Sci-Tech news

• Flat iPhone sales fail to dent Apple profit

  26-01-2016 23:01
  
  Apple on Tuesday posted record quarterly profit even as iPhone sales flattened out after years of rocketing growth.
  
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• After setting iPhone record, Apple forecasts rare sales drop (Update)

  26-01-2016 23:01
  
  Apple is bracing for its first sales decline in 13 years, despite selling a record 74.8 million iPhones in the final three months of 2015, in what may prove to be a turning point for the world's most valuable company.
  
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• Wildfire plan seen as biggest land policy change in decades

  26-01-2016 22:59
  
  A year after Interior Secretary Sally Jewell shifted the national approach to fighting wildfires across a wide swath of sagebrush country in the West, her strategy is turning out to be one of the most significant federal land policy changes in some 80 years, public land experts, outdoor enthusiasts and scientists say.
  
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• Molecular method promises to speed development of food crops

  26-01-2016 22:58
  
  The first human farmers needed hundreds of years and a lot of good luck to shape the first domesticated crops. Modern plant breeders wait weeks or months, not centuries, to discover what the literal fruits of their labors might be; now, a study led at Illinois and supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has explored the strengths of a molecular method that reduces this wait time to a few days.
  
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• Recognizing health concerns in wind energy development a key recommendation in new study

  26-01-2016 22:55
  
  As wind energy development blossoms in Canada and around the world, opposition at the community level is challenging the viability of the industry. A new study with research from the University of Waterloo, published in Nature Energy, identifies four major factors leading to disputes over wind farms, and offers recommendations on avoiding disagreements.
  
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• Simple origami fold may hold the key to designing pop-up furniture, medical devices and scientific tools

  26-01-2016 22:44
  
  What if you could make any object out of a flat sheet of paper? That future is on the horizon thanks to new research by L. Mahadevan, the Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and Physics at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). He is also a core faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and member of the Kavli Institute for Bionano Science and Technology, at Harvar
  
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• Embracing negative comments can help corporations increase consumer trust

  26-01-2016 22:13
  
  Public trust is incredibly hard won once a corporation has been mired in negative publicity. Volkswagen and Chipotle face huge obstacles in regaining consumers after debacles, but can simply owning up to their transgressions on social media really help? A recent study conducted by researchers at the University of Minnesota and Youngstown State University found that embracing supporting and opposing perspectives to comments by a corporation can enhance its trustworthiness.
  
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• Sony moves PlayStation business to Silicon Valley

  26-01-2016 22:12
  
  Sony on Monday announced it is moving its PlayStation business to Silicon Valley and consolidating its game console offerings under one roof.
  
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• Publisher Zuckerman announces US-Israel science initiative

  26-01-2016 22:11
  
  Real estate magnate and publisher Mortimer Zuckerman has announced a scholarship program to pay for American graduate students in the sciences to study in Israel.
  
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• Scientists: "Doomsday Clock" reflects grave threat to world

  26-01-2016 22:03
  
  Rising tension between Russia and the U.S., North Korea's recent nuclear test and a lack of aggressive steps to address climate change are putting the world under grave threat, scientists behind a "Doomsday Clock" that measures the likelihood of a global cataclysm said Tuesday.
  
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• Chase planning rollout of card-free ATMs

  26-01-2016 22:02
  
  Soon, losing your ATM card won't be the financial life-stopping event it used to be. Just don't also lose your phone.
  
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• Space-earth system produces highest-resolution astronomical image

  26-01-2016 21:55
  
  Using an orbiting radio-astronomy satellite combined with 15 ground-based radio telescopes, astronomers have made the highest-resolution, or most-detailed, astronomical image yet, revealing new insights about a gorging black hole in a galaxy 900 million light-years from Earth. The scientists combined signals from the Spektr-R satellite of the RadioAstron missionwith those from radio telescopes throughout Europe and nine antennas of the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA
  
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• Ceres: Keeping well-guarded secrets for 215 years

  26-01-2016 21:51
  
  New Year's Day, 1801, the dawn of the 19th century, was a historic moment for astronomy, and for a space mission called Dawn more than 200 years later. That night, Giuseppe Piazzi pointed his telescope at the sky and observed a distant object that we now know as Ceres.
  
