Sci-Tech news

• Where there's smoke—and a mutation—there may be an evolutionary edge for humans

  02-08-2016 23:34
  
  A genetic mutation may have helped modern humans adapt to smoke exposure from fires and perhaps sparked an evolutionary advantage over their archaic competitors, including Neandertals, according to a team of researchers.
  
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• Apple subs squirt gun for controversial pistol emoji

  02-08-2016 23:21
  
  Apple is disarming—or at least it's dumping an emoji that depicts a realistic-looking revolver and replacing it with a brightly colored toy water pistol instead.
  
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• Reach in and touch objects in videos with 'Interactive Dynamic Video'

  02-08-2016 23:13
  
  We learn a lot about objects by manipulating them: poking, pushing, prodding, and then seeing how they react.
  
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• Microsoft opens up HoloLens sales to anyone in the US or Canada - PCWorld

  02-08-2016 23:05 via pcworld.com
  
  PCWorld
  Microsoft opens up HoloLens sales to anyone in the US or Canada
  PCWorld
  Microsoft has opened up sales of the HoloLens development kit to anyone with $3,000 to spare, a move that could significantly expand the community of developers building apps for the augmented reality headset. Until now, HoloLens was available only to ...
  Now you can buy a Microsoft Hololens (but you may not want to)CNET
  If you want to buy your own HoloLens augmented reality headset... you can!BetaNews
  Introduc
  
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• Discovery of male-harming DNA mutation reinforces 'mother's curse' hypothesis

  02-08-2016 22:58
  
  There is new evidence that the "mother's curse" - the possibility that moms may transmit genes to their children that harm their sons but not their daughters - holds true in animals.
  
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• Instagram Stories is Facebook's latest Snapchat clone

  02-08-2016 22:46 via rss.cnn.com
  
  Remember Poke? How about Slingshot? They're long forgotten Facebook apps that attempted to steal some of Snapchat's thunder.
  
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• Georgia man pleads guilty in $30M computer hacking scheme (Update)

  02-08-2016 22:33
  
  A Georgia man pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge Tuesday, admitting participating in a computer hacking scheme that used facts stolen from over 150,000 press releases to generate $30 million in illegal profits.
  
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• Georgia man pleads guilty in $30M computer hacking scheme

  02-08-2016 22:33
  
  A Georgia man has pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge, admitting participating in a computer hacking scheme that generated $30 million in illegal profits.
  
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• Dwindling herd means fewer moose hunt permits in Vermont (Update)

  02-08-2016 22:33
  
  A handful of hopeful moose hunters visited the Vermont Statehouse on Tuesday and joined top Fish and Wildlife biologists and others hunters across the state in listening to a live radio broadcast that revealed the dwindling number of coveted moose hunting permits being issued for the fall hunt.
  
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• Dwindling herd means fewer moose hunt permits in Vermont

  02-08-2016 22:33
  
  A handful of hopeful moose hunters visited the Vermont Statehouse on Tuesday and joined top Fish and Wildlife biologists and others hunters across the state in listening to a live radio broadcast that revealed the dwindling number of coveted moose hunting permits being issued for the fall hunt.
  
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• Scientists model the 'flicker' of gluons in subatomic smashups

  02-08-2016 22:11
  
  Scientists exploring the dynamic behavior of particles emerging from subatomic smashups at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)-a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility for nuclear physics research at DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory-are increasingly interested in the role of gluons. These glue-like particles ordinarily bind quarks within protons and neutrons, and appear to play an outsized role in establishing key particle properties.
  
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• Do eco-friendly wines taste better?

  02-08-2016 21:47
  
  It's time to toast environmentally friendly grapes. A new UCLA study shows that eco-certified wine tastes better—and making the choice even easier, earlier research shows it's often cheaper, too.
  
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• Tropical Storm Earl forms in Caribbean Sea

  02-08-2016 20:44
  
  The fifth tropical cyclone of the Atlantic Ocean hurricane season formed today in the Caribbean Sea. NOAA's GOES-East satellite provided a look at the storm as hurricane-hunter aircraft confirmed a closed circulation.
  
