Sci-Tech news

• Denied Google Street View, Faroes opt for Sheep View

  14-07-2016 23:34
  
  Armchair explorers hitherto denied the chance to visit the Faroe Islands owing to the lack of coverage on Google's "Street View" service will finally be able to roam the archipelago—thanks to a flock of sheep.
  
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• Court Blocks Prosecutors From Seizing Emails Stored Overseas

  14-07-2016 23:31
  A federal appeals court says prosecutors cannot force Microsoft and other U.S. companies to turn over customer emails and other data stored on servers overseas
  
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• Solar probe plus mission moves into advanced development

  14-07-2016 23:05
  
  NASA's first mission to "touch" the sun has passed a critical development milestone that keeps it well on track toward its scheduled summer 2018 launch.
  
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• Study suggests physical cause for cell death in dry preservation

  14-07-2016 22:54
  
  A new finding in experiments studying the dry preservation of living cells—a potentially revolutionary alternative to cryopreservation - has defined a clear limit where continuing dehydration kills cells. The data, combined with molecular dynamics simulations, provides insight into an important processing factor that has limited recent attempts at dry preservation.
  
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• Female doctors, scientists, welders among 11 new emojis

  14-07-2016 22:54
  
  Female professionals will soon be better represented in emoji form.
  
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• World's greatest concentration of unique mammal species is on Philippine island

  14-07-2016 22:53
  
  Where is the world's greatest concentration of unique species of mammals? A team of American and Filipino authors have concluded that it is Luzon Island, in the Philippines. Their 15-year project, summarized in a paper published in the scientific journal Frontiers of Biogeography, has shown that out of 56 species of non-flying mammal species that are now known to live on the island, 52 live nowhere else in the world. Of those 56 species, 28 were discovered during the course of the project. Ninet
  
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• GRB 140903A: Chandra finds evidence for violent stellar merger

  14-07-2016 22:39
  
  Gamma-ray bursts, or GRBs, are some of the most violent and energetic events in the Universe. Although these events are the most luminous explosions in the universe, a new study using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, NASA's Swift satellite and other telescopes suggests that scientists may be missing a majority of these powerful cosmic detonations.
  
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• Dense yet transparent materials offer new way to control light

  14-07-2016 22:25
  
  Researchers recently made the surprising discovery that a special class of materials called "hyperuniform materials" can be both dense and transparent. This work demonstrates a new way to control light and could lead to novel materials for many light-based applications including solar photovoltaics. These so-called "hyperuniform materials" can be made of plastic or glass that contains light-scattering particles spaced in a disordered, but not completely random, pattern.
  
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• FDIC Chief Unaware of Any Hacking Cover-Up: Hearing

  14-07-2016 22:12 via nbcnews.com
  
  FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg told a hearing of the committee that published the report that he first learned of the security breach in 2011.
  
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• Cougars could save lives by lowering vehicle collisions with deer

  14-07-2016 22:04
  
  You would never guess it from their soft eyes and timid demeanor, but the swift-footed deer is North America's most dangerous mammal to humans.
  
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• Visa, MasterCard... DNA card: What's in your wallet?

  14-07-2016 21:46
  
  Some of us will carry our DNA sequencing data on a pocket-size card within the next decade, predicts Hiram College biology professor Brad Goodner, Ph.D. Steps in that direction could quicken their pace with a growing number of researchers focused on taking genomics – or sequencing and analysis of an organism's cell DNA content – to the next level. At Hiram, veteran researchers like Goodner might be leading the charge, but students are the force behind it.
  
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• Groups using popular 'Pokemon Go' app to register voters

  14-07-2016 21:40
  
  A political group in swing-state Ohio is using the game "Pokemon Go" for a purpose beyond catching cute Pikachu: registering voters.
  
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• Property owners: Get off my lawn, Pokemon!

  14-07-2016 21:33
  
  As throngs of "Pokemon Go" players traipse around to real-world landmarks in pursuit of digital monsters, some ticked-off property owners are asking to have their locations in the fictional Poke-verse removed.
  
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• NASA analyzes Hurricane Darby's winds, convection

  14-07-2016 21:30
  
  NASA found the strongest winds in Hurricane Darby were occurring on its eastern side before northeasterly wind shear started affecting the storm.
  
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• 'Rivet graphene' proves its mettle: Toughened material is easier to handle, useful for electronics

  14-07-2016 21:28
  
  Nanoscale "rivets" give graphene qualities that may speed the wonder material's adoption in products like flexible, transparent electronics, according to researchers at Rice University.
  
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• Ancient Brazilian pit house occupied continuously for centuries

  14-07-2016 21:27
  
  Prehistoric proto-Jê Brazilian peoples may have continually renovated and extended their pit houses to allow occupation over centuries, according to a study published July 6, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Jonas Gregorio de Souza from the University of Exeter, UK, and colleagues.
  
