Sci-Tech news

• Net Neutrality Fight Returns to Appeals Court

  04-12-2015 23:03 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  The government's latest push to make sure consumers get equal access to the Internet is facing a key legal test.
  
  Read more

• New way to make yeast hybrids may inspire new brews, biofuels

  04-12-2015 22:08
  
  About 500 years ago, the accidental natural hybridization of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the yeast responsible for things like ale, wine and bread, and a distant yeast cousin gave rise to lager beer.
  
  Read more

• How cells are foiled by a herpes virus family member in the virus-host arms race

  04-12-2015 22:07
  
  Not every virus wants to go viral—at least, not immediately. Some want to slip in quietly. Hide. Wait for the perfect opportunity to attack.
  
  Read more

• The Latest: Redford Says Fighting Global Warming Is Urgent

  04-12-2015 21:35
  
  The Latest: Redford says planet is running out of time, climate action needed
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Expert Raises Security Issues Over 'Hello Barbie' Doll

  04-12-2015 20:53 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  A security firm is raising security concerns over Mattel's "Hello Barbie," which allows children to engage in conversation with the iconic doll.
  
  Read more

• US court clash on 'Open Internet' rules, version 3.0

  04-12-2015 20:44
  
  Backers and opponents of "Open Internet" rules clashed Friday in a federal appeals court, in the third round of a battle on how US broadband providers may be regulated.
  
  Read more

• Nanoscale drawbridges open path to color displays

  04-12-2015 20:25
  
  A new method for building "drawbridges" between metal nanoparticles may allow electronics makers to build full-color displays using light-scattering nanoparticles that are similar to the gold materials that medieval artisans used to create red stained-glass.
  
  Read more

• Mystery of arsenic release into groundwater solved

  04-12-2015 20:16
  
  Groundwater in South and Southeast Asia commonly contains concentrations of arsenic 20 to 100 times greater than the World Health Organization's recommended limit, resulting in more than 100 million people being poisoned by drinking arsenic-laced water in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Myanmar, Vietnam and China.
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• 'Shazam for Earthquakes' Could Help Predict Big Ones

  04-12-2015 20:14 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  Scientists have discovered a way to identify "microquakes," which could help them predict larger temblors in the future.
  
  Read more

• Study undercuts idea that 'medieval warm period' was global

  04-12-2015 20:00
  
  A new study questions the popular notion that 10th-century Norse people were able to colonize Greenland because of a period of unusually warm weather. Based upon signs left by old glaciers, researchers say the climate was already cold when the Norse arrived—and that climate thus probably played little role in their mysterious demise some 400 years later. On a larger scale, the study adds to building evidence that the so-called Medieval Warm Period, when Europe enjoyed exceptionally clement
  
  Read more

• Scientists develop 'Shazam for earthquakes'

  04-12-2015 20:00
  
  An algorithm inspired by a popular song-matching app is helping Stanford scientists find previously overlooked earthquakes in large databases of ground motion measurements.
  
  Read more

• Samsung to Finally Pay Apple $548M in Patent Dispute

  04-12-2015 19:52 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  The payment stems from a 2012 verdict against Samsung for infringing Apple patents and copying the look of the iPhone.
  
  Read more

• Porsche plans 1 bn euro electric car by 'end of decade'

  04-12-2015 19:05
  
  Porsche said Friday it was pumping in a billion euros to bring its first all electric car to market by "the end of the decade", as the German luxury sportscar giant joined the race for a slice of the green car market.
  
  Read more

• Astronomers Measure Magnetic Fields at Sagittarius A*

  04-12-2015 18:55 via scitechdaily.com
  
  Using the Event Horizon Telescope, astronomers have measured the magnetic fields just outside the event horizon of Sagittarius A* for the first time. Most people think of black holes as giant vacuum cleaners sucking in everything that gets too close. But the supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies are more like cosmic engines, […]
  The post Astronomers Measure Magnetic Fields at Sagittarius A* appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
  Read more

• Yale Study Shows Protein IL-18 Contributes to Colitis

  04-12-2015 18:35 via scitechdaily.com
  
  New research from Yale University identifies that the protein IL-18 plays a key part in the development of the colitis. The cause of Ulcerative Colitis, a debilitating disease of the intestine, is unclear. A Yale-led study has illuminated the role of a protein that plays a key part in the development of the condition. The […]
  The post Yale Study Shows Protein IL-18 Contributes to Colitis appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
  Read more

