Science news

• Triassic Butterfly Park?

  10-01-2018 21:00 via rss.sciam.com
  Fossil find questions the idea that flowers drove the evolution of butterflies and moths-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
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• A new gel could help in the fight against deadly, drug-resistant superbugs

  10-01-2018 20:00
  
  An antibacterial ointment breaks down the defenses of drug-resistant microbes such as MRSA in lab tests.
  
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• Light shed on mystery space radio pulses

  10-01-2018 19:48 via bbc.co.uk
  Astronomers have shed more light on a mysterious source of recurring radio pulses from space.
  
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• Fast radio bursts may be from a neutron star orbiting a black hole

  10-01-2018 19:42
  
  A repeating fast radio burst has twisted waves, suggesting its home has an unusually strong magnetic field.
  
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• Consumer Electronics Show chock full of gadgets to make our lives easier, but do we need them?

  10-01-2018 19:41 via cbc.ca
  Today's vision of a smart home has more to do with what's technologically possible than what people really need.
  
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• Scientists closer to unveiling source of mysterious bursts from distant object

  10-01-2018 19:00 via cbc.ca
  In a galaxy three billion light-years from Earth is a peculiar object that continually sends out extremely short, but powerful radio bursts. And astronomers don't know what it is.
  
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• Dead Stars Orbiting Black Holes May Explain Mysterious Fast Radio Bursts

  10-01-2018 19:00 via rss.sciam.com
  Scientists are peering into the “engines” behind some of the most extreme outbursts in the universe-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
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• Readers wrangle with definition of ‘species’

  10-01-2018 18:37
  Readers asked about the definition of "species," a new atomic clock and how a neutron star collision produces heavy elements.
  
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• We’ll be watching the skies, plus a lot more, this year

  10-01-2018 18:32
  Acting Editor in Chief Elizabeth Quill predicts 2018 could be a year full of important space discoveries.
  
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• How to keep humans from ruining the search for life on Mars

  10-01-2018 17:30
  
  As the race to put humans on Mars heats up, researchers worry they are running out of time to find life on the Red planet.
  
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• EPA chief wants public debate on climate change, rollback of Obama regulations

  10-01-2018 16:53 via cbc.ca
  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will replace Obama-era carbon and clean water regulations and open up a national debate on climate change in 2018, part of a list of priorities for the year that also includes fighting lead contamination in public drinking water.
  
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• YouTube looks at 'further consequences' for Logan Paul after 'suicide forest' controversy

  10-01-2018 15:07 via cbc.ca
  YouTube says American video blogger Logan Paul's channel violated its community guidelines and that the site is looking into "further consequences" for Paul's video last week that a body hanging from a tree in Japan's Aokigahara Forest.
  
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• This artificial cartilage gets its strength from the stuff in bulletproof vests

  10-01-2018 13:00
  
  One of the key ingredients in this artificial cartilage is a nanoversion of the synthetic fiber in body armor.
  
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• In Washington Speak, Censorship Is Called "Transparency"

  10-01-2018 12:45 via rss.sciam.com
  Federal agencies have been subtly controlling the flow of scientific information to the press, even as their media policies preach openness-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
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• US offshore drilling: Florida wins exemption from Trump plan

  10-01-2018 12:24 via bbc.co.uk
  Governor Rick Scott successfully fights off President Trump's plans, with more opposition expected.
  
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• Pollution hotspots revealed: Check your area

  10-01-2018 12:08 via bbc.co.uk
  Enter your postcode to see what the air quality is like where you are living in Britain.
  
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• Check your pollution

  10-01-2018 12:08 via bbc.co.uk
  Enter your postcode to see what the air quality is like where you are living in Britain.
  
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• Plastic bag charge: 5p levy could be extended in England

  10-01-2018 11:06 via bbc.co.uk
  Corner shops could be told to charge shoppers for single-use carrier bags under new government plans.
  
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• Artificial intelligence seen as key tool for combating child porn

  10-01-2018 11:00 via cbc.ca
  As Ottawa revamps its strategy for fighting online child porn, an internal Public Safety memo touts tougher reporting requirements and artificial intelligence to help stem the rise in sexploitation. Better web-screening software would also relieve traumatized officers of the burden of searching for images.
  
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• Japanese astronaut apologizes for 'fake news' of height increase

  10-01-2018 09:05
  TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese astronaut Norishige Kanai, on a mission to the International Space Station, apologized on Wednesday for saying he had grown 9 cm (3.5 inches) while in space and expressing concern about whether he'd be safe on his return to Earth.
  
