GoogleTrends: November 2013

Saturday, November 30, 2013

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Space Shuttle Replica Vandalized with Graffiti in Houston

A replica of a NASA space shuttle on display in Houston was defaced Wednesday (Nov. 27), when vandals sprayed racial and political graffiti on the side of the full-size mockup. "Unfortunately, someone vandalized our high-fidelity mock shuttle," said Melanie Johnson, the director of education for Space Center Houston, the visitor center for NASA's Johnson Space Center where the model is located. The graffiti, which included the phrase, "Houston, we are the problem," was limited to the side of the space shuttle that faced away from the center's parking lot. "To the person who did this — you really need to check yourself, because you're making it bad for all other decent people in this town," the driver told Houston CBS-affiliate KHOU.

The Kind of Boss Most Likely to Seek Revenge

A study by researchers at the University of Kent and the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and the University of Adelaide in Australia revealed that people who are not accustomed to holding power are more likely to be vengeful when placed in charge compared with experienced power holders, who were found to be more tolerant of perceived wrongdoing. Mario Weick, a researcher at the University of Kent and one of the study's co-authors, said the results provide a firm indication of the relationship between power and revenge.

Religious Social Media Posts Cost Jobs

A study from Carnegie Mellon University revealed that while there are a number of personal questions employers are not legally allowed to ask during the interview, job candidates who post those details on social networks are opening themselves up to potential hiring discrimination. "Our experiment focused on a novel tension: the tension between the law — which, in the United States, protects various types of information, making it risky for certain personal questions to be asked during interviews — and new information technologies, such as online social networks, which make that same information often available to strangers, including interviewers and employers," said Alessandro Acquisti, associate professor of information technology and public policy and one of the study's authors. While the majority of organizations don't use social networks as part of their hiring process, researchers found that those that do tend to be biased against some applicants. "While it appears that a relatively small portion of U.S. employers regularly searches for candidates online, we found robust evidence of discrimination among certain types of employers," said Christina Fong, senior research scientist at Carnegie Mellon, another of the study's authors.

Giant Electric Fields May Supercharge Particles In Earth's Radiation Belts

Huge electric fields in the radiation belts around Earth may help explain how electrons surrounding the planet can be accelerated to speeds near that of light, researchers have found in a new study. These findings, detailed Dec. 2 in the journal Physical Review Letters, could help shed light on the radiation belts of planets such as Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, as well as the behavior of the sun during flares and of bodies beyond the solar system, such as stellar nurseries, neutron stars and incredibly energetic black holes known as quasars.

China Will Launch Its 1st Moon Rover, 'Jade Rabbit,' On Sunday

China is counting down to the launch of its first moon landing mission, a mission poised to blast off Sunday (Dec. 1) to send the country's first lunar lander and rover to Earth's nearest neighbor. China's first moon rover is called Yutu, which means "Jade Rabbit" in Chinese, according to state media reports. It will launch with the Chang'e 3 moon lander on Sunday 12:30 p.m. EST (1730 GMT), though it will be 1:30 a.m. Monday, Dec. 2 at China's Xichang Satellite Launch Center. If all goes well, the Chang'e 3 mission will land on the moon on Dec. 14, according the European Space Agency, which is providing mission tracking of the lander and rover for China's space agency.

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Friday, November 29, 2013

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Scientists: Sun-grazing comet likely broke up

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Scientists say it appears a comet from the fringes of the solar system didn't survive its close encounter with the sizzling sun.

No sign of comet after pass around sun: scientists

A comet's 5.5-million-year journey to the inner solar system apparently ended during a suicidal trip around the sun, leaving no trace of its once-bright tail or even remnants of rock and dust, scientists said on Thursday. The comet, known as ISON, was discovered last year when it was still far beyond Jupiter, raising the prospect of a spectacular naked-eye object by the time it graced Earth's skies in December. Comet ISON passed just 730,000 miles (1.2 million km) from the surface of the sun at 1:37 p.m. EST/1837 GMT on Thursday. Astronomers used a fleet of solar telescopes to look for the comet after its slingshot around the sun, but to no avail.

