Sci-Tech news

• Mobile, video pump up profit at Google parent Alphabet (Update)

  27-10-2016 23:00
  
  Google parent Alphabet on Thursday delivered higher profits for the third quarter, lifted by gains in mobile and video advertising as the tech giant narrowed losses on its "moon shots."
  
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• Mobile and video pump profit at Google parent Alphabet

  27-10-2016 23:00
  
  Google parent Alphabet on Thursday reported its quarterly profit climbed 27 percent to $5.1 billion, boosted by mobile and video advertising revenue.
  
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• Amazon triples profit, but shares slide (Update)

  27-10-2016 23:00
  
  Online giant Amazon said Thursday its profits more than tripled in the third quarter, but shares fell as the rise was weaker than expected.
  
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• Amazon misses 3Q profit forecasts

  27-10-2016 23:00
  
  Shares of Amazon.com Inc. fell in after-market trading on Thursday after the online retailer reported third-quarter net income that missed analyst expectations.
  
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• Amazon courts food shoppers

  27-10-2016 23:00
  
  Amazon wants you to order your turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce online this Thanksgiving—its latest effort to make its Prime subscription service a central part of food shopping, much the way it's done for other consumer goods.
  
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• Rising star: YouTube playing key role in Google's success

  27-10-2016 22:55
  
  YouTube has emerged as a break-out star in Google's cast of services as the online video site upstages cable television for a younger generation of viewers looking for amusement, news and music on their smartphones.
  
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• Underfed worms program their babies to cope with famine

  27-10-2016 22:54
  
  Going hungry at an early age can cause lifelong health problems. But the extent of malnutrition's damage depends on mom's diet too—at least in worms.
  
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• How sharks recycle toxic ammonia to keep their skin moist

  27-10-2016 22:54
  
  The Pacific spiny dogfish shark is a master at recycling the ocean's toxic ammonia and converting it into useful urea, according to new research from University of British Columbia (UBC) zoologists.
  
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• Bioluminescent sensor causes brain cells to glow in the dark

  27-10-2016 22:53
  
  A team of Vanderbilt scientists have genetically modified luciferase, the enzyme that produces bioluminescence, so that it acts as an optical sensor that records activity in brain cells.
  
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• Supercomputing the p53 protein as a promising anticancer therapy

  27-10-2016 22:52
  
  Even though it's almost impossible to see, computational biophysicist Rommie Amaro is using the Stampede supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center at The University of Texas at Austin to model the largest atomic level system of the tumor suppression protein p53 to date—over 1.5 million atoms. The simulations identify new "pockets" to reactivate p53 which would be a tremendous boost for future anti-cancer drug discovery.
  
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• Scientists measure how ions bombard fusion device walls

  27-10-2016 22:50
  
  For the first time, researchers at West Virginia University (WVU) have directly measured the complicated 3D patterns of flowing plasma as it strikes the walls of fusion and space propulsion devices.
  
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• General atomics breakthrough enables greater control of fusion energy

  27-10-2016 22:50
  
  Researchers working at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility at General Atomics (GA) have created an important new tool for controlling fusion plasmas that are hotter than the sun.
  
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• Gamma ray camera offers new view on ultra-high energy electrons in plasma

  27-10-2016 22:50
  
  Researchers at General Atomics (GA) have invented a new kind of gamma ray camera that can image beams of energetic electrons inside ultra-hot fusion plasma.
  
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• Steering a fusion plasma toward stability

  27-10-2016 22:49
  
  Plasmas in fusion-energy producing devices are gases heated to millions of degrees that can carry millions of amperes of current. These superhot plasmas must be kept away from material surfaces of the vacuum vessel that contains them by using strong magnetic fields. When the gas becomes unstable it can touch the chambers' walls, quickly cooling the plasma and disrupting fusion reactions. Such disruption could potentially harm the walls of future fusion-producing devices. Drs. Jack Berkery and St
  
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• Launching fusion reactions without a central magnet, or solenoid

  27-10-2016 22:49
  
  The tokamak is an experimental chamber that holds a gas of energetic charged particles, plasma, for developing energy production from nuclear fusion. Most large tokamaks create the plasma with solenoids—large magnetic coils that wind down the center of the vessels and inject the current that starts the plasma and completes the magnetic field that holds the superhot gas in place. But future tokamaks must do without solenoids, which run in short pulses rather than for weeks or months at a ti
  
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• Bubble nucleus discovered

  27-10-2016 22:48
  
  Research conducted at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University has shed new light on the structure of the nucleus, that tiny congregation of protons and neutrons found at the core of every atom.
  
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• Vine Stars Say They'll Outlive Site's Death

  27-10-2016 22:20 via nbcnews.com
  
  Vine didn't die today, it had already withered. But its brightest flowers are already flourishing elsewhere.
  
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• The truth about patient zero and HIV's origin

  27-10-2016 21:31 via rss.cnn.com
  
  A new HIV study clears the name of Gaëtan Dugas as patient zero, and provides new insight into how the virus spread to the United States.
  
