Sci-Tech news

• One Billion Views: Adele Says 'Hello' to YouTube Record

  21-01-2016 23:50 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  Adele's video for "Hello" broke a YouTube record on Thursday, reaching 1 billion views in only 87 days, beating out Psy's "Gangnam Style" (158 days).
  
  Read more

• Explore galaxies far, far away at internet speeds

  21-01-2016 22:55
  
  No need for hyperdrive: Scientists have released an "expansion pack" for a virtual tour of the universe that you can enjoy from the comfort of your own computer. The latest version of the publicly accessible images of the sky, which can be viewed using an interactive Sky Viewer tool, roughly doubles the size of the searchable universe from the project's original release in May.
  
  Read more

• First materials to be woven at the atomic and molecular levels created

  21-01-2016 22:49
  
  There are many different ways to make nanomaterials but weaving, the oldest and most enduring method of making fabrics, has not been one of them - until now. An international collaboration led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley, has woven the first three-dimensional covalent organic frameworks (COFs) from helical organic threads. The woven COFs display significant advantages in
  
  Read more

• Five brightest planets gather in pre-dawn sky for heavenly show

  21-01-2016 22:29
  
  Our five closest planetary neighbors are putting on a heavenly show.
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Removal of derelict fishing gear has major economic impact

  21-01-2016 22:27
  
  A new study by researchers at William & Mary's Virginia Institute of Marine Science shows that removal of derelict fishing gear could generate millions of dollars in extra harvest value for commercial fisheries worldwide.
  
  Read more

• Video: How do snowflakes form?

  21-01-2016 22:25
  
  A huge snowstorm could dump more than two feet of snow all over the East Coast, and that means trillions and trillions of tiny snowflakes.
  
  Read more

• Hyperloop Transport Could Be Ready for Passengers by 2018

  21-01-2016 22:12
  
  Elon Musk's vision for high-speed travel could be revolutionary.
  
  Read more

• 5 Brightest Planets Gather in Pre-Dawn Sky for Heavenly Show

  21-01-2016 22:09
  5 brightest planets gather in the pre-dawn sky this month and next for a heavenly show
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• 92,000 petition Canada not to store nuclear waste near Great Lakes

  21-01-2016 21:08
  
  Ninety-two-thousand people have pressed Ottawa to reject a proposal to store nuclear waste in an underground vault near the Great Lakes, fearing a spill would contaminate this source of drinking water for 40 million in Canada and the United States.
  
  Read more

• NASA sees cloud top temperatures warming in Cyclone Victor

  21-01-2016 21:03
  
  Infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite shows that cloud top temperatures are warming in Tropical Cyclone Victor. Forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center or JTWC noted that Victor is on a weakening trend, however, warnings were in effect in Tonga on Jan. 21.
  
  Read more

• Mild winter sees Pyrenees brown bears avoid hibernation

  21-01-2016 21:00
  
  Several brown bears in the Pyrenees mountains that separate Spain from France have ditched their usual hibernation for food as winter temperatures remain unusually clement, environment and animal experts said Thursday.
  
  Read more

• Predicting planets: The highs and lows

  21-01-2016 20:58
  
  In the mid-19th century, astronomers hypothesised an extra planet in our solar system, orbiting between the Sun and Mercury.
  
  Read more

• Finland approves controversial wolf hunt

  21-01-2016 20:46
  
  Finnish hunters have been authorised to kill nearly 20 percent of the country's wolf population in a controversial trial cull that opens this weekend, aimed at managing stocks, officials said Thursday.
  
  Read more

• NASA measures rainfall in newborn Tropical Cyclone Corentin

  21-01-2016 20:45
  
  Tropical Cyclone Corentin developed in the Southern Indian Ocean as NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement or GPM mission core satellite flew overhead and analyzed the storm's rainfall and clouds.
  
  Read more

• IBM boosts cloud offerings with Ustream buy

  21-01-2016 20:45
  
  Technology world centenarian IBM has boosted its Internet cloud offerings with the takeover of live video streaming services firm Ustream.
  
  Read more

• College students' internet overuse leads families to connect and conflict, new study finds

  21-01-2016 20:40
  
  College students who are addicted to the Internet report positive and negative effects on their family relationships, according to new research from Georgia State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
  
  Read more

• Teen pregnancy not an isolated issue, sociologists say

  21-01-2016 20:39
  
  In a nationwide study, University of Arizona sociologists Christina Diaz and Jeremy E. Fiel found that the negative effect of young motherhood on educational attainment and earnings is not limited to those from disadvantaged backgrounds and actually is most significant among better-off teenagers.
  
  Read more

• Dark 'noodles' may lurk in the Milky Way

  21-01-2016 20:02
  
  Invisible structures shaped like noodles, lasagne sheets or hazelnuts could be floating around in our Galaxy radically challenging our understanding of gas conditions in the Milky Way.
  
  Read more

• Study zeros in on plate tectonics' start date

  21-01-2016 20:00
  
  Earth has some special features that set it apart from its close cousins in the solar system, including large oceans of liquid water and a rich atmosphere with just the right ingredients to support life as we know it. Earth is also the only planet that has an active outer layer made of large tectonic plates that grind together and dip beneath each other, giving rise to mountains, volcanoes, earthquakes and large continents of land.
  
