Sci-Tech news

• Bees 'dumb down' after ingesting tiny doses of the pesticide chlorpyrifos

  01-03-2016 22:47
  
  Honeybees suffer severe learning and memory deficits after ingesting very small doses of the pesticide chlorpyrifos, potentially threatening their success and survival, new research from New Zealand's University of Otago research suggests.
  
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• NASA finds drought in Eastern Mediterranean worst of past 900 years

  01-03-2016 22:46
  
  A new NASA study finds that the recent drought that began in 1998 in the eastern Mediterranean Levant region, which comprises Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey, is likely the worst drought of the past nine centuries.
  
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• NASA Goddard network maintains communications from space to ground

  01-03-2016 22:45
  
  Spending nearly a year in space, 249 miles from Earth, could be a lonely prospect, but an office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, made sure astronaut Scott Kelly could reach home for the entire 340-day duration of his mission. Not only could Kelly communicate with mission control in Houston, but Goddard's Network Integration Center connected him with reporters and even family.
  
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• Is conservation aid preventing deforestation?

  01-03-2016 22:20
  
  With over $3.4 billion spent in international conservation funding to protect biodiversity and stop tropical deforestation in Africa since the early 1990s, it makes sense to ask if the funding is effective. A recent study finds that conservation aid alone has not been able to counteract deforestation pressures, and in some cases may have even exacerbated forest loss.
  
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• Peugeot Citroen reveals 'real-world' fuel consumption

  01-03-2016 22:10
  
  Leading French automobile manufacturer PSA Peugeot Citroen published Tuesday "real-world" fuel consumption figures for three of its diesel cars, seeking to win over wary customers after the Volkswagen pollution cheating scandal.
  
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• New method to stop Argentine ants

  01-03-2016 22:00
  
  University of California, Riverside researchers may have found a better, more environmentally friendly way to stop the procession of Argentine ants, which have been spreading across the United States for the past few decades, despite pest control efforts.
  
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• Following rivals, AT&T says DirecTV won't need a dish or box

  01-03-2016 22:00
  
  Like other cable and satellite companies, AT&T is trying to win new customers by making it a little easier to sign up for and watch TV.
  
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• Possible link between Flint water system and health problems evaluated

  01-03-2016 21:44
  
  Wayne State University announced today that it has formed the Flint Area Community Health and Environment Partnership (FACHEP). The research group, led by Wayne State researchers specializing in environmental engineering and public health, will conduct an independent study to evaluate the possible association between changes in Flint's water system and public health, specifically the recent Legionnaires' disease outbreak.
  
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• Experts assess the impact of climate change on public health

  01-03-2016 21:40
  
  Climate change is already having a noticeable impact on the environment and global health. Around the world extreme weather events, increased temperatures, drought, and rising sea levels are all adversely affecting our ability to grow food, access clean water, and work safely outdoors. Soon in some areas, the transformation will be so drastic and devastating that native populations will be displaced and forced to find new homes as environmental refugees. In a review published in the Annals of Gl
  
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• More connectivity does not always lead to more complex technology

  01-03-2016 21:32
  
  Many technologies used in human societies are beyond the inventive capacities of individuals. Instead, technologies result from a cumulative process where innovations are gradually added across many generations—think from the wheel to modern cars or from early planes to space shuttles.
  
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• Penguin brains not changed by loss of flight

  01-03-2016 21:27
  
  Losing the ability to fly gave ancient penguins their unique locomotion style. But leaving the sky behind didn't cause major changes in their brain structure, researchers from The University of Texas at Austin suggest after examining the skull of the oldest known penguin fossil.
  
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• Affordable fuel cell components developed

  01-03-2016 21:24
  
  Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne and Los Alamos national laboratories have teamed up to support a DOE initiative through the creation of the Electrocatalysis Consortium (ElectroCat), a collaboration devoted to finding an effective but cheaper alternative to platinum in hydrogen fuel cells.
  
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• Identity unearthed: Excavations in Sudan reveal the transformation Egyptian and Nubian culture

  01-03-2016 21:21
  
  In a middle-class tomb just east of the Nile River in what was Upper Nubia, a woman offers a glimpse of how two met civilizations met, mingled and a new pharaonic dynasty arose. Her tomb was Egyptian, but she was buried in the Nubian style—placed in a flexed position on her side and resting on a bed. Around her neck she wore amulets of the Egyptian god Bes, the protector of households.
  
