Sci-Tech news

• Researchers Reveal a New Way to Enhance or Reduce the Adhesion of Freezing Droplets

  11-09-2017 23:38 via scitechdaily.com
  Researchers from MIT have discovered a surprising new twist to the mechanics involved when droplets come in contact with surfaces, allowing them to enhance or...
  The post Researchers Reveal a New Way to Enhance or Reduce the Adhesion of Freezing Droplets appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• This Is What It’s Like Flying a Drone in the Eye of a Hurricane

  11-09-2017 23:24 via feedproxy.google.com
  Brian Emfinger is a lifelong storm chaser, and as a photojournalist and drone pilot for KATV in Little Rock, Arkansas, his work takes him places other people would flee.He was in Rockport, Texas, when Harvey came onshore. He flew his drone after the eye passed overhead, gathering gripping shots of the aftermath across the region.But as Emfinger geared up to chase Hurricane Irma into Florida, he knew he wanted to capture a drone perspective like no other. He wanted to fly his DJI Mavi
  
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• Russian cyber hacker pleads guilty in identity theft case

  11-09-2017 23:13
  A Russian cybercriminal identified as a leader of a $50 million identity theft and credit card fraud ring has pleaded guilty in Atlanta to helping to steal millions of debit card numbers and swiftly loot accounts in cities around the world, federal authorities said.
  
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• How to fix identity-theft issues posed by the Equifax hack

  11-09-2017 23:13
  The Equifax breach didn't just expose sensitive personal information of 143 million Americans—it underscored the huge vulnerabilities that make widespread identity theft possible.
  
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• New evidence suggests octupuses aren't loners

  11-09-2017 23:12
  Octopuses are usually solitary creatures, but a new site in the waters off the east coast of Australia is the home of up to 15 gloomy octopuses (Octopus tetricus) that have been been observed communicating—either directly as in den evictions or indirectly through posturing, chasing or color changes, according to findings reported in the journal Marine and Freshwater Behaviour and Physiology.
  
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• Rising CO2 leading to changes in land plant photosynthesis

  11-09-2017 23:11
  Researchers led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego have determined that major changes in plant behavior have occurred over the past 40 years, using measurements of subtle changes in the carbon dioxide (CO2) currently found in the atmosphere.
  
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• GM unit says it has 'mass producible' autonomous cars

  11-09-2017 23:08
  The General Motors unit developing autonomous vehicles said Monday it has begun rolling out the first "mass producible" self-driving cars that could be available once regulations allow.
  
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• Irma: downed trees and sunken boats, but sighs of relief in Miami

  11-09-2017 22:40
  Residents of Miami awoke Monday to fallen trees and branches, broken traffic lights, closed roads and sunken yachts.
  
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• New Legislation: Self-Driving Car Riders’ Privacy ‘Unsafe at Any Speed’

  11-09-2017 22:29 via technocracy.news
  It’s a train wreck for personal privacy, but the House is letting self-driving cars loose in America; the Senate must now confirm the action. With continuous data transmission from the instant you set foot in your car, geospatial intelligence will be a reality. This is one element of the holy grail for Technocrats. ⁃ TN EditorC-3PO tends to be most people’s first representation of a super smart robot. Star Wars’ beloved protocol droid acts very m
  
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• Study of circular DNA comes full circle with use of old technique

  11-09-2017 22:23
  A 50-year-old lab technique is helping researchers better understand circular DNA, a lesser-known and poorly understood cousin of the linear version commonly associated with life's genetic blueprint.
  
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• Astronomers resolve mystery of white dwarf's mass

  11-09-2017 22:13
  New observations of the white dwarf/red dwarf binary star 40 Eridani BC by astronomers at the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO) have revealed new, definitive values for the orbital period and masses of the components of this interesting stellar pair. A paper describing the observations and the results by Dr. Brian Mason, Dr. Bill Hartkopf, and intern Korie Miles has been accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal.
  
