Sci-Tech news

• What Google Paid to a Guy Who Briefly Owned Google.com

  28-01-2016 23:48 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  Owning a part of Google, if only for a minute, has its benefits.
  
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• Amazon's Shares Plunge on Lackluster Earnings Report

  28-01-2016 23:00 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  The Internet giant reported fourth-quarter net income of $1 per share on $35.75 billion in sales. Revenue rose 22 percent from $29.3 billion a year earlier.
  
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• Amazon Shares Fall 14 Percent as Profit Falls Short

  28-01-2016 22:43
  Amazon shares dropped more than 10 percent in aftermarket trading after the e-commerce company said its profit fell far short of analyst expectations
  
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• Remember Circuit City? New Stores to Open This Year

  28-01-2016 22:32 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  Circuit City is making a comeback with an ambitious plan to open thousand of stores over the next five years.
  
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• Wyoming Adopts Wildlife Migration Conservation Guidelines

  28-01-2016 22:11
  Wyoming adopts guidelines to protect some of North America's longest wildlife migration routes from oil, gas development
  
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• Netflix Hits a Roadblock After Global Expansion

  28-01-2016 22:11
  
  Netflix's plan for global domination has suffered a setback after Indonesia's largest Internet service provider reportedly blocked the streaming network.
  
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• Antarctic Fungi Survive for a Year in Mars-Like Conditions

  28-01-2016 21:11 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  Fungi and lichens like those living in the most extreme environments on Earth may be able to survive on Mars, research shows.
  
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• Giant gas cloud boomeranging back into Milky Way

  28-01-2016 21:00
  
  Since astronomers discovered the Smith Cloud, a giant gas cloud plummeting toward the Milky Way, they have been unable to determine its composition, which would hold clues as to its origin. University of Notre Dame astrophysicist Nicolas Lehner and his collaborators have now determined that the cloud contains elements similar to our sun, which means the cloud originated in the Milky Way's outer edges and not in intergalactic space as some have speculated.
  
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• 30 Years Since Challenger: Teacher-in-Space Finalists Gather

  28-01-2016 20:52
  
  The 30th anniversary of the Challenger disaster draws dozens of educators who competed alongside Christa McAuliffe to become the first teacher in space
  
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• Computer Expert Gets No Jail Time in Extensive Spamming Case

  28-01-2016 20:43
  A Florida computer expert who helped send millions of spam messages to people to help computer marketers collect email addresses and phone numbers has been sentenced to two years of probation
  
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• New technology to virtually light up 3-point line on ABC

  28-01-2016 20:32
  
  The 3-point line will virtually light up during Saturday prime-time NBA broadcasts on ABC this season.
  
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• Facebook flips on switch for live video on its iPhone app

  28-01-2016 20:31
  
  Facebook is ready to start broadcasting live video on its iPhone app.
  
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• Facebook expands live video streaming (Update)

  28-01-2016 20:31
  
  On the heels of posting stellar quarterly earnings results, Facebook on Thursday expanded its offering for streaming live video at the leading social network.
  
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• The Latest: Advocates for Blind Lobby for Driverless Cars

  28-01-2016 20:27
  
  Advocates for the blind are asking California's Department of Motor Vehicles to allow them access to self-driving cars sooner rather than later
  
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• Astronomers Gaze Deep Into the Heart of Active Galaxy BL Lacertae

  28-01-2016 20:09 via scitechdaily.com
  
  Astronomers observe microwave radiation from the vicinity of the black hole in the active galactic nucleus known as BL Lacertae, which is 900 million light years. A black hole lurks at the center of the active galaxy in a distance of 900 million light years, known as “BL Lacerta.” Microwave radiation is emitted from the […]
  The post Astronomers Gaze Deep Into the Heart of Active Galaxy BL Lacertae appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Putting silicon 'sawdust' in a graphene cage boosts battery performance

  28-01-2016 20:08
  
  Scientists have been trying for years to make a practical lithium-ion battery anode out of silicon, which could store 10 times more energy per charge than today's commercial anodes and make high-performance batteries a lot smaller and lighter. But two major problems have stood in the way: Silicon particles swell, crack and shatter during battery charging, and they react with the battery electrolyte to form a coating that saps their performance.
  
