Sci-Tech news

• CubeSats in deep space

  03-11-2015 23:30
  
  (Phys.org)—Tiny spacecraft have their ambitions of space exploration too. The small-sized satellites called CubeSats, made of box-shaped four-inch units, are successfully operating in the low Earth orbit, conducting a variety of scientific research. Now, space agencies like NASA and ESA a planning to send these nanosatellites way farther than ever before – to deep space destinations, like asteroids and Mars.
  
  Read more

• Senate blocks legislation to undercut EPA clean water rules

  03-11-2015 22:44
  
  Democrats have blocked a Senate bill that would have forced the Obama administration to withdraw new federal rules to protect smaller streams, tributaries and wetlands from development and pollution.
  
  Read more

• Wing structure helps female monarch butterflies outperform males in flight

  03-11-2015 22:32
  
  Evidence has been mounting that female monarch butterflies are better at flying and more successful at migration than males, and researchers from the University of Georgia have now come up with an explanation—but not one they expected.
  
  Read more

• Electrical engineer's work may signal better wireless connections

  03-11-2015 22:04
  
  To find methods that can improve wireless communication, UT Dallas electrical engineering professor Dr. Aria Nosratinia is investigating the technology that keeps us connected.
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Watch Self-Flying Drone Zip Around Obstacles

  03-11-2015 22:02
  
  A self-flying drone is able to swiftly navigate obstacles while flying through the sky at 30 miles per hour.
  
  Read more

• As Scientists Worry About Warming, U.S. Public Doesn't

  03-11-2015 21:58 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  Americans are hot but not too bothered by global warming.
  
  Read more

• Watch: Astronaut Scott Kelly Hits Space Milestone

  03-11-2015 21:39
  
  The astronaut has officially been in space longer than any other American, 216 days and counting.
  
  Read more

• When Robots Get Hurt, Humans Feel Their Pain

  03-11-2015 21:29 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  When we see another person in pain, we empathize and offer consolation. But would we react the same way to a robot?
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Up to 400 bn euros needed for clean EU energy grid by 2050: study

  03-11-2015 21:10
  
  Investors will have to spend up to 400 billion euros to build an EU-wide electricity grid that involves the emission of virtually no greenhouse gases by 2050, a report said Tuesday.
  
  Read more

• Organic bromine compounds—another threat to the ozone layer

  03-11-2015 21:10
  
  The ozone layer of the lower stratosphere is an extremely diffuse abundance of O3 that absorbs up to 99 percent of incoming ultraviolet solar radiation, thereby creating the conditions that make known life possible. In the 1970s and 1980s, as scientists reported the dramatic thinning of stratospheric ozone, a regulatory push by governments around the world led to a reduction in the use of chlorofluorocarbons by industry. Nonetheless, other compounds released into the atmosphere have the effect o
  
  Read more

• Univ. of Washington faculty study legal, social complexities of augmented reality

  03-11-2015 21:00
  
  Augmented reality is the enhancement of human perception through overlaying technologies that can expand, annotate and even record the user's moment-to-moment experience.
  
  Read more

• Microsoft gets stingy with free online storage

  03-11-2015 21:00
  
  Microsoft is getting stingy with online storage. The company just cut the free space it offers through its OneDrive service by two-thirds, making it the second major company to retreat from a consumer cloud-storage boom that tempted users with price cuts and ever-larger free offers.
  
  Read more

• Fighting citrus greening with vibrating orange groves

  03-11-2015 20:48
  
  When a male Asian Citrus Psyllid is looking for a mate, he situates himself on a twig, buzzes his wings to send vibrations along adjacent leaves and branches, and listens for a female's response call. If the call comes, he travels in her direction, the abbreviated insect version of courtship ensues, and two to seven weeks later, scores of psyllids nymphs emerge from their eggs, feed on phloem sap, and mature into adults who head out into the world, ravaging untold numbers of citrus trees in the
  
  Read more

• El Faro one of many disasters that challenged investigators

  03-11-2015 20:45
  
  The discovery of the missing freighter El Faro in more than 15,000-feet of water presents a challenge for U.S. Navy crews seeking to retrieve the ship's voyage data recorder, or "black box," and other evidence that could help piece together what happened. A remotely operated vehicle is being used to search the wreckage for the black box and any remains. Here are some other sea disasters that presented a difficult job for investigators trying to recover evidence in a harsh environment.
  
  Read more

• New method reveals female biased green sea turtle sex ratio in San Diego Bay

  03-11-2015 20:40
  
  Scientists have for the first time determined the ratio of males to females in a wild foraging group of green turtles in the Eastern Pacific, which suggests that sea turtles may be vulnerable to feminization from the temperature rises expected with climate change. The sex of sea turtles is determined by incubation temperatures on the nesting beaches, with warmer sand temperatures producing more females. Research published recently in the journal PLOS ONE focused on the San Diego Bay aggregation
  
  Read more

• Chances 'fair' for Philae contact: ground controllers

  03-11-2015 20:40
  
  Chances are "fair" for renewed contact with Europe's robot lab Philae, hurtling through space perched on a comet, a ground controller said Tuesday, four months after the tiny lander fell silent.
  
