Science news

• The science of studying: How students can put their brains to best use

  05-12-2016 23:11 via cbc.ca
  
  It's that time of year again: exams are here and students are busy studying. But using the latest findings in research studies, students might find tools to help them perform better.
  
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• Bear hunt resumes, firearms only, after upright bear's death

  05-12-2016 22:50
  
  NEWTON, N.J. (AP) — Hunters are out in force across parts of New Jersey for the second half of this year's bear hunt following the apparent death of a bear that walked like a human.
  
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• World's first polluted river was contaminated by Neolithic humans learning to smelt 7,000 years ago

  05-12-2016 21:53 via cbc.ca
  
  A University of Waterloo professor is among a team of international researchers who discovered a riverbed in southern Jordan that was polluted 7,000 years ago by Neolithic humans teaching themselves have to smelt.
  
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• Virgin Galactic's new spaceship makes first glide flight

  05-12-2016 20:43
  MOJAVE, Calif. (AP) — Virgin Galactic's new spaceship has completed its first glide flight.
  
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• Get a Skywatching Grant to Watch the 'Great American Eclipse'

  05-12-2016 19:43
  
  On Aug. 21, 2017, the first total solar eclipse to cross over the continental United States in nearly four decades will occur — and the American Astronomical Society (AAS) has launched a new website and small grants program to engage skywatchers in the viewing experience. The eclipse, which has also been called the "Great American Eclipse," or "All-American Eclipse," will darken skies from Oregon to South Carolina along a stretch of land that's about 70 miles (113 kilometers) wide. This ev
  
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• Qaeda militants blow up Yemen gas export pipeline - local officials

  05-12-2016 19:41
  Al Qaeda militants blew up Yemen's only gas export pipeline on Monday, local officials said, in a further blow to a moribund but vital piece of infrastructure for an impoverished country battered by 20 months of war. The explosion occurred in the remote desert area of al-Uqla in the southern province of Shabwa, the officials said, and severed the link between Yemen's gas-producing Marib region and the export terminal of Balhaf on the Arabian Sea. Oil and gas once accounted for most of Yemen's st
  
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• Study: Warming to trigger 3 times as many downpours in US

  05-12-2016 18:06
  WASHINGTON (AP) — Extreme downpours — like those that flooded Louisiana, Houston and West Virginia earlier this year — will happen nearly three times as often in the United States by the end of the century, and six times more frequently in parts of the Mississippi Delta, according to a new study.
  
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• Extreme downpours could increase fivefold across parts of the US

  05-12-2016 17:34
  At century's end, the number of summertime storms that produce extreme downpours could increase by more than 400 percent across parts of the United States — including sections of the Gulf Coast, Atlantic Coast, and the Southwest — according to a new study.
  
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• All Human-Made Objects on Earth Amount to 30 Trillion Tons

  05-12-2016 17:14
  Scientists recently discovered that all objects on Earth created by people adds up to an astoundingly large figure. All of these objects are collectively known as Earth's "technosphere." Distributed evenly over the planet's surface, the technosphere would translate into about 110 pounds (50 kilograms) for every 11 square feet (1 square meter), the researchers said. "The technosphere is a system, with its own dynamics and energy flows – and humans have to help keep it going to survive," Zal
  
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• Why the flounder is flat

  05-12-2016 17:09
  Scientists have long been puzzled by the flounder's asymmetrical physiology. The mechanism that triggers the unusual asymmetry has now been identified by comparing the genomes of two related fish species.
  
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• Superior crystals grow from levitating droplets

  05-12-2016 17:09
  Crystals that don’t experience mechanical stress during growth, will be of superior quality. Researchers are looking into the ability to levitate the liquid metal in a new study.
  
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• Scottish fossils tell story of first life on land

  05-12-2016 17:03 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Fossils of possibly the earliest backboned four-legged animals to walk have been found in Scotland.
  
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• Nat Geo's 'Mars' Colonists Grow Even More Ambitious in New Episode

  05-12-2016 16:30
  
  Tonight's (Dec. 5) new episode of National Geographic's "Mars" miniseries will demonstrate the importance of thinking realistically about big dreams while expanding a human settlement on the Red Planet. In the fourth episode of the six-part miniseries, which airs on the National Geographic Channel at 9 p.m. EST, the future Mars explorers struggle with finding and pushing their own limits. Ed Grann, the French CEO of Mars Mission Corporation (played by Olivier Martinez), will announce his ambitio
  
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• How Drinking Too Much Water Put One Woman's Life In Danger

