Sci-Tech news

• Weasel knocks out CERN's particle accelerator

  29-04-2016 22:54 via cnn.com
  
  The largest scientific experiment has gone offline because of a foreign intruder.
  
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• Driving a “Lunar” Rover, From the Space Station - Air & Space Magazine

  29-04-2016 22:47
  Air & Space Magazine
  Driving a “Lunar” Rover, From the Space Station
  Air & Space Magazine
  His “world,” for the past four months, has been the International Space Station, and it was from the station that Peake remote-controlled a six-wheeled rover located in Stevenage, England. The experiment, called SUPVIS-M, lasted about two hours ...
  Tim Peake's next challenge: Driving a rover from spaceChristian Science Monitor
  Tim Peake is about to control a rover on Earth f
  
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• Google Will Stream GOP Convention Despite Backlash From Activists

  29-04-2016 21:39 via abcnews.go.com
  
  Google will once again this year live stream the Republican National Convention, despite activists putting pressure on the search giant to #DumpTrump.
  
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• Check Out These Techie Gifts for Your Plugged-In Mom

  29-04-2016 21:01 via nbcnews.com
  
  Shopping for a gift for Mother's Day doesn't have to be stressful.
  
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• Facebook Reveals How Often Governments Asked For User Data

  29-04-2016 20:37 via abcnews.go.com
  
  Governments are asking Facebook for more data than ever before, according to the company's bi-annual Global Government Requests report.
  
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• Kenya demands total ivory ban to stop elephant slaughter

  29-04-2016 20:11
  
  Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Friday demanded a total ban on trade in ivory to end trafficking and prevent the extinction of elephants in the wild.
  
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• 33 rescued lions to fly from Peru to S. Africa

  29-04-2016 20:08
  
  A total of 33 lions rescued from abuse in Peruvian and Colombian circuses will be taken by plane on Friday to South Africa, in what campaigners are calling the largest-ever airlift of big cats.
  
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• Pop went the weasel and down went the Large Hadron Collider

  29-04-2016 20:07
  
  It's one of the physics world's most complex machines, and it has been immobilized—temporarily—by a weasel.
  
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• Pop goes the weasel as Hadron Collider shuts down (Update)

  29-04-2016 20:07
  
  The world's most powerful particle smasher, the Large Hadron Collider, went offline after a weasel caused a short circuit on a high-voltage transformer.
  
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• Insulating layer of air above the Greenland ice sheet reduces precipitation

  29-04-2016 20:01
  
  The Earth's climate has been warming, but even though the Greenland ice sheet is melting rapidly in the coastal regions, there are large parts of the ice sheet (40 percent) where there has hardly been any melting on the surface. A warmer climate usually also means that there is more precipitation, but there has been no increase in the amount of precipitation on the ice sheet. New research with participation of the Niels Bohr Institute shows that this is due to an insulating layer of air that for
  
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• Unique fragment from Earth's formation returns after billions of years in cold storage

  29-04-2016 20:00
  
  In a paper to be published today in the journal Science Advances, lead author Karen Meech of the University of Hawai`i's Institute for Astronomy and her colleagues conclude that C/2014 S3 (PANSTARRS) formed in the inner Solar System at the same time as the Earth itself, but was ejected at a very early stage.
  
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• Netherlands to hand out iodine pills in case of nuclear accident

  29-04-2016 19:53
  
  The Dutch government has ordered 15 million iodine pills to protect people living near nuclear plants in case of an accident, officials said Friday, as concerns rise over ageing reactors across the border in Belgium.
  
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• Why can't a woman play tennis like a man?

  29-04-2016 19:52
  
  Changing court conditions to address differences in men's and women's play might make women's tennis matches more competitive, according to a new study by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) and other Israeli researchers.
  
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• Startup Wants to Share Your Car With Other Drivers

  29-04-2016 19:40 via nbcnews.com
  
  The founder of car-sharing service Getaround says her startup is leading the way towards a future that's less reliant on owning a car.
  
