GoogleTrends: February 2015

Friday, February 27, 2015

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U.S. rocket launch pad repair set to halt in funding spat

By irene klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla (Reuters) - Work to repair a Virginia-owned launch pad damaged by an Orbital ATK rocket explosion is about to halt amid a debate about who should pick up the bill, officials involved in the dispute told Reuters. Orbital was launching its third Antares mission for NASA under a $1.9 billion contract to fly cargo to the International Space Station. Orbital had insurance to cover its losses at Wallops, as well as damage to federal property and other entities as required by the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees commercial launches in the United States. A funding solution may come as Orbital talks to Virginia officials and NASA, which owns and operates the Wallops Flight Facility.

More Mysterious Craters Found in Siberia

Last summer, the discovery of several new giant craters in Siberia drew worldwide interest, launching wild speculation that meteorites, or even aliens, caused the gaping crevasses. In July 2014, reindeer herders discovered a 260-feet-wide (80 meters) crater in northern Russia's Yamal Peninsula. Now, satellite images have revealed at least four more craters, and at least one is surrounded by as many as 20 mini craters, The Siberian Times reported. "We know now of seven craters in the Arctic area," Vasily Bogoyavlensky, a scientist at the Moscow-based Oil and Gas Research Institute, told The Siberian Times.

Cool Pacific Ocean Slowed Global Warming

The Pacific Ocean has been a planetary air conditioner for the past two decades, but the relief may soon end, a new study finds. The Pacific and Atlantic oceans undergo decades-long natural oscillations that alter their sea surface temperatures. Over the past 130 years, the tempo of global warming has revved up or slowed down in tune with changing ocean temperatures, researchers reported today (Feb. 26) in the journal Science. The Pacific Ocean wielded its mighty influence starting in 1998, when it interrupted the rapid climb of global temperatures, the study reported.

US Needs a Mars Colony, Buzz Aldrin Tells Senators

The United States must do more than just plant a flag on Mars if it wants to continue as a leader in the field of space exploration, Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin told senators this week. "In my opinion, there is no more convincing way to demonstrate American leadership for the remainder of this century than to commit to a permanent presence on Mars," Aldrin told members of the U.S. Senate's Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness during a hearing Tuesday (Feb. 24). Going to Mars without setting up a colony — launching only round-trip manned missions, in other words — would not be enough, nor would setting up human outposts on the moon, Aldrin said. Buzz Aldrin, who set foot on the moon just after Neil Armstrong in July 1969, has developed an architecture to establish a Mars colony, with the first manned Red Planet landings envisioned in 2038.

New Space Telescope Tech Could Be 1,000 Times Sharper Than Hubble

A new type of orbiting telescope could take images more than 1,000 times sharper than those snapped by NASA's famous Hubble Space Telescope, the technology's developers say. Researchers have dubbed their concept the "Aragoscope," after French scientist Francois Arago, who was the first to discover that light waves diffract around a disk. The Aragoscope could take images of plasma swaps between stars and of black hole event horizons, the points beyond which nothing, not even light, can escape a black hole's gravitational pull, said project leader Webster Cash of the University of Colorado, Boulder. "The heavier the space telescope, the more expensive the cost of the launch," said CU-Boulder doctoral student Anthony Harness.

Stephen Hawking Thinks These 3 Things Could Destroy Humanity

Stephen Hawking may be most famous for his work on black holes and gravitational singularities, but the world-renowned physicist has also become known for his outspoken ideas about things that could destroy human civilization. Here are a few things Hawking has said could bring about the demise of human civilization. Hawking is part of a small but growing group of scientists who have expressed concerns about "strong" artificial intelligence (AI) — intelligence that could equal or exceed that of a human. "The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race," Hawking told the BBC in December 2014.

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Thursday, February 26, 2015

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Food Additives Linked to Weight Gain, Inflammation

Food additives that are commonly used to thicken and stabilize processed foods may disrupt the bacterial makeup of the gut, causing health problems, a new study in animals suggests. In the study, mice that were fed two chemicals that are commonly added to foods gained weight, had altered blood sugar and developed intestinal problems. The chemicals were "emulsifying agents," chemicals that hold together mixtures that include both fat and water, which would otherwise separate. The chemicals were "able to trigger low-grade inflammation and metabolic syndrome," in the mice, said study co-author Benoit Chassaing, a microbiologist at Georgia State University in Atlanta.