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• Flexible wearable electronic skin patch offers new way to monitor alcohol levels

  02-08-2016 20:44
  
  Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a flexible wearable sensor that can accurately measure a person's blood alcohol level from sweat and transmit the data wirelessly to a laptop, smartphone or other mobile device. The device can be worn on the skin and could be used by doctors and police officers for continuous, non-invasive and real-time monitoring of blood alcohol content.
  
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• Police Training Institute challenges police recruits' racial biases

  02-08-2016 20:42
  
  In early 2014, months before the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and shortly after the Black Lives Matter movement got its start, Michael Schlosser, the director of the Police Training Institute at the University of Illinois, began offering police recruits classes that challenged their views about race and racism, introduced them to critical race theory and instructed them in methods to de-escalate potentially volatile encounters with members of minority groups.
  
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• Solving a Mystery of Mammoth Proportions - Smithsonian

  02-08-2016 20:18 via smithsonianmag.com
  Smithsonian
  Solving a Mystery of Mammoth Proportions
  Smithsonian
  Dwindling freshwater sealed the demise of the St. Paul woolly mammoths, and could still pose a threat today. gettyimages-515509034_720.jpg. Engraving of a woolly mammoth. (Bettmann / Getty Images). By Rachel Nuwer. smithsonian.com. August 2, 2016 ...
  Thirsty, Lonely Woolly: Earth's Last Mammoth Went Extinct Due to Water ScarcityNature World News
  Alaskan woolly mammoths died of thirst: studyThe Japan Times
  The very last mammot
  
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• NC toxicologist: Water near Duke's dumps not safe to drink

  02-08-2016 20:00
  
  North Carolina's top public health official acted unethically and possibly illegally by telling residents living near Duke Energy coal ash pits that their well water is safe to drink when it's contaminated with a chemical known to cause cancer, a state toxicologist said in sworn testimony.
  
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• French mobile operator SFR plans to cut staff level by over third: unions

  02-08-2016 19:59
  
  French mobile operator SFR plans to shed over a third of its staff over the next three years although no forced job cuts are foreseen until 2019, union representatives said Tuesday.
  
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• Instagram adds everyday 'Stories' in Snapchat spin

  02-08-2016 19:58
  
  Instagram on Tuesday put its own spin on a key Snapchat feature by letting users post "Stories" that eventually vanish from the Facebook-owned photo- and video-sharing application.
  
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• New Technology Brings Pikachu Into the Real World

  02-08-2016 19:54 via nbcnews.com
  
  A new technology could make all those Pokemon you've been catching become more in touch with reality.
  
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• What's Behind the $2.6B Tesla-SolarCity Deal?

  02-08-2016 19:13 via nbcnews.com
  
  What do cars, solar cells and backup battery systems have in common? That's the question a lot of Tesla analysts and investors are asking.
  
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• Research points to mechanisms on why 'green' helps in urban life

  02-08-2016 19:00
  
  New research finds that airborne bacterial communities differ from one urban park to the next but those of parking lots are alike—and differ from those of parks in subtle but potentially important ways.
  
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• Space scientists observe Io's atmospheric collapse during eclipse

  02-08-2016 18:57
  
  A Southwest Research Institute-led team has documented atmospheric changes on Io, Jupiter's volcanically active satellite, as the giant planet casts its shadow over the moon's surface during daily eclipses.
  
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• Apple releases iOS 10 public beta 3 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - 9 to 5 Mac

  02-08-2016 18:56 via 9to5mac.com
  
  9 to 5 Mac
  Apple releases iOS 10 public beta 3 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
  9 to 5 Mac
  Earlier this week Apple issued iOS 10 beta 4 to developers, and today the third public beta version of the pre-release software is available to match. iOS 10 public beta 3 should include the updated emoji characters introduced on Monday. iOS 10 ...
  Apple 'disarms the iPhone,' with gun emoji to go in iOS 10CNBC
  Apple's New Emojis Show Women Working and Men Getting PamperedFortune
  Apple Has Removed the Gun
  
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• NASA sees Typhoon Nida make landfall

  02-08-2016 18:55
  
  NASA's Terra satellite flew over Typhoon Nida shortly after it made landfall just north of Hong Kong.
  