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• Apple's New Macs Come With Missing Keys

  27-10-2016 21:30 via nbcnews.com
  
  Apple is ditching a keyboard mainstay in favor of a new touch bar.
  
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• WATCH: Watch How Quickly a Small Fire Engulfs a Whole Room

  27-10-2016 21:14
  
  ABC News' Geneva Sands visits the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' Fire Research Lab.
  
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• Fusion reactor designs with 'long legs' show promise

  27-10-2016 21:04
  
  Magnetic fusion is all about managing the interface between hot plasma and ordinary materials. The strong magnetic field in a tokamak—the vessel used in this fusion approach—is a very effective insulator; it is able to reduce the plasma temperature by a factor of 100, from over 100 million degrees Celsius at the center to "only" 1 million degrees at the edge. However, this is not low enough. Therefore, it's the job of the boundary plasma to reduce the temperature by another factor of
  
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• Sour Grapes? Twitter Axes Vine, Its Ill-Fated Video App

  27-10-2016 20:56 via nbcnews.com
  
  Vine, the service that allows individuals to capture and share six-second, looping videos, will be laid to rest over the next few months.
  
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• Turnout for mayoral elections abysmally low

  27-10-2016 20:54
  
  A new study released Thursday by researchers at Portland State University—part of its Who Votes for Mayor project—detail the shockingly low voter turnout that is now typical in elections for mayor across the United States. For the most recent round of mayoral elections in America's 30 largest cities, turnout of eligible citizens in 10 of them—including New York City, Baltimore, Dallas and Miami—was less than 15 percent. In Las Vegas, Fort Worth and Dallas, Texas, voter tu
  
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• Fixing deficits in boundary plasma models

  27-10-2016 20:54
  
  Researchers working on the DIII-D tokamak in San Diego are working to show how plasma transport and atomic physics come together to provide power exhaust solutions.
  
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• Researchers root for more cassava research

  27-10-2016 20:53
  
  Cassava makes up nearly 50 percent of the diet in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, where populations are projected to increase by more than 120% in the next 30 years. With stagnant yields for the last half century, scientists realize the need to focus their efforts on this crop now. It is particularly valuable for rural smallholder farmers.
  
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• From Germany comes a new twist for fusion research

  27-10-2016 20:53
  
  This past year saw the commissioning and initial operation of a new large-scale plasma experiment, the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) in Greifswald, Germany. Designed, constructed, and operated by the Max-Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) with an international team of collaborators, the device is impressive. But, the worldwide fusion research community, which aims to develop an environmentally benign and abundant source of energy, is finding W7-X's initial plasma results yet more impressive.
  
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• Study predicts deserts in Spain if global warming continues

  27-10-2016 20:44
  
  Southern Spain will become desert and deciduous forests will vanish from much of the Mediterranean basin unless global warming is reined in sharply, according to a study released Thursday.
  
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• Experts uncover hidden layers of Jesus' tomb site

  27-10-2016 20:41
  
  In the innermost chamber of the site said to be the tomb of Jesus, a restoration team has peeled away a marble layer for the first time in centuries in an effort to reach what it believes is the original rock surface where Jesus' body was laid.
  
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• Apple adds keyboard touch functions to Mac in major refresh

  27-10-2016 20:41
  
  Apple unveiled long-awaited updates to its Mac computers Thursday, aiming to spark consumer interest in a product line often overshadowed by newer gadgets like the iPad and iPhone.
  
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• NASA analyzes Tropical Cyclone Kyant before its femise

  27-10-2016 20:40
  
  The Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core satellite analyzed the Northern Indian Ocean's Tropical Cyclone Kyant before its quick demise.
  
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• Extinguishing a fusion fire in a flash of light

  27-10-2016 20:39
  
  Fusion energy researchers have discovered that they can rapidly extinguish and cool a magnetically confined fusion plasma hotter than the center of the sun by injecting a large quantity of neon gas to prevent damage to fusion-energy devices when there is a loss of plasma equilibrium.
  
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• Astronomers Discover a Young Triple Protostar System

  27-10-2016 20:37 via scitechdaily.com
  
  A team of astronomers has seen a dusty disk of material around a young star fragmenting into a multiple-star system for the first time. Observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array and the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array revealed the process in action. “This new work directly supports the conclusion that there are two […]
  The post Astronomers Discover a Young Triple Protostar System appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• NASA missions harvest a passel of 'pumpkin' stars

  27-10-2016 20:32
  
  Astronomers using observations from NASA's Kepler and Swift missions have discovered a batch of rapidly spinning stars that produce X-rays at more than 100 times the peak levels ever seen from the sun. The stars, which spin so fast they've been squashed into pumpkin-like shapes, are thought to be the result of close binary systems where two sun-like stars merge.
  
