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Tuesday, June 30, 2015

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Exclusive: U.S. should spurn Russia rocket engines despite SpaceX failure - McCain

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The failure of a SpaceX rocket over Florida on Sunday should not lead U.S. officials to conclude there is need for a Russian rocket engine to help get military equipment into space, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain said on Monday. "This mishap in no way diminishes the urgency of ridding ourselves of the Russian RD-180 rocket engine," McCain said in a statement. (Reporting By Richard Cowan; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

Rosetta Sees Signs of Water Ice on Comet Surface (Photos)

Patches of water ice appear to be speckled across the surface of a comet, according to a new study using observations from a European space probe. The researchers also note that there have been no significant changes to the spots after a month of observations. "Water ice is the most plausible explanation for the occurrence and properties of these features," said Antoine Pommerol, a physicist at the University of Bern, in a statement.

Armored Spiky Worm Had 30 Legs, Will Haunt Your Nightmares

A spiky, wormlike creature with 30 legs — 18 clawed rear legs and 12 featherlike front legs that likely helped it filter food from the water — once lived in the ancient oceans of the early Cambrian period, about 518 million years ago, a new study finds. "It's a bit of a large animal for this time period," said one of the study's lead researchers, Javier Ortega-Hernández, a research fellow in paleobiology at the University of Cambridge. The creature likely used its rear clawed legs to anchor to sponges or other penetrable surfaces, and waved its feathery front limbs to and fro in the current to catch nutrients in the water, Ortega-Hernández said.

Falcon rocket explosion leaves SpaceX launch schedule in tatters

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla (Reuters) - SpaceX on Monday was searching for what destroyed its Falcon 9 rocket after liftoff over the weekend, leaving customers still loyal but unsure when their satellites might fly. The privately-held company, owned and operated by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, has flown 18 successful missions with the Falcon 9 before Sunday's failure. Preliminary analysis pointed to a problem with the rocket's second-stage motor liquid oxygen tank, SpaceX said.

Sugary Drinks Kill 184,000 People Every Year

The finding — a revised estimate of numbers first presented at a scientific meeting in 2013 — represents a tally of deaths from diabetes, heart disease and cancer that scientists say can be directly attributed to the consumption of sweetened sodas, fruit drinks, sports/energy drinks and iced teas. The numbers imply that sugary drinks can cause as many deaths annually as the flu. "It should be a global priority to substantially reduce or eliminate sugar-sweetened beverages from the diet," said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, senior author of the study and dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University in Massachusetts.

After Trauma, Women Face Heart Disease Risk

Women who experience a traumatic event and develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may be at increased risk for heart disease, a new large study suggests. In the study, researchers found that women who had four or more symptoms of PTSD after a traumatic event had a 60 percent increased risk of cardiovascular disease, such as a heart attack or stroke, than women who experienced no trauma, over a 20-year period. Women who had experienced traumatic events but who didn't report experiencing symptoms of PTSD had a 45 percent increased risk of cardiovascular disease, the study found.

1 in 3 Americans Owns a Gun

Nearly one in three adults in the United States owns at least one gun, according to a new study. In the study, researchers surveyed a nationally representative sample of 4,000 adults in the United States on gun ownership. Most of the gun owners were white men older than 55, and the majority of them were married, the researchers said.

Spiky little sea 'monster' thrived a half billion years ago

Scientists on Monday announced the discovery in Yunnan Province of beautifully preserved fossils of one of the stranger animals ever to call Earth home. The creature, Collinsium ciliosum, lived during the Cambrian Period, a time of remarkable evolutionary experimentation when many unusual animals appeared and vanished. "Collinsium is definitely an odd-looking animal, and if one were to bump into one of these during a snorkeling or diving trip nowadays it would be quite shocking," said University of Cambridge paleobiologist Javier Ortega-Hernández, whose research appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Shark Attacks in North Carolina: 'Perfect Storm' May Be Causing Bloody Encounters

Two people were bitten by sharks off the coast of North Carolina this weekend, bringing the total number of shark attacks in the state up to five in under three weeks. "It's not a certain thing that makes this happen," said George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida's Florida Museum of Natural History. Both shark attacks this weekend occurred off North Carolina's Outer Banks, a 200-mile-long (320 kilometers) string of barrier islands that hugs the state's coast.

Dubai says plans world's first 3D printed office building

Dubai said it would construct a small office building using a 3D printer for the first time, in a drive to develop technology that would cut costs and save time as the city grows. 3D printing, which uses a printer to make three-dimensional objects from a digital design, is taking off in manufacturing industries around the world but has so far been used little in construction. Dubai's one-storey prototype building, with about 2,000 square feet (185 square meters) of floor space, will be printed layer-by-layer using a 20-foot tall printer, Mohamed Al Gergawi, the United Arab Emirates Minister of Cabinet Affairs, said on Tuesday.

Camel Spider's Fierce Jaw Is Focus of New Creepy Crawly 'Dictionary'

The camel spiders star in a new publication designed to help researchers better study the Solifugae order. Of course, the camel spider's huge jaws, or chelicerae, also set it apart from its spider cousins. The jaws of a solifuge contain "most of the relevant information" needed to tell one species of camel spider from the next, said Lorenzo Prendini, a curator in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Iron Age Warrior Lived with Arrowhead in Spine

A horrific spinal injury caused by a bronze arrowhead didn't immediately kill an Iron Age warrior, who survived long enough for his bone to heal around the metal point, a new study of his burial in central Kazakhstan finds. "This found individual was extremely lucky to survive," said study researcher Svetlana Svyatko, a research fellow in the school of geography, archaeology and paleoecology at Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland. The researchers have studied the area in central Kazakhstan for more than 20 years.

