|  Midwest Earthquake Risk Still Looms  | After wreaking havoc 200 years ago with huge earthquakes that made the Mississippi River flow backwards, the New Madrid Seismic Zone has continued to rattle the Midwest with about 200 quakes every year. A new study suggests recent reports of the "death" of the New Madrid Seismic Zone were premature. Based on statistical computer models, which predict how many aftershocks from the 19th century quakes should hit the region, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists think the past two centuries of earthquakes suggest the New Madrid Seismic Zone is popping more often than expected. Instead of slowing down, earthquake activity on the Reelfoot Fault continues at a sprightly pace. The New Madrid Seismic Zone is a series of ancient faults cutting the Midwest and now hidden beneath the Mississippi River's thick mud.
| Read More » LA Earthquakes Could Be Amplified, Models Show  | Virtual earthquakes predict greater shaking in the seismically precarious city of Los Angeles than in nearby areas, a new computer modeling study suggests. Shaking in the Los Angeles Basin could be three times larger on average than in the city's surroundings, the models show. These virtual quakes could also predict the risks looming over many other cities across the world, especially those in locations with no recent history of large earthquakes. Los Angeles and other cities sit on top of large sedimentary basins.
| Read More » Frogs' 'Love Ripples' Bring Death from Above  | But new research finds that their love songs have a dark side: They create ripples that attract the attention of frog-eating bats. "Animals have all kinds of sensory systems that they can use in very different ways, and they can combine their senses," said study leader Wouter Halfwerk, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas, Austin.
| Read More » Ancient Mars May Have Been Habitable for Hundreds of Millions of Years  | Mars may have once been capable of supporting microbial life for hundreds of millions of years in the distant past, new findings from a long-lived Red Planet rover suggest. NASA's Opportunity rover, which celebrates 10 years of Mars exploration on Friday (Jan. 24), has uncovered evidence that benign, nearly neutral-pH water flowed on the Red Planet around 4 billion years ago. These results, reported today (Jan. 23) in the journal Science, complement the recent work of NASA's bigger, newer Curiosity rover, which discovered a potentially habitable lake and groundwater system in a different Martian locale dating from about 3.7 billion years ago. "These [benign] water conditions existed over a long period of time," said Ray Arvidson, lead author of the new study and Opportunity deputy principal investigator.
| Read More » World's Oldest Cancer Arose in a Dog 11,000 Years Ago  | But one cancer outlived the dog in which it emerged by spreading its abnormal cells on to other dogs during mating. Now, researchers have named this sexually transmitted canine cancer the oldest known line of cancer cells, at 11,000 years old. Canine transmissible venereal tumor (CTVT) is one of only two known diseases in which cancerous cells from one animal infect another. "The cancer cells in all the dogs around the world today are derived from the original dog," said Elizabeth Murchison, a study researcher and cancer geneticist at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the University of Cambridge, both in the United Kingdom.
| Read More » Fever Treatments May Cause More Flu Deaths People sick with the flu often take medication to alleviate the accompanying fever. But their relief may come at a price for others: New findings suggest that suppressing fever can result in the infection of tens of thousands of additional people each flu season. The condition can lower the amounts of virus in a sick person's body, because viruses replicate less efficiently in higher temperatures. They found that in a typical flu season, fever-reducing drugs such as ibuprofen and acetaminophen may lead to tens of thousands of additional influenza cases, along with more than a thousand deaths attributable to influenza, across North America. Read More » First-Time C-Sections Declining in Many US States The report is based on data about primary cesarean deliveries from places where this information is recorded on birth certificates, including 28 states and New York City. Email Bahar Gholipour or follow her @alterwired. Read More » Rare Disease Linked to Dengue Virus Caused Texas Woman's Death A woman in Texas who died in 2012 succumbed to a rare blood cell disease, which was caused by the mosquito-borne dengue virus infection, according to a report of her case published today. The case shows that while dengue remains rare in the United States, vigilance for the disease is important, and health professionals should be aware of the complications the virus can cause. The woman died after her dengue infection brought on another condition called hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), in which white blood cells build up in the skin, spleen and liver, and destroy other blood cells. HLH is most frequently associated with Epstein Barr virus infection, but also has been linked to dengue, according to the researchers, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read More » NASA Launches Next-Generation Relay Satellite Into Orbit  | NASA's newest communications satellite blasted into space tonight (Jan. 23), beefing up the network that links ground controllers to the International Space Station and Earth-orbiting research observatories. TDRS-L is the latest addition to NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite network, which enables the nearly continuous transmission of information between mission control and a variety of orbiting research and exploration spacecraft. "The TDRS constellation brings back all of the data and video that we see every day from the International Space Station," NASA launch director Tim Dunn said in a statement. "TDRS also supports all of the data from the Hubble Space Telescope and all of our low-Earth orbit NASA science missions."