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• Climate experts help communities cope with impact of the Indian Monsoon

  14-07-2016 21:22
  
  Work by University of Exeter experts to predict the weather in India could help millions of people prepare for the devastating effects of the country's summer monsoons.
  
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• 'Smart' nanoparticle called PEARLs a promising gem to target, treat tumours

  14-07-2016 21:16
  
  Dr. Gang Zheng and a team of biomedical researchers have discovered a "smart" organic, biodegradable nanoparticle that uses heat and light in a controlled manner to potentially target and ablate tumours with greater precision.
  
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• NASA finds wind shear affecting Tropical Storm Celia

  14-07-2016 21:12
  
  Tropical Storm Celia continues to weaken in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and NASA data showed that the strongest winds and storms were pushed north of the center of the storm.
  
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• New Approved Emojis Address 'Gender Disparities'

  14-07-2016 20:59 via nbcnews.com
  
  The Unicode Consortium has approved 11 emojis proposed by Google to promote gender equality. It will also offer new gender options for existing emoji.
  
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• How Pokemon Go is changing the world

  14-07-2016 20:59 via rss.cnn.com
  
  Pokémon Go could herald a change in the way that we consume media, says Sam Roberts
  
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• Line Up: Chat App Scores With Biggest IPO of the Year

  14-07-2016 20:16 via nbcnews.com
  
  After raising more than $1 billion in an IPO earlier this week, shares in the Japanese message app Line soared to 36 percent by midday trading.
  
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• Facebook Makes Little Progress in Race, Gender Diversity

  14-07-2016 20:05 via nbcnews.com
  
  Facebook said about a third of its workers are females, while black employees accounted for 3 percent of its U.S. senior leadership.
  
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• Classic Nintendo Entertainment System returning to stores

  14-07-2016 20:02
  
  If you have fond memories of battling King Koopa or tossing barrels as Donkey Kong, you can relive them this fall.
  
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• Pokemon Go mania sweeps Turkey, but some want it banned

  14-07-2016 20:01
  
  As Pokemon Go users try to "catch 'em all" in Turkey, some want to see the hit mobile app banned in the country, accusing it of undermining Islam.
  
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• Consumer Reports says Tesla should drop Autopilot name

  14-07-2016 20:01
  
  Consumer Reports said Thursday that Tesla Motors is misleading car owners by calling its semi-autonomous driving system "Autopilot," potentially giving them too much trust in their car's ability to drive itself.
  
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• Tropical cyclones on track to grow more intense as temperatures rise

  14-07-2016 20:00
  
  Powerful tropical cyclones like the super typhoon that lashed Taiwan with 150-mile-per-hour winds last week and then flooded parts of China are expected to become even stronger as the planet warms. That trend hasn't become evident yet, but it will, scientists say.
  
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• Smarter than you thought: Scientists show newborn ducklings can acquire notions of 'same' and 'different'

  14-07-2016 20:00
  
  Scientists from the University of Oxford have shown that newly hatched ducklings can readily acquire the concepts of 'same' and 'different' - an ability previously known only in highly intelligent animals such as apes, crows and parrots.
  
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• Scientists and zoos team up on landmark elephant welfare project

  14-07-2016 20:00
  
  Given that elephants are the largest land mammals on the planet, one might expect that when it comes to enclosures for zoo elephants, size matters.
  
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• Record-breaking volcanic kettle on Iceland explored

  14-07-2016 20:00
  
  The Bardarbunga eruption on Iceland has broken many records. The event in 2014 was the strongest in Europe since more than 240 years. The hole it left behind, the so-called caldera, is the biggest caldera formation ever observed. And the event as such was studied in unprecedented detail by a team of international scientists, amongst them a group from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences. Together with lead author Magnus T. Gudmundsson from the University of Iceland, the team has now pu
  
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• Ocean warming primary cause of Antarctic Peninsula glacier retreat

  14-07-2016 20:00
  
  A new study has found for the first time that ocean warming is the primary cause of retreat of glaciers on the western Antarctic Peninsula. The Peninsula is one of the largest current contributors to sea-level rise and this new finding will enable researchers to make better predictions of ice loss from this region.
  
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• GAGA may be the secret of the sexes—at least in insects

  14-07-2016 20:00
  
  Without a way to equalize the gene expression of the two sex chromosomes—males have XY and females have XX—gender could never have evolved. Scientists are still discovering many details on how the sexes came to be, but a new study in the model organism of fruit flies and other insects reveals that a particularly important secret may be as simple as this: GAGAGA...
  
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• Biodiversity falls below 'safe levels' globally

  14-07-2016 20:00
  
  Levels of global biodiversity loss may negatively impact on ecosystem function and the sustainability of human societies, according to UCL-led research.
  
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• A federal origin of Stone Age farming

  14-07-2016 20:00
  
  The transition from hunter-gatherer to sedentary farming 10,000 years ago occurred in multiple neighbouring but genetically distinct populations according to research by an international team including UCL.
  