Greenhouse Effect Is Witnessed…and Getting Worse

The climate-changing greenhouse effect exists and has been directly measured in the United States, a new study reports. The results confirm what scientists had already proved through models and laboratory experiments: Pumping carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere is warming the Earth's surface. "We're actually measuring the fact that rising carbon dioxide concentrations are leading to the greenhouse effect," said lead study author Dan Feldman, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Since the late 1950s, scientists have documented rising levels of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" in Earth's atmosphere.

Google's Artificial Intelligence Can Probably Beat You at Video Games

Computers have already beaten humans at chess and "Jeopardy!," and now they can add one more feather to their caps: the ability to best humans in several classic arcade games. A team of scientists at Google created an artificially intelligent computer program that can teach itself to play Atari 2600 video games, using only minimal background information to learn how to play. By mimicking some principles of the human brain, the program is able to play at the same level as a professional human gamer, or better, on most of the games, researchers reported today (Feb. 25) in the journal Nature. This is the first time anyone has built an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can learn to excel at a wide range of tasks, study co-author Demis Hassabis, an AI researcher at Google DeepMind in London, said at a news conference yesterday.

Astronaut Reports Minor Water Leak in Spacesuit Helmet After Spacewalk

An American astronaut found water inside his spacesuit helmet at the end of an otherwise flawless spacewalk outside the International Space Station today (Feb. 25), but he was never in any danger, NASA officials say. NASA astronaut Terry Virts and his crewmate Barry "Butch" Wilmore had just completed a nearly seven-hour spacewalk to upgrade the space station and entered the airlock when Virts reported what appeared to be a minor water leak. "There was no indication whatsoever of any water intrusion into the helmet during the spacewalk itself," said NASA spokesman Rob Navias during the agency's live coverage. Navias stressed that Virts was in no danger at any time during or after the spacewalk, and that he and Wilmore were in good spirits after their successful 6-hour, 43-minute excursion.

Confirmed: Space Rock Created Swedish Lake

After two centuries of arguing about its origin, scientists have finally confirmed that Hummeln Lake in southern Sweden is an impact crater. Hummeln Lake's rounded shoreline first drew interest from scientists as far back as the 1820s, but it wasn't identified as a possible impact crater until the 1960s, said Carl Alwmark, lead author of the new study and a geologist at Lund University in Sweden.

Monster Black Hole Is the Largest and Brightest Ever Found

Astronomers have discovered the largest and most luminous black hole ever seen — an ancient monster with a mass about 12 billion times that of the sun — that dates back to when the universe was less than 1 billion years old. Supermassive black holes are thought to lurk in the hearts of most, if not all, large galaxies. The largest black holes found so far in the nearby universe have masses more than 10 billion times that of the sun. In comparison, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way is thought to have a mass only 4 million to 5 million times that of the sun.

Mystery Spot on Dwarf Planet Ceres Has Mysterious Partner (Photos)

The intrigue surrounding Ceres continues to deepen as a NASA probe gets closer to the dwarf planet. The new photos of Ceres from NASA's Dawn spacecraft, which is scheduled to arrive in orbit around Ceres on the night of March 5, reveal that a puzzling bright spot on the dwarf planet's surface has a buddy of sorts. "Ceres' bright spot can now be seen to have a companion of lesser brightness, but apparently in the same basin," Dawn principal investigator Chris Russell, of UCLA, said in a statement.

3D Laser Scanner Makes Haunting Works of Art

Two historians on a mission to preserve historic structures in Ethiopia inadvertently turned a cutting-edge 3D scanning device into a tool for creating works of art. Some lidar technologies can see through foliage, and have been used to hunt for lost cities buried in the jungle.

Earth's Worst Mass Extinction Preserved Ancient Footprints

Earth's worst mass extinction may have created ideal conditions for preserving the ancient footprints of giant reptiles on the muddy ocean floor, according to a new study. Researchers found a spike in fossilized tracks of tetrapods (these early four-limbed vertebrates include amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) during the early Triassic period, roughly 250 million years ago. This increase may be the result of a mass extinction at the end of the Permian period that wiped out worms and other tiny creatures that typically churn up ocean sediments, leaving behind sticky seafloor conditions that preserved the wading and swimming habits of ancient giant reptiles, the scientists said. The researchers captured a "Goldilocks" window when they could see this behavior simply because they had "this magical time after this mass extinction," said study co-author Mary Droser, a professor of geology at the University of California, Riverside.