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• Survivors, relatives, volunteers connect online for Irma aid

  11-09-2017 22:09
  Worried relatives, generous volunteers, frantic neighbors, even medical providers are turning to social media now that Hurricane Irma wiped out electricity and cell service to communities across Florida, cutting off most contact with remote islands in the Keys.
  
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• EPA grants pollution waiver to Florida utilities after Irma

  11-09-2017 22:09
  State and federal environmental regulators issued a blanket waiver on Monday for Florida electricity companies to violate clean air and water standards without penalty for the next two weeks.
  
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• Wanted: Volunteer shooters to thin Grand Canyon bison herd (Update)

  11-09-2017 22:08
  The National Park Service plans to thin a herd of bison in the Grand Canyon through roundups and by seeking volunteers who are physically fit and proficient with a gun to kill the animals that increasingly are damaging park resources.
  
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• Volunteer shooters to help thin Grand Canyon bison herds

  11-09-2017 22:08
  The National Park Service plans to thin a herd of bison in the Grand Canyon through roundups and by seeking volunteers who are physically fit and proficient with a gun to kill the animals that increasingly are damaging park resources.
  
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• How two ground-based telescopes support NASA's Cassini mission

  11-09-2017 22:08
  When NASA's Cassini spacecraft plunges into the atmosphere of Saturn on Sept. 15, ending its 20 years of exploration, astronomers will observe the giant planet from Earth, giving context to Cassini's final measurements.
  
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• Key process to be modernized in production of life-saving drugs, food preservation

  11-09-2017 22:07
  A consortium of experts is working to modernize a process that is used in making a wide range of products, from freeze-dried space foods to life-saving wonder drugs.
  
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• We're All a Little Plastic on the Inside

  11-09-2017 22:03 via feedproxy.google.com
  You're made of water, bone, blood, muscle and fat; you're also a few parts plastic.That is, if you prefer sea salt on your meal. Or honey, shellfish, beer or tap water. Recent studies have found microplastics, tiny shards of degraded plastic, in them all. Even the air is filled with the minuscule plastic bits.
  Plastic Not-So-Fantastic
  Hold off on the panic though; it's still too early for researchers to say what the effects of microplastic consumption are, although preliminary studies
  
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• You don’t actually want these parasites to go extinct

  11-09-2017 22:00
  
  AnimalsClimate change won't just impact charismatic critters.
  Humans might fantasize about a world without parasites. But they connect food webs and serve vital purposes in every ecosystem. Without them, scientists don’t know what…
  
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• Volkswagen to electrify entire range by 2030

  11-09-2017 21:39
  German carmaker Volkswagen doubled down Monday on efforts to clean up its image tarnished by the dieselgate scandal, vowing ahead of the IAA auto industry show to electrify its entire range by 2030.
  
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• UK wind electricity cheaper than nuclear: data

  11-09-2017 21:39
  The price of electricity from offshore wind in Britain has dipped below the level guaranteed to Hinkley Point, raising questions about the construction of the vast nuclear power station.
  
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• Cuba counts the cost of deadly Hurricane Irma

  11-09-2017 21:39
  Cuba emerged from a 72-hour thrashing by Hurricane Irma on Monday with three-quarters of the population without power, as the country began the task of restoring basic infrastructure and services.
  
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• Getting up to speed on the Equifax data breach scandal

  11-09-2017 21:38
  Equifax has been scrambling to explain itself since disclosing last week that it exposed vital data about 143 million Americans—effectively most of the U.S. adult population. It's come under fire from members of Congress, state attorneys general, and people who are getting conflicting answers about whether their information was stolen.
  
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• Modelling impact of changing precipitation patterns in northern European and North American cities

  11-09-2017 21:37
  Southern cities such as Houston and Tampa—which faced the wrath of hurricanes Harvey and Irma, respectively—may not be the only urban environments vulnerable to extreme weather. Northern cities also face the potential for flooding as global temperatures continue to warm.
  