| Read More » Rocket blasts off with NASA communications satellite  | By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - An unmanned rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Thursday to put the newest member of NASA's space communications network into orbit. The 19-story tall Atlas 5 rocket, built and launched by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co, lifted off at 9:33 p.m. EST (0233 GMT Friday). With the 3.8-ton (3,447-kg) Boeing-built Tracking and Data Relay Satellite perched on its nose, the rocket blazed through clear, star-filled skies as it headed southeast over the Atlantic Ocean toward orbit. The satellite, called TDRS, is the 12th built for a NASA constellation that circles more than 22,300 miles above Earth.
| Read More » NASA rover Opportunity finds signs Mars once had fresh water  | NASA's decade-old Mars rover, Opportunity, has found evidence that life-friendly fresh water once pooled on the red planet's surface, reinforcing similar discoveries made by newcomer Curiosity on the other side of the planet, scientists said on Thursday. Opportunity, along with its now-defunct twin, Spirit, landed 10 years ago for concurrent 90-day missions to look for clues of the past existence of water. In August 2012, Curiosity, equipped with an onboard chemistry lab, arrived for follow-up investigations to determine if Mars had other ingredients essential for supporting life. On the other side of the planet, meanwhile, Opportunity has been analyzing water-bearing rocks at the rim of an ancient impact crater called Endeavour.
| Read More » British scientists seek go-ahead for GM 'Omega-3' crop trial By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - British scientists have applied for permission to run an open-air field trial of a genetically modified (GM) crop they hope may one day become a sustainable and environmentally friendly source of healthy Omega-3 fats. The proposed trial - likely to generate controversy in a nation where GM foods have little public support - could start as early as May and will use Camelina plants engineered to produce seeds high in Omega-3 long chain fatty acids. No GM crops are currently grown commercially in Britain and only two - a pest-resistant type of maize and a potato with enhanced starch content - are licensed for cultivation in the European Union (EU). But scientists at Britain's agricultural lab Rothamsted Research have developed Camelina plants to produce Omega-3 fats that are known to be beneficial to health but normally found only in oils in increasingly limited fish stocks. Read More » British scientists seek go-ahead for GM 'Omega-3' crop trial By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - British scientists have applied for permission to run an open-air field trial of a genetically modified (GM) crop they hope may one day become a sustainable and environmentally friendly source of healthy Omega-3 fats. The proposed trial - likely to generate controversy in a nation where GM foods have little public support - could start as early as May and will use Camelina plants engineered to produce seeds high in Omega-3 long chain fatty acids. No GM crops are currently grown commercially in Britain and only two - a pest-resistant type of maize and a potato with enhanced starch content - are licensed for cultivation in the European Union (EU). But scientists at Britain's agricultural lab Rothamsted Research have developed Camelina plants to produce Omega-3 fats that are known to be beneficial to health but normally found only in oils in increasingly limited fish stocks. Read More » Artificial Bone Marrow Could Be Used to Treat Leukemia  | For decades, doctors have been treating leukemia patients by transplanting stem cells from people with healthy bone marrow. Now, researchers are taking the first steps toward making bone marrow in a lab: They are growing stem cells in a setting that mimics the natural environment of bone marrow. The researchers' goal is to create artificial bone marrow that is capable of growing blood stem cells outside the body, said study researcher Cornelia Lee-Thedieck, of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany. Such stem cells could then be used to treat leukemia patients.
| Read More » Mars Rover Photos as Art: Red Planet Wonders Star in Smithsonian Exhibit  | Science meets Martian art in a new exhibition celebrating 10 years of Mars exploration by NASA's twin rovers Spirit and Opportuntiy. The "Spirit and Opportunity: 10 Years Roving Across Mars" gallery at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., puts otherworldly images captured by the Spirit and Opportunity rovers (the Mars Exploration Rovers) on vivid display as artwork. SPACE.com visited the exhibit this month as NASA celebrated the 10th anniversary of the rovers' 2004 landing on Mars. Exhibit curator John Grant, a Mars Exploration Rover science team member, sees the gallery as a way to show the public the beauty of Mars and detail some of the science Spirit and Opportunity have done while exploring the Martian surface.