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• Managing uncertainty: How soil carbon feedbacks could affect climate change

  02-08-2016 18:46
  
  There is more than twice as much carbon in the planet's soils than there is in its atmosphere, so the loss of even a small proportion of that could have a profound feedback effect on the global climate.
  
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• NASA's new CO2 sounder nearly ready for prime time

  02-08-2016 18:44
  
  After years of work, a team of NASA scientists and engineers is poised to realize a lifetime goal: building an instrument powerful and accurate enough to gather around-the-clock global atmospheric carbon-dioxide (CO2) measurements from space.
  
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• Giant forest fires exterminate spotted owls, long-term study finds

  02-08-2016 18:43
  
  As climate changes and wildfires get larger, hotter and more frequent, how should public lands in the American West be managed to protect endangered creatures that, like the spotted owl, rely on fire-prone old-growth forests?
  
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• Substitute teachers and replacement nurses may cause disease to spread faster (Update)

  02-08-2016 18:40
  
  Imagine a nurse who gets the flu while working at a hospital. He goes home to recover—and an uninfected replacement nurse comes in. This kind of substitution happens all the time in the real world—teachers, doctors, firefighters and others with essential societal roles get sick and a substitute comes in to fill their role.
  
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• How effective are personalized political ads on Facebook?

  02-08-2016 18:33
  
  In this election year, political advertising on social networking sites such as Facebook is increasingly making use of personalized ads to target specific social media users. The effectiveness of online political microtargeting and the role of "persuasion knowledge" are examined in a new study published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.
  
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• NASA catches visible and infrared views of Tropical Storm Howard

  02-08-2016 18:32
  
  NASA's Aqua satellite provided forecasters with visible and infrared imagery of Tropical Storm Howard as it continued moving west through the waters of the Eastern Pacific Ocean on Aug. 1 and 2.
  
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• Scientists' annual physical of planet: 'Earth's fever rises'

  02-08-2016 18:27
  
  Earth's fever got worse last year, breaking dozens of climate records, scientists said in a massive report nicknamed the annual physical for the planet.
  
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• Some types of quantum entanglement cannot be both monogamous and faithful

  02-08-2016 17:50
  
  (Phys.org)—As might be expected, the terms "monogamous" and "faithful" mean something a little different in the quantum world than they do in everyday language. In a new paper, a collaboration of physicists and mathematicians have shown that, when quantified by a standard means, entanglement cannot be both monogamous and faithful at the same time. The results may be relevant when assessing the security of quantum cryptographic schemes, which rely on the monogamy of entanglement, and may al
  
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• Go Team! Facebook Introduces Olympic Photo Filters

  02-08-2016 17:17 via nbcnews.com
  
  If you can't cheer on your favorite athletes in Rio, Facebook's virtual "Olympic Village" may be the next best thing.
  
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• Public eagerly awaits foul smell of garden's 'corpse flower'

  02-08-2016 17:14
  
  Washington botany enthusiasts are salivating over the possibility that an exotic plant is about to finally bloom and produce a huge and memorable stink.
  
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• Samsung's new jumbo phone unlocks with iris scanner

  02-08-2016 17:13
  
  You'll be able to unlock Samsung's new phone by just looking at it.
  
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• Global heat, sea level hit record highs in 2015 (Update)

  02-08-2016 17:13
  
  Global heat, greenhouse gases and sea levels all climbed to record highs last year, making 2015 the worst in modern times across a range of key environmental indicators, international scientists said Tuesday.
  