  05-12-2016 16:26
  
  The 59-year-old woman went to the emergency room in October 2015 to get antibiotics for a UTI, according to the report. After she received her antibiotics, she intended to go home and rest, but because she felt increasingly lightheaded and sick, her partner persuaded her to stay at the hospital. So when she woke up one Sunday morning and felt a "dull 'thumbprint' pressure" in her lower abdomen, she followed her usual protocol, which meant "(a) drink lots of water and (b) get to the doctor or [em
  
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• Bodybuilder Injects Coconut Oil, Damages Arm Muscle

  05-12-2016 16:26
  
  Instead of just lifting weights, an amateur bodybuilder in the United Kingdom tried to plump up his arm muscles and by injecting them with coconut oil, according to a new report of the case. But he wound up developing cysts inside his arm muscles from the oil, and because he also used steroids, he ruptured his triceps and needed surgery, the report said. An ultrasound revealed a rupture in the tendon that connects the triceps muscle (in the upper arm) to the bone near the elbow.
  
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• Stash of Water May Be Lurking Deep Beneath Earth's Surface

  05-12-2016 16:20
  
  Geoscientists had long thought that below this transition zone (starting at 255 miles, or 410 km, deep) a water-filled mineral called brucite was unstable and so decomposed, sending water molecules flowing toward the planet's surface. But new research suggests that before brucite — which is 50 percent magnesium oxide and 50 percent water — decomposes, it transforms into another, more stable 3D structure. The finding, detailed online Nov. 21 in the journal Proceedings of the National
  
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• 'Magic Mushrooms' Compound May Treat Depression in Cancer Patients

  05-12-2016 16:20
  
  The hallucinogen found in "magic mushrooms" can considerably reduce the depression and anxiety felt by patients who have terminal or advanced cancer, according to new research published in two studies. Both studies showed that just a single dose of psilocybin — a hallucinogenic compound found in certain mushroom species — could reduce psychological distress in cancer patients, and that this effect was immediate and long-lasting. Participants who took psilocybin reported reductions in
  
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• New American Divide: Organic Food and GMOs Spur Disagreement

  05-12-2016 16:17
  
  Americans are divided in their thinking on whether such choices are beneficial for their health, a new survey finds. Just over half of all Americans, or 55 percent, consider organic produce to be healthier than conventionally grown produce, and 39 percent of Americans think that foods with GM ingredients are less healthy than those without such ingredients, according to the survey. On the other hand, 41 percent of Americans think that organic produce is neither better nor worse for one's health
  
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• Testosterone Use May Increase Blood-Clot Risk Temporarily

  05-12-2016 16:16
  
  Men who use prescription testosterone may face an increased risk of blood clots in the first six months of using the hormone, a new study from the United Kingdom finds. For comparison, the study also included more than 900,000 men in the U.K. who had not been diagnosed with a blood clot during that time period. The results showed that the men using testosterone had a 63 percent higher risk of blood clots in the first six months of therapy than the men who had never used testosterone.
  
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• Glowing Molecules Could Reveal Skin Cancer, Without a Biopsy

  05-12-2016 16:16
  
  If you want to get a mole checked to see if it's cancerous, it usually involves getting a bit of your skin sliced off and sent to a lab, in a process called a biopsy. The technique involves a high-resolution microscope that allows doctors to see the patient's mitochondria — the powerhouses of the cell, which "often form beautiful networks inside cells," said the study's lead investigator, Irene Georgakoudi, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at Tufts University in M
  
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• Drug/catheter combination for labor induction could save women 2.4 million hours of labor annually, study shows

  05-12-2016 16:16
  Labor induction is one of the most common medical procedures in the world, with nearly one-quarter of women who deliver in the U.S. undergoing the procedure each year (totaling roughly 1 million). Despite its widespread use, labor induction is costly and still has no widely accepted “best practice.” Now, new research is showing what may be the best available method for inducing labor, which may be necessary under circumstances including medical conditions such as preeclampsia, gestat
  
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• Robot aircraft take to British skies

  05-12-2016 16:02 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Robot aircraft are to be tested in UK airspace to help refine systems that control autonomous planes.
  
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• Ancient Americans Mutilated Corpses in Funeral Rituals

  05-12-2016 16:00
  
  Ancient people ripped out teeth, stuffed broken bones into human skulls and de-fleshed corpses as part of elaborate funeral rituals in South America, an archaeological discovery has revealed. The site of Lapa do Santo in Brazil holds a trove of human remains that were modified elaborately by the earliest inhabitants of the continent starting around 10,000 years ago, the new study shows. The finds change the picture of this culture's sophistication, said study author André Strauss, a resea
  
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• Royal 7th-Century Ship Burial Holds Rare 'Tar' Substance

  05-12-2016 15:58
  
  An Anglo-Saxon ship buried on the banks of an English river in honor of a seventh-century king carried a rare, tar-like substance from the Middle East on board. The ship burial and other burial mounds, located at a site called Sutton Hoo, were found nearly 80 years ago along the River Deben in modern-day England. The ship was carrying a type of bitumen, a naturally occurring petroleum-based asphalt, that is found only in the Middle East.
  
