Sci-Tech news

• Black Holes' Cosmic 'Choir Singers' Finally Identified - Space.com

  29-07-2016 23:36 via space.com
  
  Space.com
  Black Holes' Cosmic 'Choir Singers' Finally Identified
  Space.com
  The blue dots in this field of galaxies, known as the COSMOS field, show galaxies that contain supermassive black holes emitting high-energy X-rays. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. The frenzied feeding of gigantic black holes fills the universe with powerful ...
  Active black holes emit high energy x-rays: NuSTARPerfScience
  Black holes sing, but only in X-rayAstronomy Magazine
  NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (
  
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• Young drivers snapping 'selfies' at the wheel

  29-07-2016 23:28 via rss.cnn.com
  
  Teens and young adults are snapping "selfies," or self-portraits, while driving and posting them online.
  
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• Huge dinosaur footprint found

  29-07-2016 22:59 via rss.cnn.com
  
  There's a good chance that if flesh-eating dinosaurs were still around today, we wouldn't just have to worry about their sharp teeth.
  
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• Huge dinosaur footprint discovered

  29-07-2016 22:59 via rss.cnn.com
  
  There's a good chance that if flesh-eating dinosaurs were still around today, we wouldn't just have to worry about their sharp teeth.
  
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• Uber doesn't decrease drunk driving, study says

  29-07-2016 22:36 via rss.cnn.com
  
  A new study in the American Journal of Epidemiology has found no noticeable impact on the number of drunk driving fatalities in cities where Uber runs.
  
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• Microsoft listens and learns, pulls a passing grade for Windows 10's freshman year - Computerworld

  29-07-2016 22:19 via computerworld.com
  
  Computerworld
  Microsoft listens and learns, pulls a passing grade for Windows 10's freshman year
  Computerworld
  The most important ingredient in Windows 10's success during its first 12 months wasn't even a product feature, analysts said today as the operating system completed its freshman year. "It was the fact that Microsoft was willing to learn from its ...
  What's new in the Windows 10 Anniversary UpdateCNET (blog)
  Windows 7 PCs with free OS upgrade are still available, for nowPCWorld
  Microso
  
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• SMS two-factor authentication isn't being banned - Engadget

  29-07-2016 22:01 via engadget.com
  
  Engadget
  SMS two-factor authentication isn't being banned
  Engadget
  Another week gone by, and the place is in cybersecurity shambles again. A years' old hacking issue, unencrypted wireless keyboards, being featured in an upcoming Defcon talk mystifyingly became a hot new Internet of Things threat. Obama gave us a ...
  Say Goodbye to SMS Two-Factor AuthenticationNewsFactor Network
  NIST blog clarifies SMS deprecation in wake of media tailspinZDNet (blog)
  NIST drafts mobile security guidelines
  
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• Researchers apply quantum theory and Einstein's special relativity to plasma physics issues

  29-07-2016 21:44
  
  Among the intriguing issues in plasma physics are those surrounding X-ray pulsars—collapsed stars that orbit around a cosmic companion and beam light at regular intervals, like lighthouses in the sky. Physicists want to know the strength of the magnetic field and density of the plasma that surrounds these pulsars, which can be millions of times greater than the density of plasma in stars like the sun.
  
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• 'Pokemon Go' Creators to Remove Problematic Pokestops

  29-07-2016 21:27 via nbcnews.com
  
  The "Pokemon Go" craze may bring joy to millions of gamers, but it has upset some real-world locations marked as Pokestops.
  
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• Mexico launches drones to protect endangered porpoise

  29-07-2016 21:20
  
  Mexico's government has launched three drones to back efforts to prevent illegal fishing activities that have led to the near extinction of the vaquita marina, the world's smallest porpoise.
  
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• Mars gullies likely not formed by liquid water

  29-07-2016 21:16
  
  New findings using data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show that gullies on modern Mars are likely not being formed by flowing liquid water. This new evidence will allow researchers to further narrow theories about how Martian gullies form, and reveal more details about Mars' recent geologic processes.
  
