Sci-Tech news

• Uber raises $3.5 bn from Saudi investment fund

  01-06-2016 23:59
  
  Uber announced Wednesday that the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia has pumped $3.5 billion into the ride-sharing giant, helping fuel its global expansion plans.
  
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• Uber raises $3.5 billion from Saudi investment fund

  01-06-2016 23:59
  
  Uber announced Wednesday it raised $3.5 billion from the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia to help fuel global expansion plans for the ride-sharing giant.
  
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• Spinning electrons yield positrons for research

  01-06-2016 23:59
  
  Researchers use accelerators to coax the electron into performing a wide range of tricks to enable medical tests and treatments, improve product manufacturing, and power breakthrough scientific research. Now, they're learning how to coax the same tricks out of the electron's antimatter twin - the positron - to open up a whole new vista of research and applications.
  
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• Uber Raises $3.5 Billion from Saudi Arabia's Wealth Fund

  01-06-2016 23:27 via nbcnews.com
  
  Uber has raised $3.5 billion from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, the U.S. ride-hailing service said on Wednesday.
  
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• Scientists: Vibrant US marine reserve now a coral graveyard

  01-06-2016 23:15
  
  El Nino's super warm water has turned what had been one of the world's most lush and isolated tropical marine reserve into a coral graveyard, federal scientists said Wednesday.
  
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• Craft Beer Company Looks to Make Fish-Friendly Packaging

  01-06-2016 23:07 via nbcnews.com
  
  A small craft beer company in South Florida is trying to make a big impact on oceanic pollution with biodegradable, edible packaging.
  
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• Hundreds of toads hop free, offering hope for at-risk animal

  01-06-2016 22:57
  
  Wildlife officials are releasing more than 900 toads in Wyoming, saying they could help researchers find ways for the endangered species and other amphibians to resist a devastating fungus.
  
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• The art and science of promotional pricing

  01-06-2016 22:56
  
  Normal rules of economic behavior would dictate that free upgrades to a particular product would move it out the door in record numbers. Somewhat counterintuitively, new research from Professor Wen Mao reveals that a token upgrade fee, even no more than a penny, is often more attractive to consumers than a freebie.
  
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• Don't cut the tags off yet

  01-06-2016 22:56
  
  Merchandise returns are expensive for retailers, and yet lenient return policies can boost consumer demand. For retailers seeking guidance on balancing these concerns, an analysis of the impact of various return policies on both purchases and returns, forthcoming in the June 2016 issue of the Journal of Retailing, provides a nuanced perspective.
  
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• Outlining a strategy for supermarket coupons

  01-06-2016 22:55
  
  Among the major tools of supermarket promotions are coupons, but understanding which types of coupons accomplish the retailer's objectives can be tricky. A field study described in an article appearing in the June 2016 issue of the Journal of Retailing can help retailers map the categories and brands they should promote, depending on whether the objective is to increase customer loyalty by rewarding clients for buying brands they are already purchasing or entice them to buy in categories that th
  
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• Facebook Messenger Adds More Diverse Emojis

  01-06-2016 22:42 via abcnews.go.com
  
  Emoji overhaul includes characters that better reflect skin tones and gender.
  
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• How NASA Will Get Us to Mars

  01-06-2016 22:16 via nbcnews.com
  
  Three myths about the space agency's Martian ambitions.
  
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• Team finds convection could produce Pluto's polygons

  01-06-2016 22:10
  
  On Pluto, icebergs floating in a sea of nitrogen ice are key to a possible explanation of the quilted appearance of the Sputnik Planum region of the dwarf planet's surface.
  
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• Civil engineer creates phone app to gather public input on flash flooding conditions

  01-06-2016 22:05
  
  D.J. Seo wants you to be his eyes on the weather - and more specifically to be watching for flash floods.
  
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• NASA satellite finds unreported sources of toxic air pollution

  01-06-2016 22:03
  
  Using a new satellite-based method, scientists at NASA, Environment and Climate Change Canada, and two universities have located 39 unreported and major human-made sources of toxic sulfur dioxide emissions.
  
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• Cooling down Chicago

  01-06-2016 22:00
  
  More than 50 percent of today's population lives in cities. According to the United Nations Development Programme, that number is predicted to rise to 70 percent by 2050. Growing urbanization increases the overall temperature of a city as buildings, roads, parking lots and other infrastructure absorb heat, creating an urban heat island (UHI). A UHI causes areas like Chicago to be significantly warmer than surrounding rural areas, which threatens urban sustainability and can lead to high mortalit
  
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• Zuckerberg streams live chat with men in space

  01-06-2016 21:36
  Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg took the leading social network on a new journey Wednesday, with a live-streamed chat with astronauts on the International Space Station.
  
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• Fin24.com | Googling yourself now leads to personal privacy controls

  01-06-2016 21:00
  
  Now all you need to do is Google yourself if you're wondering how deeply Google has been digging into your digital life.
  
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• Cooperation emerges when groups are small and memories are long, study finds

  01-06-2016 20:32
  The tragedy of the commons, a concept described by ecologist Garrett Hardin, paints a grim view of human nature. The theory goes that, if a resource is shared, individuals will act in their own self-interest, but against the interest of the group, by depleting that resource.
  