Woman's Rare Case of 'Seasonal OCD' Cured

A rare case of "seasonal" obsessive-compulsive disorder in a woman in highlights the complexity of this mental health condition, researchers say. The woman's OCD symptoms appeared every year when winter began, and then ended as the seasons shifted toward summer. After living with the condition for a decade, the woman was treated at a clinic and recovered, the case report said. Psychiatrists "do believe that there is a tie between times of the year and the exacerbation of illness," said Dr. Howard L. Forman, an attending psychiatrist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, who was not involved in the woman's case.

Deadly Gut Bacteria Cause Half a Million Infections Yearly

Nearly half a million cases of the difficult-to-treat and sometimes deadly infection called "C. diff" now occur yearly in the United States, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers found that in 2011, Americans had an estimated 453,000 infections with the bacteria Clostridium difficile, or C. difficile, which can cause severe diarrhea, and frequently comes back after treatment. "This is a very severe illness that causes tremendous suffering, and death," Dr. Michael Bell, deputy director of the CDC's Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, said in a news conference today (Feb. 25). Infections from C. difficile have been on the rise in recent years, and a strain of the bacteria that causes more severe disease has become more common, Bell said.

Playing physics: Student builds Lego Large Hadron Collider

A particle physics student has used his downtime to build a Lego model of the world's most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and is now lobbying the toy company to take it to market. Nathan Readioff's design uses existing Lego pieces to replicate all four elements of the LHC -- known as ATLAS, ALICE, CMS and LHCb -- and uses cutaway walls to reveal all of the major subsystems. He also wrote step-by-step guides to making the miniatures and has now submitted his models to the Lego Ideas website, where ideas from members of the public that get more than 10,000 votes are considered by Lego for future production.

Australian researchers unveil world's first 3D printed jet engine

By Jane Wardell SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian researchers unveiled the world's first 3D-printed jet engine on Thursday, a manufacturing breakthrough that could lead to cheaper, lighter and more fuel-efficient jets. Engineers at Monash University and its commercial arm are making top-secret prototypes for Boeing Co, Airbus Group NV, Raytheon Co and Safran SA in a development that could be the savior of Australia's struggling manufacturing sector. "This will allow aerospace companies to compress their development cycles because we are making these prototype engines three or four times faster than normal," said Simon Marriott, chief executive of Amaero Engineering, the private company set up by Monash to commercialize the product.

Best 3D View of Deep Universe Reveals Astonishing Details (Video)

The amazing new photo, released by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) today (Feb. 26) reveals never-before-seen cosmic objects in a relatively small patch of sky. The MUSE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile spent 27 hours staring at the Hubble Space Telescope's Deep Field South region, helping scientists learn more about far-flung galaxies. Scientists are using the new image to gather new information about the distance, speed, composition and other details about the galaxies spotted by MUSE. "After just a few hours of observations at the telescope, we had a quick look at the data and found many galaxies — it was very encouraging," Roland Bacon, principal investigator of the MUSE instrument, said in the same statement.

Stone Age Britons imported wheat in shock sign of sophistication

By Alister Doyle OSLO (Reuters) - Stone Age Britons imported wheat about 8,000 years ago in a surprising sign of sophistication for primitive hunter-gatherers long viewed as isolated from European agriculture, a study showed on Thursday. British scientists found traces of wheat DNA in a Stone Age site off the south coast of England near the Isle of Wight, giving an unexpected sign of contact between ancient hunter-gatherers and farmers who eventually replaced them. The wheat DNA was dated to 8,000 years ago, 2,000 years before Stone Age people in mainland Britain started growing cereals and 400 years before farming reached what is now northern Germany or France, they wrote in the journal Science. "We were surprised to find wheat," co-author Robin Allaby of the University of Warwick told Reuters of finds at Bouldnor Cliff.

