Science news

• New approach promises early warnings of soggy summers

  18-12-2017 23:17 via bbc.co.uk
  Researchers develop a new technique to give a more accurate advance forecast for summer weather.
  
  Read more

• A new kind of spiral wave embraces disorder

  18-12-2017 22:49
  
  Newly discovered spiral wave chimera is disordered in its center.
  
  Read more

• Interstellar object may hold 'alien' water

  18-12-2017 19:46 via bbc.co.uk
  The first known interstellar asteroid may hold water from another star system in its interior, according to a study.
  
  Read more

• Ofcom to investigate BBC climate change interview

  18-12-2017 19:20 via bbc.co.uk
  It's the regulator's first investigation since taking over responsibility for BBC standards.
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• How to build a lightsaber and power up a Death Star: The science behind Star Wars

  18-12-2017 19:17 via cbc.ca
  Ever wanted to build your own Death Star and blow up a planet? Now science knows exactly how much energy you'll need to power the weapon. Thanassis Psaltis is a graduate student in Nuclear Astrophysics at McMaster University in Hamilton. He tells us about the science behind Star Wars.
  
  Read more

• ArianeGroup to start building first Ariane 6 launcher

  18-12-2017 18:33
  PARIS (Reuters) - ArianeGroup, the space-launchers joint-venture between Airbus and Safran, has passed an industrial milestone allowing it to move ahead with production of the first Ariane 6, Europe's next-generation rocket, the company said on Monday.
  
  Read more

• Our first interstellar visitor may be a camouflaged comet

  18-12-2017 17:00
  
  Originally thought to be a rocky asteroid, an interstellar traveler may have a comet’s icy heart.
  
  Read more

• Penguin tourism

  18-12-2017 16:17 via bbc.co.uk
  Reports of a tourist flight over Antarctica highlight China's growing interest in the poles.
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• UK plan to tackle plastic waste threat

  18-12-2017 13:06 via bbc.co.uk
  A four-point plan for tackling plastic waste has been outlined by the Environment Secretary Michael Gove.
  
  Read more

• How Does the Flu Actually Kill People?

  18-12-2017 12:45 via rss.sciam.com
  Every year the common virus is lethal to many. What happens inside the body that results in death?
  -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
  Read more

• High Arctic fossils reveal ancient bear's weakness for sweets

  18-12-2017 11:00 via cbc.ca
  Two bears living in a boreal forest in Canada’s High Arctic millions of years ago munched on too many sweets and didn’t brush their teeth, fossil evidence suggests.
  
  Read more

• Bears have had a sweet tooth for millions of years, Arctic fossils suggest

  18-12-2017 11:00 via cbc.ca
  Two bears living in a boreal forest in Canada’s High Arctic millions of years ago munched on too many sweets and didn’t brush their teeth, fossil evidence suggests.
  
  Read more

• Zero gravity plant growth experiments delivered to space station

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (University of Wisconsin-Madison) The latest resupply mission to the International Space Station delivered hundreds of seeds to the spacefaring research lab Sunday, Dec. 17, to test how plants grow in the stressful environment of zero gravity.
  
  Read more

• Why machines will not replace humans in the labor market

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (National Research University Higher School of Economics) Deputy Director of the Centre for Labour Market Studies at the Higher School of Economics Rostislav Kapeliushnikov says that predictions of a 'labor market apocalypse' with mass loss of jobs caused by technological progress are unfounded; despite having been made numerous times throughout modern history, they have never come true. The results of his research were published in the article 'Is Technological Change a Devourer of Jobs?'
  
  Read more

• What factors affect quality of life in older patients with cancer?

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (Wiley) A new study provides insights on the factors that affect health-related quality of life in older adults with cancer. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings support the importance of addressing persistent symptoms, managing comorbidities, promoting leisure-time physical activity, and addressing financial challenges.
  