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• Dual-Phase Alloys Capable of High Strength and Ductility

  01-06-2016 20:21 via scitechdaily.com
  
  Using a new strategy in the development of steel, scientists are able to create alloys capable of both high strength and ductility. For the steel industry, there may be a way out of the dilemma that has existed since people began processing metal. Scientists from the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung in Düsseldorf (Germany) are presenting a […]
  The post Dual-Phase Alloys Capable of High Strength and Ductility appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Google's art machine just wrote its first song - The Verge

  01-06-2016 20:07
  
  The Verge
  Google's art machine just wrote its first song
  The Verge
  Today, Google's newest machine learning project released its first piece of generated art, a 90-second piano melody created through a trained neural network, provided with just four notes up front. The drums and orchestration weren't generated by the ...
  Google's Magenta project just wrote its first piece of music, and thankfully it's not greatPCWorld
  Google AI produces a melody that rivals the Casio keyboard concerts of ou
  
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• Male orb-weaving spiders cannibalized by females may be choosy about mating

  01-06-2016 20:00
  In a colonial orb-weaving spider, Cyrtophora citricola, females often eat the males after mating, but it is often the males that choose their mates, according a study published June 1, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Eric Yip from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, and colleagues.
  
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• Ancient Wari Empire likely did not cause large shifts in population genetic diversity

  01-06-2016 20:00
  The imperial dominance of the ancient Wari Empire at the Huaca Pucllana site in Lima, Peru, was likely not achieved through population replacement, according to a study published June 1, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Guido Valverde from the University of Adelaide, Australia, and colleagues.
  
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• 17 million women/children tasked with household water collection in 24 African countries

  01-06-2016 20:00
  Nearly 17 million women and children (mostly girls) in 24 sub-Saharan African countries are responsible for hauling water long distances to their homes, a task that takes them more than 30 minutes per trip, according to a study published today in the journal PLOS ONE.
  
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• FBI seeks to exempt biometrics database from Privacy Act

  01-06-2016 19:48
  
  Civil liberties groups are criticizing an FBI proposal that they say would make it harder for people to know if personal information about them such as fingerprints and iris scans is on file.
  
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• Slowing of landslide flows reflects California's drying climate

  01-06-2016 19:37
  
  Merged data from on-the-ground measurements, aerial photography, satellite imagery and satellite-radar imaging have unveiled an unexpected geological consequence of northern California's ongoing drought.
  
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• What is a black box anyway?

  01-06-2016 19:22 via rss.cnn.com
  
  What is a black box? Hear everything you need to know about the boxes that are key to every plane crash investigation.
  
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• Can space tech help you hit like Tiger Woods?

  01-06-2016 19:20 via rss.cnn.com
  
  Since golfers first bunted leather balls around Scottish links, they have searched for equipment to make them better -- and longer.
  
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• Amazon CEO Trumpets Free Speech Amid Gawker Clash

  01-06-2016 19:19 via nbcnews.com
  
  Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told a tech industry crowd, 'You don't want to create any climate of fear when it comes to free speech norms.'
  
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• Safety, technology upgraded in 2016 Ford Focus hatchback

  01-06-2016 19:03
  
  Ford's jack-of-all-trades Focus hatchback has been upgraded for 2016 with a racy RS model, new safety features and a more responsive voice-recognition system for making phone calls and sending texts.
  
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• USGS assesses carbon potential of Alaska lands

  01-06-2016 19:01
  
  In comparison to the lower 48 states, Alaskan forests, wetlands and permafrost contain larger stores of carbon, according to the first-of-its-kind assessment recently completed by the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Forest Service and the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.
  
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• Study shows how comets break up, make up

  01-06-2016 19:00
  For some comets, breaking up is not that hard to do. A new study led by Purdue University and the University of Colorado Boulder indicates the bodies of some periodic comets - objects that orbit the sun in less than 200 years - may regularly split in two, then reunite down the road.
  
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• Just what sustains Earth's magnetic field anyway?

  01-06-2016 19:00
  
  Earth's magnetic field shields us from deadly cosmic radiation, and without it, life as we know it could not exist here. The motion of liquid iron in the planet's outer core, a phenomenon called a "geodynamo," generates the field. But how it was first created and then sustained throughout Earth's history has remained a mystery to scientists. New work published in Nature from a team led by Carnegie's Alexander Goncharov sheds light on the history of this incredibly important geologic occurrence.
  
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• 'Jumping gene' took peppered moths to the dark side

  01-06-2016 19:00
  
  Researchers from the University of Liverpool have identified and dated the genetic mutation that gave rise to the black form of the peppered moth, which spread rapidly during Britain's industrial revolution.
  
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• Genetic switch that turned moths black also colors butterflies

  01-06-2016 19:00
  
  The same gene that enables tropical butterflies to mimic each other's bright and colourful patterning also caused British moths to turn black amid the grime of the industrial revolution, researchers have found.
  
