Sci-Tech news

• Apple Is Not the Only Company Feeling Heat From the Feds

  22-02-2016 23:15 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  Apple is dominating the headlines in a standoff over whether to help the FBI access the locked iPhone of one of the San Bernardino terrorists.
  
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• Proven one-step process to convert CO2 and water directly into liquid hydrocarbon fuel

  22-02-2016 23:04
  
  A team of University of Texas at Arlington chemists and engineers have proven that concentrated light, heat and high pressures can drive the one-step conversion of carbon dioxide and water directly into useable liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
  
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• Scott Kelly returns to earth, but science for NASA's journey to Mars continues

  22-02-2016 23:02
  
  NASA astronaut Scott Kelly paved the way for future missions when he embarked on a one-year mission in space along with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko. Kelly will be the first American to complete such a long-duration mission, and one of the first humans in more than 15 years to embrace the challenge. Russian cosmonaut Sergei Avdeyev was the last person to spend a year in microgravity in 1999. The 2015-2016 mission builds upon that past knowledge.
  
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• New reports show positive and negative effects of Louisiana school voucher program

  22-02-2016 23:00
  
  The Louisiana Scholarship Program has widely varying effects on students, according to a series of studies released jointly by the School Choice Demonstration Project at the University of Arkansas and the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans at Tulane University.
  
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• Verizon Rolls Out Testing of 5G Mobile Network

  22-02-2016 22:21 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  Verizon has begun testing 5G wireless access around the company's headquarters in New York in tandem with Samsung
  
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• Tesla suing over Utah sales, says new bill has unfair limits

  22-02-2016 22:04
  
  Tesla Motors said Monday that a new proposal to let the company sell its electric cars at a sleek Salt Lake City showroom puts unfair limits on their business and they're taking the fight to court.
  
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• Experts: The FBI's iPhone-unlocking plan for Apple is risky

  22-02-2016 21:44
  
  In its battle with Apple over an extremist's iPhone, the FBI says neither the company nor anyone else has anything to fear. Although they want to compel assistance from Apple to unlock a phone used by San Bernardino mass shooter Syed Farook, officials say the techniques they propose are limited in scope and pose no risk to the privacy of other iPhone users.
  
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• Species groups follow patterns reacting to climate change on US northeast shelf

  22-02-2016 21:43
  
  Researchers studying marine fishery species grouped by similar depth and temperature distribution have found that those groups have similar responses to the effects of climate change. Interactions between individual species in those groups, however, may be affected by the amount of available habitat, predator-prey relationships, and competition for food resulting from shifts in range and distribution.
  
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• Researchers sequence seagrass genome, unlocking valuable resource

  22-02-2016 21:39
  
  The University of Delaware's Pamela Green is part of an international consortium of researchers from 35 laboratories that have published the genome of the seagrass Zostera marina. It is believed to be the first marine angiosperm to be fully sequenced.
  
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• Time of day can impact spray: PPO herbicides more effective when sprayed at midday

  22-02-2016 21:38
  
  Some herbicides are more effective when applied at noon compared to early morning or late evening applications, according to data from the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture.
  
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• Researchers advance understanding of turbulence that drains heat from fusion reactors

  22-02-2016 21:35
  
  The life of a subatomic particle can be hectic. The charged nuclei and electrons that zip around the vacuum vessels of doughnut-shaped fusion machines known as tokamaks are always in motion. But while that motion helps produce the fusion reactions that could power a new class of electricity generator, the turbulence it generates can also limit those reactions.
  
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• Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook in Virtual Reality is the Future

  22-02-2016 21:33 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  Mark Zuckerberg wants you to be able to share and experience content in virtual reality.
  
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• Sea-level rise past and future: Robust estimates for coastal planners

  22-02-2016 21:00
  
  Sea-levels worldwide will likely rise by 50 to 130 centimeters by the end of this century if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced rapidly. This is shown in a new study led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research that, for the first time, combines the two most important estimation methods for future sea-level rise and yields a more robust risk range. A second study, like the first one to be published in the US Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides the first gl
  
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• Sea level rise in 20th century was fastest in 3,000 years, study finds

  22-02-2016 21:00
  
  Global sea level rose faster in the 20th century than in any of the 27 previous centuries, according to a Rutgers University-led study published today.
  
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• New 'lipidomics' method could bring fast cancer diagnosis

  22-02-2016 21:00
  
  Researchers have developed a new analytical tool for medical applications and biological research that might be used to diagnose cancer more rapidly than conventional methods.
  
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• Museum samples of extinct butterfly populations show how populations rise and fall

  22-02-2016 21:00
  
  Researchers at the University of Helsinki have analysed genetic variation in the now extinct populations of the Glanville fritillary butterfly in south-west Finland using old museum samples. The populations used to live in highly fragmented habitat where local populations went frequently extinct and new ones were established by dispersing butterflies.
  
