Sci-Tech news

• Trump Signs Order to Move U.S. Cybersecurity to Cloud

  11-05-2017 23:57 via nbcnews.com
  
  The order moves as much of the government's cyberdefense to "the cloud" as possible, establishing a single structure centralizing all federal networks.
  
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• The Latest: Tillerson: US reviewing climate change policy

  11-05-2017 23:30
  
  Arctic nations have approved a document calling for global action to address climate change but U.S Secretary of State Rex Tillerson say his country continues to review its own policies
  
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• Microsoft aims to create a more versatile Windows 10

  11-05-2017 23:13
  
  Microsoft will try to make Windows 10 more versatile with a wave of new features for creating memories, exploring digitally manufactured settings and hopscotching from personal computers to mobile devices
  
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• Ancient Mars impacts created tornado-like winds that scoured surface

  11-05-2017 22:53
  
  In looking at NASA images of Mars a few years ago, Brown University geologist Peter Schultz noticed sets of strange bright streaks emanating from a few large-impact craters on the planet's surface. The streaks are odd in that they extend much farther from the craters than normal ejecta patterns, and they are only visible in thermal infrared images taken during the Martian night.
  
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• Microsoft's new VR controllers will be great—until SteamVR “Knuckles” arrive - Ars Technica

  11-05-2017 22:32 via arstechnica.com
  
  Ars Technica
  Microsoft's new VR controllers will be great—until SteamVR “Knuckles” arrive
  Ars Technica
  Thursday's Microsoft Build keynote included a repeated call from Technical Fellow Alex Kipman about the importance of mixed reality (meaning, virtual reality headsets and their "augmented" reality siblings like Hololens). This platform will drive "the ...
  Microsoft's mixed-reality devices undercut the Rift and Vive with lower pricesPCWorld
  I tried Microsoft's first Mixed Real
  
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• Dutch group says it will soon start cleaning up ocean trash

  11-05-2017 21:20
  
  A Dutch foundation aiming to rid the world's oceans of plastic waste says it will start cleaning up the huge area of floating junk known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch within the next 12 months, two years earlier than planned.
  
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• Using single-cell RNA sequencing and clever statistical analysis to track stem cells as they mature

  11-05-2017 21:19
  
  Adult stem cells have the ability to transform into many types of cells, but tracing the path individual stem cells follow as they mature and identifying the molecules that trigger these fateful decisions are difficult in a living animal.
  
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• Yale Study Identifies Safety Concerns for 1 in 3 FDA-Approved Drugs

  11-05-2017 21:15 via scitechdaily.com
  
  A new study led by Yale University reveals that nearly one out of every three drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have...
  The post Yale Study Identifies Safety Concerns for 1 in 3 FDA-Approved Drugs appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Three new sub-species of snow leopard discovered

  11-05-2017 21:09
  
  A recent research paper in the Journal of Heredity reveals that there are three sub-species of snow leopard. Until now, researchers had assumed this species, Panthera uncia, was monotypic.
  
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• New understanding of superconductor's 'normal' state may open the way to solving longstanding puzzle

  11-05-2017 21:07
  
  Since the discovery two decades ago of the unconventional topological superconductor Sr2RuO4, scientists have extensively investigated its properties at temperatures below its 1°K critical temperature (Tc), at which a phase transition from a metal to superconducting state occurs. Now experiments done at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the Madhavan and Abbamonte laboratories, in collaboration with researchers at six institutions in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, and Japan
  
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• Microsoft's next mobile strategy is to make iOS and Android better - The Verge

  11-05-2017 20:32 via theverge.com
  
  The Verge
  Microsoft's next mobile strategy is to make iOS and Android better
  The Verge
  Microsoft hasn't had a great time with mobile. While we can debate whether or not Windows Phone is finally dead, Microsoft is certainly ready to move on. After missing the mobile boat, Microsoft is now trying to sneak onto iOS and Android devices like ...
  Microsoft reaches beyond Windows with Timeline and Pick Up Where I Left OffArs Technica
  Microsoft's design rules push Windows 'beyond mere rectangles'Engadg
  
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• 'You're just meat' - Ukrainian soldiers get chilling texts

  11-05-2017 20:18
  
  An Associated Press investigation has found that Ukrainian soldiers are being bombarded by text messages likely dispatched by cell site simulators _ also known as IMSI catchers or Stingrays _ by pro-Russian separatists
  
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• Why one eye-targeting virus could make for a useful gene-delivery tool

  11-05-2017 20:11
  
  In their quest to replicate themselves, viruses have gotten awfully good at tricking human cells into pumping out viral proteins. That's why scientists have been working to use viruses as forces for good: to deliver useful genes to human cells and help patients who lack important proteins or enzymes.
  