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• Unapproved genetically modified wheat found in Washington

  29-07-2016 21:10
  
  Federal authorities say genetically modified wheat that's not approved for sale or production in the United States has been found growing in a field in Washington state.
  
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• NASA infrared imagery shows new tropical depression coming together

  29-07-2016 21:00
  
  Tropical Depression 06W appeared to be consolidating and coming together in infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite. The storm formed east of the Philippines in the Philippine Sea on July 29, 2016.
  
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• Thousands rush to see Kilauea lava flow reach ocean

  29-07-2016 20:52
  
  The lava flow from Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano vent has attracted thousands of visitors since it began oozing down in May and finally reached the ocean this week.
  
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• Study analyzes electric grid vulnerabilities in extreme weather areas

  29-07-2016 20:50
  
  Climate and energy scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a new method to pinpoint which electrical service areas will be most vulnerable as populations grow and temperatures rise.
  
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• Criminologist investigates public safety consolidation

  29-07-2016 20:42
  
  In the first comprehensive work of its kind, a Michigan State University criminologist has completed a study on the implementation and outcomes of public safety consolidation - the merging of a city's police and fire departments.
  
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• New fossil evidence supports theory that first mass extinction engineered by early animals

  29-07-2016 20:40
  
  Newly discovered fossil evidence from Namibia strengthens the proposition that the world's first mass extinction was caused by "ecosystem engineers" - newly evolved biological organisms that altered the environment so radically it drove older species to extinction.
  
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• New method for making green LEDs enhances their efficiency and brightness

  29-07-2016 20:36
  
  Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign have developed a new method for making brighter and more efficient green light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Using an industry-standard semiconductor growth technique, they have created gallium nitride (GaN) cubic crystals grown on a silicon substrate that are capable of producing powerful green light for advanced solid-state lighting.
  
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• Research team develops ultrathin, transparent oxide thin-film transistors for wearable display

  29-07-2016 20:33
  
  With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) era, strong demand has grown for wearable and transparent displays that can be applied to various fields such as augmented reality (AR) and skin-like thin flexible devices. However, previous flexible transparent displays have posed real challenges to overcome, which are, among others, poor transparency and low electrical performance. To improve the transparency and performance, past research efforts have tried to use inorganic-based electronics, bu
  
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• Tesla looking at cameras, radar in Florida crash

  29-07-2016 20:26
  
  A person familiar with the discussions says Tesla has told Senate committee staffers that its engineers have two main theories about what caused a fatal crash in Florida involving one of its electric cars in self-driving mode.
  
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• WATCH: A Look Inside Apple's Free Coding Camp for Kids

  29-07-2016 20:10
  
  Meet the kids, their counselors, and the robots they learned to program themselves. Hear from their parents and find out how America's kids need to prepare for an increasingly technical world.
  
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• Researchers find molecular switch that triggers bacterial pathogenicity

  29-07-2016 20:00
  
  Scientists have revealed for the first time the molecular steps that turn on bacteria's pathogenic genes. Using an array of high-powered X-ray imaging techniques, the researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) showed that histone-like proteins that bind to DNA are related to the physical twisting of the genetic strand, and that the supercoiling of the chromosome can trigger the expression of genes that make a microbe invasive.
  
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• Green monkeys acquired Staphylococcus aureus from humans

  29-07-2016 19:10
  
  Many deadly diseases that afflict humans were originally acquired through contact with animals. New research published in ASM's Applied and Environmental Microbiology shows that pathogens can also jump the species barrier to move from humans to animals. The study, that will publish July 29, shows that green monkeys in The Gambia acquired Staphylococcus aureus from humans.
  