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• Light-powered 3-D printer creates terahertz lens

  29-04-2016 19:37
  
  From visible light to radio waves, most people are familiar with the different sections of the electromagnetic spectrum. But one wavelength is often forgotten, little understood, and, until recently, rarely studied. It's called terahertz, and it has important applications in imaging and communications.
  
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• World's Largest Atom Smasher Disabled .... by a Weasel

  29-04-2016 19:33 via nbcnews.com
  
  It's one of the physics world's most complex machines, and it has been immobilized— temporarily— by a weasel.
  
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• Scientists discover oral sexual encounters in spiders

  29-04-2016 19:32
  
  Researchers from Slovenia have discovered oral sexual encounters in a spider, and have published their findings on April 29, 2016 in the journal Scientific Reports. Spiders are known for their unusual sexual behaviors, notably sexual cannibalism, but oral sexual encounters have not been well documented.
  
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• Hubble Views Galaxy UGC 477

  29-04-2016 19:15 via scitechdaily.com
  
  This newly released Hubble image shows galaxy UGC 477, which is located just over 110 million light-years away in the constellation of Pisces (The Fish). UGC 477 is a low surface brightness (LSB) galaxy. First proposed in 1976 by Mike Disney, the existence of LSB galaxies was confirmed only in 1986 with the discovery of […]
  The post Hubble Views Galaxy UGC 477 appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• China Will Likely Continue to Take a Bite Out of Apple

  29-04-2016 19:06 via nbcnews.com
  
  Apple is coming off a 26 percent sales decline in Greater China, the steepest drop among its regions. More worrisome: The greatest risks lie ahead.
  
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• Astronomers Develop New Method to Determine Oxygen Abundance in Stars

  29-04-2016 19:05 via scitechdaily.com
  
  Astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have developed a new computational method to determine the abundance of oxygen in these and similar stars, and in particular in giant stars. The code finds values that are more self-consistent than previous estimates. Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the universe, after hydrogen and helium. […]
  The post Astronomers Develop New Method to Determine Oxygen Abundance in Stars appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Microsoft declares Cortana search box as Bing- and Edge-only turf - Computerworld

  29-04-2016 18:53
  
  Computerworld
  Microsoft declares Cortana search box as Bing- and Edge-only turf
  Computerworld
  Microsoft on Thursday began blocking rival browsers and search providers from using Windows 10's Cortana search box, the operating system's prime search real estate. "To ensure we can deliver the integrated search experience designed for Windows 10, ...
  The Digital Assistant Cortana Has a One-Track Mind: MicrosoftWall Street Journal
  Microsoft Restricts Windows 10 Cortana Searches to Bing and EdgeN
  
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• Satellite That Hunts for Black Holes in Space Is Lost

  29-04-2016 18:27 via abcnews.go.com
  
  Japan is abandoning its black hole hunting Hitomi x-ray space telescope after two solar array panels apparently broke off the satellite, sending it into a wild spin.
  
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• Snapchat's 'Dr. Miami' Records Surgeries Live in Operating Room

  29-04-2016 17:49 via abcnews.go.com
  
  Dr. Michael Salzhauer's patients allow him to record their surgeries on Snapchat.
  
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• These dozing 'dragons' could change how we think about sleep - Washington Post

  29-04-2016 17:42
  
  Washington Post
  These dozing 'dragons' could change how we think about sleep
  Washington Post
  The dragon's eyes twitch under its lids. An electronic monitor hooked up to its brain shows activity spiking across it. Somewhere inside its reptilian subconscious, a dream may be playing out — of enjoying a satisfying meal or relaxing on a sun-baked ...
  Reptiles go through REM cycles in their sleep, study showsRedOrbit
  Shh... slumbering dragons reveal clues to how our sleep patterns evolvedChrist
  
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• New Horizons team proposes new world to explore

  29-04-2016 17:28 via cnn.com
  
  Remember how big a deal the Pluto flyby was? We may get an encore.
  
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• EU roaming charges drop sharply on Saturday

  29-04-2016 17:20
  
  Mobile phone roaming fees in the EU will fall sharply on Saturday, the last step before they are abolished completely for Europeans next year.
  