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• Global heat, sea level hit record highs in 2015

  02-08-2016 17:13
  
  Global heat, greenhouse gases and sea levels all climbed to record highs last year, making 2015 the worst in modern times across a range of key environmental indicators, international scientists said Tuesday.
  
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• Galaxy Note 7: Samsung's new jumbo phone unlocks with iris scanner

  02-08-2016 17:13
  
  You'll be able to unlock Samsung's new phone by just looking at it.
  
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• Patented bioelectrodes have electrifying taste for waste

  02-08-2016 17:06
  
  New research at Michigan State University and published in the current issue of Nature Communications shows how Geobacter bacteria grow as films on electrodes and generate electricity - a process that's ready to be scaled up to industrial levels.
  
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• How 5-star online customer reviews can backfire

  02-08-2016 17:06
  
  It may be counterintuitive, but the more positive online reviews a product gets may actually lead to a net negative profit for the retailer. That's the conclusion of new research by a team of marketing experts from a Dutch and a German university that will be published in the September 2016 issue of the Journal of Retailing.
  
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• Fin24.com | Sassa breached constitution, claims Net 1

  02-08-2016 17:06
  
  Net 1 says the South African Social Security Agency has breached the constitution by amending regulations to prevent deductions from payments to beneficiaries.
  
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• Researchers study impact of extreme weather events on striped bass

  02-08-2016 17:04
  
  Striped bass are known to have favorite summer swimming spots to which they return every year. They are creatures of habit. However, when a hurricane hits, everything can change very quickly. The water level rises rapidly. Runoff floods the river with sediment and chokes off the oxygen. Heavy rains create rushing currents and a sudden drop in water temperature. And the fish leave the area in a hurry. Scientists call it "evacuating" to better conditions.
  
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• New metamaterials can change properties with a flick of a light-switch

  02-08-2016 17:02
  
  Invisibility cloaks have less to do with magic than with metamaterials. These human-engineered materials have properties that don't occur in nature, allowing them to bend and manipulate light in weird ways. For example, some of these materials can channel light around an object so that it appears invisible at a certain wavelength. These materials are also useful in applications such as smaller, faster, and more energy efficient optics, sensors, light sources, light detectors and telecommunicatio
  
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• Colonel Sanders was ahead of his time: A business owner's face can reassure wary online shoppers

  02-08-2016 17:02
  
  Instilling trust among first-time customers has been a problem for online retailers since the dawn of e-commerce. Now research shows that sometimes the simplest of fixes can reassure would-be buyers.
  
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• Researchers have clarified the origins of a mechanism responsible for the gradual deformation of concrete

  02-08-2016 17:00
  
  College students have used it to make cheap furniture, China has had shortages of it, and main character Michael Scott of "The Office" once famously buried his face in it. Concrete is everywhere—a ubiquity owed to its strength as a building material. Despite its strength, however, it has a pernicious but inescapable tendency to "creep," or deform progressively under mechanical stress, which leads to crumbling bridges and cracked roads.
  
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• Crikey! Australia is Being Moved Six Feet North

  02-08-2016 16:57 via nbcnews.com
  
  Starting in 2017, Australia will move its official longitude and latitude coordinates about 6 feet north due to a continental tectonic drift.
  
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• Vevo cuts deal with Warner Music to license videos

  02-08-2016 16:33
  
  In another move to break from YouTube, music video brand Vevo has cut a deal to license videos from Warner Music, repairing a rift between major labels that began with the launch of the service seven years ago.
  
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• Fin24.com | Uber drivers in Kenya go on strike after price cuts

  02-08-2016 16:30
  
  Hundreds of drivers signed up with ride-hailing service Uber in Kenya went on strike on Tuesday to protest against fare cuts.
  
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• NASA looks at historic flooding from slow-moving Maryland storms

  02-08-2016 16:27
  
  NASA analyzed rainfall data from slow-moving storms that triggered flash floods over parts of central Maryland and caused devastating flooding in historic Ellicott City, Maryland.
  
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