Sci-Tech news

• NASA engages the next generation with HUNCH

  19-04-2017 22:52
  
  NASA is making sure the next generation of high school graduates understand the variety of career paths that can lead to missions exploring space. In fact, hundreds of students are already helping NASA's astronauts live and work aboard the International Space Station - the orbiting research platform making discoveries that benefit Earth while developing the technology that will allow humans to live and work in deep space.
  
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• Facebook Wants to Make It Possible to Type With Just Your Brain

  19-04-2017 22:33 via nbcnews.com
  
  It could allow the deaf and blind to communicate more easily — or let everyone else "to type five times faster than you can on a smartphone."
  
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• The 30 Games I'd Most Like To See On SNES Classic - Kotaku

  19-04-2017 22:32
  
  Kotaku
  The 30 Games I'd Most Like To See On SNES Classic
  Kotaku
  Considering Nintendo's bizarre decision-making process, it's nice to hear that the company may be doing the correct and obvious thing and releasing a SNES Classic this holiday season. Here are the games I'd put on it if I were in charge. Advertisement.
  SNES Classic Edition could catch us up with a system we missed the first time aroundPolygon
  What we want in an “SNES Mini”Ars Technica
  Here Are The 30 Games Nintendo Shou
  
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• Cassini heads toward final close encounter with Titan

  19-04-2017 22:32
  
  NASA's Cassini spacecraft will make its final close flyby of Saturn's haze-enshrouded moon Titan this weekend. The flyby marks the mission's final opportunity for up-close observations of the lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons that spread across the moon's northern polar region, and the last chance to use its powerful radar to pierce the haze and make detailed images of the surface.
  
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• Close call: When asteroids whisk past Earth

  19-04-2017 22:30
  
  A peanut-shaped asteroid 1.3 kilometres (3,280 feet) across streaked past Earth on Wednesday, giving astronomers a rare chance to check out a big space rock up close.
  
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• Facebook out to read minds (Update)

  19-04-2017 22:29
  
  Facebook wants to read your mind.
  
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• Facebook out to read minds

  19-04-2017 22:29
  
  Facebook wants to read your mind.
  
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• Plastic pollution builds up in Arctic waters: study

  19-04-2017 22:24
  
  Even though few people live in the Artic, some seas in the region are heavily polluted with plastic because of an Atlantic ocean current which dumps debris there, researchers said Wednesday.
  
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• Science is core to saving wildlife

  19-04-2017 22:21
  
  The following statement was issued today by Wildlife Conservation Society President and CEO Cristian Samper on the importance of science to wildlife conservation:
  
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• A better way to manage phosphorus?

  19-04-2017 22:19
  
  All living things - from bacteria and fungi to plants and animals - need phosphorus. But extra phosphorus in the wrong place can harm the environment. For example, when too much phosphorus enters a lake or stream, it can lead to excessive weed growth and algal blooms. Low-oxygen dead zones can form.
  
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• Students may forget relevant information in order to protect their own psyches

  19-04-2017 22:17
  
  UCLA-led research has found that students in a college mathematics course experienced a phenomenon similar to repression, the psychological process in which people forget emotional or traumatic events to protect themselves.
  
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• Broad advance from chemists dramatically simplifies olefin synthesis

  19-04-2017 22:15
  
  Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have discovered a new method that greatly simplifies, and in many cases enables for the first time, the making of a vast range of organic molecules.
  
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• March participants interested in both promoting, defending science

  19-04-2017 22:14
  
  Encouraging science-based policies and defending science from political attacks are strong motivators for March for Science participants, according to a new University of Delaware Center for Political Communication survey.
  
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• Living with a star: NASA and partners survey space weather science

  19-04-2017 22:13
  
  NASA has long been a leader in understanding the science of space weather, including research into the potential for induced electrical currents to disrupt our power systems. Last year, NASA scientists worked with scientists and engineers from research institutions and industry during a pair of intensive week-long workshops in order to assess the state of science surrounding this type of space weather. This summary was published Jan. 30, 2017, in the journal Space Weather.
  
