Sci-Tech news

• Worker Pleads Guilty to Snooping on Emails for Stock Deals

  05-12-2016 23:44 via abcnews.go.com
  A former information technology worker at Expedia Inc. has pleaded guilty to securities fraud after authorities said he used his access to the computers of executives to rummage through their email, then made illegal stock trades based on the information
  
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• Virgin Galactic's New Spaceship Makes First Glide Flight

  05-12-2016 23:30 via abcnews.go.com
  Virgin Galactic's new spaceship has completed its first glide flight
  
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• Pennsylvania district attorney's office is hit by cybercrime

  05-12-2016 23:21
  
  A Pennsylvania prosecutor's office and two businesses were among hundreds of thousands of victims of an international cybercrime operation disabled by federal authorities and the European Union last week.
  
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• Uber steps up efforts on artificial intelligence

  05-12-2016 23:20
  
  Uber announced Monday it was buying the artificial intelligence group Geometric Intelligence, to form the core of the ride-sharing giant's own research center.
  
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• Researchers study sea spray to improve hurricane intensity forecasting

  05-12-2016 23:17
  
  A University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science research team is studying sea spray to help improve forecasting of hurricanes and tropical cyclones.
  
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• New LED display lights help improve taste of milk, researchers find

  05-12-2016 23:15
  
  New LED lights that are being installed in milk display cases across the country do more than just reduce energy bills—they also help milk taste better, Virginia Tech researchers have found.
  
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• Birds flying through laser light reveal faults in flight research

  05-12-2016 23:05
  
  The protective goggles are tight, the chin strap secure. Conditions are calm and the lasers are ready; the air is infused with tiny aerosol particles that are primed to scatter and track at the slightest disruption. Wait for the signal.The researcher points. The bird flies!
  
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• Snow data from satellites improves temperature predictions, researchers show

  05-12-2016 22:59
  
  Researchers with The University of Texas at Austin have found that incorporating snow data collected from space into computer climate models can significantly improve seasonal temperature predictions.
  
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• Powerful new technique reveals the mechanical environment of cells in their natural habitat, the living embryo

  05-12-2016 22:59
  
  Whether building organs or maintaining healthy adult tissues, cells use biochemical and mechanical cues from their environment to make important decisions, such as becoming a neuron, a skin cell or a heart cell. Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have developed a powerful new technique that reveals for the first time the mechanical environment that cells perceive in living tissues—their natural, unaltered three-dimensional habitat.
  
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• Political left, right both inspired by utopian hopes: study

  05-12-2016 22:56
  
  Despite the ideological differences separating liberals and conservatives, they share similar motivations for their political engagement, according to a new study from a University of Illinois at Chicago social psychologist.
  
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• Scientist designs lamp light operative photodynamic molecules for tumor therapy

  05-12-2016 22:52
  
  UMass Medical School scientist Gang Han, PhD, and his team have designed a new class of molecules used in photodynamic therapy that are able to direct lamp light deep into tissue to kill cancer tumors.
  
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• Oakland Fire Exposes Silicon Valley's Ugly Housing Crisis

  05-12-2016 22:34 via nbcnews.com
  
  Tech companies have created well-paid jobs, but they've also driven up rent, leaving lower income people to get creative about their living situation.
  
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• Trust issues: Users more gullible when they customize their technology

  05-12-2016 22:13
  
  Technology may have helped turn users into their own information gatekeepers, but they may not necessarily make better, more informed decisions with that data, according to researchers.
  
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• During last warming period, Antarctica heated up two to three times more than planet average

  05-12-2016 22:09
  
  Following Earth's last ice age, which peaked 20,000 years ago, the Antarctic warmed between two and three times the average temperature increase worldwide, according to a new study by a team of American geophysicists.
  
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• Cell Atlas launched at ASCB 2016 Meeting

  05-12-2016 22:05
  
  After the completion of the human genome in 2001, another major milestone was reached with the launch of the Cell Atlas at the 2016 American Society of Cell Biology Meeting in San Francisco. An open-access interactive database with unparalleled high-resolution images, the Cell Atlas visualizes for the first time the location of more than 12,000 proteins in cells—opening the way for "spatial proteomics", an exciting new discipline which is expected to lead to a fundamental expansion in our
  
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• Researchers develop a simple processing technique that could cut the cost of organic photovoltaics

  05-12-2016 21:32
  
  With a new technique for manufacturing single-layer organic polymer solar cells, scientists at UC Santa Barbara and three other universities might very well move organic photovoltaics into a whole new generation of wearable devices and enable small-scale distributed power generation.
  
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• There's No Need to Check Out at the Amazon Go Store

  05-12-2016 21:28 via nbcnews.com
  
  The new Amazon Go, announced Monday, has no registers.
  
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• Syrian crisis altered region's land and water resources, study finds

  05-12-2016 21:00
  
  The Syrian civil war and subsequent refugee migration caused sudden changes in the area's land use and freshwater resources, according to satellite data analyzed by Stanford researchers.
  