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• Antarctic ice sheet is more vulnerable to CO2 than expected

  22-02-2016 21:00
  
  Results from a new climate reconstruction of how Antarctica's ice sheets responded during the last period when atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) reached levels like those expected to occur in about 30 years, plus sediment core findings reported in a companion paper, suggest that the ice sheets are more vulnerable to rising atmospheric CO2 than previously thought.
  
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• Luxury fashion world upending tradition to join digital age

  22-02-2016 20:46
  
  Buying luxury clothes online right off the runway. Trying them on virtually. Not having to wait months for the new collection to ship.
  
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• NASA releases strange 'music' heard by 1969 astronauts

  22-02-2016 20:41
  
  NASA has made public a recording of strange "music" that astronauts reported hearing in 1969 while on the far side of the Moon, out of radio contact with the Earth.
  
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• Majority of Americans back FBI in battle with Apple

  22-02-2016 20:41
  
  A majority of Americans support the US government's efforts to force Apple to help unlock an iPhone in the probe of last year's deadly San Bernardino attacks, a poll showed Monday.
  
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• Zuckerberg to press on with Internet access despite setback

  22-02-2016 20:40
  
  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg vowed Monday to press on with his 3-year-old effort to bring the developing world online, even after Indian regulators banned one of the pillars of the campaign.
  
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• Facebook's Zuckerberg 'sympathetic' with Apple's fight with US authorities

  22-02-2016 20:26
  
  Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg said Monday he was "sympathetic" with Apple's chief executive Tim Cook in his stand-off with the US government over breaking into the iPhone of a mass shooter.
  
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• Biological engineer patents method to make natural blue dye

  22-02-2016 20:22
  
  A Utah State University researcher has taken a big step toward making a safer, more natural dye that can be used in the food, textile, cosmetic and other industries.
  
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• Fungi are at the root of tropical forest diversity—or lack thereof, study finds

  22-02-2016 20:20
  
  The types of beneficial fungi that associate with tree roots can alter the fate of a patch of tropical forest, boosting plant diversity or, conversely, giving one tree species a distinct advantage over many others, researchers report.
  
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• Intense deep-ocean turbulence in equatorial Pacific could help drive global circulation

  22-02-2016 20:19
  
  Waves crashing on the equatorial seafloor generate centimeter-scale turbulence that is crucial for driving ocean circulation on a global scale, Stanford scientists say.
  
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• Texas fish of dinosaur era found to be new species

  22-02-2016 20:17
  
  A 90-million-year-old fossil fish, which has been on display at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, turns out to be a new species. Research conducted by Kenshu Shimada, Ph.D., professor at DePaul University in Chicago and research associate of the Sternberg Museum in Kansas, reveals the 5.5-foot-long fossil fish to possess a tuna-like body with a unique 'hook-shaped sail' on its back. The fish has been given a new species name, Pentanogmius fritschi, in honor of Joseph Fritsch, a l
  
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• Researchers document new approach to dealing with uncertainties in mathematical models

  22-02-2016 20:15
  
  Mathematical models are used to predict just about everything from traffic and weather to plant metabolism and industrial biotechnology.
  
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• After the discovery: Researchers study implications of gravitational waves

  22-02-2016 20:11
  
  Rochester Institute of Technology researchers continue exploring gravitational waves in a series of upcoming papers. Their reports follow the first direct detection of these waves, predicted by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity.
  
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• NASA sees category 5 southern Pacific Tropical cyclone hit Fiji

  22-02-2016 20:05
  
  NASA satellites provided data on Tropical Cyclone Winston before and after it made an historic landfall in eastern Fiji. The GPM, Suomi NPP and Aqua satellites provided forecasters with data that showed rainfall, strength and extent of the storm.
  
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• Gulf of Mexico historic shipwrecks help scientists unlock mysteries of deep-sea ecosystems

  22-02-2016 20:02
  
  The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill significantly altered microbial communities thriving near shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico, potentially changing these diverse ecosystems and degrading the historically and culturally significant ships they live on, according to new research being presented here. The findings are also revealing how decades-old, or even centuries-old, shipwrecks could be used to monitor the health of deep-ocean ecosystems, and the effects of oil and gas activity in the Gulf, a
  
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• Study of tundra soil demonstrates vulnerability of ecosystem to climate warming

  22-02-2016 20:00
  
  Findings from one of the first comprehensive field studies by a collaborative team of researchers demonstrate the active layer microbiome of tundra soil was significantly altered after only 1.5 years of experimental warming—a rapid response demonstrating high sensitivity of this ecosystem to warming. Collectively, the results of this study suggest the vulnerability of permafrost ecosystem carbon to climate warming and the significance of microbial feedbacks in mediating this vulnerability.
  
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• Physicists discover new laws governing the 'developmental biology of materials'

  22-02-2016 20:00
  
  When one atom first meets another, the precise nature of that interaction can determine much about what kinds of physical properties and behaviours will emerge.
  
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• Throwaway culture can include friendships, researcher says

  22-02-2016 19:59
  
  In a highly mobile society like the United States, people who relocate for work, school or simply to "wipe the slate clean" tend to jettison replaceable objects when they move.
  