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• New microscopy method breaks color barrier of optical imaging

  19-04-2017 22:12
  
  Researchers at Columbia University have made a significant step toward breaking the so-called "color barrier" of light microscopy for biological systems, allowing for much more comprehensive, system-wide labeling and imaging of a greater number of biomolecules in living cells and tissues than is currently attainable. The advancement has the potential for many future applications, including helping to guide the development of therapies to treat and cure disease.
  
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• Hazardous chemicals go unregulated in routine oil and gas operations

  19-04-2017 22:11
  
  California and more than two dozen other states require oil and gas producers to disclose the chemicals they use during hydraulic fracturing activities, enabling scientific and public scrutiny of the environmental and human health hazards these substances may pose. But all existing disclosure regulations cover chemical use only in hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, and, in California, two other types of well-stimulation treatments. Many of the same chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing go
  
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• Google Wants to Map Your Health

  19-04-2017 22:09 via nbcnews.com
  
  Google's life sciences arm is launching a four-year study of people's health.
  
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• Geeking out in the golden years

  19-04-2017 22:09
  
  Philip Guo caught the coding bug in high school, at a fairly typical age for a Millennial. Less typical is that the UC San Diego cognitive scientist is now eager to share his passion for programming with a different demographic. And it's not one you're thinking of - it's not elementary or middle school-aged kids. Guo wants to get adults age 60 and up.
  
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• Alphabet's Verily to embark on health-mapping study

  19-04-2017 22:04
  
  Alphabet's life sciences unit Verily on Wednesday announced a study to track people for years, right down to their genetics, in a quest for insights into staying healthy.
  
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• Facebook is building brain-computer interfaces for typing and skin-hearing - TechCrunch

  19-04-2017 21:50
  
  TechCrunch
  Facebook is building brain-computer interfaces for typing and skin-hearing
  TechCrunch
  Today at F8, Facebook revealed it has a team of 60 engineers working on building a brain-computer interface that will let you type with just your mind without invasive implants. The team plans to use optical imaging to scan your brain a hundred times ...
  Are You Ready To Trust Facebook With Your Brain?BuzzFeed News
  Facebook's moonshots: Making brains type and skin hearCNET
  Facebook is developing a w
  
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• Turns Out Running Is Socially Contagious

  19-04-2017 21:25 via nbcnews.com
  
  Got an exercise app on your smart phone? Your posts might be convincing your friends to get fit, too.
  
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• Wunder no more: Microsoft releases new task managing app called To-Do - PCWorld

  19-04-2017 20:18
  
  PCWorld
  Wunder no more: Microsoft releases new task managing app called To-Do
  PCWorld
  It's been almost two years since Microsoft bought the cross-platform task master Wunderlist, but you wouldn't know it to look at it. Unlike Sunrise and Accompli, which were shuttered and combined into Outlook mobile, Wunderlist has mostly been left alone.
  Microsoft to shut down Wunderlist in favor of its new app, To-DoTechCrunch
  Microsoft's Wunderlist successor, To-Do, hits public previewZDNet
  Microsoft Authen
  
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• Do Driverless Cars Compromise Safety for Convenience?

  19-04-2017 20:17 via nbcnews.com
  
  Even before driverless cars, cars are now "computers on wheels." How did that happen? The story begins forty-five years ago with a quest to make cars safer and the battle over the air bag.
  
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• Most American Drivers Are Still a Little Afraid of Autonomous Vehicles

  19-04-2017 20:05 via nbcnews.com
  
  A new study show that when it comes to autonomous vehicles, Americans' trust in the technology is declining.
  
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• Newly discovered Egyptian carnivore named after Anubis, ancient Egyptian god of underworld

  19-04-2017 20:00
  
  Analysis of Egyptian fossils has identified a new species of extinct carnivorous mammals called hyaenodonts, according to a study published April 19, 2017 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Matthew Borths from Ohio University, United States of America, and Erik Seiffert from University of Southern California, United States of America.
  
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• Ancient reptile tracks in the Pyrenees may include evidence of a new type of footprint

  19-04-2017 20:00
  
  A large set of tracks made by archosauromorphs in the Pyrenees mountain range may include a new type of footprint made by reptiles that lived 247 million years ago, according to a study published April 19, 2017 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Eudald Mujal from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain, and colleagues.
  