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• Why your ancestors would have aced the long jump

  11-09-2017 21:31
  A 52-million-year-old ankle fossil suggests our prehuman ancestors were high-flying acrobats.
  
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• Ethnic diversity in schools may be good for students' grades, study suggests

  11-09-2017 21:31
  Early adolescents' grades were higher when they socialized with peers from other ethnicities, according to the findings of a University of California, Davis, study that looked at the lunching habits of more than 800 sixth-graders in three states.
  
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• Airline industry could fly thousands of miles on biofuel from a new promising feedstock

  11-09-2017 21:29
  A Boeing 747 burns one gallon of jet fuel each second. A recent analysis from researchers at the University of Illinois estimate that this aircraft could fly for 10 hours on bio-jet fuel produced on 54 acres of specially engineered sugarcane.
  
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• Chemist creates next generation of neuroscience tools

  11-09-2017 21:27
  UAlberta chemistry professor Robert Campbell is developing new ways to see and manipulate the activity of neurons in the brain, which could revolutionize the way we understand the organ that controls most of the activities of the body.
  
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• Study reveals a new way to enhance or reduce the adhesion of freezing droplets

  11-09-2017 21:25
  When freezing droplets impact a surface, they generally either stick to it or bounce away. Controlling this response is crucial to many applications, including 3-D printing, the spraying of some surface coatings, and the prevention of ice formation on structures such as airplane wings, wind turbines, or power lines.
  
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• Cassini Spacecraft Captures One of Its Last Views of Saturn

  11-09-2017 21:18 via scitechdaily.com
  Taken on October 28, 2016, Cassini captured one of its last looks at Saturn and its main rings. Cassini has been orbiting Saturn for nearly...
  The post Cassini Spacecraft Captures One of Its Last Views of Saturn appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• When ancient fossil DNA isn't available, ancient glycans may help trace human evolution

  11-09-2017 21:00
  Ancient DNA recovered from fossils is a valuable tool to study evolution and anthropology. Yet ancient fossil DNA from earlier geological ages has not been found yet in any part of Africa, where it's destroyed by extreme heat and humidity. In a potential first step at overcoming this hurdle, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Turkana Basin Institute in Kenya have discovered a new kind of glycan—a type of sugar chain—that survives even in a 4 mill
  
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• To improve health monitoring, simply trip the 'nanoswitch'

  11-09-2017 21:00
  Engineered strands of DNA—nanoscale tools called "nanoswitches"—could be the key to faster, easier, cheaper and more sensitive tests that can enable high-fidelity detection of biomarkers indicating the presence of different diseases, viral strains and even genetic variabilities as subtle as a single-gene mutation.
  
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• The bees behind your morning coffee might be in big trouble

  11-09-2017 21:00
  
  From Our Blogs: Nexus Media News Much more than your morning buzz is at stake.
  Global warming will take a toll on coffee-pollinating bees, potentially crippling the output of coffee-producing regions in Latin America.
  
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• Team uses an innovative network approach to explain polygonal patterns in clouds

  11-09-2017 21:00
  Polygons are widespread in nature: Drying mud may crack into many-sided blocks, and bees shape honeycomb into regular, six-sided cells. Hexagons also appear in broad sheets of clouds across parts of Earth's oceans, and now a team of researchers has used a network approach to analyze why. Their work promises to help scientists to find more accurate descriptions of clouds in computer models of weather and climate change.
  
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• Researchers find 'internal clock' within live human cells

  11-09-2017 21:00
  A team of scientists has revealed an internal clock within live human cells, a finding that creates new opportunities for understanding the building blocks of life and the onset of disease.
  
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• Coral loss on Palm Islands long precedes 2016 mass bleaching on Great Barrier Reef

  11-09-2017 21:00
  Extensive loss of branching corals and changes in coral community structure in Australia's Palm Islands region over the past century has been revealed in a new study.
  