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• Who really invented stealth technology?

  01-03-2016 20:03 via rss.cnn.com
  
  Decades after the U.S. Air Force unveiled one if its first stealth combat planes, the B-2 bomber, lawyers are still arguing over the origins and legal ownership of the technology that allows pilots to fly virtually undetected by enemy radar.
  
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• Scott Kelly to Hitch Wild Ride Back to Earth on Russia's Soyuz

  01-03-2016 19:27 via abcnews.go.com
  
  Astronaut Scott Kelly is in for a wild ride back to Earth inside Russia's Soyuz spacecraft.
  
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• Scientists Discover 520 Million-Year-Old Fossilized Nervous System

  01-03-2016 19:27 via scitechdaily.com
  
  Researchers from the University of Cambridge have discovered a 520 million-year-old fossilized nervous system is the most complete and best example found to date. Researchers have found one of the oldest and most detailed fossils of the central nervous system yet identified, from a crustacean-like animal that lived more than 500 million years ago. The […]
  The post Scientists Discover 520 Million-Year-Old Fossilized Nervous System appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Attorney general ready to defend surveillance at tech industry gathering

  01-03-2016 19:22 via rss.cnn.com
  
  Attorney General Loretta Lynch is traveling to the heart of the U.S. technology industry to make her pitch that tech companies should help the government access their customers' data for national security investigations.
  
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• Vegas Outbreak Makes Nevada Syphilis Rate Highest in US West

  01-03-2016 19:18 via abcnews.go.com
  Nevada is experiencing the highest rate of syphilis in the Western U.S. following an outbreak in Las Vegas
  
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• $1M Turing Award Winners Advocate for Encryption

  01-03-2016 19:18 via abcnews.go.com
  This year's $1 million Turing Award has been awarded to a pair of cryptographers whose ideas helped make Internet commerce possible
  
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• NASA to Build a Quieter Supersonic Passenger Jet

  01-03-2016 19:12 via scitechdaily.com
  
  NASA’s award of a contract for the preliminary design of a “low boom” flight demonstration aircraft brings the return of supersonic passenger air travel is one step closer to reality. This is the first in a series of ‘X-planes’ in NASA’s New Aviation Horizons initiative, introduced in the agency’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget. NASA Administrator […]
  The post NASA to Build a Quieter Supersonic Passenger Jet appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Facebook's Latin American Boss Arrested in Brazil

  01-03-2016 19:12 via abcnews.go.com
  Police in Sao Paulo say they have arrested the vice president of Facebook in Latin America
  
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• Workers prefer consistent jerk to loose cannon

  01-03-2016 18:50
  
  Is your boss always a jerk? You still may be better off than those workers whose supervisor is courteous one moment and rude the next.
  
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• Leaping dogs take the meaning of Leap Year to a new level

  01-03-2016 18:50
  
  Shayna, a Labrador retriever in Holiday, Florida, had taken the same leap several times and had fun swimming. So she got a running start and sailed over the canal wall, only to learn it was low tide and she was going to end up on a bed of sharp oyster shells.
  
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• Homecoming for 2 Spacemen After Year Aloft: 'We Did It!'

  01-03-2016 18:48 via abcnews.go.com
  NASA's Scott Kelly, Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko finally heading back to the planet after a year in space
  
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• Americans who see God as 'a secure base' tend to be more committed, satisfied on the job

  01-03-2016 18:48
  
  People who see God as a "secure base" for intimacy and attachment are more likely to be emotionally committed to their workplace and satisfied with their jobs. They also tend to see their work as a calling from God, which correlates to higher levels of job commitment and satisfaction, according to a Baylor study of working American adults.
  
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• Project with ground-breaking sub-marine CCS experiment starts today

  01-03-2016 18:40
  
  The world's first 'real world' deep-water controlled experiment to simulate an emission from a submerged carbon dioxide storage reservoir aims to further verify the safety of offshore carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage (CCS).
  