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• Galaxy S8 Guide: Customizing Navigation Bar - Droid Life (press release) (blog)

  19-04-2017 19:50
  
  Droid Life (press release) (blog)
  Galaxy S8 Guide: Customizing Navigation Bar
  Droid Life (press release) (blog)
  If you saw our initial hands-on with the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+, you'll have seen that customizing the navigation bar on the Galaxy S8 is not only easy, but pretty darn cool. On this device, Samsung allows owners to switch up the button order (Back ...and more »
  
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• Bose Headphones Spies on Listeners: Suit

  19-04-2017 19:45 via nbcnews.com
  
  Data mining lawsuits are on the rise as a variety of electronic devices gather more and more information about users.
  
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• Facebook's new Surround 360 video cameras let you move around inside live-action scenes - The Verge

  19-04-2017 19:15
  
  The Verge
  Facebook's new Surround 360 video cameras let you move around inside live-action scenes
  The Verge
  Facebook today announced the second generation of its Surround 360 video camera design, and this time the company is serious about helping potential customers purchase it as an actual product. The Surround 360, which Facebook unveiled last year as ...
  Facebook will license its new 360 cameras that capture in six degrees of freedomTechCrunch
  Facebook's new VR cameras will get you bobb
  
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• New super-sized Earth may be close enough to detect signs of life - USA TODAY

  19-04-2017 19:05
  
  USA TODAY
  New super-sized Earth may be close enough to detect signs of life
  USA TODAY
  Scientists have found a planet the size of a jumbo Earth circling a nearby star, meaning it is one of the handful of worlds where astronomers' sensors might be powerful enough to detect signs of life. The new planet, known as LHS 1140b, receives enough ...
  Newfound Alien Planet Is Best Place Yet to Search for LifeSpace.com
  A rocky 'super-Earth' with the potential for liquid water is found 39 light-years a
  
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• Video: Earth's little garbage people?

  19-04-2017 19:03
  
  If you're enjoying some tasty food today that has at least one ingredient that was farmed somewhere, you probably owe a little thanks to earthworms.
  
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• Report: Can't blame El Nino as global temps spike in March (Update)

  19-04-2017 19:03
  
  In what scientists call a clear sign of a warming world, Earth's temperatures in March were the most above normal on record without an El Nino spiking temperatures.
  
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• Report: Can't blame El Nino as global temps spike in March

  19-04-2017 19:03
  
  In what scientists call a clear sign of a warming world, Earth's temperatures in March were the most above-normal on record without an El Nino spiking temperatures.
  
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• The arrhythmic beating of a black hole heart

  19-04-2017 19:01
  
  At the center of the Centaurus galaxy cluster, there is a large elliptical galaxy called NGC 4696. Deeper still, there is a supermassive black hole buried within the core of this galaxy.
  
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• Water is streaming across Antarctica: New survey finds liquid flow more widespread than thought

  19-04-2017 19:00
  
  In the first such continent-wide survey, scientists have found extensive drainages of meltwater flowing over parts of Antarctica's ice during the brief summer. Researchers already knew such features existed, but assumed they were confined mainly to Antarctica's fastest-warming, most northerly reaches. Many of the newly mapped drainages are not new, but the fact they exist at all is significant; they appear to proliferate with small upswings in temperature, so warming projected for this century c
  
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• Trump to call commander of International Space Station

  19-04-2017 19:00
  
  President Donald Trump will speak next week to the commander of the orbiting International Space Station.
  
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• Study—for the first time—links specific genes with parenting behavior across species

  19-04-2017 19:00
  
  Why is it that some species seem to be particularly attentive parents while others leave their young to fend for themselves? For years, scientists have believed one of the major drivers was experience - an animal raised by an attentive parent, the argument went, was likely to be an attentive parent itself.
  
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• Newly discovered exoplanet may be best candidate in search for signs of life

  19-04-2017 19:00
  
  The newly discovered super-Earth LHS 1140b orbits in the habitable zone around a faint red dwarf star named LHS 1140, in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). Red dwarfs are much smaller and cooler than the Sun and, although LHS 1140b is ten times closer to its star than the Earth is to the Sun, it only receives about half as much sunlight from its star as the Earth and lies in the middle of the habitable zone. The orbit is seen almost edge-on from Earth and as the exoplanet passes in fr
  
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• Graphene 'copy machine' may produce cheap semiconductor wafers

  19-04-2017 19:00
  
  In 2016, annual global semiconductor sales reached their highest-ever point, at $339 billion worldwide. In that same year, the semiconductor industry spent about $7.2 billion worldwide on wafers that serve as the substrates for microelectronics components, which can be turned into transistors, light-emitting diodes, and other electronic and photonic devices.
  