  Read more

• We overstate our negative feelings in surveys, new research shows

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (New York University) We tend to overstate our negative feelings and symptoms in surveys, shows a new study by a team of psychology researchers. This bias wears off over time, but the results point to the possibility that measurements of health and well-being, which are vital in making medical assessments and in guiding health-related research, may be misinterpreted.
  
  Read more

• UTA researcher earns TxDOT contracts to inspect, evaluate, monitor DFW-area bridges

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (University of Texas at Arlington) Nur Yazdani, a professor in UTA's Department of Civil Engineering, recently was awarded a three-year, $735,133 contract to inspect and evaluate new and existing concrete bridge components using non-destructive methods. He will also determine the true load capacity of bridges to ensure that the posted capacities represent what the bridges are capable of supporting.
  
  Read more

• Unleashing ultraviolet brings visible improvement

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST)) High-speed communication systems based on ultraviolet radiation are now in sight.
  
  Read more

• Undocumented immigrants have higher risk of death with emergency-only dialysis

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (JAMA Network) Undocumented immigrants with end-stage kidney disease were much more likely to die and to spend more time in the hospital when they could access dialysis only as an emergency once they became critically ill.
  
  Read more

• UCLA researchers create skeletal muscle from stem cells

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences) UCLA scientists have developed a new strategy to efficiently isolate, mature and transplant skeletal muscle cells created from human pluripotent stem cells, which can produce all cell types of the body. The findings are a major step towards developing a stem cell replacement therapy for muscle diseases including Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, which affects approximately 1 in 5,000 boys in the US and is the most common fatal childhood genetic
  
  Read more

• Tiny bilirubin-filled capsules could improve survival of transplanted pancreatic cells

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (North Carolina State University) By encapsulating bilirubin within tiny nanoparticles, researchers from North Carolina State University and the Ohio State University have improved the survival rates of pancreatic islet cells in vitro in a low-oxygen environment. The work has implications for the treatment of Type 1 diabetes in both canine and human patients.
  
  Read more

• Three out of four Spanish residents buy the Lotería de Navidad (Spanish Christmas Lottery)

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid) A total of 75.9 percent of Spanish residents buy Lotería de Navidad, representing more than 24 million people.That is some of the data highlighted in the 'Anuario del juego en España' (Annual report on gaming in Spain), presented recently by Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and the Fundación CODERE.
  
  Read more

• Thinking about germs makes people concerned about how they look

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (Association for Psychological Science) People who worry a lot about germs appear also to be especially concerned about their physical appearance, a new study shows.
  
  Read more

• Study: Teens who help strangers have more confidence

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (Brigham Young University) A new study from BYU's School of Family Life found that adolescents who exhibited prosocial behavior toward strangers had higher self-esteem a year later. The same was not true for prosocial behavior solely to friends and family.
  
  Read more

• Study of a microquasar from our galaxy to explain the structure of distant radio galaxies

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (University of Jaén) The research, led by the University of Jaén in collaboration with the University of Barcelona, has been published by Nature Communications journal and suggests that there are fewer gravitational waves than expected.
  
  Read more

• Star mergers: A new test of gravity, dark energy theories

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) Observations and measurements of a neutron star merger have largely ruled out some theories relating to gravity and dark energy, and challenged a large class of theories.
  
  Read more

• Specim's hyperspectral camera detects counterfeit medicine and traces of blood

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland) Specim Oy, a VTT spin-off, has developed the world's first mobile hyperspectral camera for the fast, high-level analysis of a range of samples.
  
  Read more

• Russian physicists found the temperature at which carbon nanotubes become superconductors

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (Ural Federal University) 'Our task was to change the 1D structure in order to increase the temperature of superconductive transition' comments Anatoly Zatsepin, the head of a scientific research laboratory at Institute of Physics and Technology, UrFU. 'It turned out that if you pile SWCNTs up, Cooper pairs stabilize, and a superconductor is formed.' Still, even such piles require quite low temperatures to exhibit superconductive properties -- only 15 degrees above absolute zero.
  