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• Flying telescope yields insights into birth of stars

  10-01-2018 07:47 via bbc.co.uk
  A telescope inside a jumbo jet yields new insights on how stars are born from collapsing gas and dust.
  
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• Young adults report differing sexual effects from alcohol, marijuana, and ecstasy

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (New York University) Alcohol, marijuana, and ecstasy each have very different sexual effects, from attraction and desire to sensitivity to sexual dysfunction, finds a study by the Center for Drug Use and HIV/HCV Research (CDUHR) at NYU Meyers College of Nursing.
  
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• With these special bacteria, a broccoli a day can keep the cancer doctor away

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (National University of Singapore, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine) NUS Medicine researchers have engineered bacteria that specifically targets colorectal cancer cells and converts a substance in some vegetables into an anticancer agent. The system reduced the number of tumors by 75 percent and shrank the remaining tumors by threefold in a mouse model of colorectal cancer. Published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, the study suggests that the probiotics taken together with a diet rich in crucif
  
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• What happens when your brain's support cells aren't so supportive?

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (Salk Institute) Salk scientists use gene expression to understand how astrocytes change with age.
  
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• Webb Telescope's Houston highlights

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) With NASA's James Webb Space Telescope's approximately nine-month stay in Texas coming to an end, now is a good time to reflect on the memories it made in the Lone Star State. NASA has created a timelapse video that chronicles Webb's time at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
  
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• The LEC -- now an efficient and bright device

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (Umea University) Researchers from Umeå University and Linköping University in Sweden have developed light-emitting electrochemical cells (LECs) that emit strong light at high efficiency. As such, the thin, flexible and light-weight LEC promises future and improved applications within home diagnostics, signage, illumination and healthcare. The results are published in Nature Communications.
  
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• The atomic dynamics of rare everlasting electric fields

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (Duke University) Researchers have discovered the atomic mechanisms that give the unusual material yttrium manganite its rare magnetic and electric properties. All it took was ricocheting neutrons off the atoms of a sample of the material heated to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
  
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• Study finds strong support for ocean protection

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (University of California - San Diego) People around the world strongly support ocean conservation measures, according to a new study of public perceptions of marine threats and protection.
  
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• Stigma continues to hamper response to opioid epidemic

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (Oregon Health & Science University) Efforts to reverse the nation's opioid epidemic remain beset by the stigma associated with drug use, a group of OHSU researchers write in a year-end review. The researchers emphasize the need for the American health care system to embrace medications such as methadone to treat opioid use disorder, provide addiction treatment in primary care clinics and develop non-addictive alternatives for chronic pain.
  
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• 'Sniffing' out counterfeit liquors

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (American Chemical Society) Watered-down or fake liquors can reap financial rewards for nefarious individuals, but the adulteration of liquor cheats consumers and can even lead to health hazards from added contaminants. Scientists now report in ACS Sensors a portable device with an advanced sensor array that can identify liquors and determine if they'd been altered, offering a strategy for liquor quality assurance.
  
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• Sex education doesn't reflect real-life realities of lesbian and bisexual girls

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (University of British Columbia) Most lesbian and bisexual girls don't know they can get sexually transmitted infections (STIs) from other girls, because sex education is mostly designed for their straight peers. This knowledge gap could be placing them at increased risk for getting STIs.
  
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• SETI project homes in on strange 'fast radio bursts'

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (University of California - Berkeley) Brief and powerful fast radio bursts could be signals from advanced civilizations, which is why Breakthrough Listen at UC Berkeley is monitoring many of the 30-some known FRBs, including FRB 121102, the only repeater. They and another team report that the bursts from FRB 121102 are 100 percent polarized, indicating that they come from a source embedded in a strong magnetic field, like that around a massive black hole at the center of a galaxy.
  
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• Scaling to new heights with gecko-inspired adhesive

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (American Chemical Society) Some animals, such as geckos, can easily climb up walls and across ceilings. But currently, no material exists that allows everyday people to scale walls or transverse ceilings as effortlessly. Now, scientists report in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces a dry adhesive that could someday make it easier to defy gravity.
  
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• Robotic weeders: to a farm near you?

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (American Society of Agronomy) The future of weeding is here, and it comes in the form of a robot. Specialty crops such as lettuce, broccoli, tomatoes, and onions may be the first to benefit.
  