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• Obama announces new steps to curb gun violence

  29-04-2016 17:04
  
  President Barack Obama announced new steps Friday to help curb gun violence, including by identifying the requirements that "smart guns" would have to meet for law enforcement agencies to buy and use them as well as sharing mental health records with the federal background check system.
  
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• Million people urge Bayer to stop bee-killer pesticides

  29-04-2016 17:04
  
  German agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals giant Bayer was presented Friday with a petition of more than one million signatures urging it to stop manufacturing pesticides that are blamed for the decline in the world's bee populations.
  
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• Mechanism discovered for plants to regulate their flowering in a warming world

  29-04-2016 17:00
  
  Monash researchers have discovered a new mechanism that enables plants to regulate their flowering in response to raised temperatures.
  
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• Autonomous quantum error correction method greatly increases qubit coherence times

  29-04-2016 16:40
  
  (Phys.org)—It might be said that the most difficult part of building a quantum computer is not figuring out how to make it compute, but rather finding a way to deal with all of the errors that it inevitably makes. Errors arise because of the constant interaction between the qubits and their environment, which can result in photon loss, which in turn causes the qubits to randomly flip to an incorrect state.
  
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• Sandia dial-a-fire test complex ignites huge blaze

  29-04-2016 16:27
  
  Though researchers at the Sandia National Laboratories Thermal Test Complex study a variety of fires, they focus on those that rotate rather than burn in place. Whirls generate much higher heat fluxes than non-rotational fires.
  
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• Russia delays space crew's return to Earth

  29-04-2016 16:17
  
  Russia's space agency on Friday announced that the return to Earth of three astronauts currently on the International Space Station will be delayed by nearly two weeks in June.
  
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• Park workers in Spain discover huge Roman coin trove

  29-04-2016 16:16
  
  Workers laying pipes in a southern Spanish park have unearthed a 600-kilogram (1,300-pound) trove of Roman coins in what culture officials say is a unique historic discovery.
  
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• Save London's bees

  29-04-2016 16:14
  
  Nature lovers and green-fingered enthusiasts are urged to plant bee-friendly flowers to help ailing pollinator populations and to attract one of the many hundreds of bees due to be released later this summer from the rooftops of Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) in a competition launched by the London Pollinator Project.
  
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• Entomologists shed light on bizarre mating mechanisms of native twisted-winged parasites

  29-04-2016 16:11
  
  Twisted-winged parasites of the species Stylops ovinae reproduce using so-called traumatic insemination. Entomologists of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Christian Albrechts University of Kiel published on this phenomenon in the new edition of the science magazine Scientific Reports. To inseminate the eggs, the males injure the endoparasitic females with their hook-shaped penis and inject the seminal fluid directly into their body cavity.
  
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• Structure of an enzyme that pathogenic bacteria use to reduce oxygen revealed

  29-04-2016 15:48
  
  (Phys.org)—An international team of researchers has revealed for the first time, the structure of an enzyme that pathogenic bacteria use to reduce oxygen. In their paper published in the journal Science, the team describes their study of the atomic structure of a bd oxidase from the bacteria Geobacillus thermodenitrificans, and why they believe what they found might help to create new ways to combat bacterial infections. Gregory Cook with the University of Otago in New Zealand and Robert P
  
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• Fin24.com | Samsung angles for spot at heart of connected life

  29-04-2016 15:40
  
  South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung haswooed app makers as it pursues a vision of being at the heart of life in a hyper-connected world.
  
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• Russia's Nuclear Nightmare Flows Down Radioactive River

  29-04-2016 15:39 via abcnews.go.com
  Thirty years after the Chernobyl disaster, Russia faces questions about the radioactive legacy and potential for more accidents at the Mayak nuclear facility
  
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• Investigative report offers statistics and opinions on Sci-Hub

  29-04-2016 15:24
  
  (Phys.org)—A correspondent for the Science family of journals has published an investigative piece in Science on Sci-Hub, a website that illegally publishes scholarly literature, i.e. research papers. In his article, John Bohannon describes how he made contact with Alexandra Elbakyan, the founder of what is now the world's largest site for pirated scholarly articles, data she gave him, and commentary on what was revealed.Bohannon has also published another piece focused exclusively on Elba
  
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• It's the year 2020...how's your cybersecurity?

