Monday, March 3, 2014

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Photographer Sees Stunning Auroras Over Swedish Mountains (Photos, Video)

The northern lights dance in a breathtaking display in these stunning images from an aurora video recently sent to Space.com. Night sky photographer Chad Blakley captured these intense auroras grooving over several Swedish Lapland locations, including a small hotel high in the Swedish mountains, on Feb. 21. "This display was one of the best of the year and we are hopeful that the final four weeks of the season will continue to impress," Blakley wrote Space.com in an email. Vivid auroras like those seen in Blakley's images are caused by charged particles from the sun (the solar wind) that interact with the Earth's upper atmosphere (at altitudes above 50 miles, or 80 km), causing a glow. 


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Sound Machines Could Be Hurting Baby's Ears

Parents-to-be may want to think twice before putting an infant sleep machine on their baby registry. Canadian researchers have found that when noise machines are used on a regular basis, they can produce sound levels that can be dangerous for infants' ears, which may lead to hearing, speech or learning problems.    "I'm not saying that these devices will cause hearing loss — I'm just saying that they could," said Dr. Blake Papsin, a study author and otolaryngologist-in-chief at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. However, by using infant sound machines, "people are taking a noisy environment and adding more noise to it, without even thinking about the amount," Papsin told LiveScience.

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Wavy vs. Straight: Physics of Curly Hair Teased Out

The first detailed model of a 3D strand of curly hair has been created, a development that could be a boon for the film and computer animation industries, researchers say. Now, researchers at MIT, in Cambridge, Mass., and the Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie (UPMC), in Paris, are teasing out the physics of curly hair. "Our work doesn't deal with the collisions of all the hairs on a head, which is a very important effect for animators to control a hairstyle," study co-author Pedro Reis, an assistant professor in MIT's department of civil and environmental engineering, said in a statement. The researchers combined their lab demonstrations with computer simulations to identify several key parameters of curly hair: curvature (as a ratio of curvature to length) and weight (as a ratio of weight to stiffness).

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Vaccination Messages May Backfire, Study Finds

Although public health researchers have worked to counter misinformation about vaccines and raise vaccination rates, a number of the methods they are using may be ineffective, according to a new study. Surveying 1,759 parents, researchers found that while they were able to teach parents that the vaccine and autism were not linked, parents who were surveyed who had initial reservations about vaccines said they were actually less likely to vaccinate their children after hearing the researchers messages. "The first message of our study is that the messaging we use to promote childhood vaccines may not be effective, and in some cases may be counterproductive," said Brendan Nyhan, an assistant professor in the department of government at Dartmouth College, who researches misconceptions about health care. "We need more evidence-based messaging about vaccines.

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Fitness Trackers Could Boost Kids' Health, But Face Challenges, Experts Say

But few studies have looked at the best way for children to use the trackers, said Michelle Garrison, an epidemiologist at Seattle Children's Research Institute and the University of Washington School of Medicine. And the trackers out there aren't an ideal fit for the needs of children and their families, other experts say. But there are some reasons to think trackers could be effective in children.

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Mountain Lion Family Feast Caught on Camera

With an adorably wrinkled nose, a mountain lion cub honed her hunting skills earlier this month on a dead mule deer caught by mom in California's Malibu Creek State Park. A remotely activated camera captured the nighttime feast for researchers who are tracking the cougar family at the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Mule deer are a popular menu item for Santa Monica mountain lions. The National Park Service has tracked more than 30 mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains since 2002, part of a long-term study monitoring the health of the cougar population here.


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Ocean's Biggest Current Carries More Water Than Thought

A team of oceanographers reported the results of four years of continuously monitoring the Antarctic Circumpolar Current on Monday (Feb. 24) at the 2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Honolulu. The Circumpolar Current circles Antarctica clockwise from west to east, speeding ships flowing with the current but providing resistance for those sailing in the opposite direction. The churning waters ferry heat, salt and marine life between the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans, but the current also isolates Antarctica from warmer waters to the north. Because the Circumpolar Current plays an important role in moving heat around the planet, scientists are keen to better understand how the rotating flow may respond to climate change.


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South African scientists map HIV antibodies in vaccine hunt

Scientists in South Africa have mapped the evolution of an antibody that kills different strains of the HIV virus, which might yield a vaccine for the incurable disease, the National Institute of Communicable Diseases said on Monday. The scientists have been studying one woman's response to HIV infection from stored samples of her blood and isolated the antibodies that she developed, said Lynn Morris, head of the virology unit at the NICD. The study, by a consortium of scientists from the NICD, local universities and the U.S. Vaccine Research Centre of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was published in the journal Nature. Humans respond to HIV by producing antibodies to fight the virus.

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Private Mars Flyby Mission in 2021 Needs NASA's Help, Experts Tell Congress (Video)

A private manned Mars flyby mission in 2021 could be an inspiring precursor to landing astronauts on the Red Planet's surface in the not-too-distant future, but much work needs to be accomplished before that goal can become a reality, experts told Congress Thursday (Feb. 27). The Inspiration Mars Foundation, led by the world's first space tourist Dennis Tito, aims to launch a pair of adventurous space explorers on a flyby of Mars in just seven years. But to meet that window, Inspiration Mars needs NASA's help. The U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Science, Space and Technology held the hearing Thursday to discuss how feasible such a Mars flyby in 2021 actually is.