No sign of comet after pass around sun - scientists

Last-second glitch halts SpaceX rocket launch

The launch of an unmanned Space Exploration Technologies' Falon 9 rocket was aborted one minute before liftoff on Thursday due to an unexplained technical issue, company officials said. It was the second attempt this week to launch a communications satellite for SES, which operates the world's second largest fleet. An initial attempt on Monday was called off after unusual pressure readings in the rocket's liquid oxygen tank. Perched on top of the rocket was a 7,000-pound (3,175 kg) communications satellite owned by Luxembourg-based SES S.A., which operates a 54-satellite fleet, the world's second-largest.

Journal withdraws controversial French Monsanto GM study

By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - The publisher of a controversial and much-criticized study suggesting genetically modified corn caused tumors in rats has withdrawn the paper after a yearlong investigation found it did not meet scientific standards. Reed Elsevier's Food and Chemical Toxicology journal, which published the study by the French researcher Gilles-Eric Seralini in September 2012, said on Thursday the retraction was because the study's small sample size meant no definitive conclusions could be reached. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) issued a statement in November 2012 saying the study by Seralini, who was based at France's University of Caen, had serious defects in design and methodology and did not meet acceptable scientific standards. In its retraction statement, the Food and Chemical Toxicology journal said that in light of these concerns, it too had requested to view the raw data from the study.

Did Comet ISON survive? Scientists see tiny hope

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Scientists are studying spacecraft images to find out whether a small part of Comet ISON survived its close encounter with the sun.

Virgin Galactic Now Takes Bitcoin for Private Spaceflights, Sir Richard Branson Says

British billionaire Sir Richard Branson said his company Virgin Galactic is now accepting the digital-only currency for its commercial spaceflights aboard SpaceShipTwo. On Friday (Nov. 22), Virgin accepted its first bitcoin payment from a flight attendant in Hawaii, Branson announced in a blog post, saying he expects "many more to follow in her footsteps." So it makes sense we would offer Bitcoin as a way to pay for your journey to space," Branson wrote. A seat on one of the six-passenger private flights costs $250,000 and more than 600 space tourists already have signed up for a ride, including Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Leonardo DiCaprio and Ashton Kutcher.

SpaceX Aborts Thanksgiving Rocket Launch Due to Engine Trouble

Topped with a television broadcasting satellite, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket fired its engines and was moments away from liftoff from Cape Canaveral on Thursday, but the commercial booster aborted the launch after computers detected the engines were too slow building up thrust. Engineers raced to understand and resolve the problem, but they could not get comfortable enough to attempt the launch again before Thursday's time-constrained flight opportunity closed.

Seeing Coldest Blobs in the Universe in New Light

Physicists have come up with a new way to gaze longingly at some of the weirdest matter on Earth — the super-cold, super-calm gas called a Bose-Einstein condensate. While scientists have been able to steal quick glimpses of the unusual gas, until now, simply snapping a picture of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) often destroyed it by adding extra energy from light. "The absorption of a single photon (the smallest packet of light) is enough to break one," lead study author Michael Hush, a physicist at the University of Nottingham, told LiveScience in an email interview. By creating a new computer model, detailed today (Nov. 28) in the New Journal of Physics, the researchers have figured out a way to re-route this heat and keep BECs chilled even during long imaging sessions.

Bonobos Face Shrinking Habitat in Africa

The endangered apes, also called pygmy chimpanzees, are only found in the lowland forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Researchers found that it is getting harder for bonobos to avoid areas with high human activity; "Bonobos that live in closer proximity to human activity and to points of human access are more vulnerable to poaching, one of their main threats," study researcher Janet Nackoney, of University of Maryland, said in a statement. "Our results point to the need for more places where bonobos can be safe from hunters, which is an enormous challenge in the DRC."

Becoming King: Why So Few Male Lions Survive to Adulthood

Only about 1 in 8 male lions survive to adulthood, Dereck said. But when male lions begin to reach sexual maturity around age 2, the older males within the pride kick them out, Dereck said. For a young male, "the betrayal by his own blood must be confusing to him, but this is an ancient rite — the casting out of young males into a world of unknowns — a world where he will be able make it, or die," said Dereck, 57, who sports a white beard and looks every bit the wilderness gentleman. Dereck and Beverly, 56, seem to belong here in Duba, where they made other films about lions, including "The Last Lions" and "Relentless Enemies." [In Photos: A Lion's Life]

Comet ISON Gets Roasted by Sun and Vanishes, But Did It Survive?

