Sci-Tech news

• Google, Facebook Partner With French Media Over "Fake News"

  06-02-2017 23:45
  French journalists are teaming up with American internet giants Google and Facebook to fight propaganda and misinformation online, mirroring similar efforts already underway in the United States and Germany
  
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• New study aims to understand the reasons why Female Genital Cutting persists (Update)

  06-02-2017 23:18
  
  The harmful health consequences of Female Genital Cutting (FGC) are well-established and the elimination of this practice is a priority for policy makers across the world.
  
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• Female genital cutting has 'evolutionary' drive: study

  06-02-2017 23:18
  
  The widely condemned practice of ceremonial genital mutilation among girls and young women follows an evolutionary logic, according to a provocative study published Monday.
  
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• Climate change may overload US electrical grid: study

  06-02-2017 23:08
  
  As the planet warms due to climate change and hot days become more common, the US electrical grid could be unable to meet peak energy needs by century's end, researchers warned Monday.
  
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• Fighting fake news isn't just up to Facebook and Google

  06-02-2017 23:06
  
  You, too, can join the battle against misleading and other "fake" news online. But your options are somewhat limited unless you're already an academic or data scientist who's been studying the subject since way before Donald Trump started running for president.
  
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• When data's deep, dark places need to be illuminated

  06-02-2017 23:02
  
  Much of the data of the World Wide Web hides like an iceberg below the surface. The so-called 'deep web' has been estimated to be 500 times bigger than the 'surface web' seen through search engines like Google. For scientists and others, the deep web holds important computer code and its licensing agreements. Nestled further inside the deep web, one finds the 'dark web,' a place where images and video are used by traders in illicit drugs, weapons, and human trafficking. A new data-intensive supe
  
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• Study shows planet's atmospheric oxygen rose through glaciers

  06-02-2017 22:20
  
  A University of Wyoming researcher contributed to a paper that determined a "Snowball Earth" event actually took place 100 million years earlier than previously projected, and a rise in the planet's oxidation resulted from a number of different continents—including what is now Wyoming—that were once connected.
  
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• Researchers tackle impact of climate change on plants

  06-02-2017 22:19
  
  Washington State University researchers are undertaking an industrious investigation into the effects of global warming on plants. Making the effort possible is a fully automated "plant hotel" that can analyze up to 6,000 seedlings in a single experiment.
  
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• NJIT grad students invent slick new dating app

  06-02-2017 22:19
  
  Online dating has become a way of life for folks looking for love in the freewheeling, tap-and-swipe culture that dominates the 21st century.
  
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• Humans correctly forecast the personal qualities valued in their local population, and generate pride accordingly: study

  06-02-2017 22:17
  
  As human emotions go, pride has earned a bad rap. Christians count it among the seven deadly sins, the ancient Greeks charged it with provoking destruction by the gods, and non-industrial peoples around the world consider it a source of bad luck.
  
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• Correction: Amazon-Faster Delivery Story

  06-02-2017 22:15
  Correction: Amazon-Faster Delivery story
  
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• A List of the 97 Companies Opposing Trump's Travel Ban

  06-02-2017 22:15
  A list of the 97 companies opposing Trump's travel ban
  
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• Size matters for marine protected areas designed to aid coral

  06-02-2017 22:14
  
  For marine protected areas established to help coral reefs recover from overfishing, size really does seem to make a difference.
  
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• Shifting monsoon altered early cultures in China, study says

  06-02-2017 22:13
  
  The annual summer monsoon that drops rain onto East Asia, an area with about a billion people, has shifted dramatically in the distant past, at times moving northward by as much as 400 kilometers and doubling rainfall in that northern reach. The monsoon's changes over the past 10,000 years likely altered the course of early human cultures in China, say the authors of a new study.
  
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• Scientists confirm dorado catfish as all-time distance champion of freshwater migrations

  06-02-2017 22:12
  
  An international team of scientists has confirmed that the dorado catfish (Brachyplatystoma rousseauxii) of the Amazon River basin holds the record for the world's longest exclusively freshwater fish migration, an epic life-cycle journey stretching nearly the entire width of the South America continent.
  