  Read more

• Routines, practice and mental rehearsal mitigate some risks of armed self-defense

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (Oregon State University) Oregon State University researchers have identified ways that handgun owners attempt to mitigate those risks, including developing routines with their firearms, practicing target shooting and self-defense simulations and mentally rehearsing self-defense scenarios.
  
  Read more

• Researchers steer the flow of electrical current with spinning light

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (University of Minnesota) Light can generate an electrical current in semiconductor materials. This is how solar cells generate electricity from sunlight and how smart phone cameras can take photographs. To collect the generated electrical current, called photocurrent, an electric voltage is needed to force the current to flow in only one direction.
  
  Read more

• Researchers find racial disparities in intensity of care at the end of life

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (The Mount Sinai Hospital / Mount Sinai School of Medicine) Different outcomes exist between blacks and whites receiving care from the same hospice.
  
  Read more

• Researchers compute their way to the center of the Earth

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (Gauss Centre for Supercomputing) A team led by Dr. Clemens Prescher and Prof. Sandro Jahn at the University of Cologne has been using Jülich Supercomputing Centre resources to study high-pressure and- temperature material interactions deep below the surface of the Earth.
  
  Read more

• Reproducing higher-order embryonic kidney structures using pluripotent stem cells

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (Kumamoto University) In the embryonic kidney, three types of precursor cells interact with each other to form a three-dimensional structure. Previous studies successfully induced nephron structures via nephron progenitors from mouse and human pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) but have not yet reproduced the well-organized structures of the kidney. Now, a Japanese research group has developed a method to induce another important progenitor from PSCs and assembled them together thereby succeeding in
  
  Read more

• 'Quantum material' has shark-like ability to detect small electrical signals

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (Purdue University) A 'quantum material' that mimics a shark's ability to detect the minute electric fields of small prey has been shown to perform well in ocean-like conditions, with potential applications from defense to marine biology.
  
  Read more

• Posttraumatic stress symptoms and posttraumatic growth in children and adolescents following earthquake

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (Wiley) Posttraumatic stress symptoms -- including symptoms such as intrusion, avoidance, negative thoughts and feelings, and hyperarousal -- can arise among individuals exposed to natural disasters, yet positive psychological changes, such as posttraumatic growth, can also develop.
  
  Read more

• Posttraumatic stress symptoms & posttraumatic growth in children & adolescents following earthquake

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (Wiley) Posttraumatic stress symptoms -- including symptoms such as intrusion, avoidance, negative thoughts and feelings, and hyperarousal -- can arise among individuals exposed to natural disasters, yet positive psychological changes, such as posttraumatic growth, can also develop.
  
  Read more

• Plain cigarette packaging may reduce incorrect impression of product's safety

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (University of California - San Diego) An online survey of 900 consumers of three of the United States' most popular cigarette brands suggests that adopting standardized cigarette packing may reduce consumers' misconceptions that some cigarettes are less harmful than others, reports a team of researchers led by University of California San Diego School of Medicine and published in BMJ Tobacco Control.
  
  Read more

• Pitt team receives grant to improve prosthetics through sensory feedback

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (University of Pittsburgh) Though there have been many advances in modern prosthetic devices, the loss of sensory feedback remains an issue, and many amputees struggle with everyday movement. A University of Pittsburgh team will be investigating how electric stimulation may both counter PLP and improve movement and balance.
  
  Read more

• People with Type 2 diabetes need more support, say researchers

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (University of British Columbia Okanagan campus) Research shows the old adage 'teach someone to fish' instead of giving them a fish, rings true when it comes to helping people with Type 2 diabetes. The objective was to identify the behavior change techniques used in 54 dietary interventions to determine what works when it comes to helping people control their diabetes and lose weight, explains UBC Okanagan's Heather Gainforth, the study's senior author.
  
  Read more

• Particle size matters for porous building blocks

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (Rice University) Porous particles of calcium and silicate show potential as building blocks for a host of applications. A Rice University laboratory tested calcium-silicate particles to see how they hold up under pressure and found that size influenced the toughness of individual particles but not assemblies.
  