  Read more

• Vice Media gets TV channel in deal with A&E

  03-11-2015 20:39
  
  Vice Media is getting its own cable television channel in a deal with A&E Networks that brings the youth-focused media group to the mainstream.
  
  Read more

• Millenials-aimed Vice adds TV channel to global video lineup

  03-11-2015 20:39
  
  Vice Media is adding a U.S. cable channel to its digital video empire as it tries to gain viewers in old as well as new media.
  
  Read more

• Wildfires may double erosion across a quarter of western US watersheds by 2050

  03-11-2015 20:35
  
  Baltimore, MD, USA: In recent years, wildfires have burned trees and homes to the ground across many states in the western U.S., but the ground itself has not gotten away unscathed.
  
  Read more

• NASA sees first land-falling tropical cyclone in Yemen

  03-11-2015 20:24
  
  Tropical Cyclone Chapala made landfall in Yemen early on November 3 (Eastern Standard Time) and made history as the first land-falling tropical storm in 30 years of record-keeping. As Chapala made landfall NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead twice.
  
  Read more

• Germany's VW: new C02 problems with 800,000 vehicles

  03-11-2015 20:23
  
  Germany's Volkswagen, already reeling from news that it had cheated on U.S. tests for nitrogen oxide emissions, said Tuesday that an internal investigation had revealed "unexplained inconsistencies" in the carbon dioxide emissions from 800,000 vehicles that could cost the company another 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion).
  
  Read more

• Twitter Adds a Heart for Users to 'Like' Tweets

  03-11-2015 20:01
  
  Twitter wants users to start liking tweets.
  
  Read more

• Distilling success: Google turns old Polish vodka factory into tech startup centre

  03-11-2015 20:00
  
  Google will open a "campus" for business startups in a renovated vodka distillery in the Polish capital Warsaw later this month, making it one of a handful of these tech hubs the global IT giant has created worldwide.
  
  Read more

• Martian Atmosphere: NASA Teases New Findings About Mars

  03-11-2015 19:58
  
  The mysteries of Mars continue to fascinate NASA scientists who are set to unveil new findings about the atmosphere on the Red Planet.
  
  Read more

• Hypersonic Jet Could Go From NYC to London in 30 Minutes

  03-11-2015 19:46 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  How'd you like to travel from New York to London in less than an hour?
  
  Read more

• The new wave in wireless communication

  03-11-2015 19:40
  
  While cat videos, memes and the various other clips and images shared via the Internet provide endless hours of viewing pleasure, they are creating a stress on conventional wireless networks. They produce a huge demand for wireless capacity that cannot be satisfied simply with increases to the existing spectrum.
  
  Read more

• Diamonds may not be so rare as once thought

  03-11-2015 19:40
  
  Diamonds may not be as rare as once believed, but this finding in a new Johns Hopkins University research report won't mean deep discounts at local jewelry stores.
  
  Read more

• Hopping Hazards: Volvo Develops Kangaroo Tech

  03-11-2015 19:06 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  In Australia, Volvo is developing technology to avoid an adorable road hazard: kangaroos.
  
  Read more

• After Twilight - Astrophotography Apollo 17 LRV

  03-11-2015 19:01 via pinterest.com
  After Twilight - Astrophotography Apollo 17 LRV
  
  Read more

• After Twilight - Ast

  03-11-2015 19:01 via pinterest.com
  
  After Twilight - Astrophotography Apollo 17 LRV
  
  Read more

• Semantic Scholar engine for scientists gets (leaps) to the points

  03-11-2015 19:00
  
  From the Seattle-based Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, comes a free science search engine. Oren Etzioni is CEO. The Institute is also called by its shorthand name, AI2. They launched the free service, called Semantic Scholar.
  
  Read more

• Why Facebook is Researching Artificial Intelligence

  03-11-2015 18:45 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  Facebook is delving into the world of artificial intelligence by teaching computers to analyze images. Mike Schroepfer, Facebook's chief technolo
  
  Read more

• Some chemicals less damaging to ozone can degrade to long-lived greenhouse gas

  03-11-2015 18:40
  
  Some substitutes for ozone-damaging chemicals being phased out worldwide under international agreements are themselves potent greenhouse gases and contribute to warming. Now, a new study published Nov. 2 in Geophysical Research Letters, a publication of the American Geophysical Union, shows for the first time how some of those replacement chemicals can break down in the atmosphere to form a greenhouse gas that can persist for millennia, much longer than the substitute chemicals themselves.
  
  Read more

• Russia readies to exhume Tsar Alexander III in Romanov probe

  03-11-2015 18:40
  
  Russian investigators began examining the grave of Tsar Alexander III Tuesday ahead of his exhumation in a probe looking to finally identify the remains of the last tsar Nicholas II and his family.
  