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• Everglades restoration report shows success, but climate change remains a challenge

  06-02-2017 22:09
  
  The Florida Everglades' cypress swamps, mangrove trees and "river of grass" cover the southern 20 percent of the state, making it the largest freshwater wetland in the United States. Since people started draining the wetlands for habitation and agriculture in the 1800s, about 50 percent of the Everglades have been lost, resulting in less available freshwater for residents, droughts and flooding.
  
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• Airbnb's Super Bowl Ad Was Created at Break Neck Pace

  06-02-2017 22:08 via nbcnews.com
  
  What do you do when you want to send a powerful message of inclusion to the world in the face of President Trump's immigration ban?
  
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• SNAP benefits increase household spending on food, study finds

  06-02-2017 21:55
  
  A new study by two Brown University economists at the Rhode Island Innovative Policy Lab finds that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits increase a household's overall spending on food each month and that an equivalent cash benefit would lead to much smaller increases in food spending.
  
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• NASA sees Tropical Cyclone Carlos over La Reunion and Mauritius

  06-02-2017 21:54
  
  NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Cyclone Carlos when it was affecting La Reunion and Mauritius islands in the Southern Indian Ocean. The satellite imagery provided a clear picture of how wind shear was affecting the storm. Earlier the GPM core satellite found heavy rain and towering storms within Tropical Cyclone Carlos.
  
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• Researchers look for life's (lower) limits

  06-02-2017 21:53
  
  When energy and nutrients abound, a bacterium will repair itself while synthesizing new parts to create a twin and then split, all as quickly as conditions allow. But if resources shrink, so does growth rate. The cell responds by shunting its dwindling supplies from replication to repair, shutting down processes until it's running a skeleton crew to survive. Below a crucial level, it's all over.
  
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• Campus natural gas power plants pose no radon risks

  06-02-2017 21:51
  
  When Penn State decided to convert its two power plants from their historic use of coal as a source of energy to natural gas, there was concern about radon emissions. Although radon is known to exist in natural gas, now Penn State research indicates that it does not escape from these two power plants in harmful amounts.
  
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• Chicago aquarium euthanizes more than 90-year-old lungfish

  06-02-2017 21:45
  
  An Australian lungfish that entranced visitors to Chicago's Shedd Aquarium for more than 80 years has been euthanized due to old age, the popular tourist attraction announced Monday.
  
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• Scientists develop 'lab on a chip' that costs one cent to make

  06-02-2017 21:00
  
  Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have developed a way to produce a cheap and reusable diagnostic "lab on a chip" with the help of an ordinary inkjet printer.
  
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• Hundreds of ancient earthworks built in the Amazon

  06-02-2017 21:00
  
  The Amazonian rainforest was transformed over two thousand years ago by ancient people who built hundreds of large, mysterious earthworks.
  
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• Genomes in flux: New study reveals hidden dynamics of bird and mammal DNA evolution

  06-02-2017 21:00
  
  Evolution is often thought of as a gradual remodeling of the genome, the genetic blueprints for building an organism. But in some instance it might be more appropriate to call it an overhaul. Over the past 100 million years, the human lineage has lost one-fifth of its DNA, while an even greater amount was added, report scientists at the University of Utah School of Medicine. Until now, the extent to which our genome has expanded and contracted had been underappreciated, masked by its relatively
  
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• Curiosity rover sharpens paradox of ancient Mars (Update)

  06-02-2017 21:00
  
  Mars scientists are wrestling with a problem. Ample evidence says ancient Mars was sometimes wet, with water flowing and pooling on the planet's surface. Yet, the ancient sun was about one-third less warm and climate modelers struggle to produce scenarios that get the surface of Mars warm enough for keeping water unfrozen.
  
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• WATCH: South Korea Vows to Strengthen Requirements for Lithium-Ion Batteries

  06-02-2017 20:41
  
  Samsung was forced to scrap its Galaxy Note7 phones last year after numerous lithium-ion batteries reportedly caught fire.
  
