Sci-Tech news

• Antarctica Study: Iceberg Nearly Erases Penguin Population

  15-02-2016 23:57 via abcnews.go.com
  Scientists say an estimated 150,000 Adelie penguins have been wiped out on Antarctica's Cape Denison in the five years since a giant iceberg blocked their main access to food
  
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• Complete genome of all strains of the gibbon ape leukemia virus sequenced

  15-02-2016 23:25
  
  Berlin-based scientists have sequenced the complete genome of all five identified strains of the gibbon ape leukemia virus (GALV). The scientists were able to prove that selection has shaped parts of the genome of this group of viruses.This is likely as a consequence of selective pressure from the host immune systems that the viruses face. GALVs are the causative agents of hematopoietic neoplasms such as leukemia and thus far have been isolated exclusively from captive primates. However GALV is
  
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• Using light to control protein transport from cell nucleus

  15-02-2016 23:22
  
  Light can be used to control the transport of proteins from the cell nucleus with the aid of a light-sensitive, genetically modified plant protein. Biologists from Heidelberg University and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) working in the field of optogenetics have now developed such a tool. The researchers, under the direction of Dr. Barbara Di Ventura and Prof. Dr. Roland Eils, employed methods from synthetic biology and combined a light sensor from the oat plant with a transport signal
  
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• Standardized test scores decline with each passing hour of school

  15-02-2016 23:10
  
  (HealthDay)—While the debate over the value of standardized testing continues, new research suggests that educators should also consider the timing of these tests.
  
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• Mystery 'hobbits' not humans like us: study

  15-02-2016 23:07
  
  Diminutive humans that died out on an Indonesian island some 15,000 years ago were not Homo sapiens but a different species, according to a study published Monday that dives into a fierce anthropological debate.
  
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• Mexico issues $8.9 million fine against VW for emissions

  15-02-2016 23:07
  
  Mexico has issued an $8.9 million fine against Volkswagen Mexico for selling 45,494 vehicles for the 2016 model year without certificates proving they comply with emissions standards.
  
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• Comcast TV outage hits much of US, but problem mostly fixed

  15-02-2016 22:34
  
  Customers of Comcast Corp. lost part of their cable television service for several hours in many major U.S. metropolitan areas Monday, but the company said the problem was fixed in most places by early afternoon.
  
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• New tarantula species named after singer Johnny Cash

  15-02-2016 22:20
  
  A tarantula named after singer Johnny Cash is among 14 new species identified by scientists who spent a decade collecting the hairy spiders and studying nearly 3,000 of them.
  
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• Solved protein structure holds key to much-needed therapies for metabolic disorder

  15-02-2016 21:00
  
  Phenylketonuria, also known as PKU, is the most common inherited disease affecting amino acid metabolism. Children are tested for PKU at birth, and babies diagnosed with the disease must adhere to a highly restricted diet to prevent permanent intellectual impairment. Recent advances reveal a strong need for new therapies to combat cognitive dysfunction and psychiatric disorders that arise due to dietary lapses throughout life.
  
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• This 3D 'Bioprinter' Creates Ears, Muscles

  15-02-2016 20:24 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  A team at Wake Forest University has used a combination of living cells and a special gel to print out living human body parts, including ears, muscles and jawbone.
  
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• French social networks atwitter over asteroid hoax

  15-02-2016 18:54
  
  Twitter and Facebook lit up this weekend when pranksters reported that an asteroid was hurtling toward France, prompting a humourless denial Monday on the website of a national radio station.
  
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• Eternal 5D data storage could record the history of humankind

  15-02-2016 18:52
  
  Scientists at the University of Southampton have made a major step forward in the development of digital data storage that is capable of surviving for billions of years.
  
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• DES Results of First Search for Visible Light Associated with Gravitational Waves

  15-02-2016 17:42 via scitechdaily.com
  
  The Dark Energy Survey has already discovered more than 1,000 supernovae and mapped millions of galaxies to help us understand the accelerating expansion of our universe and now it searches for optical signatures of gravitational waves. Einstein’s general theory of relativity predicts the emission of gravitational waves by massive celestial bodies moving though space-time. For […]
  The post DES Results of First Search for Visible Light Associated with Gravitational Waves appeared fir
  
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• Visualizing a parasite crossing the blood brain barrier

  15-02-2016 17:00
  
  An estimated 30 percent of the world's population is chronically infected with the parasite Toxoplasma gondii. Most people live with the infection without noticeable effect, but it can be life-threatening for people with suppressed immune systems, such as people on cancer therapies or who have HIV/AIDS. Pregnant women can also pass an infection to their unborn children, putting the babies at risk of severe neurological disease.
  