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• What do lentils have to do with geology?

  26-01-2016 21:48
  
  When clayey materials are compressed and sheared, they commonly develop a "scaly fabric" wherein the clay is divided by braided shear surfaces into lentil-shaped chips. Although such scaly fabrics are found at the bed of glaciers, the base of landslides, and in gougey faults, little is known about how they form or how they deform. In their article for Geology, Matthew Tarling and Christina Rowe use dry lentils to help explore this process.
  
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• CRISPR-Cas9 tool expedites production of biofuel precursors and specialty polymers in living systems

  26-01-2016 21:43
  
  A team led by a researcher at the University of California, Riverside has adapted the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system for use in a yeast strain that can produce useful lipids and polymers.
  
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• New report finds near-term update to social cost of carbon unwarranted

  26-01-2016 21:42
  
  There would not be sufficient benefit to updating estimates of the social cost of carbon (SCC) within a year based only on the revision of a specific climate parameter in the existing framework used by the government's interagency group to measure the SCC, says a new interim report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The committee that is conducting the study and wrote the report recommended ways to change federal technical support documents on the SCC to enhance
  
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• Ecotourism, natural resource conservation proposed as allies to protect natural landscapes

  26-01-2016 21:31
  
  If environmentalists want to protect fragile ecosytems from landing in the hands of developers—in the U.S. and around the globe—they should team up with ecotourists, according to a University of Georgia study published in the Journal of Ecotourism.
  
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• Equation shows that large-scale conspiracies would quickly reveal themselves

  26-01-2016 20:00
  
  If you're thinking of creating a massive conspiracy, you may be better scaling back your plans, according to an Oxford University researcher.
  
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• Marvin Minsky, pioneer of artificial intelligence, dies

  26-01-2016 19:00
  
  Marvin Minsky, a pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who saw parallels in the functioning of the human brain and computers, died Sunday at age 88.
  
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• The smart(phone) solution for urban mobility

  26-01-2016 18:42
  
  Whether you're waiting for a bus that seems like it will never show up, or experiencing a sudden power outage on the subway, you are not alone: public transit woes are common around the world.
  
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• Watch: 1 in 5 Americans Has Amazon Prime Membership

  26-01-2016 18:21
  
  Nearly 50 percent of U.S. households pay $99 a year for the service.
  
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• Planet 2MASS J2126 is 1 Trillion Kilometers Away from Its Parent Star

  26-01-2016 18:15 via scitechdaily.com
  
  New research reveals that planet 2MASS J2126 and the star TYC 9486-927-1 are moving through space together, implying that they are associated. A team of astronomers in the UK, USA and Australia have found a planet, until now thought to be a free floating or lonely planet, in a huge orbit around its star. Incredibly […]
  The post Planet 2MASS J2126 is 1 Trillion Kilometers Away from Its Parent Star appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Kenya to destroy largest ever ivory stockpile at celebrity burning

  26-01-2016 18:00
  
  Kenya said Tuesday it will torch its vast stockpile of ivory at a star-studded summit to include Hollywood celebrities, presidents and business leaders against "poaching and illegal trade in ivory."
  
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• Google's Australia Day doodle recognizes indigenous people's struggles

  26-01-2016 17:58 via rss.cnn.com
  
  A special Google Doodle marking Australia Day has won widespread praise for highlighting the indigenous people's centuries-old suffering.
  
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• Yale Researchers Identify Molecular Link between Obesity and Fatty Liver Disease

  26-01-2016 17:49 via scitechdaily.com
  
  The high levels of obesity in the United States contribute to fatty liver disease, the most common form of liver disease. A newly published study from Yale University identifies molecular links between the two, and points to a possible therapy. Fatty liver disease — also known as nonalcoholic steatohepatitis or NASH — frequently progresses to […]
  The post Yale Researchers Identify Molecular Link between Obesity and Fatty Liver Disease appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Titan targets tumors

  26-01-2016 17:48
  
  Since lasers were first produced in the early 1960s, researchers have worked to apply laser technology from welding metal to surgeries, with laser technology advancing quickly through the last 50 years.
  