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NASA, Astronauts Beam Congrats to 'Gravity' on Oscar Wins

Real-life astronauts and NASA officials congratulated the "Gravity" cast and crew on their seven Oscar wins Sunday night. In a statement, NASA gave a special shout out to Alfonso Cuarón for winning best director. "We took some time from our schedule to watch the movie 'Gravity' here on the space station and were struck by the stunning visuals and stark imagery the movie depicted," Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata said in a video from NASA, as he floated inside the International Space Station alongside NASA astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins.


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South African scientists map HIV antibodies in vaccine hunt

Scientists in South Africa have mapped the evolution of an antibody that kills different strains of the HIV virus, which might yield a vaccine for the incurable disease, the National Institute of Communicable Diseases said on Monday. The scientists have been studying one woman's response to HIV infection from stored samples of her blood and isolated the antibodies that she developed, said Lynn Morris, head of the virology unit at the NICD. The study, by a consortium of scientists from the NICD, local universities and the U.S. Vaccine Research Centre of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was published in the journal Nature. Humans respond to HIV by producing antibodies to fight the virus.


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Sunday, March 2, 2014

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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5 Weird Facts About the Oscars

The 86th annual Academy Awards are this Sunday, March 2. Ellen DeGeneres will host, stars will schmooze, and large portions of America will tune it to see who wore it best. But whether or not this year's Oscars hold any surprises, the awards ceremony has a strange history. The first person ever presented with an Academy Award was Emil Jannings, a silent-film actor who took the Best Actor award for two films.

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Saturday, March 1, 2014

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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Barely There? Chinese Company Debuts World's Thinnest Condom

A Chinese company has created the world's thinnest latex condom, snagging the Guinness World Record for the barely-there rubber. The ultra-thin condom was manufactured by Guangzhou Daming United Rubber Products, a China-based company that produces roughly 200 million condoms annually. Currently, the Aoni is available only in Asia, but Victor Chan, who led the project, is eventually hoping to introduce the product to North American markets. "It was quite tricky," Chan told The Province.

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Storms Bringing Needed Rains to California Seen From Space

New satellite images from space reveal the storms bringing much-needed rains to California. Yesterday (Feb. 27), a satellite image captured by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's GOES-West satellite showed one system winding down after showering the California coast, with another big front waiting offshore. That big cyclone was expected to inundate California with heavy rains today (Feb. 28) and through the weekend. The rains should push through the Southwest and the Intermountain region and reach the Rockies by nightfall.


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Construction of Giant Telescope in Hawaii Could Begin This Summer

Construction of a massive telescope triple the size of the world's largest current optical telescopes is set to begin on Hawaii's Mauna Kea volcano this year. The Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT), which will consist of interlocking, segmented mirrors with a diameter totaling 30 meters (98 feet), has raised 83 percent of its funding, and builders could break ground by this summer, the project's leaders say. "We're really ready to go with this telescope," Dr. Michael Bolte, associate director for the TMT project, said last month at a meeting of the American Astronomical Association in Washington, D.C. [Thirty Meter Telescope: Hawaii's Giant Space Eye (Gallery)] The TMT is closely modeled on technology used by the twin 10-m Keck telescopes in Hawaii, currently some of the world's most powerful optical telescopes.  The TMT will have nine times the light-collecting power of Keck, and 12 times sharper images than the Hubble Space Telescope using the tools of adaptive optics, Bolte said.


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Mummies' Milk: World's Oldest Cheese Found in China

"Despite being extraordinary simple, it possessed the necessary qualities for supporting the economic expansion of ruminant animal herding into Eastern Eurasia," the authors write in the paper, which was published online Feb. 18 in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter and Google+. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+.


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Year-long Mock Mars Mission Picks Semifinalists for Canadian Arctic Crew

An ambitious simulated Mars mission that will take place over a full year in the Canadian Arctic has whittled its pool of potential crewmembers by two-thirds. The nonprofit Mars Society has selected 62 semifinalists from a total of more than 200 applicants for its Mars Arctic 365 mission (MA365), which aims to help prepare humanity for a real manned Red Planet mission down the road. "By conducting this full-scale dress rehearsal of a human expedition to Mars in a realistic habitat and environment for practically the same duration as an actual mission to the Red Planet, we will take a great step forward in learning how humans can work together to effectively explore the new frontier of Mars," Mars Society officials wrote in an update Wednesday (Feb. 26). These teams will travel to the Mars Society's Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) on Canada's Devon Island this summer, where they will undergo two weeks of field testing that will culminate in the selection of the highest-performing crew.


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@NASAArmstrong: NASA Begins Process to Rename Center for Neil Armstrong

With the flick of a digital switch, NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center has been renamed for the late astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. NASA on Friday (Feb. 28) got off to an early start adopting the new name, updating its website addresses and social media handles, before the name officially goes into effect Saturday (March 1). The redesignation comes two months after President Barack Obama signed legislation enacting the change and 20 years (to the day) after the center's last renaming. Beginning Saturday, the southern California center will be known as the "Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center." The neighboring test range has also been redesignated the "Hugh L. Dryden Aeronautical Test Range." [Neil Armstrong: An American Icon Remembered (Photos)]


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Strange State of Matter Found in Chicken's Eye

Each type of cone is a different size. Around each cone is a so-called exclusion region that bars other cones of the same variety from getting too close. This means each cone type has its own uniform arrangement, but the five different patterns of the five different cone types are layered on top of each other in a disorderly way, the researchers say. "Because the cones are of different sizes it's not easy for the system to go into a crystal or ordered state," study researcher Salvatore Torquato, a professor of chemistry at Princeton University, explained in a statement.


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