The much-anticipated Comet ISON appeared to disintegrate during its Thanksgiving Day slingshot around the sun Thursday, but something — it seems — may have survived. The sungrazing Comet ISON vanished from the view of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) during an extremely close encounter with the sun on Thursday (Nov. 28), leading scientists to suspect the worst. But late Thursday night, images from another sun-watching spacecraft, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) run by NASA and the European Space Agency, picked up a blip of something rounding the sun in a camera called LASCO C3. "Now, in the latest LASCO C3 images, we are seeing something beginning to gradually brighten up again," comet expert Karl Battams, of the U.S. Navy Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., wrote in an evening blog post. "One could almost be forgiven for thinking that there's a comet in the images!"

A Universe Made of Stories: Why We Need a Science and Technology Dialogue

Journal withdraws controversial French Monsanto GM study

Reed Elsevier's Food and Chemical Toxicology (FCT)journal, which published the study by the French researcher Gilles-Eric Seralini in September 2012, said the retraction was because the study's small sample size meant no definitive conclusions could be reached. "Ultimately, the results presented - while not incorrect - are inconclusive, and therefore do not reach the threshold of publication for Food and Chemical Toxicology." At the time of its original publication, hundreds of scientists across the world questioned Seralini's research, which said rats fed Monsanto's GM corn had suffered tumors and multiple organ failure. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) issued a statement in November 2012 saying the study by Seralini, who was based at France's University of Caen, had serious defects in design and methodology and did not meet acceptable scientific standards. In its retraction statement, the FCT said that, in light of these concerns, it too had asked to view the raw data.

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Thursday, November 28, 2013

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Do Animals Typically Think Like Autistic Savants? (Op-Ed)

Marc Bekoff, emeritus professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is one of the world's pioneering cognitive ethologists, a Guggenheim Fellow, and co-founder with Jane Goodall of Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. He contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Over the past few years — and at a meeting of the Animal Behavior Society this past summer —a number of people have asked me to address Temple Grandin's claim that nonhuman animals (animals) typically behave like people with autism. She also claims that autism helps her understand and empathize with animals, who supposedly think in pictures, better than people without autism.

Something Is Rotten at the New York Times (Op-Ed)

Michael Mann is Distinguished Professor of Meteorology at Penn State University and was recognized in 2007, with other IPCC authors, for contributing to the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work as a lead author on the "Observed Climate Variability and Change" chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Scientific Assessment Report. This article is adapted from one that appeared on the Huffington Post. When it comes to the matter of human-caused climate change, the Grey Lady's editorial page has skewed rather contrarian of late. A couple months ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its fifth scientific assessment, providing the strongest evidence to date that climate change is real, caused by us and a problem.

Why is a University Accepting Random-Source Research Dogs? (Op-Ed)

Wayne Pacelle is the president and chief executive officer of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). This Op-Ed is adapted from a post on the blog A Humane Nation, where the content ran before appearing in LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. My colleagues and I have released the results of the latest HSUS undercover investigation, in this case, laboratory experiments on dogs and other animals at Georgia Regents University (GRU) in Augusta, Ga. The focus of our investigation was on the use of dogs for unnecessary — and terminal — dental experiments. The dogs were acquired from Kenneth Schroeder — a random source Class B dealer who has been formally charged by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for violations of the Animal Welfare Act, including obtaining multiple dogs from illegal sources.

Humanity in the Age of Frankenstein's Cat (Op-Ed)

Marc Bekoff, emeritus professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is one of the world's pioneering cognitive ethologists, a Guggenheim Fellow, and co-founder with Jane Goodall of Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. He contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. I finally got around to reading a book with the catchy title, "Frankenstein's Cat: Cuddling Up to Biotech's Brave New Beasts" (Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013) by journalist Emily Anthes, and I'm sorry I let it sit on my cluttered desk for as long as I did. In an NPR interview about her fascinating book, Ms. Anthes talks about one example: "One lab in China is even tackling the human genome by way of the mouse genome.

Is the 'Knockout Game' Real?