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• How to make slums more resilient to climate change

  28-01-2016 20:08
  
  In our rapidly urbanizing world, access to sanitation, transportation, and other essential services remains a challenge for more than a billion people. In the world's poorest and most vulnerable urban communities, finding new ways to meet these day-to-day human needs not only leads to sustainable development, it also fortifies them against the effects of climate-induced disasters.
  
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• Male mice without any Y chromosome genes can father offspring after assisted reproduction

  28-01-2016 20:01
  
  The Y chromosome is a symbol of maleness, present only in males and encoding genes important for male reproduction. But a new study has shown that live mouse progeny can be generated with assisted reproduction using germ cells from males which do not have any Y chromosome genes. This discovery adds a new light to discussions on Y chromosome gene function and evolution. It supports the hypothesis that Y chromosome genes can be replaced by that encoded on other chromosomes.
  
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• How 'more food per field' could help save our wild spaces

  28-01-2016 20:00
  
  Agricultural expansion is a leading cause of wild species loss and greenhouse gas emissions. However, as farming practices and technologies continue to be refined, more food can be produced per unit of land - meaning less area is needed for agriculture and more land can be 'spared' for natural habitats.
  
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• Heavy fermions get nuclear boost on way to superconductivity

  28-01-2016 20:00
  
  In a surprising find, physicists from the United States, Germany and China have discovered that nuclear effects help bring about superconductivity in ytterbium dirhodium disilicide (YRS), one of the most-studied materials in a class of quantum critical compounds known as "heavy fermions."
  
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• Completely new kind of polymer developed

  28-01-2016 20:00
  
  Imagine a polymer with removable parts that can deliver something to the environment and then be chemically regenerated to function again. Or a polymer that can lift weights, contracting and expanding the way muscles do.
  
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• Chemists uncover how key agent allows diseases to reproduce

  28-01-2016 20:00
  
  Humans have been successful at treating a host of diseases. Yet some continue to elude medicine's best attempts.
  
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• Remembering Challenger Explosion 30 Years Later

  28-01-2016 19:58
  
  Thirty years ago today the nation watched as the Challenger shuttle carrying seven people, including a high school teacher, exploded into a fireball.
  
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• Biochemists Identify Another Piece of the Parkinson’s Disease Pathology Puzzle

  28-01-2016 19:55 via scitechdaily.com
  
  An international team has discovered that the LRRK2 kinase regulates cellular trafficking by deactivating Rab proteins. This finding illuminates a novel route for therapeutic development and may accelerate testing of LRRK2 inhibitors as a disease-modifying therapy for Parkinson’s, the second most common neurodegenerative disease. An international public-private research consortium has identified and validated a cellular […]
  The post Biochemists Identify Another Piece of the Parkinso
  
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• Hubble Reveals Globular Clusters Gain Star-Making Fuel from Outside the Cluster Itself

  28-01-2016 19:43 via scitechdaily.com
  
  Using Hubble data, a team of astronomers has for the first time found young populations of stars within globular clusters that have apparently developed courtesy of star-forming gas flowing in from outside of the clusters themselves. Among the most striking objects in the universe are glittering, dense swarms of stars known as globular clusters. Astronomers […]
  The post Hubble Reveals Globular Clusters Gain Star-Making Fuel from Outside the Cluster Itself appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• California Wrestles With Making Self-Driving Cars Public

  28-01-2016 19:39
  
  Companies that are developing self-driving cars want government regulators to clear the road for public access to the technology
  
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• Study offers new insights into Group A Streptococcus

  28-01-2016 19:29
  
  One bacterial pathogen is responsible for a range of diseases, from pharyngitis and impetigo to more severe diagnoses such as toxic shock syndrome and necrotizing fasciitis (flesh eating disease), a serious bacterial skin infection that spreads quickly and kills the body's soft tissue. The pathogen, known as Group A Streptococcus, remains a global health burden with an estimated 700 million cases reported annually, and more than half a million deaths due to severe infections.
  