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• Tech leaders call Trump a 'disaster for innovation'

  14-07-2016 19:41 via rss.cnn.com
  
  145 tech power players penned an open letter to the world about Donald Trump.
  
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• Line exec: Use app to communicate with teens

  14-07-2016 19:20 via rss.cnn.com
  
  CNNMoney's Paul R. La Monica interviews the Chief Global Officer of messaging app Line, Jungho Shin, at the New York Stock Exchange. The company is popular in Japan and now has the biggest technology IPO of 2016.
  
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• Rio mayor wants Pokemon Go played at Olympics

  14-07-2016 18:55 via rss.cnn.com
  
  Rio is in the midst of an economic crisis. There's uncertainty about whether it will be ready to host the Olympics this summer. But it's working to get Pokemon Go.
  
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• Consumer Reports to Tesla: Reel in Autopilot

  14-07-2016 18:42 via rss.cnn.com
  
  Consumer Reports magazine says Tesla should "disable automatic steering" until it changes the software to require drivers to keep their hands on the wheel.
  
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• Messaging App Line's Stock Soars in NYSE Debut

  14-07-2016 18:22
  Japanese messaging app Line stock soars in its US debut on the New York Stock Exchange
  
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• Court: US Government Can't Make Microsoft Reveal Cloud Data

  14-07-2016 18:22
  A federal appeals court has ruled that the government cannot force Microsoft to reveal content from a customer's email account stored in Ireland
  
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• Messaging app Line soars in year's largest tech IPO

  14-07-2016 18:17 via rss.cnn.com
  
  Line, operator of a Japanese messaging app popular in several Asian countries, soared in its debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday morning after completing the largest public offering of any tech company this year.
  
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• Extracting the content of single living cells

  14-07-2016 18:00
  
  Biologists are increasingly interested in the behavior of individual cells, rather than the one of an entire cell population. A new method developed at ETH could revolutionize single cell analysis. The technology uses the world's smallest syringe to sample the content of individual cells for molecular analyses.
  
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• Extensive variation revealed in 1,001 genomes and epigenomes of Arabidopsis

  14-07-2016 18:00
  
  An international team of scientists has sequenced the whole genomes and epigenomes of more than 1,000 Arabidopsis thaliana plants, sampled from geographically diverse locations. The collection of 1,001 genomes and 1,001 epigenomes not only illuminates new aspects of its evolutionary history, but also provides a comprehensive, species-wide picture of the interaction between genetic and epigenetic variation in this important model plant.
  
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• Even single cells are able to remember information if they receive the order from their proteins

  14-07-2016 18:00
  
  Even single cells are able to remember information if they receive the order from their proteins. Researchers at the University of Basel's Biozentrum have discovered that proteins form pairs to give the signal for storing information in the cell's memory. The results of the study have now been published in Cell Reports.
  
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• Defining what it means to be a naive stem cell

  14-07-2016 18:00
  
  Whitehead Institute scientists have created a checklist that defines the "naive" state of cultured human embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Such cells can mature into almost any cell type and more closely resemble the unique molecular features of pluripotent cells in the early human embryo than conventional ESCs in later stages of development. Although scientists have been very interested in working with naive stem cells, they have lacked a common definition of what makes a cell truly naive.
  
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• Butterflies' diet impacts evolution of traits

  14-07-2016 17:57
  
  Why do some organisms within a single species have many offspring, while others have relatively few? A new study led by University of Minnesota researcher Emilie Snell-Rood finds that access to some nutrients may be a star player in shaping traits related to fitness such as fecundity and eye size over the long term. Given drastic increases in the availability of many nutrients due to the widespread use of fertilizers and road salts, the finding has important implications for agriculture and ecol
  
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• Nintendo's classic console is back

  14-07-2016 17:56 via rss.cnn.com
  
  Nintendo's classic system -- home to iconic games like Super Mario Bros. and the Legend of Zelda -- is slated for a second coming.
  
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• Measuring arsenic in Bangladesh's rice crops

  14-07-2016 17:55
  
  Naturally-occurring arsenic in Bangladesh's groundwater has been identified as one of the world's great humanitarian disasters, with millions people at risk of cancers and other diseases from drinking water and eating rice irrigated with contaminated water. Now University of Massachusetts Amherst analytical chemist Julian Tyson and his student Ishtiaq "Rafi" Rafiyu are partnering with Chemists Without Borders (CWB) to develop a low-cost, easy-to-use test kit to measure arsenic in Bangladesh's ri
  
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• Officer: Sex Offender Nabbed Playing 'Pokemon Go' With Kid

  14-07-2016 17:52
  Authorities arrested an Indiana sex offender after they say a probation officer spotted him playing "Pokemon Go" with a 16-year-old boy on the county courthouse lawn
  
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• 'Pokemon Go' players walk dogs as they hunt digital monsters

  14-07-2016 17:25
  
  An animal shelter is asking "Pokemon Go" players to walk an adoptable dog as they wander the streets of an eastern Indiana city doing battle with digital monsters on their smartphones.
  
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