There's a terrifying craze that — if you believe the media reports — is sweeping the nation: the "knockout game," in which someone walks up to an unsuspecting person and punches them in the face or head, knocking them out cold with one blow. Collecting every reference to the issue over the past two decades could yield enough data to call the knockout game a "growing trend."

Tongue-Controlled Wheelchair Helps Paralyzed People Move

A new wireless device has allowed paralyzed people to drive a wheelchair simply by moving their tongues. In a clinical trial, people with paralysis of all four limbs, a condition known as tetraplegia, effectively used the tongue-drive system to steer a wheelchair through an obstacle course or operate a computer. The device could give people with severe disabilities greater independence and better quality of life, Ghovanloo told LiveScience. the headset then sends these signals to a smartphone, which converts the tongue position into a command to control a computer cursor or drive a wheelchair.

Thanksgiving Holiday Travel Paths Seen from Space (Photo)

Amid one of the busiest travel weeks for Americans, NASA released a nighttime image of the nation from space, illuminating the arteries of transportation that will get so much use around Thanksgiving Day. While some will board planes and trains, more than 90 percent of this week's travelers will be in cars or trucks, using the United States' 4.1 million miles (6.6 million kilometers) of roadways. Nighttime images make it easier to trace this travel web, with nodes that brighten over major metropolitan areas like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. The powerful, Earth-observing Suomi NPP satellite captured this view of the continental United States on Oct. 1, 2013, with its Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS).

Thanksgiving Myth Busted: Eating Turkey Won't Make You Sleepy

Contrary to popular belief, eating turkey isn't the main reason you feel sleepy after a Thanksgiving feast. The oft-repeated turkey myth stems from the fact that turkey contains the amino acid tryptophan, which forms the basis of brain chemicals that make people tired. In fact, consuming large amounts of carbohydrates and alcohol may be the real cause of a post-Thanksgiving-meal snooze, experts say.

Bringing Back the Unconscious: The Latest Science on Awakenings

But the latest research hints that some of them may still retain reserves of conscious awareness and that there may be ways to reach them — with sleeping pills, antiviral medications, or electric stimulation — and help them to reawaken. George Melendez was all but dead in January of 1998, when he was pulled from the wreckage of a car that had landed in a small pond on a golf course near Houston, TX. Medics revived him but the combined brain trauma of the accident and near drowning left the then 23-year-old college student in what doctors call a minimally conscious state—awake and occasionally aware of his surroundings but incapable of producing any reliable responses—verbal or otherwise. It's these patients, such as Melendez, that scientists are hoping to reach.

Thanksgiving in Space: How to Cook a Zero-G Turkey Dinner

For American astronauts in space, the lack of gravity is no reason to miss a turkey dinner on Thanksgiving. On Thursday (Nov. 28), while Americans across the United States chow down on turkey, cranberries, pumpkin pie and other dishes in honor of Thanksgiving Day holiday, Americans in space will be sure to do the same. The six crewmembers on the International Space Station will eat a traditional Thanksgiving dinner as they sail 260 miles (418 kilometers) above the Earth. "We now have about 200 different foods and beverages that are part of our baseline food system for the International Space Station," NASA food scientist Vickie Kloeris said today (Nov. 27) during a video interview with SPACE.com.

More Kids Treated for Mental Health Conditions

The use of mental health treatments in children has increased in recent years much more than it has among adults, a new study finds. The trend signals a growing attention to mental health problems in children, but could also be a source of concern about unnecessary medication use in children, the researchers said. "On the one hand kids who needed treatment are now getting treatment and benefiting from it," said study researcher Dr. Mark Olfson, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University in New York. For example, the non-medical use of prescription drugs on college campuses one of the concerns about stimulants, and is part of a larger picture of substance abuse, Olfson told LiveScience.

See Comet ISON Slingshot Around Sun: Live SOHO Spacecraft Views

Astronomers all over the world are training their eyes and telescopes on Comet ISON as it approaches its closest distance to the sun on Thursday (Nov. 28), with several unblinking space telescopes offering live views of the comet's solar encounter. But rather than the traditional football game, we'd suggest you watch ISON's progress around the sun instead.