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• Trapped in amber: Flower identified as new species

  15-02-2016 17:00
  
  A Rutgers scientist has identified a flower trapped in ancient amber as belonging to a species completely new to science.
  
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• Sweet discovery in leafy greens holds key to gut health

  15-02-2016 17:00
  
  A critical discovery about how bacteria feed on an unusual sugar molecule found in leafy green vegetables could hold the key to explaining how 'good' bacteria protect our gut and promote health.
  
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• Scientists discover new microbes that thrive deep in the earth

  15-02-2016 17:00
  
  They live several kilometers under the surface of the earth, need no light or oxygen and can only be seen in a microscope. By sequencing genomes of a newly discovered group of microbes, the Hadesarchaea, an international team of researchers have found out how these microorganisms make a living in the deep subsurface biosphere of our planet.
  
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• Jawless fish brains more similar to ours than previously thought

  15-02-2016 17:00
  
  Researchers at the RIKEN Evolutionary Morphology laboratory and other institutions in Japan have shown that complex divisions in the vertebrate brain first appeared before the evolution of jaws, more than 500 million years ago. Published in Nature, the study shows that two elements of brain genoarchitecture thought to be unique to jawed vertebrates are actually present in two jawless fish—the hagfish and lamprey.
  
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• A new spin on quantum computing: Scientists train electrons with microwaves

  15-02-2016 17:00
  
  In what may provide a potential path to processing information in a quantum computer, researchers have switched an intrinsic property of electrons from an excited state to a relaxed state on demand using a device that served as a microwave "tuning fork."
  
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• How do you keep kids safe?

  15-02-2016 16:41 via rss.cnn.com
  
  The best Internet safety tip for parents, experts say, is to be involved with their children's digital lives.
  
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• Opinion: How fruit flies can help keep African scientists at home

  15-02-2016 15:50
  
  The humble fruit fly is being put to an unusual use in sub-Saharan Africa: it's being used as bait. Its intended lure? It's hoped that the tiny creature, whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster, can stop the exodus of researchers from Africa.
  
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• Image: SMART-1 views a cluster of the moon's craters

  15-02-2016 15:30
  
  This image shows a crater-filled region in the northeastern part of the moon. Several features are visible here, including, to the left of the frame, the small Keldysh crater peeking into view. Below and to the right of Keldysh is the small depression of Hercules F, which sits to the left of the faint and eroded rim of Atlas E. The largest and most prominent feature, visible towards the top right of the frame, is Atlas crater.
  
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• Study suggests virgin male mice prefer watching violence to watching sex

  15-02-2016 15:24
  
  (Phys.org)—A trio of researchers working in Japan has found via experiments they conducted, that male virgin mice prefer to watch videos of other mice fighting with one another, than videos of mice having sex. In their paper published in the journal Animal Cognition, Shigeru Watanabe with Keio University, Kazutaka Shinozuka with the RIKEN Brain Science Institute and Takefumi Kikusui with Azabu University, all in Japan, report on behavioral experiments they conducted with house mice and wha
  
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• Google 'Project Loon' balloon enters Sri Lanka for Internet tests

  15-02-2016 15:23
  
  Google's balloon-powered high-speed Internet service known as "Project Loon" began its first tests in Sri Lanka Monday ahead of a planned joint venture with Colombo, the country's top IT official said.
  
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• Cybathlon—A global Olympic-style competition to advance assistive and robotic technologies

  15-02-2016 15:22
  
  Slicing bread, pouring a cup of coffee, and sitting down at the kitchen table are a part of everyday life for most people, but for people with physical impairments such as limb amputations or neurological lesions, these tasks can present an insurmountable challenge without support. Pooling their efforts, researchers from the engineering and medical sciences are on a quest for smarter, more precise assistive devices ultimately piloted by the patients' minds.
  
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• How the ancients invented the modern world

  15-02-2016 15:20
  
  True innovation is hard to find, as few things come out of nothing. Take the now ubiquitous selfie, for example. The format may have changed but the concept of making self-portraits is hundreds, if not thousands of years old. The same is true of many inventions that we typically think of as modern, some of which actually have precedents dating back over 1000 years.
  
