Sci-Tech news

• India draws tech dreamers back home

  14-12-2015 23:50
  
  Like many Indian engineers, Ambarish Gupta moved abroad to get his piece of the tech dream.
  
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• Chitchat and small talk could serve an evolutionary need to bond with others

  14-12-2015 23:45
  
  We think of chitchat and small talk as the things people say to pass the time or kill an awkward silence. New research suggests, however, that these idle conversations could be a social-bonding tool passed down from primates.
  
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• Smaller cities vie to be the next Silicon Valley

  14-12-2015 23:30
  
  A tiny light bulb hooked up to a computer lights up, and Antonio Rojas-Rodriguez smiles.
  
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• A new spin on star-forming galaxies

  14-12-2015 23:14
  
  Australian researchers have discovered why some galaxies are "clumpy" rather than spiral in shape—and it appears low spin is to blame.
  
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• Apple reportedly will upgrade next-generation Watch in March

  14-12-2015 23:10
  
  The Apple rumor mill is churning especially early, with a report saying the company will hold an event in March to unveil the second-generation Apple Watch.
  
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• EU lawmakers blast plans to ease diesel pollution limits

  14-12-2015 23:06
  
  EU lawmakers on Monday firmly rejected plans by the European Commission to allow diesel car makers to continue to exceed pollution limits.
  
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• Algae Causing Sea Lion Brain Damage, Study Shows

  14-12-2015 22:51 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  A toxin produced by marine algae is inflicting brain damage on sea lions along California's coast, causing neurological and behavioral changes.
  
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• Microsoft's Cortana now works on Google, Apple phones

  14-12-2015 22:50
  
  Microsoft's Cortana is now answering requests on Google- and Apple-powered smartphones.
  
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• Uber looks to get commuters out of their personal cars with new fixed route option

  14-12-2015 22:40
  
  You hail an Uber for a night out on the town. But to get to work, you're probably still driving a car.
  
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• Fund argues for Yahoo job cuts, ouster of Mayer

  14-12-2015 22:38
  
  An investment fund with a stake in Yahoo called Monday for the struggling Internet firm to slash more than 80 percent of its workforce and replace chief executive Marissa Mayer.
  
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• Cell memory loss enables the production of stem cells

  14-12-2015 22:37
  
  They say we can't escape our past—no matter how much we change, we still have the memory of what came before; the same can be said of our cells.
  
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• Some gas produced by hydraulic fracturing comes from surprise source

  14-12-2015 22:35
  
  Some of the natural gas harvested by hydraulic fracturing operations may be of biological origin—made by microorganisms inadvertently injected into shale by oil and gas companies during the hydraulic fracturing process, a new study has found.
  
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• New NASA satellite maps show human fingerprint on global air quality

  14-12-2015 22:34
  
  Using new, high-resolution global satellite maps of air quality indicators, NASA scientists tracked air pollution trends over the last decade in various regions and 195 cities around the globe. The findings were presented Monday at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco and published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
  
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• Looking for the future of tech

  14-12-2015 22:27
  
  We are increasingly joined at the hip to technology. For most of us, it's at its most obvious in that smartphone in our pocket or purse, stringing a live wire between our daily lives and the cloud, coursing through a full menu of apps that connect us to the Internet and to each other.
  
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• Record heat sets the tone for year's searing headlines

  14-12-2015 22:15
  
  When a devastating heat wave hit India this year, it killed more than 2,500 people and melted the pavement of New Delhi's streets. In California, where an ordinary year sees mountain snow pile 6-feet (1.83-meters) deep or more—supplying much drinking water—surveyors had nothing to measure in some spots but bare grass.
  
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• Begin climate change action today: UN's Ban

  14-12-2015 22:15
  
  Calling the Paris climate deal "a health insurance policy for the planet," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged governments to waste no time in delivering on their commitments to fight global warming.
  
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• China drives global patent applications to new high

  14-12-2015 22:14
  
  China accounted for nearly a third of the world's patent applications last year, once again driving strong global growth, despite a sharp decrease in industrial design filings, the UN said Monday.
  
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• Pandora steps up personalization in streaming battle

  14-12-2015 22:12
  
  Internet radio giant Pandora on Monday introduced a feature to improve personalization ofmusical selections as it hopes to prevent potential defections to on-demand sites.
  
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• PNNL talks weather phenomena at AGU

  14-12-2015 21:58
  
  Scientists from the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will talk about tropical weather, carbon cycle, climate, and more at the 2015 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, which runs Monday, Dec. 14 through Friday, Dec. 18 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.
  
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• Samsung Asks Supreme Court to Hear Apple Patent Case

  14-12-2015 21:52 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  South Korea-based Samsung is appealing a $399 million judgment for illegally copying patented aspects of the look of Apple's iPhone.
  