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• Water, Weird Clouds Found on Alien 'Warm Neptune' - Space.com

  11-05-2017 20:07 via space.com
  
  Space.com
  Water, Weird Clouds Found on Alien 'Warm Neptune'
  Space.com
  By combining observations from NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, researchers found that the atmosphere of the distant “warm Neptune” exoplanet HAT-P-26b, illustrated here, is unexpectedly primitive, composed primarily of hydrogen and helium ...
  Water vapor found in the atmosphere of a hot, Neptune-sized planetThe Verge
  'Warm Neptune' Exoplanet Has Water, Primitive Atmosphere Of Hydrogen, HeliumInter
  
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• Study of worms reveals 'selfish genes' that encode a toxin—and its antidote

  11-05-2017 20:00
  
  A UCLA study has found that a common strain of Caenorhabditis elegans—a type of roundworm frequently used in laboratory research on neural development—has a pair of genes that encode both a poison and its antidote. The new research also revealed that if worms with the two genes mate with wild strains of C. elegans that don't have both genes, their offspring who don't inherit the antidote can't protect themselves from the toxin—which is produced by mother worms—and die whi
  
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• Saying goodbye to glaciers

  11-05-2017 20:00
  
  Glaciers around the world are disappearing before our eyes, and the implications for people are wide-ranging and troubling, Twila Moon, a glacier expert at the University of Colorado Boulder, concludes in a Perspectives piece in the journal Science today.
  
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• Primitive atmosphere discovered around 'Warm Neptune'

  11-05-2017 20:00
  
  A pioneering new study uncovering the 'primitive atmosphere' surrounding a distant world could provide a pivotal breakthrough in the search to how planets form and develop in far-flung galaxies.
  
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• Measuring the impact of a changing climate on threatened Yellowstone grizzly bears

  11-05-2017 20:00
  
  Climate change is altering the environment in Yellowstone National Park and its surrounding region and scientists at the University of California San Diego and Unity College are studying its impacts on the diets of threatened grizzly bears.
  
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• First comprehensive map of subcellular localization of proteins reveals new insights

  11-05-2017 20:00
  
  The first analysis of how proteins are arranged in a cell was published today in Science, revealing that a large portion of human proteins can be found in more than one location in a given cell.
  
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• Disentangling chloroplast genetics: Scientists isolate a critical gene for plant health

  11-05-2017 20:00
  
  Proper DNA inheritance is essential for healthy cell growth and division. The same goes for the genetic material found in chloroplasts: the energy centers of all plant cells.
  
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• Car Maker to Send Lunar Rovers to Historic Moon Landing Site

  11-05-2017 19:46 via nbcnews.com
  
  With the help of automaker Audi, a group of Berlin-based engineers is planning the first-ever private moon landing in 2018 — not only touching down on the moon but also delivering a pair of robotic rovers.
  
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• Discovery in the early universe poses black hole growth puzzle

  11-05-2017 19:00
  
  Quasars are luminous objects with supermassive black holes at their centers, visible over vast cosmic distances. Infalling matter increases the black hole mass and is also responsible for a quasar's brightness. Now, using the W.M. Keck observatory in Hawaii, astronomers led by Christina Eilers have discovered extremely young quasars with a puzzling property: these quasars have the mass of about a billion suns, yet have been collecting matter for less than 100,000 years. Conventional wisdom says
  
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• Windows 10 update aims to help identify best photos, videos

  11-05-2017 18:57
  
  An upcoming feature in Microsoft's Windows 10 system will automatically identify the best photos and videos to help people create highlights of their experiences.
  
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• Astrophysicists Examine the Influence of “Gravitational Noise” on Astrophysical Studies

  11-05-2017 18:22 via scitechdaily.com
  
  An international group of astrophysicists try to find out how strong the “gravitational noise” from the Milky Way is. It is widely known that our...
  The post Astrophysicists Examine the Influence of “Gravitational Noise” on Astrophysical Studies appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Robotic 'exoskeleton' prevents elderly falls: study

  11-05-2017 18:17
  
  Scientists unveiled a lightweight, robotic, outer "skeleton" Thursday that can detect when someone loses their balance, correct their gait, and prevent their fall.
  