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• Why 97 Companies Are Opposing Trump's Travel Ban

  06-02-2017 20:08
  
  Apple, Google and more than 90 other companies are pushing back against President Donald Trump's temporary travel ban in court, calling it unconstitutional, un-American and bad for the economy
  
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• The Secret Behind Lady Gaga's Super Bowl Drones

  06-02-2017 19:37 via nbcnews.com
  
  Lady Gaga performed a tech-ed out halftime show with a little help from 300 mini drones from Intel.
  
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• Luxembourg files complaint after it's drawn into VW scandal

  06-02-2017 19:02
  
  The government of Luxembourg is filing a legal complaint after it became embroiled in the Volkswagen emissions scandal.
  
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• Physicists Decipher Material Properties at the Single-Atom Level

  06-02-2017 18:46 via scitechdaily.com
  
  By taking multiple images with an advanced electron microscope and using powerful reconstruction algorithms, researchers measured the coordinates of more than 23,000 atoms in a...
  The post Physicists Decipher Material Properties at the Single-Atom Level appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Music helps and picking teams publicly hurts when helping kids try to enjoy exercise: study

  06-02-2017 18:35
  
  Maybe you remember the laps you were forced to run or when a dodgeball hit you in the face. Maybe you remember an empowering athletic achievement or maybe an embarrassing one, or even the smell of your middle school gymnasium.
  
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• NASA’s Cassini Views a Potentially Hospitable Enceladus

  06-02-2017 18:26 via scitechdaily.com
  
  This newly released Cassini image shows the Saturn-facing hemisphere of Enceladus. Seen from outside, Enceladus appears to be like most of its sibling moons: cold,...
  The post NASA’s Cassini Views a Potentially Hospitable Enceladus appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Green tea compound may halt molecular cause of often-fatal condition

  06-02-2017 18:17
  
  A compound found in green tea could have lifesaving potential for patients with multiple myeloma and amyloidosis, who face often-fatal medical complications associated with bone-marrow disorders, according to a team of engineers at Washington University in St. Louis and their German collaborators.
  
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• New algorithms may revolutionize drug discoveries—and our understanding of life

  06-02-2017 18:16
  
  A new set of machine learning algorithms developed by U of T researchers that can generate 3D structures of tiny protein molecules may revolutionize the development of drug therapies for a range of diseases, from Alzheimer's to cancer.
  
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• German Court Delays Ruling in Refugee's Facebook Lawsuit

  06-02-2017 18:12
  A court in German on Monday postponed its ruling in a case brought against Facebook by a Syrian refugee who wanted the social media giant to seek and delete posts falsely linking him to crimes committed by migrants
  
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• Can sharks be fished sustainably? Yes (but it's going to take work)

  06-02-2017 18:00
  
  Conventional wisdom holds that sharks can't be harvested in a sustainable manner because they are long-lived animals. It takes time for them to reproduce and grow in numbers. But, researchers reporting in Current Biology on February 6 have evidence to suggest that sustainable shark fishing can be done with careful, science-based management. In fact, they say, an outright shark ban won't work. The only way to protect sharks and the food security of people who depend on them is by managing shark f
  
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• Building a better microbial fuel cell—using paper

  06-02-2017 17:48
  
  The concept behind microbial fuel cells, which rely on bacteria to generate an electrical current, is more than a century old. But turning that concept into a usable tool has been a long process. Microbial fuel cells, or MFCs, are more promising today than ever, but before their adoption can become widespread, they need to be both cheaper and more efficient.
  
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• Only the hottest, most buoyant mantle plumes draw from a primordial reservoir deep in the Earth

  06-02-2017 17:47
  
  The Earth's mantle—the layer between the crust and the outer core—is home to a primordial soup even older than the moon. Among the main ingredients is helium-3 (He-3), a vestige of the Big Bang and nuclear fusion reactions in stars. And the mantle is its only terrestrial source.
  