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• 'Shock and kill' strategy for curing HIV may endanger patients' brains

  05-12-2016 15:57
  Combination drug treatments have become successful at long-term control of HIV infection, but the goal of totally wiping out the virus and curing patients has so far been stymied by HIV's ability to hide out in cells and become dormant for long periods of time. One of the proposed curative strategies for HIV, known as "shock and kill," may be harmful to patients' brains, warn researchers.
  
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• Leukemia drug combo is encouraging in early phase I clinical trial

  05-12-2016 15:57
  In a Phase I study, 8 out of 12 patients with relapsed and/or chemotherapy refractory blood cancers responded to a combination of the chemotherapy drugs thioguanine and decitabine; some of the responders had relapsed after treatment with decitabine alone, report researchers.
  
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• Underwater Stone Age Site Was Fisherman's Paradise

  05-12-2016 15:56
  
  A now-submerged Stone Age settlement has been mapped in the Baltic Sea, revealing how its ancient inhabitants lived along what was once a lagoon on the coast of Sweden some 9,000 years ago. The exceptionally well-preserved site was discovered about seven years ago, after divers came upon what are now considered to be the oldest stationary fish traps in northern Europe. Lead researcher Anton Hansson, a doctoral student in Quaternary geology at Lund University, and his colleagues reconstructed wha
  
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• Time constraints and the competition determine a hunter's decision to shoot

  05-12-2016 15:56
  What prompts a hunter to shoot an animal after it is spotted? Researchers studied more than 180,000 choice situations where hunters had spotted an animal and had to decide whether or not to shoot. They found that competition among hunters and the season coming to an end led to an increased likelihood of pulling the trigger. The research team has published an article in which they recommend that future wildlife management should take into account the social conditions surrounding hunting.
  
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• Protein synthesis: Ribosome recycling as a drug target

  05-12-2016 15:56
  Researchers have elucidated a mechanism that recycles bacterial ribosomes stalled on messenger RNAs that lack termination codons. The protein involved provides a potential target for future antibiotics.
  
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• First detection of ammonia in the upper troposphere

  05-12-2016 15:56
  Population is growing, climate is warming -- hence, emission of ammonia (NH3) trace gas from e.g. agriculture will increase worldwide. Recently, scientists for the first time have detected NH3 in the upper troposphere. They analyzed satellite measurements by the MIPAS infrared spectrometer and found increased amounts of NH3 between 12 and 15 km height in the area of the Asian monsoon. This suggests that the gas is responsible for the formation of aerosols, smallest particles that might contribut
  
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• Confronting the psychological demands on endurance athletes

  05-12-2016 15:56
  What are the psychological demands commonly faced by endurance athletes? New research has identified psychological stressors common to endurance athletes across different sports at different performance levels. A new article underscores where researchers can make effective recommendations to athletes of all abilities in helping them cope with pervasive psychological difficulties. The new research is therefore an important set of findings for anyone interested in improving performance in enduranc
  
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• Could Dinosaurs Fly?

  05-12-2016 15:55
  
  Some dinosaurs may not have been restricted to life on the ground and instead could have launched into the air for quick flights, researchers have found. "They probably could not sustain flight for long or go very far," said study lead researcher Michael Habib, an assistant professor of cell and neurobiology at the University of Southern California. Birds are the descendants of theropods — dinosaurs that walked on two legs and mostly ate meat, including Velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus rex.
  
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• Mystery Mummy Legs Belonged to Egyptian Queen Nefertari

  05-12-2016 15:53
  
  When Egyptologists broke open the tomb of Queen Nefertari in 1904, they found a once-lavish burial place that had been looted in antiquity. The legs were assumed to belong to Queen Nefertari, who was one of the royal wives of Ramesses II, or Ramesses the Great. Ramesses II ruled Egypt from around 1279 to 1213 B.C., during Egypt's 19th Dynasty.
  