Cooler Pacific has slowed global warming, briefly: study

By Alister Doyle OSLO (Reuters) - A natural cooling of the Pacific Ocean has contributed to slow global warming in the past decade but the pause is unlikely to last much longer, U.S. scientists said on Thursday. The slowdown in the rate of rising temperatures, from faster gains in the 1980s and 1990s, has puzzled scientists because heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions from factories, power plants and cars have hit record highs. Almost 200 nations are due to agree a U.N. deal to slow climate change in Paris in December. Examining temperatures of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans back to 1850, which have natural swings in winds and currents that can last decades, the scientists said a cooler phase in the Pacific in recent years helped explain the warming hiatus.

'Big Brain' Gene Found in Humans, Not Chimps

A single gene may have paved the way for the rise of human intelligence by dramatically increasing the number of brain cells found in a key brain region. This gene seems to be uniquely human: It is found in modern-day humans, Neanderthals and another branch of extinct humans called Denisovans, but not in chimpanzees. By allowing the brain region called the neocortex to contain many more neurons, the tiny snippet of DNA may have laid the foundation for the human brain's massive expansion. "It is so cool that one tiny gene alone may suffice to affect the phenotype of the stem cells, which contributed the most to the expansion of the neocortex," said study lead author Marta Florio, a doctoral candidate in molecular and cellular biology and genetics at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany.

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Wednesday, February 25, 2015

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Scientists name new species of wasp after Boston Bruins goalie Rask

A team of researchers studying insects in Africa has named a newly discovered species of wasp with a distinctive yellow-and-black pattern after Boston Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask, the Boston Globe reported on Tuesday. Robert Copeland, a follower of Boston sports and an entomologist at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Nairobi, told the newspaper that the wasp's yellow and black coloring resembles a Boston Bruins jersey. The research also was underwritten by the government of Finland, where Rask was born. "This species is named after the acrobatic goaltender for the Finnish national ice hockey team and the Boston Bruins, whose glove hand is as tenacious as the raptorial fore tarsus of this dryinid species," the authors wrote in the paper, which is due to be published in March in the scientific journal Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae. Rask told the newspaper he was unaware of any animals named after him, other than the occasional fan's pet cat or dog.

Scientists name new species of wasp after Boston Bruins goalie Rask

A team of researchers studying insects in Africa has named a newly discovered species of wasp with a distinctive yellow-and-black pattern after Boston Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask, the Boston Globe reported on Tuesday. Robert Copeland, a follower of Boston sports and an entomologist at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Nairobi, told the newspaper that the wasp's yellow and black colouring resembles a Boston Bruins jersey. The research also was underwritten by the government of Finland, where Rask was born. "This species is named after the acrobatic goaltender for the Finnish national ice hockey team and the Boston Bruins, whose glove hand is as tenacious as the raptorial fore tarsus of this dryinid species," the authors wrote in the paper, which is due to be published in March in the scientific journal Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae. Rask told the newspaper he was unaware of any animals named after him, other than the occasional fan's pet cat or dog.

What Would It Be Like to Live on the Moon?

Lunar days stretch for about 14 Earth days with average temperatures of 253 degrees Fahrenheit (123 degrees Celsius), while lunar nights also last 14 Earth days (due to the moon's rotation) and maintain a frigid cold of minus 387 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 233 degrees Celsius). "About the only place we could build a base that wouldn't have to deal with these extremes is, oddly enough, near the lunar poles," said Rick Elphic, project scientist for NASA's LADEE probe, which studied the moon's atmosphere and dust environment before performing a planned crash into the natural satellitein April 2014. "Instead of the blazing heat of lunar noon, it is a kind of perpetual balmy sunset, with temperatures around 0 degrees Celsius [32 degrees Fahrenheit] due to the low angle of the sun," Elphic added.

Chockablock with crocs: Seven species rocked ancient Amazon basin

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - If one croc is reason enough to stay out of the water, how about dipping your toes in a place with seven different croc species including two 26-foot (8-meter) monsters, all living side by side eating just about anything that moves? With powerful jaws and teeth, 26-foot Purussaurus neivensis was the neighborhood bully.

