Sci-Tech news

• New single-cell analysis reveals complex variations in stem cells

  04-12-2014 23:40
  
  Stem cells offer great potential in biomedical engineering due to their pluripotency, which is the ability to multiply indefinitely and also to differentiate and develop into any kind of the hundreds of different cells and bodily tissues. But the precise complexity of how stem cell development is regulated throughout states of cellular change has been difficult to pinpoint until now.
  
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• Tone mapping technique creates 'hyper-real' look

  04-12-2014 23:39
  
  A new image processing technique developed by Disney Research Zurich could make high dynamic range (HDR) video look better when shown on consumer-quality displays by preserving much of the rich visual detail while eliminating "ghosting" and other unwanted visual artifacts.
  
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• Technique captures unique eye traits to produce more realistic faces

  04-12-2014 23:38
  
  The eyes are arguably the most important features of an individual's face, if not a window to the soul, so the use of generic eye models when creating digital faces can have disappointing results. Scientists at Disney Research Zurich, noting the significant variation in eyes between individuals, have devised methods for faithfully capturing those features.
  
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• A little rest from grazing improves native grasslands

  04-12-2014 23:36
  
  Just like us, grasslands need rest to improve their health. A study just published by Point Blue Conservation Science in the journal Ecological Restoration shows a 72 percent increase in where native perennial grasses were found on a coastal California ranch when cattle grazing was changed to give the land more time to rest.
  
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• International Space Station enables interplanetary space exploration

  04-12-2014 23:35
  
  If necessity is the mother of invention, then survival in space breeds many "children." These children are the research and technologies demonstrated aboard the International Space Station. For 16 years, the station has provided researchers a platform in microgravity where they perform experiments and test technologies to allow humans to travel farther into the solar system than ever before. From life support systems to growing plants in space, the space station continues to drive human explorat
  
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• Sun emits mid-level flare on Dec. 4, 2014

  04-12-2014 23:35
  
  On Dec. 4, 2014, the sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 1:25 p.m. EST.
  
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• NASA observes Super Typhoon Hagupit; Philippines under warnings

  04-12-2014 23:22
  
  Forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center expect Super Typhoon Hagupit to reach peak intensity today, Dec. 4, and although expected to weaken, will remain a Category 4 typhoon when it approaches the east central Philippines. NASA's Terra satellite and NASA/JAXA's GPM and TRMM satellites have been providing forecasters with valuable data on the storm. Computer models have varied on their track for the storm based on the strength of an upper-level system, so satellite data is extremely valua
  
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• Review: Amazon Fire TV Stick doesn't match Chromecast, Apple TV or Roku

  04-12-2014 23:00
  
  Amazon is determined to be a player in the market for digital media devices, gadgets that allow users to stream movies, television shows and music from the Internet to their televisions and living room entertainment centers.
  
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• Scientist's Nobel medal fetches $4.75 mn at auction

  04-12-2014 22:40
  
  The Nobel Prize medal of celebrated American geneticist James Watson sold for $4.75 million in just minutes at auction on Thursday in New York.
  
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• CU-Boulder instrument on New Horizons readies for encounter with Pluto, Kuiper Belt

  04-12-2014 22:32
  
  When NASA's napping New Horizon's spacecraft awakens later this week in preparation for its July 2015 encounter with Pluto, a University of Colorado Boulder student instrument onboard already will have been up for years.
  
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• More holiday wish lists go digital

  04-12-2014 22:30
  
  Holly Riefke's two small children still write letters to Santa Claus. Or rather, they print their names on letters Riefke has written on their behalf, and together they drop them into a festive red Macy's mailbox designated for North Pole correspondence.
  
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• Chimps not entitled to rights of people: NY court

  04-12-2014 22:29
  
  Chimpanzees are not entitled to the same rights as people, a New York state appeals court ruled Thursday, thwarting an advocacy group's attempt to get primates freed from captivity.
  
