Sci-Tech news

• Saturn spacecraft samples interstellar dust

  14-04-2016 22:57
  
  NASA's Cassini spacecraft has detected the faint but distinct signature of dust coming from beyond our solar system. The research, led by a team of Cassini scientists primarily from Europe, is published this week in the journal Science.
  
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• NY Times adds $50 million for global digital expansion

  14-04-2016 22:55
  
  The New York Times announced plans Thursday to invest $50 million into efforts to boost digital readership and revenue outside the United States.
  
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• GM says it will phase out cars without air bags

  14-04-2016 22:55
  
  General Motors Co. said Thursday it will phase out cars without air bags and other safety features after its Chevrolet Sail subcompact flunked a crash test in Latin America.
  
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• Juvenile offenders probably more criminal to begin with

  14-04-2016 22:54
  
  It's a long-simmering debate in juvenile justice: Do young offenders become worse because of their experience with the justice system, or are they somehow different than people who don't have their first criminal conviction until later in life?
  
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• How urban research center in Los Angeles will track bugs

  14-04-2016 22:28
  
  Scientists at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County unveiled an ambitious plan Thursday to find and catalog every species of bug, reptile and squirrel that flies, crawls, slithers or hops across Southern California.
  
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• Man to Travel in 'Ocean Bubble' From Florida to Puerto Rico

  14-04-2016 22:11 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  Reza Baluchi calls it a 'hydro-pod' and he plans to travel inside it from Pompano Beach to Bermuda, Haiti, Cuba and Puerto Rico.
  
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• Deep in the virtual world: A newbie's first brush with VR

  14-04-2016 22:10
  
  My descent from the boat, gliding through schools of fish and clouds of phosphorescent jellyfish, seemed to be going pretty smoothly. At least until the shark emerged from the deeper gloom and tried to tear its way into my protective cage.
  
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• Ancient mass graves discovered in Greece

  14-04-2016 21:53
  
  Archaeologists have discovered two mass graves near the Greek capital containing the skeletons of 80 men who may have been followers of ancient would-be tyrant Cylon of Athens.
  
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• Are 'chatbots' the future of online business?

  14-04-2016 21:52
  
  An artificial intelligence "chatbot" from Taco Bell now lets you order a meal in a smartphone text exchange that might look something like this:
  
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• El Nino weakens, here comes La Nina, meteorologists say

  14-04-2016 21:49
  
  In the midst of an epic El Nino, federal meteorologists say its flip side, La Nina, is around the corner.
  
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• New project helps researchers build a biomedical knowledgebase

  14-04-2016 21:41
  
  April 14, 2016 - Imagine attempting to bake a cake—except you have to go to different stores for flour and milk, drive across town to get eggs and call a friend to borrow a cake pan.
  
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• Chemical tracers reveal oxygen-dependent switch in cellular pathway to fat

  14-04-2016 21:40
  
  Using tracer compounds, scientists have been able to track the cellular production of NADPH, a key coenzyme for making fat, through a pathway that has never been measured directly before.
  
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• Is risk-taking behavior contagious?

  14-04-2016 21:39
  
  Why do we sometimes decide to take risks and other times choose to play it safe? In a new study, Caltech researchers explored the neural mechanisms of one possible explanation: a contagion effect.
  
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• From Taxes to Dating, How Early Adopters Used the Computer

  14-04-2016 21:38 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  "Look, this is electronic lust," said one earlier user of computers for online dating in an NBC News segment from 1983.
  
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• Probing the transforming world of neutrinos

  14-04-2016 21:34
  
  Every second, trillions of neutrinos travel through your body unnoticed. Neutrinos are among the most abundant particles in the universe, but they are difficult to study because they very rarely interact with matter. To find traces of these elusive particles, researchers from Caltech have collaborated with 39 other institutions to build a 14,000-ton detector the size of two basketball courts called NuMI Off-Axis Electron Neutrino Appearance, or NOvA. The experiment, located in northern Minnesota
  
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• Study argues 'winner-winner' behavior may shape animal hierarchies

  14-04-2016 21:28
  
  Researchers have developed a behavioral model that explains the complexity and diversity of social hierarchies in ants, and which scientists believe may help us understand the nature of other animal societies - from primates to dolphins. The work was done by researchers at North Carolina State University, the University of Oxford and Arizona State University.
  
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• Photos: Spider Nebula Glows Among the Stars

  14-04-2016 20:57
  
  Spacecraft telescopes offer rare looks at the solar system and beyond.
  
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• Yeast study charts survival impact of genetic mutations

  14-04-2016 20:00
  
  Scientists have mapped how thousands of genetic mutations can affect a cell's chances of survival.
  
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• Visualizing and predicting evolution by mapping the elusive 'fitness landscape'

  14-04-2016 20:00
  
  Suppose you were trying to design a vaccine to combat next season's influenza virus. Having a detailed map that tells you exactly how various strains of the flu bug will evolve would be extremely helpful.
  