  Read more

• Orbital mayhem around a red dwarf

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (Université de Genève) In the collective imagination, planets of a solar system all circle around their star, in the equatorial plane of the star. The star also spins, and its spin axis is aligned with the spin axes of the planetary orbits, giving the impression of a well-ordered system. But nature is capricious, as an international team led by researchers from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, just found out: they detected a planetary system turned upside down.
  
  Read more

• Online sponsored ad ban has limited impact on consumer access to foreign pharmacies

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) As American consumers turn to online search engines for cheaper prescription drugs from foreign pharmacies, safety and quality concerns arise. In 2010, Google banned sponsored search advertising by pharmacies that are not certified by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP). Soon, other major search engines followed. But a forthcoming study in the INFORMS journal, Marketing Science, a leading scholarly marketing public
  
  Read more

• Novel technique expands industrial use of advanced high-strength steel alloys

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo) Brazilian researcher develops innovative method of laser welding at high temperatures that enhances properties of AHS steel for applications in automotive and aerospace industries
  
  Read more

• NIA and DoD fund new studies on aiding family caregivers of patients with dementia or TBI

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (Regenstrief Institute) Family caregivers of individuals with cognitive disorders are faced with complex and stressful challenges for which they are often unprepared and unsupported. Grants from the National Institute on Aging and the Department of Defense totaling nearly $3 million fund two novel studies focusing on helping family caregivers of individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related dementias or traumatic brain injury (TBI).
  
  Read more

• New vaccine technology shows promise as a tool to combat the opioid crisis

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (The U.S. Military HIV Research Program (MHRP)) An experimental heroin vaccine induced antibodies that prevented the drug from crossing the blood-brain barrier in mice and rats.
  
  Read more

• New guide aims to unmask unique challenges women face in getting healthy sleep

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (Society for Women's Health Research) The unique barriers faced by women in maintaining good sleep health are often misunderstood or overlooked, according to a new resource "Women & Sleep: A Guide for Better Health" developed by the Society for Women's Health Research (SWHR®) Interdisciplinary Network on Sleep. The Sleep Network also partnered with patients from MyApnea.org to develop "Women & Sleep Apnea", to raise awareness on a disorder that is widely perceived as a 'man's disease
  
  Read more

• New grants bolster CSU expertise in wildfire smoke impacts

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (Colorado State University) When wildfires burn, the choking smoke that billows upward has a life of its own. Depending on a multitude of conditions such as wind speed, cloud density and forest type, combustion byproducts move and change unpredictably in the atmosphere.The study of these smoke particles ­-- their size, composition, dispersion and interaction with clouds and atmospheric processes -- has a rich interdisciplinary history at Colorado State University.
  
  Read more

• New data shows junk food, energy drinks may pose unique risks for teens

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (Teratology Society) The popularity of energy drinks and junk food might have unique risks for teenagers who consume too much of them during the later stages of brain development. These are just two of the factors potentially affecting teen brain development examined in a new special issue of Birth Defects Research: The Teenage Brain, published by the Teratology Society with John Wiley & Sons.
  
  Read more

• Negative portrayals of shooting victims lead to victim blaming

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (Duke University) Negative portrayals of shooting victims can lead people to blame the victim for his own death and to sympathize with the shooter, says a new study by researchers at Duke University and Simmons College. After reading a negative biographical sketch about the victim of a fatal shooting, study participants favored lighter sentences for the shooter, said study co-author Sarah Gaither, an assistant professor of psychology at Duke University.
  
  Read more

• NASA solves how a jupiter jet stream shifts into reverse

  18-12-2017 06:00
  (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) Speeding through the atmosphere high above Jupiter's equator is an east-west jet stream that reverses course on a schedule almost as predictable as a Tokyo train's. Now, a NASA-led team has identified which type of wave forces this jet to change direction.
  
  Read more

Follow @ScienceUKnews on Twitter!