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• Action required: Invasive fungus is killing European salamanders

  19-04-2017 19:00
  
  A new fungal disease brought in from Asia is threatening European salamanders. Once the amphibians become infected, they die within a brief period of time, as biologists of the universities of Zurich and Ghent have shown in a Nature paper. Because saving the infected populations is still not possible, Switzerland has preventively imposed an import ban for salamanders and newts.
  
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• Pilot, meteorologist vying to be first German female astronaut

  19-04-2017 18:49
  
  A fighter pilot and a meteorologist have made the finals in the race to become Germany's first female astronaut.
  
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• NASA sees a well-defined center in Ex-Tropical Depression 02W's remnants

  19-04-2017 18:49
  
  NASA's Terra satellite passed over the remnants of Tropical Depression 02W as it continued to linger west of the northern Philippines on April 19.
  
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• Crop-killing armyworm caterpillar reaches Rwanda, Kenya

  19-04-2017 18:48
  
  Rwanda's government announced on Wednesday it had discovered fall armyworm on its crops, making it the third east African country afflicted by the plant-eating pest also recently spotted in Kenya.
  
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• NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures a Winter’s View of a Gullied Crater

  19-04-2017 18:44 via scitechdaily.com
  
  This newly released Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image shows the location with the most impressive known gully activity in Mars’ northern hemisphere. Gullies are active in...
  The post NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures a Winter’s View of a Gullied Crater appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Birds vs. bees: Study helps explain how flowers evolved to get pollinators to specialize

  19-04-2017 18:40
  
  Ecologists who study flowering plants have long believed that flowers evolved with particular sets of characteristics—unique combinations of colors, shapes, and orientations, for example—as a means of attracting specific pollinators. But a recent paper in the journal Ecology suggests that flowers that are visited almost exclusively by hummingbirds are actually designed not to lure birds, but to deter bumblebees and their wasteful visits.
  
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• Report identifies grand challenges to better prepare for volcanic eruptions

  19-04-2017 18:39
  
  Despite broad understanding of volcanoes, our ability to predict the timing, duration, type, size, and consequences of volcanic eruptions is limited, says a new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. To improve eruption forecasting and warnings to save lives, the report identifies research priorities for better monitoring of volcanic eruptions and three grand challenges facing the volcano science community.
  
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• Researcher hones in on plaque-causing protein in ALS and dementia

  19-04-2017 18:38
  
  In a recent paper published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry Yuna Ayala, Ph.D., assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Saint Louis University, and her research team made advances in understanding how a protein causes damaging plaques to build up in neurodegenerative illnesses like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and a form of dementia called frontotemporal lobar degeneration.
  
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• In new paper, scientists explain climate change using before/after photographic evidence

  19-04-2017 18:37
  
  A group of scientists offers photographic proof of climate change using images of retreating glaciers in a new paper, "Savor the Cryosphere," appearing in GSA Today, a peer-reviewed publication of the Geological Society of America.
  
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• New Breath Test Provides Non‐Invasive Lung Cancer Diagnosis

  19-04-2017 18:20 via scitechdaily.com
  
  Researchers at the Max Planck Institute have developed a method that can detect the disease at an early stage. New research on healthy volunteers and...
  The post New Breath Test Provides Non‐Invasive Lung Cancer Diagnosis appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Study ranks which production attributes are most important to consumers when buying beef, chicken

  19-04-2017 17:05
  
  For many consumers, buying a gallon of milk is much more complex than finding the preferred fat content and expiration date. They want to know how the cows were treated, what they were fed, whether they received growth hormones or antibiotics, whether the milk is organic, and so on. A recent University of Illinois study ranks which of these production attributes are most important to buyers for four different products: beef, chicken, milk, and eggs.
  
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