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• Trees trade carbon among each other, study reports

  14-04-2016 20:00
  
  Forest trees use carbon not only for themselves; they also trade large quantities of it with their neighbours. Botanists from the University of Basel report this in the journal Science. The extensive carbon trade among trees - even among different species - is conducted via symbiotic fungi in the soil.
  
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• The secret language of microbes

  14-04-2016 20:00
  
  Social microbes often interact with each other preferentially, favoring those that share certain genes in common. However, the basis for this behavior, known as "kind discrimination," is often unclear. A new study reveals a so-called "green beard" system used by a fungus to decide whether or not it should approach a new individual in the neighborhood and fuse with it.
  
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• Single-atom magnet breaks new ground for future data storage

  14-04-2016 20:00
  
  EPFL scientists have built a single-atom magnet that is the most stable to-date. The breakthrough paves the way for the scalable production of miniature magnetic storage devices.
  
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• Great Barrier Reef risks losing tolerance to bleaching events

  14-04-2016 20:00
  
  A new study has found that Great Barrier Reef (GBR) corals were able to survive past bleaching events because they were exposed to a pattern of gradually warming waters in the lead up to each episode. However, this protective pattern is likely to be lost under near future climate change scenarios.
  
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• A cellular sensor of phosphate levels

  14-04-2016 20:00
  
  Inorganic phosphate is an essential building block of cell membranes, DNA and proteins. It is also a main component of ATP, the "cell currency" of energy transfer. All cells therefore need to maintain a sufficient concentration of phosphate in their cytoplasm and have developed systems to transport and store this nutrient. But how does a cell know how much phosphate it actually needs?
  
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• After Paris climate deal, now the hard part

  14-04-2016 19:54
  
  Five months after 195 nations sealed the world's first global climate deal, diplomats gather again in the French capital Friday to start translating good intentions into reality.
  
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• Harvard Research Shows For Life Expectancy, Money Matters

  14-04-2016 19:35 via scitechdaily.com
  
  New research from Harvard University shows that being poor in the United States is hazardous to your health, revealing that the average life expectancy of the lowest-income classes in America is now equal to that in Sudan or Pakistan. A Harvard analysis of 1.4 billion Internal Revenue Service records on income and life expectancy that […]
  The post Harvard Research Shows For Life Expectancy, Money Matters appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Are We Ready for a Cyber Attack on the Power Grid?

  14-04-2016 19:29 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  Federal officials described the difficulties posed by the threat of a cyberattack on the nation's electrical grid in a congressional hearing on Thursday.
  
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• NASA's satellites see Fantala intensifying as it moves west

  14-04-2016 19:27
  
  Three different NASA satellites caught images of the storm as it rapidly intensifies and moves west. Currently there are no threatened landmasses in its wake, but it this storm is packing quite a punch. The MODIS and AIRS instruments that fly aboard NASA's Aqua satellite provided visible and infrared data on the storm while the RapidScat instrument that flies aboard the International Space Station looked at the speeds of the surface winds.
  
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• Europa's heaving ice might make more heat than scientists thought

  14-04-2016 19:26
  
  Jupiter's moon Europa is under a constant gravitational assault. As it orbits, Europa's icy surface heaves and falls with the pull of Jupiter's gravity, creating enough heat, scientists think, to support a global ocean beneath the moon's solid shell.
  
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• Microsoft sues US over secret demands for customer data (Update)

  14-04-2016 19:21
  
  Microsoft sued the U.S. government for demanding access to user emails or online files in secret, saying a provision of a 1986 law that authorities use for such undisclosed searches is unconstitutional.
  
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• Microsoft sues US over secret demands for customer data

  14-04-2016 19:21
  
  Microsoft is suing the U.S. government over a federal law that allows authorities to examine customer emails or online files without the individual's knowledge.
  
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• New Spitzer Image: A Space Spider Watches Over Young Stars

  14-04-2016 19:18 via scitechdaily.com
  
  This new infrared image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the Two Micron All Sky Survey shows IC 417, which is about 10,000 light-years away. A nebula known as “the Spider” glows fluorescent green in an infrared image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS). The Spider, officially named […]
  The post New Spitzer Image: A Space Spider Watches Over Young Stars appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• California mental health stigma-reduction campaign creates economic benefits

  14-04-2016 19:17
  
  California's investment in a social marketing campaign to reduce stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness may provide the state with positive economic benefits by increasing employment and worker productivity, according to a new RAND Corporation study.
  
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• Water recovered from whey can be used for clean-in-place procedures

  14-04-2016 19:16
  
  Water scarcity is a serious issue and a concern among the dairy industry, as declines in the availability of water could decrease food supply and increase food price. Water is necessary for many applications, including equipment cleaning, which can use 1 to 60 liters of water per kilogram of processed milk. Given the amount of water needed and concerns regarding resource scarcity, researchers from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln sought to find a method to recycle and reuse water from whey for
  
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• Amazon's Kindle Oasis: 4 Standout Features

  14-04-2016 18:42
  
  Amazon's new Kindle Oasis is geared toward voracious electronic readers.
  