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• An ancestor of the rabbit connects Europe and Asia

  26-01-2016 17:46
  
  The species Amphilagus tomidai was recently discovered—an ancestor of the rabbit which lived in present-day Siberia during the Miocene, about 14 million years ago. The discovery of this mammal, belonging to a family which was thought to only exist in Europe, reveals that the two continents were connected free of natural barriers due to the disappearance of the ancient Paratethys Sea.
  
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• GPM flies over dissipating Tropical cyclone Corentin

  26-01-2016 17:45
  
  Tropical cyclone Corentin was the first named tropical cyclone of 2016 in the South Indian Ocean. The GPM core satellite measured rainfall in the weakening storm.
  
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• Centene loses personal, health data of 950,000 members

  26-01-2016 17:44
  
  Health insurer Centene Corp. says it is missing half a dozen hard drives that contain the personal and health information of roughly 950,000 clients.
  
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• Cell-based tests promise respite for lab animals: study

  26-01-2016 17:43
  
  Scientists in the United States said Tuesday they were developing a faster, more efficient way of gauging the toxicity of chemicals, which may reduce the need for animal testing.
  
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• Astronomers Use Galaxy Clusters to Reveal New Dark Matter Insights

  26-01-2016 17:30 via scitechdaily.com
  
  New research from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory suggests that the internal structure of a galaxy cluster is linked to the dark matter environment surrounding it. This is the first time that a property besides the mass of a cluster has been shown to be associated with surrounding dark matter. Dark matter is a mysterious cosmic […]
  The post Astronomers Use Galaxy Clusters to Reveal New Dark Matter Insights appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Pakistan orders 400,000 porn sites blocked

  26-01-2016 17:19
  
  Pakistan has asked Internet companies to block more than 400,000 pornography websites, officials said Tuesday, as part of a crackdown on what the top court calls "offensive content" in the Muslim-majority nation.
  
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• Bed bugs that feed are more likely to survive pesticide exposure

  26-01-2016 17:16
  
  Many studies have been done on how effective certain pesticides are when they are applied to bed bugs. However, most have not allowed the bed bugs to take a blood meal after being exposed to pesticides, which can change the mortality rates, according to an article in the Journal of Medical Entomology.
  
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• Study finds link between state gun ownership rates and murders of women

  26-01-2016 17:12
  
  Women in states with higher rates of gun ownership are at greater risk of being killed by people they know than those in states where a smaller percentage of people own guns. And ownership rates alone explain 40 percent of the variation in women's homicide victimization rates, compared to only 1.5 percent of the variation in men's victimization rates, according to a new study by Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) researchers.
  
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• Marvin Minsky, Artificial Intelligence And Computer Science Visionary, Dies At 88 - TechCrunch

  26-01-2016 17:01 via
  TechCrunch
  Marvin Minsky, Artificial Intelligence And Computer Science Visionary, Dies At 88
  TechCrunch
  Marvin Minsky was a pioneer, someone who was thinking one step ahead of anyone else. He was a founding father when it comes to artificial intelligence and computer science. He was also one of the most thoughtful scientists, inspiring generations of ...
  Marvin Minsky, Pioneer of Artificial Intelligence, DiesABC Newsall 288 news articles »
  

• Electrostrictive polymers: Energy harvesting via smart materials

  26-01-2016 17:00
  
  Energy harvesting is emerging as a viable method for electronic devices to pull ambient energy from their surrounding environment and convert it into electrical energy for stored power. This coveted technology has the potential to serve as an alternative power supply for batteries that are ubiquitous in mobile and autonomous wireless electronic devices.
  
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• Solving hard quantum problems—everything is connected

  26-01-2016 16:55
  
  Quantum objects cannot just be understood as the sum of their parts. This is what makes quantum calculations so complicated. Scientists at TU Wien have now calculated Bose-Einstein-condensates, revealing the secrets of the particles' collective behavior.
  