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• Climate change a buzzkill for coffee lovers

  11-09-2017 21:00
  Global warming could reduce coffee growing areas in Latin America—the world's largest coffee-producing region—by as much as 88 percent by 2050.
  
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• Air pollution cuts three years off lifespans in Northern China

  11-09-2017 21:00
  There are currently an estimated 4.5 billion people around the world exposed to levels of particulate air pollution that are at least twice what the World Health Organization (WHO) considers safe. Yet, the impact of sustained exposure to pollution on a person's life expectancy has largely remained a vexingly unanswered question—until now.
  
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• Images from Cassini’s Last Enceladus Plume Observation

  11-09-2017 20:10 via scitechdaily.com
  Using images from the last dedicated observation of the Enceladus plume by NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft, astronomers put together this short movie sequence. The images were...
  The post Images from Cassini’s Last Enceladus Plume Observation appeared first on SciTech Daily.
  
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• Watch out for hype—science 'spin' prevalent, researchers warn

  11-09-2017 20:00
  More than a quarter of biomedical scientific papers may utilise practices that distort the interpretation of results or mislead readers so that results are viewed more favourably, a new study, publishing on September 11 in the open access journal PLOS Biology, suggests.
  
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• Cleaning with bleach might increase your chance of getting COPD. How worried should you be?

  11-09-2017 20:00
  
  HealthDisinfectants aren’t good for you, but they’re also not the main cause of lung problems.
  You shouldn’t breathe in bleach.If you could avoid ever coming in contact with it again, you’d be healthier. But the same is true of high fructose corn syrup and…
  
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• 71 percent off an Anker powerport and other good deals happening today

  11-09-2017 20:00
  
  GadgetsOur commerce editor helps you get the goods for cheaper.
  PopSci is always on the lookout for today's best deals. Our lists will be updated throughout the day, so check back to see if stumbled upon any awesome new discounts.
  
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• Last week in tech: It’s new iPhone eve

  11-09-2017 19:20
  
  TechnologyKill time before tomorrow's announcement with last week's biggest tech stories.
  Kill time before the iPhone announcement with this recap of last week's big tech stories.
  
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• Northwest forests will get more and bigger wildfires with climate change

  11-09-2017 19:10
  As night fell last Monday in the Columbia River Gorge, the Oregon slopes burned as if carpet-bombed from above. Winds acted like bellows in a hearth to supercharge the flames spread by embers flying from ridge to ridge. Stands of trees that matured over decades - sometimes centuries - were engulfed within minutes.
  
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• The new iPhone will land in Apple's flying-saucer shaped campus

  11-09-2017 19:00
  iPhone, schm-iPhone. What we all really want to see come Sept. 12 is Apple's newly landed flying saucer of a headquarters.
  
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• 5 advanced Firefox hacks to level up your browsing

  11-09-2017 18:56
  
  DIYTry out these tips, add-ons, and tricks.
  Improve your Firefox experience: When you dig under the web browser's surface, you'll uncover ways to search faster, fix problems, manage tabs, and more.
  
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• Can AI Stop the Distracted Driving Menace?

  11-09-2017 18:52 via nbcnews.com
  Intelligent vehicles could take control when drivers become distracted.
  
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• Bronze Age grave in Greece shows nobleman's love of jewelry

  11-09-2017 18:52
  Archaeologists in southern Greece have discovered an undisturbed tomb the size of a small house that belonged to a Bronze Age nobleman with a fondness for jewelry.
  
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• NASA gets nighttime and daytime look at a weaker wide Irma

  11-09-2017 18:47
  NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured night-time look at Hurricane Irma as it weakened to a large tropical storm and the GOES East satellite provided a daytime view as the large storm continued moving north over Florida.
  
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• A timeline of Cassini's plunge of fiery doom on Friday

  11-09-2017 18:38
  
  SpaceHere's how the planned crash into Saturn will go down.
  Cassini is about to plunge to its death. Here's how it will happen.
  
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