Working on Thanksgiving? You're Not Alone

Employees of big box retailers like Walmart and Target aren't the only ones who will be clocking in on Thanksgiving, a new study finds. Specifically, workers in health care facilities, municipalities and other nonbusiness establishments are far more likely to draw Thanksgiving shifts than are their counterparts in other industry sectors. While the number of employees working on Thanksgiving is up from the previous three years, it is lower than 13 years ago, when 48 percent of workers had to clock in. "Even for the 97 percent of employers who designate Thanksgiving as a paid day off, a significant portion plan to keep some lights on in the workplace, requiring at least a few to work on the holiday," said Matt Sottong, director of surveys and research reports for Bloomberg BNA.

SpaceX Sets Table for Thanksgiving Rocket Launch Today: Watch It Live

The private spaceflight company SpaceX will celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday with a rocket launch from Florida today (Nov. 28) after a two-day delay due to a technical glitch. SpaceX's upgraded Falcon 9 rocket is now set to blast off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station during a 65-minute launch window that opens at 5:39 p.m. EST (0039 Nov. 29 GMT). The mission will mark a series of firsts for SpaceX, including the company's first launch of its upgraded Falcon 9 rocket from Florida, its first launch of a huge commercial satellite and its first launch into a high geostationary transfer orbit needed for commercial satellites. SpaceX initially attempted to launch the SES-8 satellite on Monday (Nov. 25), but unexpected readings in the liquid oxygen system on the rocket's first stage prompted a delay. "Saw pressure fluctuations on Falcon boost stage liquid oxygen tank," SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk wrote in a Twitter update.

Scientists Explore New Zealand s Deep Sea (Part II)

What 11 Billion People Mean for Space Travel

Editor's note: By the end of this century, Earth may be home to 11 billion people, the United Nations has estimated, earlier than previously expected. As part of a week-long series, LiveScience is exploring what reaching this population milestone might mean for our planet, from our ability to feed that many people to our impact on the other species that call Earth home to our efforts to land on other planets. Robert Zubrin wants humanity to put down roots on Mars, and he thinks he knows how to make it happen at a reasonable price. The key is to travel light and live off the land, accessing the plentiful resources available in the Red Planet's dirt and air, says Zubrin, president and founder of the nonprofit Mars Society, which advocates manned exploration of the Red Planet.

Holiday Drinking: How 8 Common Medications Interact with Alcohol

In some cases, mixing alcohol with medications can be dangerous. Drinking while on other types of medications might have a negative effect on your symptoms or the disease itself. Knocking a few back can also intensify the sleep-inducting effect of medications that may cause drowsiness, making it risky to get behind the wheel or use dangerous machinery. "The danger of combining alcohol and some medications is real and sometimes fatal," said Danya Qato, a practicing pharmacist and doctoral candidate in health services research at Brown University in Providence, R.I.

Thanksgiving Trauma: The 7 Strangest Holiday ER Visits

LiveScience asked emergency room doctors about the weirdest, funniest or most unfortunate reasons for a visit to the ER over Thanksgiving and other holidays. Nothing says Thanksgiving like cooking an obscenely large farm bird. Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that emergency rooms see a lot of fowl-related injuries on Turkey Day. "We've had fires that singed hair and eyebrows, and splash burns to the face," said Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York.

Ghost Hunters Burn Down Historic Mansion

A group of ghost hunters has been arrested for allegedly setting fire to a historic mansion near New Orleans. Perhaps inspired by the hit SyFy television series "Ghost Hunters" and its many imitators, the men climbed through a hole in a fence and broke into the LeBeau Plantation house near the Mississippi Riveron Nov. 21. According to the St. Bernard Sheriff's Office, the men were looking for ghosts. Though the mansion had been shuttered in recent years, its owner, the Arlene and Joseph Meraux Charitable Foundation, had plans to renovate the building.

Wormy Mind May Be First Step to Understanding Human Brain

The roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans is one of biology's most widely studied organisms, and it's the first to have the complete wiring diagram, or connectome, of its nervous system mapped out. Knowing the structure of the animal's connectome will help explain its behavior, and could lead to insights about the brains of other organisms, scientists say. "You can't understand the brain without understanding the connectome," Scott Emmons, a molecular geneticist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York, said in a talk earlier this month at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego. In 1963, South African biologist Sydney Brenner of the University of Cambridge decided to use C. elegans as a model organism for developmental biology.

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