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• Lactation, weather found to predict milk quality in dairy cows

  15-02-2016 15:11
  
  The quality of colostrum—the nutrient-rich milk newborn dairy calves first drink from their mothers - can be predicted by the mother's previous lactation performance and weather, according to new research from the NH Agricultural Experiment Station at the University of New Hampshire.
  
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• What would happen if Earth fell into a black hole?

  15-02-2016 15:10
  
  Black holes have long been a source of much excitement and intrigue. And interest regarding black holes will surely grow now that gravitational waves have been discovered.
  
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• The mystery about the Chelyabinsk superbolide continues three years later

  15-02-2016 15:06
  
  In 2013 February 15, the approach of asteroid (367943) Duende to our planet was being closely monitored by both the public and the scientific community worldwide when a superbolide entered the atmosphere above the region of Chelyabinsk in Russia. Three years and hundreds of published scientific studies later, we are still looking for the origin of this unexpected visitor that caused damage to hundreds of buildings and injuries to nearly 1,500 people. Finding the precise value of its speed as it
  
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• Small clumps in the body: how nanoparticles react to proteins

  15-02-2016 15:05
  
  Scientists at the INM – Leibniz Institute for New Materials have found out that the protein haemoglobin influences the aggregation of individual gold nanoparticles to form clumps.
  
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• Tree frogs with foreign sex chromosomes are less fit

  15-02-2016 15:03
  
  During the last glaciation, a huge ice shield reached up to the region of today's Berlin. By the time it started to melt about 20.000 years ago, it enabled a gradual re-colonization of the northern latitudes by many plant and animal species. Often, they took different colonization routes around the mountain ranges, for example the Carpathians - with astonishing outcomes for a special kind of re-unification that, for instance, happens in Poland: In the region of the Vistula River, two evolutionar
  
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• How satellites can help control the spread of diseases such as Zika

  15-02-2016 15:00
  
  The explosive spread of Zika throughout the Americas is raising questions about the best ways to control this and future epidemics. We first need to identify what factors contribute to the spread of Zika and understand where and when they occur. With that knowledge we can effectively target our resources to fight the disease and control its spread.
  
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• Fuels that do not produce hazardous exhaust gases

  15-02-2016 14:58
  
  Modern combustion engines become increasingly economical and clean. Engine developers, however, are now facing the technical conflict of whether fuel consumption or exhaust gas emission is to be further reduced. This Gordian knot might be cut by chemists' and engineers' further development of sophisticated fuels that help optimize combustion in the engine. This development work under the OME project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) via the FNR, the central project
  
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• An innovative air conditioning system enabling 27 percent savings

  15-02-2016 14:53
  
  Tecnalia is leading the development of an innovative air conditioning system enabling savings of 27% to be made. The system that goes by the name Hybrid Liquid Desiccant System-HLDS combines the technology of liquid desiccants to dehumidify the air with conventional technology on which air-conditioning is based (compression cycles for cooling) and allows humidity and temperature to be independently controlled.
  
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• In search of new Earths and life in the Universe

  15-02-2016 14:52
  
  Twenty years ago, in Geneva, PhD student Didier Queloz discovered a planet orbiting another sun – something that astronomers had predicted, but never found. Today he continues his terra hunting for extreme worlds and Earth twins in Cambridge.
  
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• Clouds reveal new particle formation process

  15-02-2016 14:50
  In addition to precipitation, clouds influence the climate in various ways: they cover 70% of the Earth's surface and represent nearly 15% of the volume of the atmosphere. Scientists need to understand their underlying chemical and physical mechanisms in order to better integrate them into climate change models.
  
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• Proposal for the assessment of new methods in plant breeding

  15-02-2016 14:43
  CRISPR/Cas9 is a new method for targeted genetic changes. Together with other methods, it is part of the so-called genome editing toolbox. At the moment, genome-editing is mostly discussed in the context of medical applications, but its use is perhaps even more promising for plant breeding. Scientists from China, the United States and Germany, among them Detlef Weigel of the Max-Planck-Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, have now proposed a regulatory framework for genome editi
  
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• Weird woodlice guzzle water with their antennae

  15-02-2016 14:40
  Ever come across a slater, woodlouse or pill bug tucked under a rock in your garden? These tiny creatures and others like them hide in the moist earth under rocks and logs to avoid drying out.
  