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• NASA Sees developing depression threatening northwestern Australia

  28-01-2016 19:22
  
  NASA's GPM satellite gathered rainfall rate and cloud height data on the newly developed tropical low pressure area designated System 92S in the Indian Ocean off Australia's northwestern coast. The low pressure area is expected to become a depression in the next day or two, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
  
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• You'll never be-leaf what makes up this battery

  28-01-2016 19:11
  
  Scientists at the University of Maryland have a new recipe for batteries: Bake a leaf, and add sodium. They used a carbonized oak leaf, pumped full of sodium, as a demonstration battery's negative terminal, or anode, according to a paper published yesterday in the journal ACS Applied Materials Interfaces.
  
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• Apple Recalls Power Adapters Sold Outside United States

  28-01-2016 19:11
  Apple is recalling some AC power adapters that it sold for use in Europe, South Korea and several other countries
  
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• Microtubules, assemble: New research may lead to better understanding of self-organization in cells

  28-01-2016 19:04
  
  What bones are to bodies, the cytoskeleton is to cells. The cytoskeleton maintains cellular structure, builds appendages like flagella and, together with motor proteins, powers cellular movement, transport, and division. Microtubules are a critical component of the cytoskeleton, vital for cell division and, because of that, an excellent target for chemotherapy drugs.
  
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• Team uses internet network theory to decipher the first epigenetic communication network

  28-01-2016 19:01
  
  One of the big questions for which there is still no clear answer in biology is how, based on the four universal letters that make up DNA, it is possible to generate such different organisms as a fly or a human, or the different organs and tissues they comprise. In recent years, researchers have discovered that the system is much more complicated than was originally thought. The letters are important, but histones and nucleotide chemical modifications can make up genetic instructions to reinterp
  
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• Researchers document the work of leafcutter ants

  28-01-2016 18:59
  
  Deploying multiple videos in a University of Oregon lab, scientists have documented never-before-seen views of leafcutter ants at work processing leaves and growing their food supply in their nests.
  
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• How bats recognize their own 'bat signals'

  28-01-2016 18:54
  
  Individual bats emit sonar calls in the dark, using the echo of their signature sounds to identify and target potential prey. But because they travel in large groups, their signals often "jam" each other, a problem resembling extreme radar interference. How do bats overcome this "cocktail party" cacophony to feed and survive in the wild?
  
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• Satellites show Florida beaches becoming darker, and that's good for sea turtles

  28-01-2016 18:53
  
  Newly published research that started as a high school science project confirms that the density of sea turtle nests on Florida beaches is reduced where artificial lights along the coast deter nesting females.
  
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• Apple to Voluntarily Recall Some AC Wall Plug Adapters

  28-01-2016 18:50 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  The affected two-prong adapters could, in very rare cases, break and create the risk of an electrical shock if touched, the company said in a post.
  
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• Landscape pattern analysis reveals global loss of interior forest

  28-01-2016 18:27
  
  Between 2000 and 2012, the world lost more forest area than it gained, according to U.S. Forest Service researchers and partners who estimated a global net loss of 1.71 million square kilometers of forest—an area about two and a half times the size of Texas. Furthermore, when researchers analyzed patterns of remaining forest, they found a global loss of interior forest—core areas that, when intact, maintain critical habitat and ecological functions.
  
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• Intact nature offers best defense against climate change

  28-01-2016 18:27
  
  Worldwide responses to climate change could leave people worse off in the future according to a recent study conducted by CSIRO, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the University of Queensland.
  