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• Secrets of the paleo diet: Discovery reveals plant-based menu of prehistoric man

  05-12-2016 21:00
  
  A tiny grape pip (scale 1mm), left on the ground some 780,000 years ago, is one of more than 9,000 remains of edible plants discovered in an old Stone Age site in Israel on the shoreline of Lake Hula in the northern Jordan valley, dating back to the Acheulian culture from 1.75-0.25 million years ago. The floral collection provides rich testimony of the plant-based diet of our prehistoric ancestors.
  
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• Scientists shed light on the climate-changing desert dust fertilizing our oceans

  05-12-2016 21:00
  
  The way in which man-made acids in the atmosphere interact with the dust that nourishes our oceans has been quantified by scientists for the first time.
  
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• Prehistoric plant remains highlight diverse origins of cereal domestication

  05-12-2016 21:00
  
  A study from the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU) and the University of Copenhagen shows that the process of cultivation and domestication of cereals occurred at different times across southwest Asia. The analyses of plant remains from archaeological sites dated to around 11,600-10,700 years ago suggest that in regions such as Turkey, Iran and Iraq, legumes, fruits and nuts dominated the diet, whereas cereals were the preferred types of plants in Jordan, Syria, Palestine and Israel. Th
  
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• Plant 'chemical factory' could produce variety of commercial products

  05-12-2016 21:00
  
  A 'chemical factory' on the surface of plant leaves could help produce more commercially useful products, researchers at the University of York have found.
  
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• How plants manage excess solar energy

  05-12-2016 21:00
  
  Life on earth largely depends on the conversion of light energy into chemical energy through photosynthesis by plants. However, absorption of excess sunlight can damage the complex machinery responsible for this process. Researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, have discovered how Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a mobile single-cell alga, activates the protection of its photosynthetic machinery. Their study, published in the journal PNAS, indicates that the receptors (UVR8) tha
  
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• Geoscientists size-up early dinosaurs, find surprising variation

  05-12-2016 21:00
  
  Look out your window, and you may see people of all ages and sizes roaming the street: a 6-foot-5-inch man walking beside a 4-foot-6-inch boy, for example, or a sprouting teen-ager who is much taller than a full-grown adult.
  
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• Designer switches of cell fate could streamline stem cell biology

  05-12-2016 21:00
  
  Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a novel strategy to reprogram cells from one type to another in a more efficient and less biased manner than previous methods.
  
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• UVES Instrument Views Fingerprint of the Early Universe

  05-12-2016 19:25 via scitechdaily.com
  The UVES instrument shows the light from quasar HE0940-1050 after it has traveled through the intergalactic medium. The most massive galaxies in the Universe host supermassive black holes at their centers. These truly colossal black holes chew up surrounding material at astonishing rates, expelling huge amounts of radiation as they do so and glowing as […]
  The post UVES Instrument Views Fingerprint of the Early Universe appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• How AI Helps the Visually Impaired "See" Facebook

  05-12-2016 19:15 via nbcnews.com
  
  Matt King is helping to launch Facebook's automatic alternative text initiative, which uses artificial intelligence to describe photos for people who are visually impaired. The move is part of the company's mission to make the social network accessible to all.
  
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• Over half of Med's shark and ray species 'at risk of extinction'

  05-12-2016 19:07
  
  Over half of the Mediterranean's shark and ray species are at risk of extinction, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said Monday, blaming overfishing for plummeting numbers.
  
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• Amazon testing cashier-free retail store

  05-12-2016 19:07
  
  Amazon on Monday unveiled a new kind of retail store, with no cashiers.
  
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• Feds: Business lost $387,500 in world cybercrime operation

  05-12-2016 19:06
  
  A Pennsylvania business lost more than $387,000 in an international cybercrime operation disabled by federal authorities and the European Union last week.
  
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• Study analyzed reef fish grazing behaviors to understand coral reef health

  05-12-2016 19:03
  
  Grazing on algae is a full-time job for a highly specialized group of coral reef fish.
  
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• Female lemurs with color vision provide advantages for their group

  05-12-2016 19:00
  
  Female lemurs with normal color vision, as well as their cohabitating colorblind group members, may have selective advantage over lemur groups whose members are all colorblind, according to anthropologists at The University of Texas at Austin.
  
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• Daily Report: China Dreams of Silicon Valley

  05-12-2016 18:57 via nytimes.com
  Move fast, break things, get back on the tour bus: The world’s tech capital is a tourist destination, too.
  
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• Safer, less vulnerable software is the goal of new NIST computer publication

  05-12-2016 18:56
  
  We can create software with 100 times fewer vulnerabilities than we do today, according to computer scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). To get there, they recommend that coders adopt the approaches they have compiled in a new publication.
  
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• Fast evolution affects everyone, everywhere

  05-12-2016 18:54
  
  Rapid evolution of other species happens all around us all the time - and many of the most extreme examples are associated with human influences.
  
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• Efficiency of insect biodiversity monitoring via Malaise trap samples and DNA barcoding

  05-12-2016 18:52
  
  The massive decline of over 75% insect biomass reported from Germany between 1989 and 2013 by expert citizen scientists proves the urgent need for new methods and standards for fast and wide-scale biodiversity assessments. If we cannot understand species composition, as well as their diversity patterns and reasons behind them, we will fail not only to predict changes, but also to take timely and adequate measures before species go extinct.
  