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• Mars Orbiter Shows Gullies on Mars Not Likely Formed by Liquid Water

  29-07-2016 19:05 via scitechdaily.com
  
  Using data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, astronomers show that gullies on modern Mars are likely not being formed by flowing liquid water. This new evidence will allow researchers to further narrow theories about how Martian gullies form, and reveal more details about Mars’ recent geologic processes. Scientists use the term “gully” for features on […]
  The post Mars Orbiter Shows Gullies on Mars Not Likely Formed by Liquid Water appeared first on SciTech
  
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• Google Spent Nearly $1B on 'Moonshot' Ideas Last Quarter

  29-07-2016 17:54 via nbcnews.com
  
  The futuristic projects, which include everything from self-driving cars to internet-beaming balloons, cost Alphabet $859 million last quarter.
  
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• Groups ask appeals court to reconsider net neutrality ruling

  29-07-2016 17:50
  
  Cable and telecom industry groups want a federal appeals court to reconsider its ruling on net neutrality.
  
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• Facebook to challenge US bill for back taxes

  29-07-2016 17:44
  
  The US government is expected to hit Facebook with a bill for between $3 billion and $5 billion in back taxes, the social network has disclosed.
  
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• 30 Million Images of Child Abuse Recovered by Police

  29-07-2016 16:42 via nbcnews.com
  
  Named operation LATTISE, the investigation involved cops scouring more than 100,000 chat-room logs.
  
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• 'Pawer' Lunch? Zuckerberg's Dog Meets Doug the Pug

  29-07-2016 16:28 via nbcnews.com
  
  Beast Zuckerberg, arguably the most powerful dog in Silicon Valley, met up with social media star Doug the Pug on Thursday.
  
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• Rice crops that can save farmers money and cut pollution

  29-07-2016 16:24
  
  A new U of T Scarborough study has identified "superstar" varieties of rice that can reduce fertilizer loss and cut down on environmental pollution in the process.
  
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• Personal Computing Pioneer, Former MIT Professor Dies at 98

  29-07-2016 16:13
  A former Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer science and electrical engineering professor who helped usher in the personal computing age has died
  
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• Bearded vulture flies to Romania; 1st time seen in decades

  29-07-2016 15:57
  
  Romania's Ornithological Society says a bearded vulture has flown into Romania, the first time it says the rare bone-eating bird has been spotted here in more than 80 years.
  
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• Teasing out the microbiome of the Kansas prairie

  29-07-2016 15:40
  
  The Kansas prairie seems like the very picture of beauty and simplicity, with undulating fields of corn and wheat stretching as far as the eye can see.
  
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• High-efficiency color holograms created using a metasurface made of nanoblocks

  29-07-2016 15:30
  
  (Phys.org)—By carefully arranging many nanoblocks to form pixels on a metasurface, researchers have demonstrated that they can manipulate incoming visible light in just the right way to create a color "meta-hologram." The new method of creating holograms has an order of magnitude higher reconstruction efficiency than similar color meta-holograms, and has applications for various types of 3D color holographic displays and achromatic planar lenses.
  
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• A research project helps reduce the cost of parallel computing

  29-07-2016 15:29
  
  Heterogeneous parallel computing combines various processing elements with different characteristics that share a single memory system. Normally multiple cores (like the 'multicores' in some smart phones or personal computers) are combined with graphic cards and other components to process large quantities of data.
  
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• Traveling to Mars with immortal plasma rockets

  29-07-2016 15:10
  
  Nearly 50 years after landing on the moon, mankind has now set its sights on sending the first humans to Mars. The moon trip took three days; a Mars trip will likely take most of a year. The difference is in more than just time.
  
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• Researchers pinpoint abrupt onset of modern day Indian Ocean monsoon system

  29-07-2016 15:08
  
  A new study by an international team of scientists reveals the exact timing of the onset of the modern monsoon pattern in the Maldives 12.9 million years ago, and its connection to past climate changes and coral reefs in the region. The analysis of sediment cores provides direct physical evidence of the environmental conditions that sparked the monsoon conditions that exist today around the low-lying island nation and the Indian subcontinent.
  
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• Public safety increased with the ability to remotely disable vehicles

  29-07-2016 15:00
  
  To increase public security, the EU SAVELEC project has demonstrated a prototype device that can stop non-cooperative vehicles, both safely and at distance.
  