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• El Nino's 'remote control' on hurricanes in the Northeastern Pacific

  04-12-2014 22:29
  
  El Niño, the abnormal warming of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, is a well-studied tropical climate phenomenon that occurs every few years. It has major impacts on society and Earth's climate - inducing intense droughts and floods in multiple regions of the globe. Further, scientists have observed that El Niño greatly influences the yearly variations of tropical cyclones (a general term which includes hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones) in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
  
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• After early successes, Apple Pay will soon confront holiday shopping bonanza

  04-12-2014 22:20
  
  Apple Pay hasn't made the wallet obsolete just yet. But since launching its mobile payments system, Apple has deftly sidestepped problems that flummoxed other tech giants, delivering a smooth experience at the register and steadily grabbing more territory in the mall, analysts say. That'll come in handy in the coming weeks as Apple Pay confronts the retail industry's greatest test: the holiday shopping bonanza.
  
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• Peers unveils products for workers in the sharing economy

  04-12-2014 22:10
  
  What's often known as the "sharing economy" - represented by legions of Airbnb hosts, drivers for Lyft and Uber and countless other micro-entrepreneurs - has increasingly gone mainstream, creating thousands of jobs and new business models in the process.
  
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• New technology allows hockey fans to feel the smash

  04-12-2014 22:10
  
  San Jose Sharks fans now can feel the bone-crunching action in the rink - from the comfort of their couches.
  
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• Bird's Fate Shaping Energy Development in US West

  04-12-2014 21:58
  Fate of sage grouse shaping energy development across huge swath of Western US
  
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• New Emerson products aim for home energy efficiency as Google, Apple move on market

  04-12-2014 21:50
  
  With Silicon Valley tech companies moving in on home energy management with chic devices and user-friendly apps, multinational manufacturer Emerson is pivoting to defend its turf.
  
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• Study finds obstacles with social media data

  04-12-2014 21:40
  
  Seas of social media posts uncovering the opinions, habits and purchases of billions of people would seem to be a fantasy come true for data researchers, social scientists and businesses. However, finding valuable insights through so-called big data isn't as simple as sifting through a few million Twitter posts.
  
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• After Orion launch, big steps lie ahead for Mars trip, NASA says

  04-12-2014 21:37
  
  If creating the new Orion space capsule or developing a new deep-space rocket are complex and critical breakthroughs, NASA's remaining challenges to send humans to Mars are no less daunting, officials said Tuesday.
  
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• Cool ‘Sketchnote’ In

  04-12-2014 21:37 via pinterest.com
  
  Cool ‘Sketchnote’ Infographic Explains NASA’s Orion EFT-1 Flight in Detail
  
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• AOL buys start-up Vidible to bolster video efforts

  04-12-2014 21:30
  
  AOL Inc. made a new investment in video Monday, acquiring a San Francisco startup that's built technology to simplify the process of syndicating online video.
  
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• 'Selfie sticks' affect medical devices?

  04-12-2014 21:28 via rss.cnn.com
  
  South Korean officials are on the lookout for uncertified 'selfie sticks'. They say some devices affect medical equipment.
  
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• UN chief to help push for Lima climate draft deal

  04-12-2014 21:22
  
  UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon heads to Lima next week to help spur action on climate change and clinch a draft deal on emissions reduction.
  
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• Mice discriminate partial sounds just as humans do with partial words

  04-12-2014 21:20
  
  Micheal L. Dent, a University at Buffalo psychologist, listens to what is inaudible to others. And what she's hearing might one day help us better understand human hearing loss.
  
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• Big Island students to go on lava field trips

  04-12-2014 21:20
  
  Some students on Hawaii's Big Island are getting a rare, up-close look at the lava that's disrupting where they go to school.
  
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• Uber now valued at $40 bn

  04-12-2014 21:00
  
  Popular but controversial US ride-sharing startup Uber is now valued at $40 billion, it said Thursday, twice what it was worth six months ago, after raising a fresh $1.2 billion in funding.
  
