Sci-Tech news

• NASA Delays Mars InSight Lander Mission to 2018

  09-03-2016 23:29 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  The Jet Propulsion Lab announced on Wednesday that it was aiming for a new launch window beginning in May 2018.
  
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• Developers get early look at new Android software

  09-03-2016 22:49
  
  Google on Wednesday let developers have an early look at the next version of Android in a move that couldget the software into a wider variety of devices.
  
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• Seeing the light: Army ants evolve to regain sight and more in return to surface

  09-03-2016 22:47
  
  A change to a more challenging environment could, over time, re-ignite and grow old parts of the brain that have gone inactive, according to a study of army ants led by a Drexel biology professor.
  
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• How to get a handle on potential risks posed by fracking fluids

  09-03-2016 22:42
  
  The latest skirmishes over hydraulic fracturing in Florida and California are, at their core, about water. Many fracking-related spills have been recorded, and opponents say that such incidents pose unacceptable threats to water supplies. But the issue is fraught with uncertainties. Scientists review what's known about the fluids in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology and conclude that a comprehensive assessment of potential risks requires full disclosure of fracking fluid conten
  
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• Turning to dirt as part of the climate change solution

  09-03-2016 22:41
  
  Dirt is easy to take for granted if you're not a farmer or gardener. But increasingly, governments are looking to soil as part of the solution to curbing climate change. Widespread changes to agricultural practices could help sock away carbon emissions, but will farms make the shift? The cover story of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, digs into the matter.
  
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• NASA sets May 2018 launch for delayed Mars InSight mission

  09-03-2016 21:53
  
  NASA is targeting a May 2018 launch for its delayed Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission to study Mars, scheduled to land on the red planet on Nov. 26 2018.
  
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• Feds: Still hope for El Nino drenching Southern California

  09-03-2016 21:47
  
  Even though Southern California hasn't gotten the drought-busting rainy windfall some might have expected from El Nino, federal scientists hold out hope for the next several weeks.
  
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• What's in the (cable) box? Possibly the future of television

  09-03-2016 21:39
  
  It's hard to get excited about a cable box. It's basically a boring oblong you put on a shelf near your TV and never think of again unless your cable service goes out.
  
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• Austin's urban forest

  09-03-2016 21:39
  
  The U.S. Forest Service recently published its first urban forest assessment—providing details on the composition and health of the Austin, Texas urban forest, and documenting the contributions trees make to the environment, economy and the well-being of the community's residents.
  
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• Self-Cleaning Bathrooms? Catch a Glimpse of the Future of Flying

  09-03-2016 21:26 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  Set to be awarded in Hamburg, Germany on April 5, the Crystal Cabin Awards not only reward current industry creativity.
  
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• All we are is dust in the interstellar wind

  09-03-2016 21:24
  
  Cosmic dust is not simply something to sweep under the rug and forget about.
  
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• Researchers build molecule that could significantly reduce brain damage in stroke victims

  09-03-2016 21:21
  
  Research teams separated by 14 hours and 9,000 miles have collaborated to advance prospective treatment for the world's second-leading cause of death.
  
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• Congress Will Hear from Head of Google's Robot Cars

  09-03-2016 21:20 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  The head of the Google self-driving car project and auto executives will testify before Congress next week on efforts to develop autonomous cars.
  
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• Federal policy reverses benefits of alternative fuel vehicles

  09-03-2016 21:18
  
  Alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs), such as electric vehicles, can reduce U.S. petroleum consumption and can also potentially reduce emissions. However, a new Carnegie Mellon University study finds that under U.S. federal policy, AFV sales trigger the opposite effect.
  
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• German court rules Facebook like button may break law

  09-03-2016 21:08
  
  Facebook 'like' buttons on commercial websites break German law if users are not warned that their personal data is being shared, a court ruled on Wednesday.
  