• New Horizons Spots a Wandering Kuiper Belt Object

  04-12-2015 18:06 via scitechdaily.com
  
  This new image from the New Horizons Spacecraft demonstrates the ability of the spacecraft’s Long Range Reconnaissance Imager to capture distant objects in motion. NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft recently took the closest images ever of a distant Kuiper Belt object – demonstrating its ability to observe numerous such bodies over the next several years if […]
  The post New Horizons Spots a Wandering Kuiper Belt Object appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
  Read more

• Hubble Peers Through the Luminous Core of NGC 2768

  04-12-2015 17:55 via scitechdaily.com
  
  This new Hubble image shows elliptical galaxy NGC 2768. Like a lighthouse in the fog, the luminous core of NGC 2768 slowly fades outwards to a dull white haze in this image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. NGC 2768 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation of Ursa Major (The Great Bear). It […]
  The post Hubble Peers Through the Luminous Core of NGC 2768 appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
  Read more

• Italy's Etna in most dramatic eruption in 20 years

  04-12-2015 17:22
  
  Fire and hot ash spewed high into the sky from Italy's Mount Etna in Sicily Friday, in one of the most dramatic eruptions of Europe's highest active volcano in the past 20 years.
  
  Read more

• More lousy weather as NASA tries for space station delivery

  04-12-2015 17:12
  
  For the second day in a row, foul weather threatens to stall a critical space station delivery for NASA.
  
  Read more

• Jewish cuisine punching above its paunch

  04-12-2015 17:09
  
  "In the late 30s, you could get a smoked meat sandwich for five cents," said Olivier Bauer, a professor at the University of Montreal's Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies. "Today, the sandwich is not cheap, but it has become a Montreal icon. The same is true for the bagel our city is famous for around the world." The researcher, who conducted a study on these two foods associated with Judaism, recently presented the results of his research at the international conference Food Heritage, Hy
  
  Read more

• World's top nature photos to be projected onto St Peter's

  04-12-2015 16:33
  
  Images by some of the world's greatest environmental photographers will be projected onto Saint Peter's Basilica next week in solidarity with the climate change talks in Paris, the Vatican said Friday.
  
  Read more

• ALMA spots monstrous baby galaxies cradled in dark matter

  04-12-2015 16:23
  
  Astronomers discovered a nest of monstrous baby galaxies 11.5 billion light-years away using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The young galaxies seem to reside at the junction of gigantic filaments in a web of dark matter. These findings are important for understanding how monstrous galaxies like these are formed and how they evolve in to huge elliptical galaxies.
  
  Read more

• Marine debris travels far

  04-12-2015 16:22
  
  Rubbish dumped at sea off Townsville will end up on the popular Mission Beach holiday spot, while Cairns' marine trash goes straight to the exclusive Port Douglas resort—according to new computer modelling by a James Cook University scientist.
  
  Read more

• Letter to Mars? Royal Mail works it out for British boy, 5

  04-12-2015 16:10
  
  Britain's Royal Mail has turned to NASA for help after a five-year-old boy wrote in asking how much it would cost to post a letter to Mars.
  
  Read more

• Rudeness at work is contagious

  04-12-2015 16:09
  
  Workplace incivility should be treated with the utmost seriousness. This is the finding of three psychologists at Lund University in Sweden who surveyed nearly 6 000 people on the social climate in the workplace. Their studies show that being subjected to rudeness is a major reason for dissatisfaction at work and that unpleasant behaviour spreads if nothing is done about it.
  
  Read more

• Error correction strategies of cells: Team proposes new hypothesis

  04-12-2015 16:08
  
  Cells dynamically respond to environmental signals by turning appropriate sets of genes on or off. The "control system" that determines which genes need to be expressed at what time depends primarily on the interactions between transcription factor proteins (TFs) and the regulatory DNA sequence. This system is highly complex—especially in cells of multicellular organisms—as correct combinations of TF molecules need to bind specific sites on the DNA. Surprisingly, while multicellular
  
  Read more

• Laser scanning shows rates and patterns of surface deformation from the South Napa earthquake

  04-12-2015 16:07
  
  U.S. Geological Survey scientists used 3D laser scanning to make repeat measurements of an area affected by the 2014 magnitude 6.0 South Napa earthquake in order to define in great detail the surface deformation that occurred both during and after the earthquake. The recent revolution in 3D laser measurement technology (LiDAR) allows scientists to collect detailed information about the shape of the land surface and the objects that sit upon it with unprecedented accuracy.
  
