Mountain-Size Asteroid Makes Close Flyby of Earth

	Mountain-Size Asteroid Makes Close Flyby of Earth A mountain-size asteroid buzzed Earth Monday morning (Jan. 26) in a close encounter that's already revealing new information about the space rock, including an improved measurement of its size and the confirmation of at least one moon. Asteroid 2004 BL86 came within 745,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) of Earth — or about three times the distance from our planet to the moon — Monday at approximately 11:20 a.m. EST (1620 GMT). On Monday night, from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. EST (0400 to 0600 GMT), scientists at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama will observe 2004 BL86 as it recedes from Earth. During the webcast, NASA scientist Lance Benner showed photos of 2004 BL86 taken earlier in the day using a radar signal from the space agency's Deep Space Network facility in Goldstone, California. Read More » University of Wisconsin closes laboratory, ending cat experiments A University of Wisconsin research laboratory that attracted controversy for using live cats in experiments is closing this year, the school said. The University of Wisconsin at Madison said its Department of Neuroscience will no longer conduct experiments related to "sound localization" because Tom Yin, the department interim chair and chief researcher, is retiring at age 70. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals had criticized Yin for experiments the advocacy group said were cruel. Read More » Private Space Taxis on Track to Fly in 2017 The private spaceflight companies Boeing and SpaceX are on track to start launching NASA astronauts to the International Space Station by 2017, representatives of both firms said Monday (Jan. 26). In September 2014, SpaceX and Boeing were awarded contracts under NASA's commercial crew program to help them start flying astronauts on missions to the space station from U.S. soil in the next few years. SpaceX and Boeing are planning to launch a series of tests of their spaceships — capsules called Dragon V2 and the CST-100, respectively — from this year through 2017. Read More » Monster Winter Storm Spotted from Space (Photo, Video) New satellite imagery shows the monster winter storm now battering the northeastern United States with snow as it gathered strength for what may be an epic snowfall. The monster storm's claws are definitely out in the photos, which were captured from Saturday through Monday (Jan. 24 to Jan. 26) by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration's (NOAA) GOES-East spacecraft and combined into a new movie that shows the storm's development and movement. The new imagery overlays cloud data gathered by GOES-East in visible and infrared light with true-color photos of land and sea captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), an instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua and Terra Earth-observing satellites. The image-processing work was done at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where the joint NASA/NOAA GOES Project is based. Read More » Scientists ask if Ebola immunises as well as kills "The virus may be bumping into people it can't infect any more."     Latest World Health Organization data show new cases of infection in West Africa's unprecedented Ebola epidemic dropping dramatically in Guinea, Sierra Leone and particularly in Liberia.     Most experts are sure the main driver is better control measures reducing direct contact with contagious patients and corpses, but there may also be other factors at work.     So-called herd immunity is a feature of many infectious diseases and can, in some cases, dampen an outbreak if enough people get asymptomatic, or "sub-clinical" cases and acquire protective antibodies. After a while, the virus - be it flu, measles, polio - can't find non-immune people to be its hosts.     But some specialists with wide experience of disease outbreaks are highly sceptical about whether this phenomenon happens in Ebola, or whether it could affect an epidemic.     "There is some suggestion there may be cases that are less severe... and there may even be some that are asymptomatic," said David Heymann, an infectious disease expert and head of global health security at Chatham House.     "But herd immunity is just the wrong term. Read More » Scientists ask if Ebola immunizes as well as kills By Kate Kelland and Emma Farge LONDON/DAKAR (Reuters) - A recent sharp drop in new Ebola infections in West Africa is prompting scientists to wonder whether the virus may be silently immunizing some people at the same time as brutally killing their neighbors. So-called "asymptomatic" Ebola cases - in which someone is exposed to the virus, develops antibodies, but doesn't get sick or suffer symptoms - are hotly disputed among scientists, with some saying their existence is little more than a pipe dream. "We wonder whether 'herd immunity' is secretly coming up - when you get a critical mass of people who are protected, because if they are asymptomatic they are then immune," Philippe Maughan, senior operations administrator for the humanitarian branch of the European Commission, told Reuters. "The virus may be bumping into people it can't infect any more." Latest World Health Organization data show new cases of infection in West Africa's unprecedented Ebola epidemic dropping dramatically in Guinea, Sierra Leone and particularly in Liberia. Read More » Scientists ask if Ebola immunises as well as kills "The virus may be bumping into people it can't infect any more."     Latest World Health Organization data show new cases of infection in West Africa's unprecedented Ebola epidemic dropping dramatically in Guinea, Sierra Leone and particularly in Liberia.     Most experts are sure the main driver is better control measures reducing direct contact with contagious patients and corpses, but there may also be other factors at work.     So-called herd immunity is a feature of many infectious diseases and can, in some cases, dampen an outbreak if enough people get asymptomatic, or "sub-clinical" cases and acquire protective antibodies. After a while, the virus - be it flu, measles, polio - can't find non-immune people to be its hosts.     But some specialists with wide experience of disease outbreaks are highly sceptical about whether this phenomenon happens in Ebola, or whether it could affect an epidemic.     "There is some suggestion there may be cases that are less severe... and there may even be some that are asymptomatic," said David Heymann, an infectious disease expert and head of global health security at Chatham House.     "But herd immunity is just the wrong term. Read More » La Niña Events May Spike with Climate Change The extremely strong La Niña events that can shake up global weather patterns may soon hit nearly twice as often as they did previously, due to global warming, researchers say in a new study. Results showed that extreme La Niña events may soon strike about every 13 years, as opposed to about every 23 years, as they do now. The findings do not suggest a regular schedule of extreme La Niña events every 13 years, said lead study author Wenju Cai, a climate scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Aspendale, Australia. La Niña, which is Spanish for "little girl," involves unusually cool waters in a belt 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) long across the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Read More » Why Monster Storm 'Juno' Will Be So Snowy East Coast folks: Stock up on munchies, get those prescriptions filled and get ready to hunker down for the next day or two. A huge nor'easter, dubbed Juno, is expected to batter the East Coast starting tonight (Jan. 26). In addition, winds will gust up to 60 to 70 miles per hour (96 to 113 km/h) in some places along the coast, making this a dangerous blizzard, said Patrick Burke, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center. Read More » Thirst 'On/Off' Switch Found in Mouse Brain "Thirst has attracted a lot of interest because it is such a basic function for all organisms," said Yuki Oka, a neuroscientist currently at the California Institute of Technology and co-author of the study published today (Jan. 26) in the journal Nature. "But key information was missing as to which were controlling thirst," Oka told Live Science. Read More » Rocket-Powered Car Aims to Break Land Speed Record The so-called Bloodhound car is designed to go superfast. "You may walk into the workshop and see the chassis sitting on the bed where we're building it, but that's not all we've got," Elvin told Live Science. Bloodhound will sniff out the current land speed record of 763 mph (1,227 km/h), held by Thrust SSC, a United Kingdom-based team that was led by Richard Noble, the current leader of the Bloodhound project. If all goes according to plan, Bloodhound will do runway testing in the United Kingdom at speeds of up to 200 mph (322 km/h) in the summer. Read More » Big Earth-Buzzing Asteroid Has Its Own Moon (Photo, Video) The mountain-size asteroid that gave Earth a close shave Monday (Jan. 26) has its own moon, new radar images of the object reveal. The radar images "show the primary body is approximately 1,100 feet (325 meters) across and has a small moon approximately 230 feet (70 m) across," NASA officials said in a statement. Read More » New-generation solar panels far cheaper, more efficient: scientists By Magdalena Mis LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A new generation of solar panels made from a mineral called perovskite has the potential to convert solar energy into household electricity more cheaply than ever before, according to a study from Briain's Exeter University. Super-thin, custom-colored panels attached to a building's windows may become a "holy grail" for India and African countries, Senthilarasu Sundaram, one of the authors of the study, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. With a thickness measured in billionths of a meter, solar panels made of perovskite will be more than 40 percent cheaper and 50 percent more efficient than those commercially produced today, Sundaram said. Read More » New-generation solar panels far cheaper, more efficient - scientists By Magdalena Mis LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A new generation of solar panels made from a mineral called perovskite has the potential to convert solar energy into household electricity more cheaply than ever before, according to a study from Briain's Exeter University. Super-thin, custom-coloured panels attached to a building's windows may become a "holy grail" for India and African countries, Senthilarasu Sundaram, one of the authors of the study, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. With a thickness measured in billionths of a metre, solar panels made of perovskite will be more than 40 percent cheaper and 50 percent more efficient than those commercially produced today, Sundaram said. Read More » Do Kids Really Need to Drink Milk? We've all heard the slogans about milk: It does a body good, it's a natural thing to drink and it builds strong bones. No, of course they don't," said Amy Lanou, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. Most people in the world do not drink milk after they are weaned from breast milk, and yet still get adequate nutrition, she added. Most people have heard that the calcium in milk helps people grow strong bones. Read More » Widely Used Drugs Tied to Greater Dementia Risk for Seniors People over age 65 who frequently take over-the-counter sleep aids and certain other commonly used drugs may be increasing their risk of dementia, new findings show. In the study, the researchers looked at drugs that have "anticholinergic effects," meaning they block a neurotransmittercalled acetylcholine. "We have known for some time that even single doses of these medications can cause impairment in cognition, slower reaction time, [and] reduced attention and ability to concentrate," said Shelly Gray, the study's first author and a pharmacy professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. But Gray's study found a link between heavier use of these medications and dementia, "which is a nonreversible, severe form of cognitive impairment," she said. Read More » Gen X and Y: Why You Need to Watch Your Cholesterol Now Consider it a wake-up call for generations X and Y: You may think you are healthy, but having cholesterol levels that are even slightly high during your 30s may double your risk for heart disease later in life, new research shows. Their message is for young adults to get their cholesterol level checked and, if it's high, do something about it now. Read More » US Obesity Rates Have Risen Most in Older Adults Obesity rates have increased in most age groups in the United States in recent years, but the biggest rise has been in older adults, according to a new poll. Over the past five years, the obesity rate among people ages 65 and older has increased by 4 percentage points — from 23.4 percent in 2008 to 27.4 percent in 2014, according to the poll, from Gallup and Healthways. During that same time period, obesity rates among people ages 45 to 64 increased by 3.5 percentage points (from 29.5 percent to 33 percent), and obesity rates among people ages 30 to 44 increased by 2.3 percentage points (from 27.0 percent to 29.3 percent). Young adults ages 18 to 29 had the smallest increase, at just 0.3 percentage points (from 17.4 percent to 17.7 percent). Read More » Remarkable fossils push back snake origins by 65 million years By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Snakes have been slithering on Earth far longer than anyone ever realized. Scientists on Tuesday described the four oldest-known snake fossils, the most ancient of which was a roughly 10-inch-long (25 cm) reptile called Eophis underwoodi unearthed in a quarry near Oxford, England, that lived about 167 million years ago. The remarkable fossils from Britain, Portugal and the United States rewrite the history of snake evolution, pushing back snake origins by tens of millions of years. Until now, the oldest snake fossil dated from about 102 million years ago, said University of Alberta paleontologist Michael Caldwell, who led the study published in the journal Nature Communications. Read More »