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• Block Yik Yak? Researchers suggest doing the research first

  22-02-2016 19:58
  
  Some colleges have called for the banning of Yik Yak, a social media application to which users centered around a geographic area can post anonymously. But University of Florida Health researchers have found that the decision to ban the app may be a little hasty.
  
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• Apple vs. FBI: Feds Have More Support, Survey Says

  22-02-2016 19:58 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  Fifty-one percent of people surveyed said that Apple should assist the FBI in accessing an iPhone 5C used by San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook.
  
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• Surprising mathematical law tested on Project Gutenberg texts

  22-02-2016 19:56
  
  Zipf's law in its simplest form, as formulated in the thirties by American linguist George Kingsley Zipf, states surprisingly that the most frequently occurring word in a text appears twice as often as the next most frequent word, three times more than the third most frequent one, four times more than the fourth most frequent one, and so on.
  
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• Low-carbon policies could prevent up to 175,000 US deaths by 2030

  22-02-2016 19:53
  
  Reducing U.S. climate emissions enough to avoid a 2-degree Celsius increase in global warming could prevent up to 175,000 pollution-related premature deaths nationwide by 2030 and generate health benefits of about $250 billion annually, according to a new analysis by researchers at Duke University and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
  
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• Some highlights from the Barcelona wireless show

  22-02-2016 18:10
  
  Several smaller phone makers are using this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, to unveil new smartphones targeting the lower-end and mid-range markets.
  
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• Photos: Astronaut Scott Kelly Shares His Unique View From Space

  22-02-2016 18:04 via abcnews.go.com
  
  A slideshow of images from Scott Kelly's year in the International Space Station.
  
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• Seeing cancer cells in 3-D (w/ Video)

  22-02-2016 18:00
  
  Cancer cells don't live on glass slides, yet the vast majority of images related to cancer biology come from the cells being photographed on flat, two-dimensional surfaces—images that are sometimes used to make conclusions about the behaviour of cells that normally reside in a more complex environment. But a new high-resolution microscope, presented February 22 in Developmental Cell, now makes it possible to visualize cancer cells in 3D and record how they are signaling to other parts of t
  
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• Extinct glyptodonts really were gigantic armadillos, ancient DNA shows

  22-02-2016 18:00
  
  If you could travel back in time to South America thousands of years ago, you might have caught a glimpse of an animal known as a glyptodont living alongside giant ground sloths and saber-toothed cats. Glyptodonts looked like gigantic and fearsome armadillos; one of the largest species, Doedicurus, weighed as much as a ton and had a powerful club-shaped and spiky tail.
  
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• Nearly 20% of Finland's wolves killed during month-long cull

  22-02-2016 17:51
  
  Nearly one fifth of Finland's endangered wolf population was killed in a controversial month-long cull which ended Sunday, authorities said on Monday.
  
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• Global Internet population grows to 3.2 billion: study

  22-02-2016 17:50
  
  The number of people worldwide with Internet access reached 3.2 billion at the end of 2015, but the remaining 4.1 billion still could not get online, a Facebook-sponsored study showed.
  
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• Verizon to buy fiber-optic business for about $1.8 billion

  22-02-2016 17:49
  
  Verizon says it will pay $1.8 billion to buy the fiber-optic network business of XO Communications, in a deal that the wireless phone company said would boost the networks of its customers.
  
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• Sea level mapped from space with GPS reflections

  22-02-2016 17:48
  
  The GPS signal used for 'sat-navs' could help improve understanding of ocean currents, according to new research published in Geophysical Research Letters by National Oceanography Centre (NOC) scientists, alongside colleagues from the University of Michigan and Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
  
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• Apple backs panel to consider encryption compromise

  22-02-2016 17:48
  
  Apple said Monday it would accept having a panel of experts consider access to encrypted devices if US authorities drop legal efforts to force it to help break into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino attackers.
  
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• 5G key to unlocking Internet of Things... but not yet

  22-02-2016 17:48
  
  5G will massively speed up the Internet and unlock the Internet of Things—making driverless cars and talking fridges a reality—but experts warn plenty of hurdles remain.
  
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• Goods targeted in thefts 'change with market values'

  22-02-2016 17:45
  
  The more expensive an item, the more likely it is to be targeted by thieves and stolen, a report by a University of Warwick academic has revealed.
  
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• When in-store digital displays drive sales—and when they don't

  22-02-2016 17:44
  
  Consumers shop at different size stores for different reasons, and retailers may well wonder whether in-store digital displays for their establishments are worth the investment. New data from a study of Swedish stores can provide valuable guidance.
  
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• Researchers devise method to safely share password data

  22-02-2016 17:43
  
  An unfortunate reality for cybersecurity researchers is that real-world data for their research too often comes via a security breach. Now computer scientists have devised a way to let organizations share statistics about their users' passwords without putting those same customers at risk of being hacked.
  
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