The Best Length for Eyelashes, According to Science

Cosmeticians probably won't agree, but scientists say eyelashes have an optimal length: a third of the width of the eye. "They've been hypothesized to act as sun shades, dust catchers and blink-reflex triggers," said David Hu, a mechanical engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

Ancient Croc with 'Shovel Mouth' Likely Enjoyed Clam Dinners

A peg-toothed crocodile relative with a mouth like a shovel lived in the prehistoric swamps of Peru about 13 million years ago, a new study finds. The newly discovered reptile (Gnatusuchus pebasensis) is one of seven types of extinct crocodylians researchers found recently near the Amazon River in northeastern Peru. Two of the crocodylians were already known to scientists, but the other five are newly discovered species, said the study's lead author, Rodolfo Salas-Gismondi, a graduate student at the University of Montpellier, in France, and chief of the paleontology department at the National University of San Marcos' Museum of Natural History in Lima, Peru. Salas-Gismondi and his colleagues spent more than a decade traveling to Peru to excavate the same bone bed on the banks of the Amazon River during the dry summer months.

Scarlett and Alessandro Top Sexiest Names List

Over the past five years, Laura Wattenberg, founder of BabyNameWizard.com — a website popular among expectant parents, performers and authors looking for names — asked tens of thousands of visitors to rate names for sexiness. "We wanted to be able to give our visitors a sense of how the name plays to other people," said Wattenberg, author of "The Baby Name Wizard" (Three Rivers Press, 2013). The top 10 contenders for boys' and girls' names shared a number of sexy characteristics, Wattenberg wrote in her blog, published yesterday (Feb. 23). Names that sound exotic topped the list, Wattenberg noticed.

Fighter Jets May Launch Small Satellites to Space

Small satellites could hitch rides to space on an F-15 fighter jet by next year, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the agency responsible for developing new technologies for the U.S. military. DARPA's so-called Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (ALASA) program is an ambitious project that aims to launch small satellites more quickly, and reduce the cost of lofting them into orbit. Traditional launches using rockets cost roughly $30,000 per pound ($66,000 per kilogram), DARPA officials have said. The F-15 jet would take off on a nearly vertical trajectory, with the expendable launch vehicle mounted underneath it.

Mummy Hair Reveals Ancient South American Diet

A chemical analysis of the mummies' hair suggests these ancient individuals, who once lived on the southern coast of modern-day Peru, likely ate corn, beans, and marine plants and animals, the researchers found. "We can use hair to look at diet because, quite simply, we are what we eat," said the study's lead researcher Kelly Knudson, an associate professor of anthropology at the Center for Bioarchaeological Research at Arizona State University. "The textiles have been sent to museums all over the world," Knudson told Live Science. "By looking at how far the hair is from the scalp, we were able to look at what they were eating in particular weeks or months before they died," Knudson said.

3 Men Get Bionic Hands After Nerve Injuries

Three men who had lost the use of their hands in accidents are now the first people with this type of injury to receive bionic hands controlled by transplanted nerve tissue, a new study reports. During the procedure, known as "bionic reconstruction," doctors amputated the useless hand, transplanted nerve and muscle tissue from another part of the body to boost nerve signals in the arm, and then used these nerve signals to control a robotic limb. "There's nothing new in the prosthetic device or the surgical techniques," said Dr. Oskar Aszmann, a professor of plastic and reconstructive surgery at the Medical University of Vienna, in Austria, and co-author of the study published today (Feb. 24) in the journal The Lancet.

Human Hibernation: Snowy States Cause Longer Slumbers

Brant Hasler, a sleep expert and assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh who was not involved in the research, cautioned that the population in the new study is likely not completely representative of each state, because the researchers included only the people who use this particular sleep-tracking app. In addition, because the study was conducted at one point in time, it cannot say whether people's sleep habits changed in the wintertime compared to the summertime. But the finding that people sleep longer under more wintry conditions is generally consistent with what's known from previous research, Hasler said. This change in sleep habits is mainly due to the reduction in daylight hours in the wintertime, which affects people's internal circadian clocks and makes them want to sleep more, he said.

Obesity Is Complicated and Needs New Approach, Scientists Say

With obesity rates continuing to rise around the globe and the majority of Americans now obese or overweight, it's easy to see that we are losing the battle of the bulge. Aside from isolated areas of improvement where people are, in fact, losing weight — in a city here, a neighborhood there — no country has succeeded in reversing its obesity epidemic. In a series of six critical articles covering the health, policy, economics and politics of obesity, scientists lay out what society has been doing wrong and call for a new global action plan to meet what they call the "modest" goal of the World Health Organization: no increase in the prevalence of obesity from now through 2025. "There are clear agreements on what strategies should be implemented and tested to address obesity," said Christina Roberto, an assistant professor of social and behavioral sciences and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, and lead author of the first report of the series.