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• New report details one of the iPhone 8's most hotly anticipated features - BGR

  11-05-2017 18:15 via bgr.com
  
  BGR
  New report details one of the iPhone 8's most hotly anticipated features
  BGR
  With good reason, the most anticipated feature the iPhone 8 will bring to the table is a radical new redesign featuring an edge to edge OLED display. But with the iPhone 8 display hogging the headlines, it's easy to forget that Apple's next-gen iPhone ...
  Apple publishes 'How to Shoot on iPhone 7' video series to websiteAppleInsider (press release) (blog)
  Apple put together a bunch of bite-sized iPhone camera lesso
  
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• Scientist identify key locations for spread of pin-tailed whydahs

  11-05-2017 18:13
  
  Invasive parasites are a biological oxymoron. And yet, they are in our backyards! This study analyzes the case of a brood parasitic bird, the pin-tailed whydah (Vidua macroura) and its recent spread into the Americas!
  
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• Maryland regulators OK nation's largest offshore wind plan

  11-05-2017 18:12
  
  Maryland regulators on Thursday approved plans for the nation's first large-scale offshore wind projects, saying the decision will position the state to be a leader in the developing industry.
  
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• NASA caught Tropical Storm Adrian quickly losing steam

  11-05-2017 18:07
  
  The first tropical storm of the Eastern Pacific Ocean season was already losing steam when the Suomi NPP satellite passed overhead the day it formed. By the next day, May 11, Tropical Storm Adrian weakened to a remnant low pressure area.
  
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• Snapchat faces harsh reality check after earnings miss

  11-05-2017 18:06
  
  Snapchat's hopes to become the next big social media platform hit a brutal reality check with the first earnings report from parent company Snap Inc.
  
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• Research increases distance at which supernova would spark mass extinctions on Earth

  11-05-2017 18:06
  
  In 2016, researchers published "slam dunk" evidence, based on iron-60 isotopes in ancient seabed, that supernovae buffeted the Earth—one of them about 2.6 million years ago. University of Kansas researcher Adrian Melott, professor of physics and astronomy, supported those findings in Nature with an associated letter, titled "Supernovae in the neighborhood."
  
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• Researchers Use Separate Universe Simulations to Study the Clustering of Dark Matter

  11-05-2017 18:03 via scitechdaily.com
  
  Using the separate universe simulations technique, researchers reveal some of the most precise measurements of the local bias – confirming the known trend that more...
  The post Researchers Use Separate Universe Simulations to Study the Clustering of Dark Matter appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• This nasal receptor mediates the appetizing smell of fish food

  11-05-2017 18:00
  
  The aquatic environment is full of tantalizing chemicals that can guide a fish to mates or meals. Now, scientists in Japan have identified the olfactory receptor and brain circuitry that picks up the scent of adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. Although mostly known for carrying energy within cells, ATP is also a constituent of fish prey such as brine shrimp and plankton. The newly identified receptor is unique to fish and amphibians and is the gateway to initiating foraging behaviors in the zebrafi
  
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• How plankton and bacteria shape ocean spray

  11-05-2017 18:00
  
  As the oceans ebb and flow, the resulting waves and splashes form tiny bubbles. The bubbles burst and release a vapor—called sea spray aerosol—into the air. This aerosol scatters sunlight and is involved in forming clouds and ultimately climate. But no two bubbles are the same, University of California, San Diego, researchers report May 11 in the journal Chem. They analyzed sea spray and found that the atmospheric-changing properties of the bubbles are influenced by the presence of p
  
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• Baleen whales' ancestors were toothy suction feeders

  11-05-2017 18:00
  
  Modern whales' ancestors probably hunted and chased down prey, but somehow, those fish-eating hunters evolved into filter-feeding leviathans. An analysis of a 36.4-million-year-old whale fossil suggests that before baleen whales lost their teeth, they were suction feeders that most likely dove down and sucked prey into their large mouths. The study published on May 11 in Current Biology also shows that whales most likely lost the hind limbs that stuck out from their bodies more recently than pre
  
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• Antibiotic-resistant microbes date back to 450 million years ago, well before the age of dinosaurs

  11-05-2017 18:00
  
  Leading hospital "superbugs," known as the enterococci, arose from an ancestor that dates back 450 million years—about the time when animals were first crawling onto land (and well before the age of dinosaurs), according to a new study led by researchers from Massachusetts Eye and Ear, the Harvard-wide Program on Antibiotic Resistance and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Published online today in Cell, the study authors shed light on the evolutionary history of these pathogens, whic
  
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• Tropical Cyclone Ella wrapped in NASA imagery

  11-05-2017 17:55
  
  Tropical Cyclone Ella has large bands of thunderstorms wrapping around the center and from the east of center in imagery from the NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite.
  