  Read more

• Worsening US droughts demand alternative water protection approaches, study suggests

  04-12-2015 16:04
  
  Alternative models of watershed protection that balance recreational use and land conservation must no longer be ignored to preserve water supplies against the effects of climate change, argues a new study. Researchers claim that the management of Salt Lake City's Wasatch watershed in Utah provides a valuable example contradicting the dominant view presented in academic literature that informs many current conservation strategies.
  
  Read more

• Smart windows with electrochromic film—almost ready for prime time

  04-12-2015 16:00
  
  EC film devices have been hampered in making the move from research to innovation by a number of technical and economic obstacles. EELICON aims to overcome these obstacles by removing equipment limitations, automating processes, and validating a possible high-throughput prototype production process for a cost-effective, high-performance EC film technology.
  
  Read more

• Cell suicide prevention squad

  04-12-2015 16:00
  
  Recent research has shown that the cells in our bodies teeter on the brink of death. They possess intricate molecular mechanisms that promote either suicide or survival. The concept is known as programmed cell death (PCD). Since the early 2000s, when PCD was confirmed, research has focused mainly on finding genes and proteins that trigger it. however, processes aiding cell survival have not been well understood.
  
  Read more

• A new technique to gauge the distant universe

  04-12-2015 16:00
  
  Scientists have developed a technique to use quasars – powerful sources driven by supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies – to study the universe's history and composition. To demonstrate the new method, based on a relation between a quasar's luminosity at X-ray and ultraviolet wavelengths, they made extensive use of data from ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray observatory. This approach promises to become an important tool to constrain the properties of our universe.
  
  Read more

• Shedding light on oxygen, radiation and cancer treatment

  04-12-2015 15:52
  
  The underlying principle of radiotherapy is using shaped beams of high energy light or particles to induce cell death in tumour cells, whilst sparing healthy cells. Radiotherapy can be incredibly effective, and is increasingly used in both a curative and palliative capacity to kill or control tumour growth, either alone or in conjunction with chemotherapy. It's a growing method, with up to 60 percent of cancer patients receiving radiotherapy in the course of treatment.
  
  Read more

• Shaking bosons into fermions

  04-12-2015 15:50
  
  Particles can be classified as bosons or fermions. A defining characteristic of a boson is its ability to pile into a single quantum state with other bosons. Fermions are not allowed to do this. One broad impact of fermionic anti-social behavior is that it allows for carbon-based life forms, like us, to exist. If the universe were solely made from bosons, life would certainly not look like it does. Recently, JQI theorists have proposed an elegant method for achieving transmutation—that is,
  
  Read more

• Bio-aggregates sow the seeds for a revolution in building materials

  04-12-2015 15:50
  
  We may be on the cusp of a revolution in building materials thanks to bio-based aggregates. Straw, clay, wheat, grasses or other organic materials, when mixed with innovative binders, can offer lower embodied energy and improved energy efficiency – as well as greater comfort – compared with conventional building materials.
  
  Read more

• Wrapping buildings in a layer of insulating liquid

  04-12-2015 15:49
  
  Large-area fluidic windows use a fluid contained in microchannels to harvest ambient heat and solar energy and manage heat exchange, thereby boosting energy efficiency.
  
  Read more

• Building sustainable and liveable cities

  04-12-2015 15:49
  
  A project backed by FP7 funding is designing, developing and validating a Platform for Decision Support that will allow city authorities and utilities to promote and choose the most suitable retrofitting actions for more sustainable and liveable cities.
  
  Read more

• Fin24.com | Aggressive pricing as Xiaomi Mi 4 goes on sale

  04-12-2015 15:45
  
  Xiaomi has launched its South African smartphone with aggressive pricing in partnership with local retailers.
  
  Read more

• Should we go to Mars or back to the moon?