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• Uber funding puts value at reported $40 bn

  04-12-2014 21:00
  
  Uber said Thursday it raised a fresh $1.2 billion in funding, giving the popular ride-sharing startup a reported value of some $40 billion.
  
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• Finding infant earths and potential life just got easier

  04-12-2014 20:58
  
  Among the billions and billions of stars in the sky, where should astronomers look for infant Earths where life might develop? New research from Cornell University's Institute for Pale Blue Dots shows where - and when - infant Earths are most likely to be found. The paper by research associate Ramses M. Ramirez and director Lisa Kaltenegger, "The Habitable Zones of Pre-Main-Sequence Stars" will be published in the Jan. 1, 2015, issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.
  
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• Research on adaptation, evolution should consider life-history trade-offs alongside organism performance capacities

  04-12-2014 20:55
  
  For nearly 40 years, one of the cornerstones of the study of adaptation has been the examination of "whole-organism performance capacities"—essentially, measures of the dynamic things animals do: how fast they can run; how hard they can bite; how far, fast, and high they can jump; and so on. Together, these functional attributes determine the performance of a species' ecology: the types of food one can eat; the ability to capture or locate prey; the ability to avoid predation; the ability of m
  
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• CAPTCHA: Annoying to Humans, Easy for Machines

  04-12-2014 20:48
  
  Robots may be better at passing CAPTCHA tests than humans.
  
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• Big Island Students to Take Lava Field Trips

  04-12-2014 20:42
  
  Students whose schools have been disrupted by Big Island volcano to go on lava field trips
  
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• Sony Celebrates 20 Years of PlayStation

  04-12-2014 20:32 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  Ready to feel old? Wednesday marked the 20th birthday of the original PlayStation, which was released on Dec. 3, 1994 in Japan.
  
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• After 1.3M miles, end of an era for research ship

  04-12-2014 20:30
  
  A ship that sailed more than 1.3 million miles in the name of science is back at port in Massachusetts for the last time.
  
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• India says will not be bulldozed at climate talks

  04-12-2014 20:11
  
  India, the world's third-largest greenhouse gas emitter, said Thursday it is committed to tackling global warming but vowed to protect its interests at the latest round of UN climate talks in Lima.
  
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• Maintaining a reliable value of the cost of climate change

  04-12-2014 20:01
  
  The Social Cost of Carbon puts a dollar value on the climate damages per ton of CO2 released, and is used by - among others -policymakers to help determine the costs and benefits of climate policies. In the latest issue of the journal Science, a group of economists and lawyers urge several improvements to the government's Social Cost of Carbon figure that would impose a regular, transparent and peer-reviewed process to ensure the figure is reliable and well-supported by the latest facts.
  
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• Electric eels deliver Taser-like shocks

  04-12-2014 20:00
  
  The electric eel - the scaleless Amazonian fish that can deliver an electrical jolt strong enough to knock down a full-grown horse - possesses an electroshock system uncannily similar to a Taser.
  
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• X-ray laser as ultra slow-motion camera: New study paves the way for nano-movies of biomolecules

  04-12-2014 20:00
  
  An international team, including scientists from DESY, has caught a light sensitive biomolecule at work with an X-ray laser. The study proves that X-ray lasers can capture the fast dynamics of biomolecules in ultra slow-motion, as the scientists led by Prof. Marius Schmidt from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee write in the journal Science. "Our study paves the way for movies from the nano world with atomic spatial resolution and ultrafast temporal resolution", says Schmidt.
  
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• Antarctic seawater temperatures rising

  04-12-2014 20:00
  
  The temperature of the seawater around Antarctica is rising according to new research from the University of East Anglia.
  