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• New study of water-saving plants advances efforts to develop drought-resistant crops

  05-12-2016 18:47
  
  As part of an effort to develop drought-resistant food and bioenergy crops, scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have uncovered the genetic and metabolic mechanisms that allow certain plants to conserve water and thrive in semi-arid climates.
  
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• 3-D solutions to energy savings in silicon power transistors

  05-12-2016 18:47
  
  In electronics, lower power consumption leads to operation cost savings, environmental benefits and the convenience advantages from longer running devices. While progress in energy efficiencies has been reported with alternative materials such as SiC and GaN, energy-savings in the standard inexpensive and widely used silicon devices are still keenly sought. K Tsutsui at Tokyo Institute of Technology and colleagues in Japan have now shown that by scaling down size parameters in all three dimensio
  
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• ‘NoBody’ – A Microprotein on a Mission

  05-12-2016 18:15 via scitechdaily.com
  Using a technique that has revealed more than 400 new proteins too tiny to be found by other means, scientists from Yale University have helped identify a novel, functional “microprotein” encoded in the human genome. One of those microproteins, called NoBody, is a molecular workhorse involved in sweeping out unneeded genetic material inside cells. Its […]
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• Study: Warming to Trigger 3 Times as Many Downpours in US

  05-12-2016 18:14 via abcnews.go.com
  New high resolution computer simulations say that the US as a whole will get nearly 3 times as many extreme downpours by the end of the century because of global warming
  
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• Report reassesses variations in global warming

  05-12-2016 18:07
  
  Experts at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) have issued a new assessment of temperature trends and variations from the latest available data and analyses. They present evidence that global warming slowed less from 1998 to 2012 than first thought.
  
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• Hubble Reveals Dusty Filaments in NGC 4696

  05-12-2016 18:05 via scitechdaily.com
  New images from Hubble reveal the intricate structure of the galaxy NGC 4696 in greater detail than ever before. The elliptical galaxy is a beautiful cosmic oddity with a bright core wrapped in system of dark, swirling, thread-like filaments. NGC 4696 is a member of the Centaurus galaxy cluster, a swarm of hundreds of galaxies […]
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• Flowers use physics to attract pollinators

  05-12-2016 18:05
  
  A new review indicates that flowers may be able to manipulate the laws of physics, by playing with light, using mechanical tricks, and harnessing electrostatic forces to attract pollinators.
  
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• Ultrathin protective layer brings quite a bit more stability to perovskite solar cell

  05-12-2016 18:04
  
  The addition of a few nanometers of a thin layer of aluminum oxide protects a perovskite solar cell against humidity - still a major stumbling block to the commercial application of this new type of solar cell. A surprising bonus is a yield boost of 3 percent. These are the findings of researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and research institute ECN, part of the Solliance collective, published today in the journal Energy and Environmental Science.
  
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• Researchers stress the need for research on Ebola virus disease in great apes

  05-12-2016 18:04
  
  Ebola virus disease (EVD) is a threat to human health, but it also threatens the survival of African great apes. A new review examines the current knowledge about EVD in great apes and documents the link between outbreaks in apes and in humans, mainly via bushmeat consumption.
  
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• Experimental insecticide explodes mosquitoes, not honeybees

  05-12-2016 18:03
  
  In a new study, Vanderbilt pharmacologist Jerod Denton, Ph.D., Ohio State entomologist Peter Piermarini, Ph.D., and colleagues report an experimental molecule that inhibits kidney function in mosquitoes and thus might provide a new way to control the deadliest animal on Earth.
  
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• Researchers find overwhelming evidence of malaria's existence 2,000 years ago

  05-12-2016 18:00
  
  An analysis of 2,000-year-old human remains from several regions across the Italian peninsula has confirmed the presence of malaria during the Roman Empire, addressing a longstanding debate about its pervasiveness in this ancient civilization.
  
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• New VW firm to focus on mobility services like ride sharing

  05-12-2016 18:00
  
  Volkswagen is launching a new company dedicated to car sharing and other "mobility services" in which people may need a ride but don't necessarily want to own the car.
  
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• Fish fossils reveal how tails evolved

  05-12-2016 18:00
  
  Despite their obvious physical differences, elephants, lizards and trout all have something in common. They possess elongated, flexible structures at the rear of their bodies that we call tails. But a new study by a University of Pennsylvania paleobiologist reveals that the tails of fish and the tails of tetrapods, or four-limbed animals, are in fact entirely different structures, with different evolutionary histories.
  
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• Age of world's worshipers could shape global issues

  05-12-2016 17:59
  
  The relative portion of older adherents to the world's religions will shift in the coming decades, according to a study by a researcher at the the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center, Mailman School of Public Health. In 2010, Jews had the largest portion of seniors with 20 percent age 60 and older; on the low end, only 7 percent of Muslims represented this age group. By 2050, the study projects that Buddhists and the religiously unaffiliated will be tied for the greatest portion of oldest mem
  
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