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• Making message encryption easier

  15-02-2016 14:40
  
  Sending emails is as easy as pie. However, until now a lot of know-how has been required to securely encrypt them. This is bound to change: Deutsche Telekom and the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology SIT in Darmstadt will be making encryption easy – with a popular encryption named Volksverschlüsselung. The Volksverschlüsselung software provides the required keys and configures the existing e-mail programs for the users to be able to encrypt and decrypt.
  
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• Chinese fusion test reportedly reaches new milestone

  15-02-2016 14:38
  
  Fusion power has long been considered to be the holy grail of alternative energy. Clean, abundant power, created through a self-sustaining process where atomic nuclei are fused at extremely high temperatures. Achieving this has been the goal of atomic researchers and physicists for over half a century, but progress has been slow. While the science behind fusion power is solid, the process has not exactly been practical.
  
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• NOAA expands critical habitat for endangered North Atlantic right whales

  15-02-2016 14:37
  
  Using new information not previously available, NOAA Fisheries is expanding critical habitat for endangered North Atlantic right whales to cover its northeast feeding areas in the Gulf of Maine/Georges Bank region and southeast calving grounds from North Carolina to Florida.
  
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• Around five million crowd workers in the U.K. 'gig economy', new research finds

  15-02-2016 14:37
  
  It is known by many different names: 'gig economy', 'sharing economy', 'crowd working', 'platform capitalism' and even 'uberisation'. But one thing is clear: we are witnessing a phenomenal growth in new forms of work organised via online platforms.
  
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• Hypothermia mediated by 'magnetotactic bacteria' could kill S. aureus

  15-02-2016 14:36
  
  As Staphylococcus aureus becomes increasingly resistant to antibiotics, new methods of killing these pathogens are urgently needed. Now a team of investigators has demonstrated in laboratory rodents that a form of hyperthermia using magnetic nanocrystals, and targeted to the pathogens, can kill S. aureus. The research is published ahead of print February 12 in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.
  
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• Watch: Apple Watch Price Drop Announced

  15-02-2016 14:34 via abcnews.go.com
  
  Usually a price decrease is followed by a new model, but analysts believe a newer version will not be released at this time.
  
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• No more keys or cards? Technology goes under the skin

  15-02-2016 14:30
  
  Researchers at the University of Melbourne are investigating the growth in a new type of technology, inserted under the skin, and set to revolutionise the way we gain access to our homes, our bank accounts and use public transport.
  
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• Farmers to benefit from revitalised rabbit control method

  15-02-2016 14:30
  
  A new more virulent virus strain (RHDV K5) set to be released this year will help WA farmers combat Australia's increasing rabbit population.
  
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• Star formation in distant galaxy clusters

  15-02-2016 14:28
  
  The first stars appeared about one hundred million years after the big bang, and ever since then stars and star formation processes have lit up the cosmos, producing heavy elements, planets, black holes, and arguably all of the other interesting characters in today's universe. When the universe was about three billion years old (currently it is 13.8 billion years old), star formation activity peaked at rates about ten times above current levels. Why this happened, and whether the physical proces
  
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• Changes in shape and 'squishiness' can help drug-containing microcapsules reach tumors

  15-02-2016 14:28
  
  University of Alabama at Birmingham researcher Eugenia Kharlampieva, Ph.D., makes polymer microcapsules meant to carry cancer drugs to the site of a tumor. Working in the UAB Department of Chemistry at the intersection of polymer chemistry, nanotechnology and biomedical science, she is creating novel "smart" particles that will provide controlled delivery for therapeutic drugs. Specifically, she has found that changes in shapes or elasticity of these tiny carriers greatly influence their ability
  
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• Imec introduces broad spectrum hyperspectral imaging solutions

  15-02-2016 14:20
  
  At this week's SPIE Photonics West, imec will present a new set of hyperspectral sensor and camera solutions with extended spectral range, going from the visible light (VIS) up to near infrared (NIR). The new line-scan VNIR (visible to near-infrared) sensor and snapshot mosaic VNIR camera outperform current solutions in spectral range and compactness.
  
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• Amateur beekeepers sought to help halt the decline in Britain's bee population

  15-02-2016 14:20
  
  A beehive and wildflower garden have been installed on the roof of the University by City's Sustainability team. The beehive has been introduced to enhance the biodiversity and habitat of the City campus and to raise awareness of the importance of sustainability among staff, students and the local community.
  
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