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• NASA studies high clouds, Saharan dust from EPIC view

  14-12-2015 21:47
  
  From a dusty atmosphere stretching across the Atlantic Ocean to daily views of clouds at sunrise, a new NASA camera keeping a steady eye on the sunlit side of Earth is yielding new insights about our changing planet.
  
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• NASA sees Typhoon Melor make landfall in Philippines

  14-12-2015 21:47
  
  As Typhoon Melor approached a landfall in the central Philippines, NASA's RapidScat instrument identified the strongest winds north of the center. As the storm was making landfall in the eastern Visayas and Bicol regions of the Philippines early on Dec. 14, 2015 NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided a visible image that showed the extend of the storm.
  
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• Study finds evidence for more recent clay formation on Mars

  14-12-2015 21:45
  
  Recent orbital and rover missions to Mars have turned up ample evidence of clays and other hydrated minerals formed when rocks are altered by the presence of water. Most of that alteration is thought to have happened during the earliest part of Martian history, more than 3.7 billion years ago. But a new study shows that later alteration—within the last 2 billion years or so—may be more common than many scientists had thought.
  
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• Samsung asks Supreme Court to throw out $399M judgment

  14-12-2015 21:34
  
  In its patent dispute with Apple, Samsung is asking the Supreme Court to take a digital-age look at an issue it last confronted in the horse-and-buggy era.
  
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• Sweet and sticky: Bacteria use sugars to bind to human cells

  14-12-2015 21:00
  
  A team at Griffith University's Institute for Glycomics has made a scientific discovery that will change the way scientists explore vaccine development and drug discovery for infectious diseases.
  
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• Small fish species evolved rapidly following 1964 Alaska earthquake

  14-12-2015 21:00
  
  Evolution is usually thought of as occurring over long time periods, but it also can happen quickly. Consider a tiny fish whose transformation after the 1964 Alaskan earthquake was uncovered by University of Oregon scientists and their University of Alaska collaborators.
  
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• Scientists say face mites evolved alongside humans since the dawn of human origins

  14-12-2015 21:00
  
  Scientists have discovered a universal human truth about our bodies: they all, without exception, have mites. A landmark new study, led by scientists at Bowdoin and the California Academy of Sciences, explores the fascinating, little-known natural history of the face mite species Demodex folliculorum, using genetic testing to link the microscopic animal's evolution to our own ever-evolving human story. By zooming in on a type of genetic material (called mitochondrial DNA) in mite samples from ar
  
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• Precise method underlies sloppy madness of dog slurping

  14-12-2015 21:00
  
  Stories about lap dogs are everywhere, but researchers at the Virginia Tech College of Engineering can tell the story of dog lapping.
  
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• Xprize Offers $7 Million For Ocean-Scouring Robots

  14-12-2015 20:46 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  What hides in the deep recesses of our planet's oceans? Efforts to date have only mapped a small percentage of them.
  
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• Sea lions exposed to algal toxin show impaired spatial memory

  14-12-2015 20:30
  
  California sea lions exposed to the algal toxin domoic acid can suffer brain damage that leads to significant deficits in spatial memory, according to a study to be published in the Dec. 18 issue of Science. The new findings suggest that chronic exposure to the toxin, produced by naturally occurring marine algae, causes impairments that are likely to affect sea lions' ability to navigate in their ocean habitat and survive in the wild.
  
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• Rare 'Star Wars' Memorabilia Snatches $500K at Auction

  14-12-2015 20:20 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  Sotheby's auction house teamed up with Nigo, a Japanese designer and entrepreneur, to stage its first auction dedicated exclusively to 'Star Wars.'
  
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• Researchers find that Australian and New Zealand little penguins are distinct species

  14-12-2015 20:00
  
  A team of researchers from New Zealand's University of Otago and the University of Tasmania has discovered that Australian and New Zealand little penguins represent two distinct species, rather than one.
  
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• AG Wants New Yorkers to Test Their Internet Speeds

  14-12-2015 19:43 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman wants to know whether large providers may be short-changing customers with slower-than-advertised speeds.
  
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• Suspicious pigment spots more common on darker skin

  14-12-2015 19:10
  
  (HealthDay)—People with darker skin are about one-third more likely to have potentially dangerous pigment "spots" on their palms and soles, a new study finds.
  
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• NASA Want Ad: Astronauts needed to help get to Mars

  14-12-2015 18:52
  
  Need more office space? How about outer space?
  
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• Can technology help with the UK's rising healthcare costs?