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• Voice-driven games: Dialog Box supports collaborative gaming in multilingual environment

  01-03-2016 18:30
  
  Language technologists have created the basis for a new kind of realistic communication in computer games. The Dialog Box supports collaboration and interaction between players speaking different languages. Using a space adventure game as a model, the research team led by Dietrich Klakow at Saarland University has developed the Dialog Box in cooperation with other project partners. Players can pose intuitive questions to the computer, issue commands and receive information. The Dialog Box acts a
  
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• UK Government Revises Draft Internet Spy Law After Criticism

  01-03-2016 18:26 via abcnews.go.com
  The British government says it has amended a proposed Internet surveillance law to strengthen privacy protections after criticism from lawmakers
  
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• Regulating neuronal membrane lipids could be the key to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

  01-03-2016 18:20
  
  A study published in the prestigious journal Scientific Reports from the Nature group demonstrates, for the first time and using computational tools, that polyunsaturated lipids can alter the binding rate of two types of receivers involved in certain nervous system diseases. The work was led by members of the Research Programme on Biomedical Informatics at the IMIM (Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute) and Pompeu Fabra University as well as researchers from the University of Tampere (Fin
  
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• Scott Kelly Enjoys One Last Spectacular Sunrise From Space

  01-03-2016 18:14 via abcnews.go.com
  
  Scott Kelly was greeted with a spectacular sunrise this morning, marking the end of his one-year mission at the International Space Station.
  
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• Iran seeks foreign partnerships to boost auto industry

  01-03-2016 18:10
  
  Iran's president on Tuesday called for foreign partnerships to boost the country's car industry and said the sector must be privatized to improve its competitiveness.
  
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• Pharmaceutical company performance improves when innovation and execution align

  01-03-2016 18:03
  
  East Norriton, Penn., March 1, 2016. A study measuring the impact of pharmaceutical commercial operations on company performance finds that strategic investment in commercial innovation linked with an aligned and responsive culture of execution can produce positive results. The study, "What Makes More Better? An Exploratory Study on the Effects of Firm-Level Commercial Operations Attributes on Pharmaceutical Business Performance," appears in the current issue of the Journal of Medical Marketing.
  
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• UK surveillance law overhaul sparks privacy row

  01-03-2016 18:00
  
  Britain's security services and police would have their right to trawl in bulk for online data boosted under a proposed new law to recast surveillance powers published Tuesday.
  
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• High-carbon coal products could derail China's clean energy efforts

  01-03-2016 18:00
  
  China's plan to ramp up production of new chemicals and synthetic fuels made from coal could derail recent efforts to lower its carbon dioxide emissions and instead lock the Chinese government into high-carbon investments for years to come, a new Duke University study finds.
  
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• Why does stepping on a LEGO hurt so much? (video)

  01-03-2016 17:54
  
  The sensation may be all too familiar - the intense, sharp pain in your foot caused by an unassuming LEGO® brick. Why does this tiny chunk of plastic cause so much pain? To answer this question, Reactions examines why we feel pain in the first place, as well as the material chemistry of LEGO bricks.
  
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• Olympus to pay at least $635 million to end US probes

  01-03-2016 17:54
  
  A leading manufacturer of medical scopes will pay at least $635 million to resolve separate criminal and civil investigations into kickbacks and foreign bribery.
  
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• Olympus to pay $646 mn for bribing hospitals, doctors

  01-03-2016 17:54
  
  The US unit of Japan's camera and hospital equipment maker Olympus agreed to pay $646 million Tuesday to settle charges it gave hospitals and doctors kickbacks to buy its endoscopes.
  
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• From backyard pool chemical to nanomaterial

  01-03-2016 17:51
  
  Could a cheap molecule used to disinfect swimming pools provide the key to creating a new form of DNA nanomaterials?
  
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• National Zoo closes attraction after E. coli discovered

  01-03-2016 17:50
  
  The Smithsonian's National Zoo shut down its Kid's Farm exhibit after E. coli was found in some animals.
  
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• Around a third of workers fear for jobs and pay, research says

  01-03-2016 17:50
  
  The scale of workers' insecurity since the economic crisis is revealed in research showing that 32% believed that there was a risk of losing their jobs and 38% were anxious that their pay would be cut.
  