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• Suffering warthogs seek out nit-picking mongooses for relief

  09-03-2016 20:31
  
  Warthogs living in Uganda have learned to rid themselves of annoying ticks by seeking out the grooming services of some accommodating neighbors: a group of mongooses looking for snacks.
  
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• Looking for Relief in San Francisco

  09-03-2016 20:26 via nytimes.com
  Some residents are rooting for a tech downturn, in the latest sign that San Francisco has become an example of what-not-to-follow.
  
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• New intervention program reduces bullying in early childhood

  09-03-2016 20:24
  
  Physical and relational bullying can happen among children as young as 3- to 5-years-old, but the results of a new study suggest that a relatively short intervention program recently developed by researchers at the University at Buffalo can lead to significant reductions in some of these behaviors.
  
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• Dark matter satellites trigger massive birth of stars

  09-03-2016 20:22
  
  One of the main predictions of the current model of the creation of structures in the universe, known at the Lambda Cold Dark Matter model, is that galaxies are embedded in very extended and massive halos of dark matter that are surrounded by many thousands of smaller sub-halos also made from dark matter.
  
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• We've got your number: Tracing the source of invasive Japanese beetles

  09-03-2016 20:00
  
  A technique developed by Northern Arizona University researchers can help invasive pest managers make more informed decisions about how to control Japanese beetles and the extensive damage they cause.
  
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• Virtual time machine of Earth's geology now in the cloud

  09-03-2016 20:00
  
  How did Madagascar once slot next to India? Where was Australia a billion years ago?
  
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• Introducing the five new 'Drowned Apostles'

  09-03-2016 19:50
  
  Australia's iconic tourist attraction, the Twelve Apostles, has received an unlikely boost in numbers with the discovery of five extra limestone columns hidden way below the water.
  
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• Research team identifies key step in process of Shigella infection

  09-03-2016 19:38
  
  Researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Division of Infectious Diseases are investigating the mechanism by which several important pathogenic species of bacteria deliver proteins into the cells of the organisms they are infecting. In a paper receiving advance online publication in Nature Microbiology, the team describes determining a key step in how the diarrheal pathogen Shigella injects proteins into target host cells. Their findings may apply to additional bacterial species,
  
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• Banning words on Instagram doesn't help—it makes it worse

  09-03-2016 19:37
  
  A new Georgia Tech study finds that Instagram's decision to ban certain words commonly used by pro-eating disorder (pro-ED) communities has produced an unintended effect. The use of those terms decreased when they were censored in 2012. But users adapted by simply making up new, almost identical words, driving up participation and support within pro-ED groups by as much as 30 percent. The Georgia Tech researchers found that these communities are still very active and thriving despite Instagram's
  
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• Team works on reconfigurable magnetic nanopatterns

  09-03-2016 19:36
  
  A team of international scientists led by researchers of the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) and the Politecnico of Milan in Italy has demonstrated a novel approach for designing fully reconfigurable magnetic nanopatterns whose properties and functionality can be programmed and reprogrammed on-demand.
  
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• Sticky, stony and sizzling science launching to space station

  09-03-2016 19:33
  
  NASA's commercial partner Orbital ATK plans to launch its Cygnus spacecraft into orbit on March 22, 2016 atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket for its fifth contracted resupply mission to the International Space Station. The flight, known as Orbital ATK CRS-6, will deliver investigations to the space station to study fire, meteors, regolith, adhesion, and 3-D printing in microgravity.
  
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• New Bioprinting Technique Shows Potential for Tissue Repair and Regenerative Medicine

  09-03-2016 19:22 via scitechdaily.com
  
  New research details how scientists are moving closer to embedding vascular networks into thick human tissues, which could result in tissue repair and regeneration — and ultimately even replacement of whole organs. A team at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and the Harvard John A. Paulson School for Engineering and […]
  The post New Bioprinting Technique Shows Potential for Tissue Repair and Regenerative Medicine appeared first on SciTech
  
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• Light helps the transistor laser switch faster

  09-03-2016 19:22
  
  Light and electrons interact in a complex dance within fiber optic devices. A new study by University of Illinois engineers found that in the transistor laser, a device for next-generation high-speed computing, the light and electrons spur one another on to faster switching speeds than any devices available.
  