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• Could Russia Hack U.S. Ballot Boxes on Election Day?

  29-07-2016 14:54 via today.com
  
  NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports for TODAY that any part of the electoral process handled online is potentially vulnerable to hackers.
  
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• Atlas rocket carries clandestine NRO surveillance satellite aloft

  29-07-2016 14:50
  
  Riding atop the crackling roar of an Atlas V rocket, a clandestine surveillance satellite for our nation's spy masters was carried aloft by a powerful booster from the Florida space coast to an undisclosed orbit at breakfast time today, Thursday, July 28.
  
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• Study of accreditation exams reveals biases actually favor women in STEM positions

  29-07-2016 14:40
  
  (Phys.org)—A pair of researchers with the Paris School of Economics in France has conducted an analysis of competitive exam results that are used as a basis for hiring teachers in that country and has found that there exists a bias toward grading women higher in traditionally male-dominated fields. In their paper published in the journal Science, Thomas Breda and Mélina Hillion describe their study and results, and suggest that policies that target female students at an early age be
  
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• Blitzing your household bugs in the name of biosecurity

  29-07-2016 14:40
  
  Sign up for your free pantry trap, discover what happens in your pantry after dark, and you'll also help Australia's biosecurity.
  
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• Video: Vibrio cholerae swimming in the gut of a live zebrafish

  29-07-2016 14:30
  
  The growing interest in the trillions of bacteria that live inside our guts is underlined by the more than 10,000 people who read the recent PLOS Biology essay by Diana Bojanova and Seth Bordenstein – "Fecal Transplants: What is being transferred?" – in its first two weeks. But why just imagine these swarming denizens of your GI tract when you could actually watch them?
  
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• New hydrogel bandage for burns less painful to remove

  29-07-2016 14:30
  
  (Phys.org)—A combined team of researchers from Boston University and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, also in Boston, has published a paper in the journal Angewandte Chemiedescribing a new type of hydrogel they have developed for use as a bandage for burn patients—one that can be removed by applying another liquid rather than by cutting, as is done with conventional bandages.
  
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• The LHC takes a break before heading to new heights

  29-07-2016 14:21
  
  The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been on Olympic form recently. In just two months, the accelerator delivered almost five times as much data as in the whole of 2015, smashing one record after another for luminosity, i.e. the number of collisions. The counter for integrated luminosity, which indicates the cumulative number of collisions delivered to the experiments, is approaching 20 inverse femtobarns (fb-1), not far from the 25 fb-1 target for 2016 as a whole!This is great news for the exper
  
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• Study finds communities need to be proactive about fracking

  29-07-2016 14:20
  
  What are communities doing to address the potential adverse effects of fracking? Not a lot, according to the results of a new study.
  
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• Scientists create plasma-printed sensors to monitor astronaut health on long space trips

  29-07-2016 14:20
  
  Plans begin decades in advance for a tremendous effort such as the first manned mission to Mars. The details are as fine – and essential – as how astronauts will breathe and eat and track their health.
  
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• Equine flu – why don't owners vaccinate their horses?

  29-07-2016 14:16
  
  A research project led by a student at The University of Nottingham is aiming to uncover why some horse owners choose not to vaccinate their animals against a potentially-fatal illness.
  
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• Cloud-based resource to support microbiology data sharing

  29-07-2016 14:10
  
  The third week of July 2016 saw the launch of the UK's Cloud Infrastructure for Microbial Bioinformatics (CLIMB)— probably the largest dedicated microbial bioinformatics resource in the world. CLIMB is a collaboration between academic and computing staff at the Universities of Bath, Birmingham, Cardiff, Swansea and Warwick.
  
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• WikiLeaks, NSA leaker Edward Snowden clash on Twitter

  29-07-2016 14:07
  
  National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and transparency website WikiLeaks are clashing over how best to handle the publication of sensitive data, a spat played out over Twitter.
  
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