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• New research into the origins of the Austronesian languages

  28-01-2016 18:26
  
  THE languages known as Austronesian are spoken by more than 380 million people in territories that include Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Madagascar and the islands of the Pacific. How did the population¬s of such a large and diverse area come to share a similar tongue? It is one of the most controversial questions in genetics, archaeology and anthropology. The University of Huddersfield's Professor Martin Richards belongs to a team of archaeogenetic researchers working on the
  
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• The importance of mixed motifs

  28-01-2016 18:25
  
  Local modifications in histone proteins alter DNA packing density in the cell nucleus to regulate gene activity. They also form the basis of a code in which the significance of a given pattern or motif depends on its broader context.
  
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• Dutch test first self-drive minibuses

  28-01-2016 18:22
  
  The Netherlands started test-driving its first driverless minibuses on Thursday hoping to introduce a full-time autonomous passenger service in a central Dutch province by summer.
  
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• Researchers develop a novel and efficient fabrication technology for cross-shaped memristor

  28-01-2016 18:16
  
  Along with the fast development of modern information technology, charge-based memories, such as DRAM and flash memory, are being aggressively scaled down to meet the current trend of small size devices. A memory device with high density, faster speed, and low power consumption is desired to satisfy Moore's law in the next few decades. Among the candidates of next-generation memory devices, cross-bar-shaped non-volatile resistive memory (memristor) is one of the most attractive solutions for its
  
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• NASA image: Oil fires in Libya continue

  28-01-2016 18:16
  
  The oil refinery fires in Libya that were started by attacks on oil terminals in Libya in very early January continue.
  
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• Facebook's New Emoji 'Reactions' Are Coming 'Pretty Soon'

  28-01-2016 18:14
  
  Facebook's solution to the frequently requested "dislike" button -- a set of five emoji -- will be coming to users worldwide "pretty soon," according to Mark Zuckerberg.
  
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• To burn sugar or not to burn sugar: How eggs store fuel for embryo development

  28-01-2016 18:00
  
  Reproduction is highly dependent on diet and the ability to use nutrients to grow and generate energy. This is clearly seen in women, who must provide all the nutritional building blocks required to support a growing embryo. As a result, metabolic diseases like diabetes and obesity are closely linked with several female reproductive disorders such as: Infertility, polycystic ovary syndrome, and ovarian cancer. However, the precise links between reproductive processes and metabolism remains poorl
  
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• Study reveals workings of mysterious 'relief valve' that protects cells from swelling

  28-01-2016 18:00
  
  A team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has solved a long-standing mystery in cell biology by showing essentially how a key "relief-valve" in cells does its job.
  
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• Scientists discover protein's starring role in genome stability, and possibly cancer prevention

  28-01-2016 18:00
  
  If you have a soft spot for unsung heroes, you'll love a DNA repair protein called XPG. Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) discovered that XPG plays a previously unknown and critical role helping to maintain genome stability in human cells. Their findings also raise the possibility that the protein helps prevent breast, ovarian, and other cancers associated with defective BRCA genes.
  
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• Researchers shed new light on regulation of repetitive DNA sequences

  28-01-2016 18:00
  
  A pair of studies by a team of scientists has shed new light on the nature of a particular type of DNA sequences—tandem DNA repeat arrays—that play important roles in transcription control, genome organization, and development.
  
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• Octopuses shed their asocial reputation

  28-01-2016 18:00
  
  Octopuses have generally been viewed as solitary creatures—and their color-changing abilities primarily as a means to hide from hungry predators. But, after binge watching more than 52 hours of octopus TV, researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on January 28 have found that octopuses actually do have a social life. And it's not without drama.
  
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• Insect growth regulator wears a second hat: Infection fighter

  28-01-2016 18:00
  
  During an animal's embryonic development, a chemical chain reaction known as Hippo directs organs to grow to just the right size and no larger. Now Johns Hopkins researchers working with laboratory flies report that this signaling pathway also plays a role in revving up the insects' immune systems to combat certain bacterial infections.
  
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