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• Breakthrough in Z-pinch implosion stability opens new path to fusion

  27-10-2016 20:31
  
  Using magnetic field thermal insulation to keep plasmas hot enough to achieve thermonuclear fusion was first proposed by the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi in 1945, and independently a few years later by Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov. An approach known as magneto-inertial fusion uses an implosion of material surrounding magnetized plasma to compress it and thereby generate temperatures in excess of the 20 million degrees required to initiate fusion. But historically, the concept has been pla
  
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• Detailed images of Schiaparelli and its descent hardware on Mars

  27-10-2016 20:29
  
  A high-resolution image taken by a NASA Mars orbiter this week reveals further details of the area where the ExoMars Schiaparelli module ended up following its descent on 19 October.
  
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• A Promising New Form of Immunotherapy for Cancer

  27-10-2016 20:21 via scitechdaily.com
  
  New research suggests a way to increase the staying power of CAR T cells, a promising form of immunotherapy for cancer. In people with chronic infections or cancer, disease-fighting T cells tend to behave like an overworked militia — wheezing, ill-prepared, tentative, in a state of “exhaustion” that allows disease to persist. In a paper […]
  The post A Promising New Form of Immunotherapy for Cancer appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Alcator C-mod bows out with a new world record

  27-10-2016 20:19
  
  On its final day of operation, the Alcator C-Mod tokamak at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Plasma Science & Fusion Center set a new record for plasma pressure in a magnetic confinement device. These results help validate the high-field approach to fusion energy, which could lead to smaller, cheaper fusion power plants.
  
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• Learning Morse code without trying

  27-10-2016 20:18
  
  It's not exactly beating something into someone's head. More like tapping it into the side.
  
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• Genome sequencing reveals ancient interbreeding between chimpanzees and bonobos

  27-10-2016 20:05
  
  For the first time, scientists have revealed ancient gene mixing between chimpanzees and bonobos, mankind's closest relatives, showing parallels with Neanderthal mixing in human ancestry. Published today in the journal Science, the study from scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and their international collaborators showed that 1% of chimpanzee genomes are derived from bonobos.
  
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• Research helps explain formation of ringed crater on the moon

  27-10-2016 20:04
  
  Using data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission, scientists have shed new light on the formation of a huge bull's-eye-shaped impact feature on the Moon. The findings, described in two papers published in the journal Science, could help scientists better understand how these kinds of giant impacts influenced the early evolution of the Moon, Mars and Earth.
  
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• Hubble Sees the Eerie Glow of a Dead Star

  27-10-2016 20:03 via scitechdaily.com
  
  This newly released Hubble image of the Crab Nebula shows the eerie glow of a dead star, which exploded long ago as a supernova. But don’t be fooled; this ghoulish-looking object still has a pulse. Buried at its center is the star’s tell-tale heart, which beats with rhythmic precision. The “heart” is the crushed core […]
  The post Hubble Sees the Eerie Glow of a Dead Star appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Plant 'thermometer' discovered that triggers springtime budding by measuring night-time heat

  27-10-2016 20:00
  
  An international team of scientists led by the University of Cambridge has discovered the 'thermometer' molecule that enables plants to develop according to seasonal temperature changes.
  
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• Mutant plants reveal temperature sensor

  27-10-2016 20:00
  
  As we push the limits of agriculture to feed more people in a warmer world, we do not understand how plants sense temperature.
  
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• Team spots elusive intermediate compound in atmospheric chemistry

  27-10-2016 19:59
  
  JILA physicists and colleagues have identified a long-missing piece in the puzzle of exactly how fossil fuel combustion contributes to air pollution and a warming climate. Performing chemistry experiments in a new way, they observed a key molecule that appears briefly during a common chemical reaction in the atmosphere.
  
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• The real -- and growing -- effects of fake pills

  27-10-2016 19:05 via rss.cnn.com
  
  Most of us think of a placebo as a simple psychological trick -- a fake pill might give us hope, but it produces no real effects.
  
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• Fossilized dinosaur brain tissue identified for the first time

  27-10-2016 19:00
  
  An unassuming brown pebble, found more than a decade ago by a fossil hunter in Sussex, has been confirmed as the first example of fossilised brain tissue from a dinosaur.
  
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• Fin24.com | Twitter is shutting down its Vine video app

  27-10-2016 18:49
  
  Twitter has announced that it would be discontinuing in the coming months the Vine app that rose to popularity for its six-second video clips.
  
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• Twitter cuts 9% of staff, kills off Vine

  27-10-2016 18:33 via rss.cnn.com
  
  Twitter is cutting its staff by 9% after a widely rumored sale process appears to have come to nothing.
  
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• Samsung keeps smartphone lead despite Note 7 debacle

  27-10-2016 18:30
  
  Samsung maintained its lead in the global smartphone market in the third quarter despite a massive recall that has tarnished the South Korean giant's image.
  
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• 'Higgs hunter' Sally Dawson receives J.J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics

  27-10-2016 18:27
  
  Sally Dawson, a theoretical physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, has been named a recipient of the 2017 J.J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics. The award, given by the American Physical Society (APS), recognizes Dawson and her three co-authors of The Higgs Hunter's Guide, a seminal book first published in 1989 on the physics of Higgs bosons-fundamental particles predicted by the accepted theory of particle physics as essential to generating th
  
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