  Read more

• Lipid helps keep algae and brain fluid moving

  03-11-2015 18:30
  
  The same lipid that helps algae swim toward the light also appears to enable one type of brain cell to keep cerebrospinal fluid moving, researchers report.
  
  Read more

• Digital titans fail on privacy, data protection, survey says

  03-11-2015 18:30
  
  The world's biggest Internet and telecom companies are falling short in protecting privacy and online freedom of expression, a study released Tuesday showed.
  
  Read more

• As scientists worry about warming world, US public doesn't

  03-11-2015 18:30
  
  Americans are hot but not too bothered by global warming.
  
  Read more

• Twitter's Newest Feature is Just 'Like' Facebook

  03-11-2015 18:22 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  Twitter is taking a page from Facebook by letting users "like" messages, an action that will replace the old "favorite" feature.
  
  Read more

• Energy-efficient reaction drives ORNL biofuel conversion technology

  03-11-2015 18:10
  
  A new study from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory explains the mechanism behind a technology that converts bio-based ethanol into hydrocarbon blend-stocks for use as fossil fuel alternatives.
  
  Read more

• Watch: Activision Is Buying Candy Crush Creator for $5.9 Billion

  03-11-2015 18:06
  
  Candy Crush game maker King Digital just scored a sweet $5.9 billion buyout from Activision Blizzard, the company behind popular games such as "Call of Duty" and "World of Warcraft."
  
  Read more

• Stars No More: Twitter Ditches Stars, Adds Hearts for Likes

  03-11-2015 18:01
  Twitter trades stars and 'favorites' for hearts and 'likes' as it makes service easier to use
  
  Read more

• Grant establishes center for 3-D structure and physics of the genome at UMMS

  03-11-2015 18:00
  
  The University of Massachusetts Medical School has been awarded a five-year, $15 million grant from the National Institutes of Medicine Common Fund to establish the Center for 3-D Structure and Physics of the Genome. The center is part of the NIH's 4-D Nucleome Program, an interdisciplinary effort comprising 29 research teams across the country with the goal of mapping the three-dimensional architecture of the human genome and how this organization changes over time—the fourth dimension. T
  
  Read more

• Astronomers Reveal How Stars Reach Masses of More Than a Hundred Times Our Sun

  03-11-2015 17:59 via scitechdaily.com
  
  A team of astronomers has discovered a stable structure around one of the most massive, newly forming stars in our galaxy, revealing how some stars manage to reach masses of more than a hundred times that of our Sun. Stars count lightweights and heavyweights among their number. All are born in clouds of gas and […]
  The post Astronomers Reveal How Stars Reach Masses of More Than a Hundred Times Our Sun appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
  Read more

• Race matters on college campuses

  03-11-2015 17:58
  
  Affirmative action bans not only contribute to the decline of student body diversity, but also negatively influence the success of students of color on campus, according to higher education researchers at Penn State and Columbia University.
  
  Read more

• Storage advance may boost solar thermal energy potential

  03-11-2015 17:55
  
  Engineers at Oregon State University have identified a new approach for the storage of concentrated solar thermal energy, to reduce its cost and make it more practical for wider use.
  
  Read more

• Some South China Sea fish 'close to extinction'

  03-11-2015 17:50
  
  Experts said Tuesday that some fish species are close to extinction in the South China Sea due to over-fishing fuelled by a growing appetite for seafood.
  
  Read more

• Forming glass shapes: Lowering the 'softening temperature' via electric field

  03-11-2015 17:46
  
  On a serendipitous occasion, while attending a conference and listening to Rishi Raj, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder, speak about the remarkable effect of moderate electrical fields on lowering the sintering temperature of certain ceramic powders, Himanshu Jain, a professor of materials science and engineering at Lehigh University, began to wonder if a similar phenomenon was possible in a glass—because he knew that the implications could be huge
  
  Read more

• Scattered Light Gaps in Protoplanetary Disks Don’t Always Signal Planets

  03-11-2015 17:43 via scitechdaily.com
  
  New research from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics shows that a gap in the dusty disk circling a star could be a sort of cosmic illusion and not the sign of a hidden planet after all. Cambridge, Massachusetts – When astronomers study protoplanetary disks of gas and dust that surround young stars, they sometimes spot […]
  The post Scattered Light Gaps in Protoplanetary Disks Don’t Always Signal Planets appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
  Read more

• Scientists discover secret to highly efficient swimming in some animals, such as jellyfish

  03-11-2015 17:42
  
  Previous studies have shown that jellyfish and eels can move using very low amounts of energy that would make a Toyota Prius jealous. In fact, these ocean denizens can go from point A to point B using less energy than any other swimmer, runner or flier ever measured. However the secret behind such amazing energetic efficiency has remained a mystery, until now.
  
  Read more

• China's Li: Beijing has 'duty to humanity' to boost green growth

  03-11-2015 17:40
  
  China has used up too much energy and too many resources in its quest for growth, Premier Li Keqiang told visiting French President Francois Hollande Tuesday, adding it has a "duty to humanity" to clean itself up.
  
  Read more

Follow @NewslockSciTech on Twitter!