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• Researchers discover a black hole feeding frenzy that breaks records

  06-02-2017 17:46
  
  A giant black hole ripped apart a nearby star and then continued to feed off its remains for close to a decade, according to research led by the University of New Hampshire. This black hole meal is more than 10 times longer than any other previous episode of a star's death.
  
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• MIT Engineers Harness Stomach Acid to Power Tiny Sensors

  06-02-2017 17:42 via scitechdaily.com
  
  Using ingestible electronic devices, a team of engineers harness stomach acid to power tiny sensors. Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have designed...
  The post MIT Engineers Harness Stomach Acid to Power Tiny Sensors appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• In crowd wisdom, the 'surprisingly popular' answer can trump ignorance of the masses

  06-02-2017 17:39
  
  Crowd wisdom such as what might arise from online voting is popularly assumed to provide better answers than any one person by aggregating multiple perspectives. Democratic methods, however, tend to favor the most popular information, not necessarily the most correct. The ignorance of the masses can cancel out a knowledgeable minority with specialized information of a topic, resulting in the wrong answer becoming the most accepted.
  
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• Novel microbial geldanamycin derivatives and cyclopentenone ansamycins from an abandoned coal mine

  06-02-2017 17:36
  
  Digging around in the dark can sometimes lead to interesting results: in the acidic waters of an abandoned coal mine in Kentucky (USA), researchers discovered ten previously unknown microbial natural products from a strain of Streptomyces. They have now introduced these compounds in the journal Angewandte Chemie. Four of the molecules contain a cyclopentenone ring, which is rare in this class of substances.
  
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• Scientists devise a new platform to overcome the limits of MRI contrast agents

  06-02-2017 17:34
  
  A research team led by CHEON Jinwoo at the Center for Nanomedicine, within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS), developed the Nano MRI Lamp: A new technology platform that tunes the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) signals "ON" only in the presence of the targeted disease. Published in Nature Materials, this study can overcome the limitations of existing MRI contrast agents.
  
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• When Stars Explode – Spiral Galaxy NGC 4981

  06-02-2017 17:25 via scitechdaily.com
  
  This newly released ESO image shows spiral galaxy NGC 4981. Over 75 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo (The Virgin) lies NGC 4981...
  The post When Stars Explode – Spiral Galaxy NGC 4981 appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Teen Sues Facebook After Posts Falsely Link Him to Terror

  06-02-2017 17:25 via nbcnews.com
  
  A German court is hear the case of a Syrian refugee who is suing Facebook after the site refused to remove all posts linking him to militant attacks.
  
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• University student gets 3 years' probation in cybercrime (Update)

  06-02-2017 17:08
  
  A Carnegie Mellon University student who developed and sold malicious software through an online cybercriminal marketplace that allowed others to remotely control Google Android smartphones has been sentenced to three years' probation.
  
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• Researchers seek to improve welfare in captive birds of prey through olfactory enrichment

  06-02-2017 17:07
  
  For the first time, researchers are exploring ways to improve welfare in captive birds of prey through olfactory enrichment- or using scent cues to alleviate boredom and encourage species-appropriate behavior. A new study appearing in Zoo Biology found that birds of prey, which had learned to associate the presence of food with the scent of peppermint oil, interacted more with peppermint-scented "sham" packages (i.e. without food) than unscented "sham" packages.
  
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• Hounded over Merkel selfie, Syrian refugee sues Facebook

  06-02-2017 17:07
  
  A Syrian refugee whose selfie with German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been repeatedly manipulated to link him to violent jihad will take Facebook to court Monday for spreading defamatory fake news.
  
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• Study finds troubling consequences for anti-Muslim and anti-Mexican attitudes and actions

  06-02-2017 17:04
  
  The President's recent Executive Order is attempting to close U.S. borders to citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, with the rationale that it would make Americans safer against the threat of terrorism. But new research from the University of Pennsylvania and Northwestern provides evidence that this action may do just the opposite.
  
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