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• Study finds bacteria in marine sponge produce toxic flame retardant-like compounds

  11-05-2017 17:49
  
  A Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego-led research team discovered for the first time that a common marine sponge hosts bacteria that specialize in the production of toxic compounds nearly identical to man-made fire retardants.
  
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• MIT Biologists Discover Key Step in Lung Cancer Evolution

  11-05-2017 17:42 via scitechdaily.com
  
  A team of researchers from MIT has discovered a major switch that occurs as adenomas transition to adenocarcinomas in lung cancer. They’ve also discovered that...
  The post MIT Biologists Discover Key Step in Lung Cancer Evolution appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Scientists name newly ID'd dino for 'Ghostbusters' monster

  11-05-2017 16:40
  
  Scientists in Toronto have named a newly identified dinosaur after a monster from the original "Ghostbusters" film
  
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• Fin24.com | Vodacom launches municipal service delivery apps

  11-05-2017 16:08
  
  A municipality in Umtata has become the first in the country to implement a new system by Vodacom to improve the reporting of service delivery issues.
  
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• Netflix to hire hundreds for new Amsterdam customer hub

  11-05-2017 16:05
  
  Streaming service Netflix says it will hire 400 staff for its new Amsterdam-based European customer service headquarters and plans to announce at least six new original European projects before the end of 2017.
  
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• New biosensor zymonic acid shows changes in pH value

  11-05-2017 16:02
  
  Tumors, inflammation and circulatory disorders locally disturb the body's acid-base balance. These changes in pH value could be used for example to verify the success of cancer treatments. Up to now, however, there has been no imaging method to render such changes visible in patients. Now a team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has developed a pH sensor that renders pH values visible through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) - in a non-invasive, radiation-free manner.
  
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• Irreversible ocean warming threatens the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf

  11-05-2017 16:00
  
  By the second half of this century, rising air temperatures above the Weddell Sea could set off a self-amplifying meltwater feedback cycle under the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, ultimately causing the second-largest ice shelf in the Antarctic to shrink dramatically. Climate researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) recently made this prediction in a new study, which can be found in the latest issue of the Journal of Climate, released today. In
  
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• Learning Styles—A once hot debate redshifts

  11-05-2017 15:58
  
  What is the best way for teachers to teach so students will really learn? That's an age-old question.
  
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• Not survival of the fittest for Tassie devils

  11-05-2017 15:57
  
  Fit and healthy Tasmanian devils are being taken down by deadly facial tumors that are attacking the 'best' animals in the population, according to novel research led by Griffith University.
  
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• Google Pixel 2 concept suggests Google will double down on a key Pixel feature - BGR

  11-05-2017 14:46 via bgr.com
  
  BGR
  Google Pixel 2 concept suggests Google will double down on a key Pixel feature
  BGR
  It's pretty common to see plenty of iPhone concepts flood YouTube at this time of year, as designers try to imagine Apple's next smartphone. But the iPhone 8 isn't the only hot handset launching later this year, and some creative minds have already ...
  Here's how the Pixel 2 can be the best phone of 2017Greenbot
  This Google Pixel 2 Concept Has Dual Camera Both On Back And FrontValueWalk
  Google Pixel "taimen"
  
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• Russian blogger convicted for playing 'Pokemon Go' in church

  11-05-2017 14:38
  
  A Russian blogger has been convicted for inciting religious hatred for playing "Pokemon Go" in a church, and given a suspended sentence
  
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• Rapper Bow Wow Mocked After Posting Photo of 'Private Plane'

  11-05-2017 14:04 via nbcnews.com
  
  It's not the first time the 30-year-old star has been caught out on social media.
  
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• WATCH: Lawsuit filed against online real estate company Zillow

  11-05-2017 13:45
  
  An Illinois homeowner claims the site's "Zestimate" tool repeatedly undervalued her house.
  
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