| Read More » New Supernova in Night Sky Captivates Amateur Astronomers (Photos)  | At 12 million light-years away, a new supernova that suddenly appeared in a nearby galaxy this week is the closest star explosion to be spotted from Earth in at least 20 years, so it's no surprise that it has captured the attention of stargazers. Professional astronomers and amateurs skywatchers alike have rushed to their telescopes to capture images of the brilliant star explosion, which was discovered by students at the University College London. So far, astrophotographers from Puerto Rico to Arizona have sent SPACE.com stunning photos of the new supernova in the galaxy M82. Adam Block sent in a photo of M82's newest bright spot as seen on Jan. 23, 2014 from the 32-inch Schulman telescope at the University of Arizona's Mount Lemmon SkyCenter using a ).
| Read More » Stethoscopes Could Become Extinct, Doctors Say The image of a doctor with a stethoscope hanging around the neck may seem iconic, but in fact, this image may not last much longer, as hand-held ultrasound devices are predicted to replace 200-year-old stethoscopes in near future, doctors say. "With ultrasound devices, one can not only look at the heart, but all of the organs in the body," said Dr. Jagat Narula, professor of cardiology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and one of the authors of the editorial. The ability to get a better look inside the body could prevent misdiagnoses, and help doctors detect abnormalities that need to be followed up with other tests. "As a matter of fact, stethoscope is a misnomer," Narula said. Read More » Trailblazing Mars Rover Celebrates 10 Years on Red Planet  | NASA's Opportunity rover marks 10 years of Mars exploration today (Jan. 24), an extraordinary milestone that adds to the robot's growing legend. Though both robots were originally tasked with 90-day missions, Spirit explored the Red Planet until 2010 and Opportunity keeps rolling along to this day, gathering more and more clues about Mars' warmer and wetter past. "It's a well-made American vehicle," Spirit and Opportunity deputy principal investigator Ray Arvidson, of Washington University in St. Louis, told reporters Thursday (Jan. 23) when asked to explain Opportunity's amazing longevity. Still, Opportunity's continued productivity at such an advanced age has surprised the mission team.
| Read More » River Roulette: Randomness Controls Erosion  | Because geoscientists rely on river erosion to track both mountain-building and the warming and cooling of Earth's atmosphere, the discovery means researchers may need to rethink how they calibrate their river clocks. "River incision is the yardstick we use to measure a lot of processes," said Noah Finnegan, lead study author and a geomorphologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. If the mountains were growing at the same time the river cut down, then geologists can start to estimate what's called an uplift rate — how fast mountains grow — by assuming that river erosion keeps pace with the rising range. But Finnegan, who studies the evolution of Earth's surfaces through time, wondered what would have happened if erosion had started and stopped over the millennia.
| Read More » Polar Bears Hunt on Land as Ice Shrinks  | Polar bears have shifted to a diet of more land-based food in response to climate change and melting sea ice in the Arctic, new research finds. The results suggest that polar bears, at least in the western Hudson Bay area, may be slightly more flexible in the face of climate change than previously thought. "We found they were eating more of what is available on the land," including snow geese, eggs and caribou, said study co-author Linda Gormezano, a vertebrate biologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Still, it's not clear that this foraging strategy can offset the negative impacts of climate change, with one scientist saying it is unlikely to make a difference for polar bear numbers.
| Read More » Squarks & Neutralinos Lurk in the Universe, Physicist Says  | LONDON — Squarks, selectrons and neutralinos may be lurking in the universe, say physicists who suggest supersymmetry — the idea that every known particle has a yet-to-be-discovered sister particle — is not dead, despite the lack of evidence found in its favor. The world's most powerful atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), has yet to find evidence of the existence of such sparticles (supersymmetric particles), though perhaps physicists are not interpreting the data in the right way, said particle theorist Ben Allanach of Cambridge University. Speaking here at the Royal Society conference "Before, behind and beyond the discovery of the Higgs Boson" on Tuesday (Jan. 21), Allanach proposed that the LHC might detect the elusive supersymmetric particles once it is up and running again next year with much higher energies. The first run of the LHC at 7 TeV culminated with the successful detection of what is widely believed to be the Higgs boson, a particle thought to explain how other particles get their mass.
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