Twin Desert-Arctic Analogue mission to study how seven crewmembers could live, work and perform science on a true mission to Mars. Mars 160 crewmember Annalea Beattie is chronicling the mission, which will spend 80 days at the Mars Desert Research Station in southern Utah desert before venturing far north to Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station on Devon Island, Canada in summer 2017. My daughter Mona emailed me back and told
  
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• Filling need for fast and accurate assessment of blood's ability to clot

  03-12-2016 06:00
  
  (Case Western Reserve University) Case Western Reserve University researchers have developed a portable sensor that can assess the clotting ability of a person's blood 95 times faster than current methods -- using only a single drop of blood.
  
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• Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin recovering well after Antarctic evacuation

  03-12-2016 04:40
  
  SYDNEY (Reuters) - Former U.S. astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, posted photos on Saturday of his recovery in a New Zealand hospital after he was evacuated from the South Pole due to illness.
  
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• After rapid rise, Italy's Renzi braced for fall

  03-12-2016 03:35
  
  Matteo Renzi rose from local government in Florence to running Italy in the space of only a few months.
  
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• Buzz Aldrin gets visit from NASA after polar evacuation

  03-12-2016 03:17
  
  CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (AP) — Buzz Aldrin had an unexpected bedside visit from NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman on Saturday as he continued to recover in a New Zealand hospital from his medical evacuation from the South Pole.
  
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