Astronauts leave space station for second spacewalk

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Two U.S. astronauts floated outside the International Space Station on Wednesday for the second of three spacewalks to begin preparing parking spots for new commercial space taxis. Station commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore, 52, and flight engineer Terry Virts, 47, left the station's Quest airlock just after 7 a.m. EST (1200 GMT) and headed to the space shuttle's old docking port, a NASA Television broadcast showed. The spacewalkers struggled a bit to remove a cover protecting the berthing slip, one of two sites being reconfigured for new spaceships under development by Boeing and Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX. The adapters will be installed during four more spacewalks NASA plans in 2015.

Scientists discover black hole so big it contradicts growth theory

By Colin Packham SYDNEY (Reuters) - Scientists say they have discovered a black hole so big that it challenges the theory about how they grow. Scientists said this black hole was formed about 900 million years after the Big Bang. "Based on previous research, this is the largest black hole found for that period of time," Dr Fuyan Bian, Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University (ANU), told Reuters on Wednesday. "Current theory is for a limit to how fast a black hole can grow, but this black hole is too large for that theory." The creation of supermassive black holes remains an open topic of research.

The Far Side of the Moon Has Phases and Now You Can See 'Em (Video)

A new video from a NASA satellite orbiting the moon brings the phases of the far side of the lunar body into the light. The phases of the moon — full moon, new moon, crescent and everything in between — also occur on the side facing away from Earth, according to data gathered by the NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Launched in 2009, NASA's LRO probe has imaged the far side of the moon in gorgeous detail. The phases of the moon on the far side differ from the familiar phases on the Earth-facing side.

Mars Rover Curiosity Snaps Amazing Selfie at Latest Drilling Site (Photo)

A new selfie taken by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows just where the six-wheeled robot has been working for the last five months. Curiosity's latest Mars photo, which was released today (Feb. 24), is a composite of dozens of images taken in late January by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on Curiosity's robotic arm. The 1-ton Curiosity rover has been studying Pahrump Hills terrain since September 2014 and has performed two sample-collecting drilling operations there, on rocks dubbed Confidence Hills and Mojave 2. Curiosity landed inside the 96-mile-wide (154 km) Gale Crater in August 2012 on a $2.5-billion mission to determine if Mars has ever been capable of supporting microbial life.

Pink cloud from NASA rocket lights up sky over U.S. Southwest

(Reuters) - An unusual pink cloud that lit up the sky over New Mexico and Arizona early on Wednesday was caused by a NASA research rocket launched to study the outer reaches of Earth's atmosphere, scientists said. The cloud stunned many residents who posted photographs online and speculated on social media about its cause, with theories ranging from shootings stars to the sprightly fictional character Peter Pan. But researchers at the White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico said the fluffy phenomenon had a much more Earth-bound explanation. ...

Study links common food additives to Crohn's disease, colitis

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Common additives in ice cream, margarine, packaged bread and many processed foods may promote the inflammatory bowel diseases ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease as well as a group of obesity-related conditions, scientists said on Wednesday. The researchers focused on emulsifiers, chemicals added to many food products to improve texture and extend shelf life. In mouse experiments, they found emulsifiers can change the species composition of gut bacteria and induce intestinal inflammation.

Air Force seeks rethink of 2019 deadline for new U.S. rocket engine

By Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force on Wednesday said it will release plans within months for replacing the Russian-built RD-180 motors that now power some rockets used to launch military satellites into space, but said it would likely miss a 2019 congressional deadline to start using a new U.S. engine. Air Force Secretary Deborah James told the Senate Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee that failure to extend the 2019 deadline could lead to swapping one monopoly provider of rocket launches for military satellites for another. Congress last year passed a law that requires the Air Force to develop a new propulsion system by 2019 to replace the RD-180 engine that powers one of two rockets used by the current monopoly launch provider, United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co. The Air Force has said it expects to certify privately held Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, to launch some of those satellites by mid-year, but the process is still ongoing.

Scientists witness carbon dioxide trapping heat in air

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists have witnessed carbon dioxide trapping heat in the atmosphere above the United States, chronicling human-made climate change in action, live in the wild.

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