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• Tax credit extensions can impact renewable energy deployment and electric sector

  01-03-2016 17:49
  
  The Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) today released new analysis exploring the potential impact of recently extended federal tax credits on the deployment of renewable generation technologies and related U.S. electric sector carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
  
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• Researchers' new advance in quest for second generation biofuels

  01-03-2016 17:48
  
  Scientists at the University of York are part of an international research team that has made a significant step forward in understanding the processes naturally occurring enzymes use to degrade microbe-resistant biomass, a key aim in the development of biofuels.
  
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• In face of uncertainty, carmakers bet on SUVs, new tech

  01-03-2016 17:30
  
  Automakers looking to support sales in the face of global economic uncertainty are betting on new SUVs and the promise of high tech as they try to outshine each other at the Geneva International Motor Show.
  
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• Can the FBI force a company to break into its own products?

  01-03-2016 17:26
  
  Can the FBI force a company like Apple to extract data from a customer's smartphone? In the fight over an iPhone used by an extremist killer in San Bernardino, some legal experts say Congress has never explicitly granted that power. And now a federal judge agrees in a similar case.
  
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• Oculus founder Palmer Luckey on Minecraft in VR and launching the Rift - VentureBeat

  01-03-2016 17:16 via
  VentureBeat
  Oculus founder Palmer Luckey on Minecraft in VR and launching the Rift
  VentureBeat
  Above: Palmer Luckey was at the Xbox Spring Showcase to talk about Minecraft on the Oculus Rift. Image Credit: Dean Takahashi. Check out more of our 20th anniversary of Pokémon coverage this week at GamesBeat. After years of development and demos ...
  Hands on: Minecraft for the Oculus Rift may be the best VR game to datePCWorld
  Virtual Reality Minecraft Sounds Like It Will Be AmazingTIME
  M
  

• Why celestial bodies come in different sizes

  01-03-2016 17:10
  
  Our solar system contains one massive object—the sun—and many smaller planets and asteroids. Now researchers from Duke University in Durham, N.C. have proposed a new explanation for the size diversity, which is found throughout the universe and is called hierarchy. The researchers report their finding in the Journal of Applied Physics, from AIP Publishing.
  
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• An integrated evaluation framework for water storage strategies in Sub-Sahara Africa

  01-03-2016 17:10
  
  The current study proposes a multi-criteria decision aid framework to funding agencies for the integrated evaluation of water storage systems in Ethiopia and more broadly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Various water storage schemes within the country are assessed while the farmers are placed at the centre of the analysis as the principal stakeholders. The approach is based on a multi-criteria outranking method for the avoidance of complete trade-offs between criteria.
  
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• The first principle study of electronic and optical properties in rhombohedral BiAlO3

  01-03-2016 17:02
  
  Perovskite has a rhombohedral structure (or hexagonal) with formula ABO3, while belonging to the space group of R3c (number #161). They are popular in applications of functional devices, exhibiting the superconducting, piezoelectric and ferroelectric properties. BiAlO3 was also employed in improving the structural and electrical properties of BNT-based ceramics, due to the large polarization in the Perovskite structure. Furthermore, such material has been added into the PbTiO3, PbZrO3 and BaTiO3
  
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• Study highlights differences between cities planning efforts for global warming

  01-03-2016 17:00
  
  A small team of researchers with University College London and kMatrix Ltd, Greetham House has conducted a study of urban preparedness efforts by ten major cities around the world in an effort to learn more about how resources are being allocated to deal with changes coming due to global warming. The group has published the results of their efforts as a LETTER article in the journal Nature Climate Change.
  
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• DJI's revolutionary Phantom 4 drone can dodge obstacles and track humans - The Verge

  01-03-2016 17:00 via
  The Verge
  DJI's revolutionary Phantom 4 drone can dodge obstacles and track humans
  The Verge
  When The Verge began covering “drones” three years ago, we got a lot of grief about using that word: drone. These were just remote control toys, they couldn't fly themselves! When drones got smart enough to navigate using GPS, and to follow people ...
  There's finally a DJI Phantom drone that can follow youMashable
  Phantom 4 Review: DJI's New Drone Outsmarts Bad PilotsWall Street Journal
  DJI
  

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