  Read more

• Role model stem cells: How immune cells can self-renew

  21-01-2016 20:00
  
  When our organs age or wear out, their renewal usually depends on a few stem cells in the tissue, because the vast majority of differentiated cells have lost their ability to divide and generate new cells. A German-French team led by Michael Sieweke from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in Berlin and the Centre d'Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy (CIML) in Marseille has now discovered how human macrophages, a type of specialized immune cell, can nevertheless divide and sel
  
  Read more

• Mystery surrounding non-platinum catalysts for fuel cell technologies solved

  21-01-2016 20:00
  
  A persistent controversy in catalysts for fuel cells has just been solved by a team of researchers from the Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences at the University of Tsukuba.
  
  Read more

• Molecular-like photochemistry from semiconductor nanocrystals

  21-01-2016 20:00
  
  Researchers from North Carolina State University have demonstrated the transfer of triplet exciton energy from semiconductor nanocrystals to surface-bound molecular acceptors, extending the lifetime of the originally prepared excited state by six orders of magnitude. This finding has implications for fields ranging from solar energy conversion to photochemical synthesis to optoelectronics to light therapy for cancer treatment.
  
  Read more

• Discovery of consoling behavior in prairie voles may benefit autism research

  21-01-2016 20:00
  
  Researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, have discovered that a social laboratory rodent, the prairie vole, shows an empathy-based consoling response when other voles are distressed. This is the first time researchers have shown consolation behavior in rodents, and this discovery ends the long-standing belief that detecting the distress of others and acting to relieve that stress is uniquely human.
  
  Read more

• France to 'modify' AZERTY keyboard to improve French writing

  21-01-2016 19:47
  
  The French are known for being sticklers about the correct use of language, but they have discovered something is getting in the way of perfect prose: the AZERTY keyboard.
  
  Read more

• GM debuts car-sharing, 'personal mobility' brand

  21-01-2016 19:46
  
  General Motors said Thursday it was launching a US car-sharing service under a new "personal mobility" brand dubbed Maven.
  
  Read more

• Soybean meal produced in US has greater energy values when fed to pigs than previously estimated

  21-01-2016 19:44
  
  Differences in soil type, variety of soybeans, climate, or processing conditions can cause the same crop to have different nutritional value when produced in different locations. However, feed composition tables combine values from crops grown all over the world. Results of recent research at the University of Illinois indicate that book values for energy in soybean meal underestimate the energy value of soybean meal produced in the United States.
  
  Read more

• Renault CEO: company did not cheat on emissions technology

  21-01-2016 19:44
  
  Renault-Nissan's CEO says the automaker did not cheat on its emissions technology in its cars, 15,000 of which it is recalling in Europe because they spew out excessive levels of harmful gases.
  
  Read more

• Parents positive about classes

  21-01-2016 19:43
  
  Mums and dads are likely to sign up for parenting classes - but only if there is adequate funding, according to new research.
  
  Read more

• New experiments challenge economic game assumptions

  21-01-2016 19:41
  
  Too much confidence is placed in economic games, according to research by academics at Oxford University.
  
  Read more

• Personal history with street gangs sparks U. of I. graduate student's research

  21-01-2016 19:27
  
  The allure of street gangs is something Gabriel "Joey" Merrin knows firsthand, having grown up in low-income neighborhoods in inner-city Chicago that are notorious for gang violence, crime and poverty.
  
  Read more

• Slow down your typing to improve your writing, study says

  21-01-2016 19:26
  
  The quality of your writing will likely get better if you simply type slower, according to a recent study.
  
  Read more

• Study reveals climate change impacts on Buzzards Bay

  21-01-2016 19:25
  
  An analysis of long-term, water quality monitoring data reveals that climate change is already having an impact on ecosystems in the coastal waters of Buzzards Bay, Mass. The impacts relate to how nitrogen pollution affects coastal ecosystems.
  
  Read more

• A new species and genus of 'horned necked' praying mantis from a French museum collection

  21-01-2016 19:24
  
  While studying the insect collection of the Museum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris, France, two American scientists uncovered a small, leaf-dwelling praying mantis with unique features collected from Madagascar in 2001. Its distinctive "horned neck" and flattened, cone-like eyes, as well as the location from where it was found, led the researchers to assign the insect to a new genus and species. The study is published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.
  
  Read more

• Fin24.com | SA internet connectivity hit by cable outages

  21-01-2016 18:49
  
  Outages affecting a terrestrial network in Egypt have disrupted internet connectivity in South Africa.
  
  Read more

• New study challenges popular explanation for why a social insect becomes a worker or queen

  21-01-2016 18:00
  
  The exquisite social hierarchy of insect colonies has long fascinated scientists. Take two eggs—both contain identical genetic material, but while one becomes a sterile worker, the other may develop into a queen that can reproduce. Workers perform brood care and other crucial tasks that keep the colony going, and typically live for a few weeks or months, whereas the egg-laying queens of some species live for years or decades.
  