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• In plasmonics, 'optical losses' could bring practical gain

  26-01-2016 16:50
  
  What researchers had thought of as a barrier to developing advanced technologies based on the emerging field of plasmonics is now seen as a potential pathway to practical applications in areas from cancer therapy to nanomanufacturing.
  
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• Delivering the Internet of the future—at the speed of light and open sourced

  26-01-2016 16:48
  
  New research has found, for the first time, a scientific solution that enables future internet infrastructure to become completely open and programmable while carrying internet traffic at the speed of light.
  
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• Pension benchmarks give consumers false impression of fund performance

  26-01-2016 16:45
  
  Benchmarks that measure the performance of pension funds, and fees charged to consumers by investment fund managers, require greater scrutiny, suggests new research from the University of Bath.
  
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• Model explains huge recurring rainstorms in tropical Indian and Pacific oceans

  26-01-2016 16:44
  
  El Niño is fairly well understood, and by now it's a household word. But another huge system in the tropical Indian and Pacific oceans, which wreaks similar havoc in world weather, is relatively unknown and is just beginning to be explained.
  
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• Don't blame grey squirrels: Their British invasion had much more to do with us

  26-01-2016 16:43
  
  DNA profiling reveals grey squirrels are not as good invaders as we think, and that humans played a much larger role in spreading them through the UK.
  
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• New fluorescent nanomaterials whose inspiration was taken from plant antenna systems

  26-01-2016 16:38
  
  These new multifunctional materials aim to imitate the photosynthetic organisms of plants. These microorganisms consist of thousands of chlorophyll molecules embedded in a protein matrix, which provides them with a specific orientation/arrangement and intermolecular distance. One of the main characteristics of these systems is their antenna function, which enables them to harvest solar energy in a broad spectral range and transport it by means of multiple, efficient energy transfer processes to
  
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• Ancient medicinal clay shows promise against today's worst bacterial infections

  26-01-2016 16:36
  
  Naturally occurring clay from British Columbia, Canada—long used by the region's Heiltsuk First Nation for its healing potential—exhibits potent antibacterial activity against multidrug-resistant pathogens, according to new research from the University of British Columbia.
  
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• Fin24.com | 10 ‘advantages’ that OTTs have over networks

  26-01-2016 16:24
  
  A regulator has indicated how there are ten ways in which OTTs are not under as much regulatory pressure as their mobile network counterparts in South Africa.
  
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• Russian volunteer programmers help to find mysterious black holes

  26-01-2016 15:50
  
  The term "black hole" was first used in the mid-20th century by theoretical physicist John Wheeler. This term denotes relativistic supermassive objects that are invisible in all electromagnetic waves, but a great number of astrophysical effects confirm their existence.
  
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• GaN power amplifier with world's highest output performance for W-band wireless transmissions

  26-01-2016 15:50
  
  Fujitsu today announced the development of a gallium-nitride (GaN) high-electron mobility transistor (HEMT) power amplifier for use in W-band (75-110 GHz) transmissions.
  
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• Payment methods affect consumers' perceptions of products

  26-01-2016 15:40
  
  With the holiday shopping season set to begin this week, millions of Americans will soon descend upon their local shopping malls in search of the hottest new clothes, toys and electronics.
  
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• Integral X-rays Earth's aurora

  26-01-2016 15:40
  
  Normally busy with observing high-energy black holes, supernovas and neutron stars, ESA's Integral space observatory recently had the chance to look back at our own planet's aurora.
  
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• The beauty of butterflies

  26-01-2016 15:30
  
  Butterflies' special place in human culture stems from the fact that they have used their wings not only for flight, but as a canvas for some of the most striking patterns in nature. Evolving from an ancestral moth-like insect about 60 million years ago, the sheer beauty of their wings, and the metaphorical power of their emergence fully formed from rather unpromising pupae, has made butterflies an object of admiration and inspiration.
  
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