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• Current tools for Asian Carp eDNA monitoring fall short, study shows

  04-12-2014 20:00
  
  Since 2010, detections of Asian Carp environmental DNA or "eDNA" have warned scientists, policymakers, and the public that these high-flying invaders are knocking on the Great Lakes' door. Scientists capture tiny DNA-containing bits from water and use genetic analysis to determine if any Asian Carp DNA is present. New research published by Notre Dame scientists shows that the tools currently used for Asian Carp eDNA monitoring often fail to detect the fish. By comparison, the new eDNA methods de
  
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• Geophysicists challenge traditional theory underlying the origin of mid-plate volcanoes

  04-12-2014 20:00
  
  A long-held assumption about the Earth is discussed in today's edition of Science, as Don L. Anderson, an emeritus professor with the Seismological Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology, and Scott King, a professor of geophysics in the College of Science at Virginia Tech, look at how a layer beneath the Earth's crust may be responsible for volcanic eruptions.
  
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• The finer details of rust

  04-12-2014 20:00
  
  Scientists at the Vienna University of Technology have been studying the behavior of iron oxide surfaces. The atomic structure of iron oxide, which had been assumed to be well-established, turned out to be wrong. The behavior of iron oxide is governed by missing iron atoms in the atomic layer directly below the surface. This is a big surprise with potential applications in chemical catalysis, electronics or medicine.
  
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• Greenhouse gases linked to African rainfall

  04-12-2014 20:00
  
  Scientists may have solved a long-standing enigma known as the African Humid Period - an intense increase in cumulative rainfall in parts of Africa that began after a long dry spell following the end of the last ice age and lasting nearly 10,000 years.
  
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• Chicago summer jobs program for high school students dramatically reduces youth violence

  04-12-2014 20:00
  
  A public summer jobs program for high school students from disadvantaged neighborhoods in Chicago reduced violent crime arrests by 43 percent over a 16-month period, according to a new study from the University of Chicago Crime Lab and the University of Pennsylvania. The randomized controlled trial is published in the journal Science.
  
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• The walls can talk: New optical technique extracts audio from video

  04-12-2014 19:44
  
  Those formerly silent walls can "talk" now: Researchers have demonstrated a simple optical technique by which audio information can be extracted from high-speed video recordings. The method uses an image-matching process based on vibration from sound waves, and is reported in an article appearing in the November issue of the journal Optical Engineering, published by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.
  
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• In twenty years, PlayStation's grey box changes gaming forever

  04-12-2014 19:20
  
  Twenty years ago, a small grey box of electronic tricks made its debut in Japan, heralding the birth of the global gaming phenomenon that changed the entertainment landscape, launching titles that now outstrip sales from Hollywood's biggest franchises.
  
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• TV viewing support for color-blind emerges with Eyeteq

  04-12-2014 19:04
  
  UK-based Spectral Edge has made its technology available for set-top TV boxes so that viewers who are color-blind can differentiate shades alongside viewers who are not color-blind. Eyeteq is the name of their "mathematical image processing technology," designed to enhance color-rendering so that color-blind people see more color. The technology uses mathematical perception models to modify image colors; it is suitable for both still and moving images. The tech works by enhancing certain colors
  
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• Researchers Demonstrate Superconductivity without Cooling

  04-12-2014 19:00 via scitechdaily.com
  
  New research details how scientists used an infrared laser pulse to briefly modify the structure of a high-temperature superconductor, removing its electrical resistance at room temperature. Superconductivity is a remarkable phenomenon: superconductors can transport electric current without any resistance and thus without any losses whatsoever. It is already in use in some niche areas, for […]
  The post Researchers Demonstrate Superconductivity without Cooling appeared first on SciTe
  
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• Family saves three baby sharks through C-section

  04-12-2014 19:00
  
  Performing an emergency C-section on a shark may not be part of a typical vacation beach outing, but for one American family visiting Cape Town, South Africa that is exactly what happened. 
  
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• EU makes move to let member states block GM crops

  04-12-2014 19:00
  
  The European Union is taking a big step toward giving EU member states the power to ban the cultivation of genetically modified crops even if they have been approved by the food safety authority of the 28-nation bloc.
  
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