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• Bipedal Human Ancestor 'Lucy' Was a Tree Climber, Too

  05-12-2016 15:50
  
  "Lucy," an early human ancestor that lived 3 million years ago, walked on two legs. High-resolution computed X-ray tomography (CT) scans of long bones in Lucy's arms reveal internal structures suggesting that her upper limbs were built for heavy load bearing — much like chimpanzees' arms, which they use to pull themselves up tree trunks and to swing between branches. This adds to a growing body of evidence that although Lucy's pelvis, leg bones and feet supported bipedal walking, her upper
  
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• Tornado Cluster Sizes Skyrocket, and No One Knows Why

  05-12-2016 15:49
  
  Tornados are behaving strangely: The number of tornado outbreaks per year is fairly constant, but the number of tornados per outbreak has skyrocketed. In an effort to learn more, researchers looked at meteorological factors related to tornado outbreaks, and then dug into the data to see whether these factors had changed over time, said study lead researcher Michael Tippett, an associate professor of applied physics and applied mathematics at Columbia University. The analyses did yield a result,
  
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• Stolen Mummy Hand Makes Its Way Home

  05-12-2016 15:48
  
  "It's sort of amazing the things people will try and ship across international borders," archaeologist Fredrik Hiebert, a National Geographic fellow, said in a video statement. In addition to the eighth-century-B.C. mummy hand, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, also returned intricately painted ancient sarcophagi in a ceremony at the Egyptian embassy in Washington, D.C., on Thursday (Dec. 1). "While we recognize that cultural property, art and antiquities are assigned a dollar va
  
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• Reel Big: 112-Pound Catfish Caught in North Carolina

  05-12-2016 15:13
  
  A gigantic, 112-lb. (50 kilograms) catfish was reeled in by a North Carolina man the day before Thanksgiving, according to local news reports. The man, Riahn Brewington, caught the massive fish in the northeast section of Cape Fear River in North Carolina, local ABC affiliate WWAY reported. Brewington said he could tell the catch was big, but he had only a 10-lb. (4.5 kg) line on his fishing rod.
  
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• Flying Robotic Ambulance Completes First Solo Test Flight

  05-12-2016 15:13
  Completing such missions in rough terrain or combat zones can be tricky, with helicopters currently offering the best transportation option in most cases. Earlier this month, Israeli company Urban Aeronautics completed a test flight for a robotic flying vehicle that could one day go where helicopters can't. On Nov. 14, the company flew its robotic flyer, dubbed the Cormorant, on the craft's first solo flight over real terrain.
  
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• Filling need for fast, accurate assessment of blood's ability to clot

  05-12-2016 15:12
  A portable sensor has been developed 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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• You will soon be able to see the tiny Soyuz capsule that brought Tim Peake back to Earth

  05-12-2016 15:07
  
  The TMA-19M has been refurbished but is still singed by the heat of re-entry.
  
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• UK Winter 2015/2016 floods: One of the century's most extreme and severe flood episodes

  05-12-2016 15:05
  A new scientific review of the winter floods of 2015/2016 confirms that the event was one of the most extreme and severe hydrological events of the last century.
  
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• First spider superdads discovered

  05-12-2016 15:00
  
  Male spiders first known to give up solitary life for offspring care, often as a single parent.
  
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• Stereochemistry: Self-amplifying selectivity

  05-12-2016 14:59
  A chemist has designed and synthesized a catalyst that flexibly molds the handedness of the reaction products with which it interacts.
  
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• Role of molecular modification in determining physical activity levels revealed

  05-12-2016 14:59
  Researchers show modification of a gene product results in greater physical activity and reduced body weight in mice, thus boosting understanding of how physical activity is regulated at the cellular level in the nervous system.
  
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• Researchers uncover protein-based 'cancer signature'

  05-12-2016 14:59
  A research team has investigated the expression of ribosomal proteins in a wide range of human tissues including tumors and discovered a cancer type specific signature. This “cancer signature” could potentially be used to predict the progression of the disease.
  
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• Corporate growth still driving deforestation, CDP shows

  05-12-2016 14:59 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Although progress is being made, up to US $906bn of company turnover is still tied to global deforestation, an assessment suggests.
  
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• Uzbekistan PM wins presidential vote panned by Western monitors

  05-12-2016 14:47
  Shavkat Mirziyoyev, long-serving prime minister of Uzbekistan, has become its second president, winning 88.61 percent of the vote in an election on Sunday criticised by Western observers. "This shows that we are going along the path outlined by the late president (Islam Karimov)," Mirziyoyev told thousands of supporters at a rally. Mirziyoyev, 59, was prime minister from 2003 under Karimov, who died of a stroke in September having run Central Asia's most populous nation with an iron fist for 27
  
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• Tim Peake spacecraft will arrive in UK in 2017

  05-12-2016 14:22 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The UK has bought the capsule which sent Tim Peake into space and returned him to Earth.
  
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• Trump's First 100 Days: Science Education and Schools

  05-12-2016 13:00 via rss.sciam.com
  
  The new administration will champion controversial school choice policy and potentially undermine the teaching of evolution and climate change
  -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
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• Science may finally have the answer to why dieting isn't working for you

  05-12-2016 13:00
  
  Have you heard of the “caveman response”?
  
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