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• Water yields from southern Appalachian watersheds in decline since the 1970s

  01-06-2016 18:58
  In the densely populated southeastern U.S., forested watersheds are particularly important to drinking water supplies. Recent estimates show that forests in the Southeast deliver surface drinking water to an estimated 48.7 million people, with streams from the mountainous Southern Appalachian region alone providing water supplies to 10 million people, many of them living in major cities such as Atlanta, Georgia.
  
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• Astronomers Use a New Method to Detect Hydrated Material on the Moon

  01-06-2016 18:44 via scitechdaily.com
  
  A new method to detect hydrated materials reveals evidence of volatiles in the lunar proton albedo. Prior to the Apollo missions to the Moon, scientists speculated that volatiles – including water – may have accumulated in permanently shaded regions at the poles. Then the Apollo era brought the return of lunar samples, enabling real measurements: […]
  The post Astronomers Use a New Method to Detect Hydrated Material on the Moon appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Amazing Pluto Shines in Best Close-Up Views Yet

  01-06-2016 18:37 via nbcnews.com
  
  Pluto's exotic and incredibly varied landscapes dazzle in the sharpest views of the dwarf planet released to date.
  
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• Just why does Tribune want to stay independent, anyway?

  01-06-2016 18:30
  
  The newspaper business is shrinking fast. Print ad revenues keep falling, and cost-cutting is the mantra of the day. So why is Tribune Publishing fighting so hard to avoid the embrace of USA Today owner Gannett?
  
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• Swiss inaugurate $12 billion rail tunnel, world's longest

  01-06-2016 18:23
  
  Just like Hannibal in ancient times, Swiss engineers have conquered the Alps.
  
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• The science of cloud seeding

  01-06-2016 18:21
  
  Experiments to seed clouds and coax them to produce more rain started 70 years ago. Early practitioners claimed a 10 percent boost in precipitation, but their studies lacked statistical rigor. The science of rainmaking has evolved since then—but how reliable is it now? An article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, takes a look.
  
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• New approach to nuclear structure, freely available

  01-06-2016 18:19
  
  The atomic nucleus is highly complex. This complexity partly stems from the nuclear interactions in atomic nuclei, which induce strong correlations between the elementary particles, or nucleons, that constitute the heart of the atom. The trouble is that understanding this complexity often requires a tremendous amount of computational power. In a new study published in EPJ A, Susanna Liebig from Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany, and colleagues propose a new approach to nuclear structure cal
  
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• Ultra-sensitive, vibration-tolerant gas sensor makes field applications more practical

  01-06-2016 18:18
  
  Nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant released by cars and fossil fuel burning power plants, can irritate the lungs, contribute to smog formation, and lead to premature deaths in cities around the world. A recent study, conducted at Kings College, London, UK, for example, found that more than 5,000 premature deaths in London annually could be attributed to nitrogen dioxide pollution. For this reason, it is important to monitor and control pollution gases.
  
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• Researchers say park systems should engage schools to bring children to parks at an early age

  01-06-2016 18:16
  
  Recent studies have shown that visitors to U.S. national and state parks are disproportionately white, with low numbers of ethnic minorities, especially African Americans. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has identified several reasons why African Americans choose not to patronize public parks in greater numbers, including a racist history that curtailed African Americans' access to parks, on-going racial conflict within communities near parks, and a lack of African American heritage at
  
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• Chinese Smartphone Giant Teams With Microsoft

  01-06-2016 18:12 via abcnews.go.com
  
  Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi and Microsoft are teaming up in a new deal that could help bolster both companies' sluggish smartphone businesses.
  
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• Congress Probes New York Fed Over $80M Cyberheist

  01-06-2016 17:53 via nbcnews.com
  
  The House committee is requesting a briefing by the New York Fed on the status of its investigations.
  
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• What happens to hydraulic fracturing wastewater on cropland

  01-06-2016 17:45
  
  The use of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," has grown rapidly in the U.S. over the past 15 years—but concerns persist that the oil and gas extraction method could harm the environment and people's health. To better understand its potential effects, scientists simulated what would happen to the wastewater produced by the technique after a spill. They published their findings in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology.
  
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• Hydraulic fracturing chemical spills on agricultural land need scrutiny

  01-06-2016 17:45
  
  Hydraulic fracturing, a widely used method for extracting oil and gas from otherwise impenetrable shale and rock formations, involves not only underground injections composed mostly of water, but also a mixture of chemical additives. These chemicals range from toxic biocides and surfactants, to corrosion inhibitors and slicking agents, and many are also used by other industries.
  
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• Schoolkids name a new tree species from Tanzania while fundraising for tropical forests

  01-06-2016 17:42
  
  A University of York conservationist who put out a call for schools to name a new species of tropical tree has found a winner. Following competitive fundraising totalling nearly £4000, Askham Bryan College, UK pipped the Iringa International School, Tanzania to the post. Coming a close third in the competition were 1st Sherburn Rainbows and Brownies, also from the UK.
  
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• Wildfire on warming planet requires adaptive capacity at local, national, international scales

  01-06-2016 17:39
  
  Industrialized nations that view wildfire as the enemy have much to learn from people in some parts of the world who have learned to live compatibly with wildfire, says a team of fire research scientists.
  
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