  Read more

• Hunting secrets of the Venus flytrap (hint: they can count)

  21-01-2016 18:00
  
  Carnivorous plants such as the Venus flytrap depend on meals of insects to survive in nutrient-poor soil. They sense the arrival of juicy insects, lured by the plants' fruity scent, with the aid of sensitive trigger hairs on the inner surfaces of their traps. Now, researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on January 21 have looked more closely at exactly how the plants decide when to keep their traps shut and begin producing their acidic, prey-decomposing cocktail of enzyme
  
  Read more

• Pluto Fans' Hilarious Reaction to Possible New 'Planet 9'

  21-01-2016 17:48
  
  News that a giant, ninth planet likely exists at the edge of our solar system is opening old wounds for Pluto.
  
  Read more

• Planet Nine – Astronomers Find Evidence of a Real Ninth Planet in Our Solar System

  21-01-2016 17:46 via scitechdaily.com
  
  Scientists at the California Institute of Technology have discovered evidence of a giant planet tracing a bizarre, highly elongated orbit in the outer solar system. The newly discovered object, which the researchers have nicknamed Planet Nine, has a mass about 10 times that of Earth and orbits about 20 times farther from the sun on […]
  The post Planet Nine – Astronomers Find Evidence of a Real Ninth Planet in Our Solar System appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
  Read more

• New Research May Solve Longstanding Fusion Reactor Mystery

  21-01-2016 17:28 via scitechdaily.com
  
  New research from MIT shows two types of turbulence within plasma that cause significant heat loss. Solving this problem could take the world a step closer to fusion power which has the promise of limitless and relatively clean energy. One of the biggest obstacles to making fusion power practical — and realizing its promise of […]
  The post New Research May Solve Longstanding Fusion Reactor Mystery appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
  Read more

• Flint crisis and beyond: Today's river-on-fire moment

  21-01-2016 17:26 via rss.cnn.com
  
  We've done it before.
  
  Read more

• Graphene Oxide Layers Deform Evenly Under Gentle Strain

  21-01-2016 17:12 via scitechdaily.com
  
  New research from Rice University reveals that graphene oxide layers deform evenly under gentle strain and that the mechanical properties of the material change depending on the rate of strain. The same slip-and-stick mechanism that leads to earthquakes is at work on the molecular level in nanoscale materials, where it determines the shear plasticity of […]
  The post Graphene Oxide Layers Deform Evenly Under Gentle Strain appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
  Read more

• AP FACT CHECK: Ted Cruz at Odds With Climate Change Science

  21-01-2016 17:12
  
  AP FACT CHECK: Cruz is at odds with climate change science and its central conclusion that Earth is warming because of human activity
  
  Read more

• New ISS Image of the Pacific Northwest and an Aurora

  21-01-2016 16:57 via scitechdaily.com
  
  This new image is from astronauts aboard the International Space Station shows an aurora and the Pacific Northwest. NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and ESA astronaut Tim Peake shared a series of aurora photographs taken from the International Space Station on January 20, 2016. Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) wrote, “#goodmorning #aurora and the Pacific Northwest! #YearInSpace” and Peake […]
  The post New ISS Image of the Pacific Northwest and an Aurora appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
  Read more

• Review: IPad Pro just might replace your laptop

  21-01-2016 16:50
  
  Every time a new iPad is introduced, I have the same conversation with myself.
  
  Read more

• Report shady businesses to new scam tracker

  21-01-2016 16:30
  
  With the help of technology, scam artists are enhancing their usual bag of tricks. For instance, some oily operators are not only impersonating the authorities, they're also manipulating caller ID systems to make it appear like they're phoning from police stations.
  
  Read more

• The aliens are silent because they're dead

  21-01-2016 16:24
  
  Life on other planets would likely be brief and become extinct very quickly, say astrobiologists from The Australian National University (ANU).
  
  Read more

• Assessment aims to maximize greenhouse gas reductions from bioenergy

  21-01-2016 16:24
  
  A study reported in the journal Energy used a new method, never before applied to the energy sector, to assess the "sustainability index" of various sources of energy, both conventional and renewable.
  
  Read more

• Fin24.com | Expat Zimbabweans ditch phone calls for WhatsApp

  21-01-2016 16:07
  
  Zimbabweans living in South Africa are making fewer phone calls to friends and relatives back home as technologies such as WhatsApp take hold.
  
  Read more

• Hubble image: Dazzling diamonds

  21-01-2016 16:00
  
  Single stars are often overlooked in favour of their larger cosmic cousins—but when they join forces, they create truly breathtaking scenes to rival even the most glowing of nebulae or swirling of galaxies. This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the star cluster Trumpler 14. One of the largest gatherings of hot, massive and bright stars in the Milky Way, this cluster houses some of the most luminous stars in our entire galaxy.
  
  Read more

• Review: Dawn of VR era upon us

  21-01-2016 15:50
  
  A new era is dawning for virtual reality. New systems that will hit store shelves in coming months are going to offer amazing and immersive experiences that will blow you away.
  
  Read more

Follow @NewslockSciTech on Twitter!