  14-12-2015 18:51
  
  From diabetes to dementia, from depression to AIDS, large segments of the UK's population are living with conditions that cannot be cured, but must be managed outside of the hospital environment. How technology could transform the future of healthcare will be discussed by Professor Ian Craddock from the University of Bristol at the IEEE World Forum on the Internet of Things (WF-IoT) in Milan, Italy.
  
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• British astronaut swaps family Christmas for space mission

  14-12-2015 18:50
  
  Astronaut Timothy Peake, set to become the first Briton to travel to the International Space Station, said on the eve of his departure that he would look down on Earth at Christmas time and think of his family—hopefully while tucking into some Christmas pudding himself.
  
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• 12 arrests in Europe for Trojan horse cybercrime

  14-12-2015 18:50
  
  The European police agency Europol said Monday it has backed national forces in a two-week crackdown on cybercrime mostly by tech-savvy youngsters, leading to 12 arrests in France, Norway and Romania.
  
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• US sets drone registration rules, deadline

  14-12-2015 18:49
  
  That drone under the Christmas tree? If you are a US resident, you will need to register it by February 19 or face a possible fine.
  
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• More telecoms let you watch video without dinging data caps

  14-12-2015 18:49
  
  Cellphone and broadband providers are excluding some video from data caps, meaning consumers have more data available for other apps and services.
  
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• New method prevents premature halt in protein synthesis in certain genetic illnesses

  14-12-2015 18:48
  
  Improperly formed proteins can cause a host of serious illnesses, from muscular dystrophy to cystic fibrosis. A question of enormous import in research, beyond the challenge of determining how malformed proteins contribute to specific disease processes, is figuring out ways to prevent or reduce the pathologies they cause.
  
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• Universities' messages about socioeconomic diversity can affect academic confidence 

  14-12-2015 18:43
  
  When students from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds perceive their universities to be "chilly" towards students from their backgrounds, their academic confidence and sense of themselves as high-achievers suffers, according to a new series of Northwestern University studies.
  
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• Portable MRI named Top 10 Breakthrough of 2015 by Physics World magazine

  14-12-2015 18:43
  
  Los Alamos National Laboratory's portable MRI was named one of the Top 10 Breakthroughs of the Year by Physics World, the member magazine of the Institute of Physics. Portable MRI, also called Battlefield MRI (bMRI), uses ultra-low-field magnetic resonance imaging to create images of injured soft tissues, such as the brain.
  
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• New research shows Earth's tilt influences climate change

  14-12-2015 18:42
  
  Louisiana State University paleoclimatologist Kristine DeLong contributed to an international research breakthrough that sheds new light on how the tilt of the Earth affects the world's heaviest rainbelt. DeLong analyzed data from the past 282,000 years that shows, for the first time, a connection between the Earth's tilt called obliquity that shifts every 41,000 years, and the movement of a low pressure band of clouds that is the Earth's largest source of heat and moisture—the Intertropic
  
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• World War III Could Ruin Mars Mission, Elon Musk Says

  14-12-2015 18:40 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  The billionaire entrepreneur told GQ that the colonization of Mars could be delayed, possibly indefinitely, if not done soon.
  
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• Plasticulture system offers alternative for cabbage producers

  14-12-2015 18:33
  
  In Florida, a major fresh-market cabbage producing state, cabbage production currently relies on bare ground and subirrigation systems. Because of the large volume of water these systems need for irrigation, finding alternative production methods is a pressing need. Researchers at the University of Florida recently determined that plasticulture systems using drip irrigation can be effective for cabbage production in the state.
  
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• Biochar suitable substrate for soilless hydroponic tomatoes

  14-12-2015 18:31
  
  As the use of soilless, hydroponic growing methods becomes more prevalent among crop producers, researchers are looking for new materials that can help growers save money, produce healthy plants, and contribute to sustainable practices. The authors of a study in the October 2015 issue of HortScience say that biochar, a charcoal-like material produced by heating biomass in the absence of oxygen, can help "close the loop" when used as a substrate for soilless, hydroponic tomato production. "This m
  
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• Consumers' preferences for foliage plant attributes

  14-12-2015 18:28
  
  Researchers used eye-tracking technology and rating-based experiments to determine what affects consumers' likelihood of buying indoor plants. The study in the October issue of HortScience offers new insights into consumer purchasing preferences and includes valuable recommendations for plant producers and retailers.
  
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• CEO compensation study examines factors in excess returns

  14-12-2015 18:26
  
  Of many issues associated with CEO compensation, excess returns are likely among the most controversial. UT Dallas researchers examined how boards face pressures when trying to control this problem.
  
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• Humans evolved to get better sleep in less time

  14-12-2015 18:25
  
  Insomniacs take heart: Humans get by on significantly less sleep than our closest animal relatives. The secret, according to a new study, is that our sleep is more efficient.
  
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