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• Strong quake kills 2 injures 45 in Japan

  14-04-2016 18:32
  
  At least two people were killed and 45 injured by a magnitude-6.5 earthquake that knocked down houses and buckled roads in southern Japan on Thursday night.
  
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• A simple and efficient 3-D fabrication technique for bio-inspired hierarchical structures

  14-04-2016 18:27
  Nature is no doubt the world's best biological engineer, whose simple, exquisite but powerful designs have inspired scientists and engineers to tackle the challenges of technologies for centuries. Scientists recently mimicked the surface structure of a moth's eye, a unique structure with an antireflective property, to develop a highly light-absorbent graphene material. This is breakthrough in solar cell technology. Rice leaves and butterfly wings also have unique self-cleaning surface characteri
  
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• Microsoft Sues to Say When the Feds Ask for Your Emails

  14-04-2016 18:26 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  Microsoft has sued the U.S. government for the right to tell its customers when a federal agency is looking at their emails.
  
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• Dino dinner, dead or alive

  14-04-2016 18:24
  When asked to think of meat-eating dinosaurs we usually conjure images of voracious predators chasing down helpless prey. These visions are no doubt inspired by the depiction of species such as Tyrannosaurs rex and Velociraptor in the movie Jurassic Park; however, new research conducted at Trinity College Dublin suggests that many of these species might be better remembered as oversized, scaly or feathered hyenas.
  
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• Surface mutation lets canine parvovirus jump to other species

  14-04-2016 18:22
  
  Canine parvovirus, or CPV, emerged as a deadly threat to dogs in the late 1970s, most likely the result of the direct transfer of feline panleukopenia or a similar virus from domesticated cats.
  
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• Coding and computers help spot methane, explosives

  14-04-2016 18:16
  A modern twist on an old technology could soon help detect rogue methane leaks, hidden explosives and much more. A Duke University team is using software to dramatically improve the performance of chemical-sniffing mass spectrometers.
  
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• Family dynamics cause major stress for Latino immigrant families

  14-04-2016 18:15
  
  Commitment to family is both a driving force and source of hardship for Latino immigrants, according to a Florida State University researcher.
  
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• Scientists crack secrets of the monarch butterfly's internal compass

  14-04-2016 18:00
  
  Each fall, monarch butterflies across Canada and the United States turn their orange, black and white-mottled wings toward the Rio Grande and migrate over 2,000 miles to the relative warmth of central Mexico.
  
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• This Smartphone Can Walk and Talk

  14-04-2016 17:34 via feeds.nbcnews.com
  
  A humanoid smartphone named RoBoHon can recognize its owner's face and engage in conversations.
  
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• Making Friends With Facebook's New Chat Bots

  14-04-2016 17:06
  
  From weather to shopping, the chat bot experience is only just beginning on Facebook.
  
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• Radical route for the synthesis of chiral molecules

  14-04-2016 17:00
  
  The research group of Prof. Paolo Melchiorre at ICIQ has developed a new methodology for the selective formation of chiral molecules. The work, that has been published in Nature, combines two strategies which require very mild reaction conditions—enantioselective iminium ion chemistry and photoredox catalysis—to set quaternary carbon stereocentres with high enantioselectivity.
  
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• Dwarf dark galaxy hidden in ALMA gravitational lens image

  14-04-2016 16:58
  
  Subtle distortions hidden in ALMA's stunning image of the gravitational lens SDP.81 are telltale signs that a dwarf dark galaxy is lurking in the halo of a much larger galaxy nearly 4 billion light-years away. This discovery paves the way for ALMA to find many more such objects and could help astronomers address important questions on the nature of dark matter.
  
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• How does an invisible underwater crater prove an asteroid killed the dinosaurs?

  14-04-2016 16:30
  
  A team of scientists recently set off to drill a 1,500m-deep hole into the seabed off the coast of Mexico. Their goal is to learn more about the asteroid impact some 66m years ago that many scientists believe killed the dinosaurs. But how do we know that this now-invisible crater, measuring some 180km across, is responsible for such devastation to life across the globe?
  
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• Liquid marbles can be caused to move with laser light (w/ Video)

  14-04-2016 16:27
  
  (Phys.org)—A team of researchers with Osaka Institute of Technology in Japan, has developed liquid balls that propel themselves when exposed to laser light. In their paper published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, the team describes how the liquid balls are made, how they can be used and some possible applications for them.
  
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• Viruses hitch a ride to greater infectivity in insects

  14-04-2016 16:20
  
  An international research team including scientists from Spain, Mexico and the Netherlands have found evidence of a previously unknown interaction between viruses.
  
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