  04-12-2015 15:40
  
  When humans finally blast off for another world, where will we be going? Will we return to the moon, and take over where the Apollo astronauts left off, or will we press onto Mars, and set foot on a whole new planet?
  
  Read more

• US Census Bureau releases statistics of five-year estimates from American Community Survey

  04-12-2015 15:22
  
  The U.S. Census Bureau released today American Community Survey's five-year estimates for 2014. These data cover information for small area populations and are important in analyzing neighborhood characteristics. The American Community Survey is an ongoing survey that provides detailed information on a yearly basis.
  
  Read more

• The long quest for technology that understands speech as well as a human

  04-12-2015 15:21
  
  Sitting in his office overlooking downtown Bellevue, Washington, Microsoft's Fil Alleva is talking about the long and sometimes difficult road he and other speech recognition experts have taken from the early work of the 1970s to the situation he is in today, where he can turn to his computer and say, "Cortana, I want a pizza" and get results.
  
  Read more

• New data helps show El Nino occurrences during the Medieval Climate Anomaly and Little Ice Age

  04-12-2015 15:20
  
  (Phys.org)—A team of researchers with affiliations to several universities in the U.S. has helped uncover the frequency of El Niño events during the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age by obtaining Eastern Pacific Ocean sediment samples. As they note in their paper published in the journal Science, the new data helps to better understand El Niño events in general and may help to predict their occurrences and impact in the future.
  
  Read more

• Rare images reveal details of US Navy seaplane lost in Pearl Harbor attack 74 years ago

  04-12-2015 15:10
  
  NOAA and University of Hawaii archaeologists today released rare images of a U.S. Navy  airplane sunk during the opening minutes of the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on Oahu on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II.
  
  Read more

• Image: Dutch mosaic from Copernicus Sentinel data

  04-12-2015 15:10
  
  This image is a mosaic based on Sentinel-1A satellite coverage of the Netherlands in three scans during March 2015.
  
  Read more

• Study shows Massive Open Online Courses used mostly by wealthier people

  04-12-2015 14:57
  
  (Phys.org)—A pair of researchers looking into whether Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are helping to bridge the disparity gap in education access in the U.S. has found that those who take the courses tend to be from wealthier neighborhoods. In their paper published in the journal Science, John Hansen, with Harvard University and Justin Reich, with MIT describe their research efforts and why they came to believe that MOOCs are not the remedy to educational disparity that many had hoped.
  
  Read more

• Albany seagrass points to historical pollution

  04-12-2015 14:53
  
  Seagrass meadows in Albany's Oyster Harbour are being used as history books to reveal fluctuating contaminant levels in harbour water throughout the last 3000 years, with a rapid increase in contamination since the 1900s.
  
  Read more

• Playing tennis on a smart court

  04-12-2015 14:51
  
  Technis, an EPFL start-up, is bringing augmented reality to the tennis court. Their newly developed technology could be used for other sports in the future.
  
  Read more

• Dolphin-disease outbreak shows how to account for the unknown when tracking epidemics

  04-12-2015 14:51
  
  Stopping the outbreak of a disease hinges on a wealth of data such as what makes a suitable host and how a pathogen spreads. But gathering these data can be difficult for diseases in remote areas of the world, or for epidemics involving wild animals.
  
  Read more

• Scientists investigated molecular processes for targeted dog cancer therapy

  04-12-2015 14:50
  
  Dogs get cancer, just like humans. Scientists at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna are now exploring the molecular basis of cancer progression in canine cell lines. Modern cancer therapy has been revolutionized with the introduction of new drugs, so-called 'targeted drugs', but the basis for the application of these new agents in cancer therapy is a deep understanding of the molecular mechanisms of the disease, even with pets. Now a research team led by Sabine Macho-Maschler has inve
  
  Read more

• Michael Bloomberg leads global push on corporate climate risks

  04-12-2015 14:50
  
  US billionaire Michael Bloomberg will lead an unprecedented push for corporations worldwide to reveal their financial exposure to climate change to investors, a banking watchdog announced Friday.
  
  Read more

• Watt report suggests financial incentives for measuring research impact

  04-12-2015 14:49
  
  A government report on research funding and policy recommends introducing a financial incentive to ensure university research benefits society and business.
  
  Read more

Follow @NewslockSciTech on Twitter!