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• Scientists make renewable plastic from carbon dioxide and plants

  09-03-2016 19:00
  
  Stanford scientists have discovered a novel way to make plastic from carbon dioxide (CO2) and inedible plant material, such as agricultural waste and grasses. Researchers say the new technology could provide a low-carbon alternative to plastic bottles and other items currently made from petroleum.
  
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• Protected Majorana states for quantum information

  09-03-2016 19:00
  
  Quantum technology has the potential to revolutionize computation, cryptography, and simulation of quantum systems. However, quantum physics places a new demand on information processing hardware: quantum states are fragile, and so must be controlled without being measured. Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute have now demonstrated a key property of Majorana zero modes that protects them from decoherence. The result lends positive support to the existence of Majorana modes, and goes further b
  
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• Processing food before eating likely played key role in human evolution, study finds

  09-03-2016 19:00
  
  How much time and effort do you spend chewing? Although you probably enjoy a few leisurely meals every day, chances are that you spend very little time and muscular effort chewing your food. That kind of easy eating is very unusual. For perspective, our closest relatives, chimpanzees, spend almost half their day chewing, and with much greater force.
  
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• Greenhouse gas 'bookkeeping' turned on its head

  09-03-2016 19:00
  
  For the first time scientists have looked at the net balance of the three major greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide—for every region of Earth's landmasses. They found surprisingly, that human-induced emissions of methane and nitrous oxide from ecosystems overwhelmingly surpass the ability of the land to soak up carbon dioxide emissions, which makes the terrestrial biosphere a contributor to climate change. The results published in the March 10, 2016, Nature, r
  
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• Atomic vibrations in nanomaterials

  09-03-2016 19:00
  
  All materials are made up of atoms, which vibrate. These vibrations, or 'phonons', are responsible, for example, for how electric charge and heat is transported in materials. Vibrations of metals, semiconductors, and insulators in are well studied; however, now materials are being nanosized to bring better performance to applications such as displays, sensors, batteries, and catalytic membranes. What happens to vibrations when a material is nanosized has until now not been understood.
  
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• Video shows Google self-driving car hit bus

  09-03-2016 18:57
  
  Newly released video shows the moment a Google self-driving car learned the hard way not to tussle with a public bus.
  
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• First microwhip scorpion from Mesozoic period found in Burmese amber

  09-03-2016 18:56
  
  It's smaller than a grain of rice, yellowish, trapped in amber and lived 100 million years ago alongside dinosaurs. Meet Electrokoenenia yaksha, a newly described type of microwhip scorpion, or palpigrade, from Myanmar, whose minute fossilised remains have been found, trapped in Burmese amber. It has been described by an international team led by Michael S. Engel of the University of Kansas and the American Museum of Natural History in the US and Diying Huang of the Nanjing Institute of Geology
  
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• Photos: A Polar Bear Cub Hangs Out at the Zoo

  09-03-2016 18:52 via abcnews.go.com
  
  Absolutely adorable baby animals!
  
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• Chinese stock market participation low, long-term investment planning needed

  09-03-2016 18:50
  
  In the past two decades, the Chinese economy has undergone drastic reforms in an effort to compete more effectively on the international market. These reforms included the creation and proliferation of a Chinese stock market. Since China is largest creditor for the U.S., the two nations' economies are tightly intertwined, with positive or negative effects from either economy affecting the other. Now, a researcher from the University of Missouri has found that only 32 percent of Chinese household
  
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• New report informs Social Security's process for determining if beneficiaries can manage benefits

  09-03-2016 18:47
  
  The best indicator of whether a disabled adult who receives Social Security benefits is capable of managing his or her benefits is evidence of real-world performance of meeting his or her own basic needs, rather than an office-based assessment of financial competence, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. In such a performance-based process, information from people who are in direct contact with the beneficiary and in a position to know about his o
  