  29-04-2016 15:20
  
  What if, in 2020, wearable devices did not care about how many steps you took, and instead were concerned with your real-time emotional state? With networked devices tracking hormone levels, heart rates, facial expressions, voice tone and more, the Internet could become a vast system of "emotion readers," touching the most intimate aspects of human psychology. What if these technologies allowed people's underlying mental, emotional and physical states to be tracked – and manipulated?
  
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• Full 3-D shape of large-scale folds in Greenland's ice cap revealed

  29-04-2016 15:20
  
  The polar ice caps consist of layer upon layer of snow that is compressed to ice that slowly flows towards the sea. Airborne radar has indicated folds in layers that date back to the ice ages.
  
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• Spintronics for future information technologies: Spin currents in topological insulators controlled

  29-04-2016 15:14
  
  An international team headed by HZB researcher Jaime Sánchez-Barriga has shown how spin-polarised currents can be initiated in a controlled manner within samples of topological insulator material. In addition, they were able to manipulate the orientation of the spins of these currents.
  
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• Rovi buying TiVo in $1.1B cash-and-stock deal

  29-04-2016 15:10
  
  Digital TV listing company Rovi is buying TiVo in a cash-and-stock deal valued at about $1.1 billion.
  
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• 'A Beautiful Planet': A 3D Film of Earth from Space - Space.com

  29-04-2016 15:07
  
  Space.com
  'A Beautiful Planet': A 3D Film of Earth from Space
  Space.com
  The new IMAX documentary "A Beautiful Planet," filmed by astronauts on the International Space Station, illuminates life on the station and the beauty and fragility of the Earth it overlooks. The film, which will be shown in IMAX theaters on April 29 ...
  In “A Beautiful Planet,” astronauts shoot the stunning footage from space, but Earth's the real starWashington Post
  Astronaut Moviemakers Share Their Views of a
  
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• Researchers use viral particles to trap intact mammalian protein complexes

  29-04-2016 15:04
  
  Belgian scientists from VIB and UGent developed Virotrap, a viral particle sorting approach for purifying protein complexes under native conditions. This method catches a bait protein together with its associated protein partners in virus-like particles that are budded from human cells. Like this, cell lysis is not needed and protein complexes are preserved during purification. The development and application of this pioneering technique are described in a paper published this week in Nature Com
  
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• New type of cement could offer environmental protection, lower cost

  29-04-2016 15:00
  
  If widely adopted, a new approach to making cement could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, help address global warming, produce a more durable concrete, and save industry time and significant costs.
  
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• LLNL biodetection system bound for space

  29-04-2016 15:00
  
  A biological detection system developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists that has found more than a dozen applications soon will be used in tests reaching a new frontier—outer space.
  
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• A new state of matter: Quantum spin liquids explained

  29-04-2016 14:56
  
  Magnetism is one of the oldest recognised material properties. Known since antiquity, records from the 3rd century BC describe how lodestone, a naturally occurring magnetised ore of iron, was used in primitive magnetic compasses. Today, thanks to the theory of quantum mechanics we now understand the nature of magnetism, too, with the concept of spin explaining the behaviour of elementary particles such as electrons in the material that make it magnetic.
  
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• Parts of India ban daytime cooking as hundreds die of heat

  29-04-2016 14:48
  
  With sizzling temperatures claiming more than 300 lives this month in India, officials said Friday they were banning daytime cooking in some parts of the drought-stricken country in a bid to prevent accidental fires that have killed nearly 80 more people.
  
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• Using oxygen to sterilise medical implants could save time and money

  29-04-2016 14:44
  
  International researchers led by the University of Bath have demonstrated a cheap, effective and environmentally-friendly way to sterilise medical implants without changing their properties, in contrast to some techniques.
  
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