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• Retaliatory violence between police and citizens is primed by social media

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (Utah State University) The research explores relationships between law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty, fatal use of force incidents and social media activity related to the Black Lives Matter movement. An uptick in Black Lives Matter-related tweets was associated with increases in fatal shootings of minority citizens, but not non-minorities. The effect of Black Lives Matter-related tweets on officer fatalities was also statistically significant, but not as strong as the effect
  
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• Personal growth often coexists with post-traumatic stress following natural disasters

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (University of Missouri-Columbia) The 2011 tornado in Joplin, Missouri, was one of the most destructive in US history -- killing 161 people, injuring 1,150 and destroying approximately one-third of the city's homes.Researchers from the University of Missouri have found that survivors of natural disasters have the potential to experience positive changes or growth in addition to the stress they experience. Researchers say this finding can help those working in communities after a disaster.
  
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• ORNL researchers use Titan to accelerate design, training of deep learning networks

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory) For deep learning to be effective, existing neural networks to be modified, or novel networks designed and then 'trained' so that they know precisely what to look for and can produce valid results. This is a time-consuming and difficult task, but one that a team of ORNL researchers recently demonstrated can be dramatically expedited with a capable computing system.
  
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• Once revolutionary, now dominant: OCT still shows rich potential for new applications

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (SPIE--International Society for Optics and Photonics) The revolutionizing technology of optical coherence tomography (OCT) is celebrated in a special section of the Journal of Biomedical Optics, published by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. Detailed to the microscopic scale and noninvasive, OCT yields 3-D images of tissues inside the body and is a dominant diagnostic tool in ophthalmology with potential in numerous other areas.
  
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• Older adults with metabolic syndrome may be more resistant to depression treatments

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (American Geriatrics Society) Researchers suspect that having Metabolic Syndrome makes it harder for older adults to respond to therapies for depression. (Metabolic Syndrome is a mix of conditions like increased blood pressure, high blood sugar levels, excess body fat around the waist, and abnormal cholesterol levels). In a new, first of its kind study, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, researchers examined whether Metabolic Syndrome in depressed older adults affects t
  
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• New stellar streams confirm 'melting pot' history of the galaxy

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA)) Public release of Dark Energy Survey data continues trend toward 'Big Data' in astronomy.
  
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• New oxide and semiconductor combination builds new device potential

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (American Institute of Physics) Researchers at Yale University have now grown a 2DEG system on gallium arsenide, a semiconductor that's efficient in absorbing and emitting light. This development is promising for new electronic devices that interact with light, such as new kinds of transistors, superconducting switches and gas sensors.
  
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• New options for more animal welfare

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (BfR Federal Institute for Risk Assessment) In Germany, non-technical summaries of all authorized projects involving animals are published in the database AnimalTestInfo, which is operated by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment and is at present unique worldwide. Using this searchable and transparent database, the general public can easily find information about animal tests.
  
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• New app motivates type 2 diabetes patients to be more active

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (University of Utah Health) A research team led by scientists at University of Utah Health have developed an online interactive app to help motivate patients to be more physically activity to manage their disease. The results are published in the Jan. 9 issue of the Journal of Medical Internet Research.
  
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• NASA's newly renamed Swift Mission spies a comet slowdown

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) NASA's Swift spacecraft, now renamed the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory after the mission's late principal investigator, has detected the most dramatic change in a comet's rotation ever seen.
  
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• NASA's IMERG measures Tropical Cyclone Ava's disastrous rainfall

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) Tropical cyclone Ava dropped extremely heavy rainfall over Madagascar as it passed over the eastern side of the island country on Jan. 5 and 6, 2018. NASA calculated how much rainfall occurred using satellite data.
  
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• NASA's Aqua satellite finds wind shear hitting Tropical Storm Irving

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the Southern Indian Ocean and obtained a visible light image of Tropical Storm Irving that showed vertical wind shear was pushing storms away from its center.
  
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• NASA sees Tropical Cyclone 5 form near northwestern Australia's coast

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) Tropical Depression 5S was consolidating just offshore Cape Leveque, Western Australia when NASA's Aqua satellite gathered temperature data that showed the strongest part of the depression remained over water.
  
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• More dentists to discuss risks of HPV-related cancers with their patients

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (University of South Florida (USF Health)) The dental community is working to strengthen HPV prevention efforts, helping reduce the prevalence of oropharyngeal cancers.
  
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• Making the Internet of Things possible with a new breed of 'memristors'

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (Aalto University) Easily printable, organic thin films can retain data for more than 10 years without power, work with low voltages -- and become the building block of future computers that mimic the human brain.
  
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• Light activity measured with fitness tracker linked to lower mortality in older women

  10-01-2018 06:00
  (American Geriatrics Society) Researchers created a study to learn more about how much exercise older adults are able to perform, and how that exercise affects their health. The research team studied 6,489 female participants aged 63 to 99 years old.
  
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