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• Bioprospecting study finds biosurfactant-producing microbes target biodiversity in Latin America

  09-03-2016 18:46
  
  The natural biodiversity in Latin America has made it a hotspot for research and applications of biosurfactants, with Brazil leading the way in intellectual property and patents for novel processes and sustainable production methods to manufacture biosurfactants at low cost from agro-industrial waste. A review of bioprospecting studies to identify biosurfactant-producing microorganisms, the renewable substrates used in fermentation processes, and the range of biosurfactant applications being dev
  
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• Overfishing devastates spawning aggregations

  09-03-2016 18:45
  
  Globally declining fish populations are a frequently cited ecological and commercial calamity, but relatively little attention has been paid to the specific threats faced by fish that gather and spawn in large groups, says Yvonne Sadovy, writing in an article for BioScience. The marine scientist, affiliated with the University of Hong Kong and Science and Conservation of Fish Aggregations (SCRFA), outlines the challenges unique to these populations.
  
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• Disney researchers take depth cameras into the depths for high-accuracy 3-D capture

  09-03-2016 18:44
  
  Disney Research scientists are adapting low-cost depth-sensing cameras for use underwater, with the goal of capturing 3-D models of marine flora and fauna with a high degree of accuracy.
  
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• NASA Sets Target Launch Date for Mars InSight Mission

  09-03-2016 18:26 via scitechdaily.com
  
  Project managers have set a target launch date for NASA’s InSight mission to study the deep interior of Mars that begins May 5, 2018, with a Mars landing scheduled for November 26, 2018. InSight’s primary goal is to help us understand how rocky planets – including Earth – formed and evolved. The spacecraft had been […]
  The post NASA Sets Target Launch Date for Mars InSight Mission appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• NASA Video of March 8 Solar Eclipse Totality

  09-03-2016 18:18 via scitechdaily.com
  
  This four minute video shows the period of total eclipse, called totality, from March 8. The moon passes in front of the sun, creating a total solar eclipse visible in parts of Southeast Asia. This video, taken from a live broadcast from the Exploratorium Science Center in San Francisco, shows the period of total eclipse […]
  The post NASA Video of March 8 Solar Eclipse Totality appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Americans Divided on Whether Apple Should Help FBI

  09-03-2016 18:09 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that a slightly greater number of Americans back the iThing maker.
  
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• NASA Tests Crucial Heat Shield Technology for Future Mars Mission

  09-03-2016 18:07 via abcnews.go.com
  
  NASA's solution for helping a manned mission to Mars return safely to Earth looks like a giant inflatable donut.
  
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• How real is hypersonic aircraft revolution?

  09-03-2016 15:58 via cnn.com
  
  Podcast favorites: Blindsided: How ISIS Shook The World | Bernie gets the Axe | Guns in America
  
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• Breakup service does the dirty work

  09-03-2016 15:43 via rss.cnn.com
  
  The Breakup Shop's unconventional methods spark a conversation about the ever-increasing role technology plays in modern relationships, especially among millennials.
  
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• Home Depot Will Pay $19.5 Million After 2014 Data Breach

  09-03-2016 15:27 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  Home Depot agreed to pay at least $19.5 million to compensate U.S. consumers harmed by a 2014 data breach affecting more than 50 million cardholders.
  
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• Changing pluripotent stem cells to differentiated cells

  09-03-2016 14:50
  
  Stem cells are an effective tool for repairing or replacing damaged or diseased tissues, but only if they can be reliably developed from their flexible 'pluripotent' state into a mature 'differentiated' state. A*STAR researchers have learned how to control the state of stem cells by altering the physical environment in which they are cultured.
  
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• Fin24.com | Here are the specs of a R120 000 laptop

  09-03-2016 14:41
  
  Here are the specs of an an Asus laptop costing R120 000 and aimed at gamers.
  
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