See Venus and Jupiter Dance Together Tonight

From your outstretched hand, your clenched fist is equal to roughly 10 degrees, so at the beginning of June, Venus and Jupiter appeared about "two fists" apart. Conjunctions between Venus and Jupiter are far from rare events. For this to happen, Venus must be close to inferior conjunction (when it's positioned between Earth and the sun).

'Leap Second' Tonight Will Cause 61-Second Minute

Time will stand still for one second this evening (June 30) as a "leap second" is added to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the time standard by which most clocks are regulated. The extra second will be inserted just before midnight UTC — just before midnight GMT, and just before 8 p.m. EDT. Instead of rolling straight through from 23:59:59 to 00:00:00, UTC will tick over to 23:59:60 for a second.

'Fireball' Over US Southeast Was Probably Falling Space Junk (Video)

The bright light that streaked across skies throughout the American Southeast early Monday morning (June 29) was probably a piece of space junk crashing back to Earth, researchers say. The mysterious sky light blazed up at 1:29 a.m. EDT (0529 GMT) Monday and was witnessed by skywatchers from Louisiana to Virginia — and by all six meteor-observing cameras operated by NASA in the Southeast. But this was no meteor, said Bill Cooke, head of the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Space Record: Cosmonaut Logs 804 Days (and Counting) in Orbit

A cosmonaut onboard the International Space Station has beaten the record for the most time spent off the planet — and he still has months to go before he comes home to Earth. Gennady Padalka, a Russian who is serving a record fourth command of the orbiting outpost, logged his 804th day in Earth orbit Monday (June 29), spread over five flights. Scheduled to return to Earth on Sept. 11, Padalka marked his 57th birthday onboard the space station on June 21.

Meet Hades, the Centipede from Hell

Deep beneath the surface of the Earth, in a dank and dismal cave, lives Hades, the invertebrate king of hell.

How Does Execution Drug Midazolam Work?

States can still use the sedative drug midazolam in lethal injections, according to today's Supreme Court decision. But how exactly does the drug work, and why do some say that it's unreliable?

Toxic Fish Poisons More People Than Thought

An illness called ciguatera poisoning, which is caused by eating certain fish, is more common in Florida than previously believed, a new study finds. Each year, 56 Floridians become ill with this kind of poisoning for every 1 million people in the state, according to the new estimate from researchers at University of Florida and the state's Department of Health. Most infections in the state are caused by eating fish that were caught in either the Bahamas or the Florida Keys, though nearly 5 percent of the toxic fish came from Palm Beach County waters, and 4 percent came from Miami-Dade County.

Walking in Nature May Reduce Negativity

Researchers found that the 19 people in the study who took 90-minute walks in a natural setting had lower levels of negative, repetitive thoughts about themselves, compared with another 19 people who took 90-minute walks in an urban setting. Previous research has linked such thoughts, called rumination, to a heightened risk of depression and related conditions. "It was pretty striking that a 90-minute walk had this much of an impact," said study author Gregory Bratman, a doctoral student in the department of biology at Stanford University.

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Monday, June 29, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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SpaceX Cargo-Mission Failure Doesn't Endanger Space Station Crew, NASA Says

The three crewmembers currently aboard the International Space Station are in no danger of running out of crucial supplies despite today's failure of a SpaceX cargo mission to the orbiting lab, NASA officials said. Despite this being the third space station resupply vehicle to fail to reach its target in the last eight months, NASA officials said the crew is well stocked through October, with more supplies due to be delivered in the coming months. Michael Suffredini, NASA's International Space Station program manager, said in a press conference today following the rocket explosion that the current supply situation would have to be much more dire to consider bringing the current crewmembers home.

Will Fake Rhino Horns Curb Poaching?

A new company is engineering a synthetic rhino horn that could be indistinguishable from the natural kind. The goal is to flood the black market for rhino horn, which is prized in some parts of Asia for its purported medicinal value, according to the company, called Pembient. By decreasing the amount of money the horn fetches, the company founders hope to reduce the incentive for poachers in Africa to kill rhinos.

Red Sea's Glowing Corals are Rainbow of Colors

Deep in the Red Sea, beyond the reach of most scuba divers, coral reefs are putting on a glowing, colorful show, scientists have discovered. Researchers found the radiant corals more than 160 feet (50 meters) below the surface of the Red Sea, which separates Africa from the Arabian Peninsula. The corals' glow comes from fluorescent pigments, noted study co-author Jörg Wiedenmann, a professor of biological oceanography at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom.

Solar Plane Takes Off on Record 120-Hour Flight Across Pacific

A solar-powered plane able to fly in sunshine or darkness without using any fuel took off today (June 29) on a planned 120-hour flight across the Pacific Ocean, from Nagoya, Japan, to Kalaeola, Hawaii. The Solar Impulse 2 took off from Nagoya Airfield at 3:03 a.m. local time in Japan (2:03 p.m. EDT on June 28). "This flight will be demanding and challenging particularly given its duration and the fact that no immediate landing is possible and will be a feat never accomplished before in the world of aviation," Solar Impulse officials said in a statement.

Gorgeous Night-Shining Clouds Glow in New Earth Images

This glowing layer is made up of noctilucent, or night-shining clouds. According to NASA's Earth Observatory, these clouds form when the lower atmosphere warms and the upper atmosphere cools, a pattern that occurs in late spring and summer. Noctilucent clouds far from the poles are a fairly new phenomenon, and may be related to rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Fight Childhood Obesity in the Home, New Guidelines Say

Parents and pediatricians should fight childhood obesity by improving diet and activity levels in the home, new guidelines propose. In a new paper, leading physicians' group the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is updating its guidelines, last issued more than a decade ago, about how to stem rising rates of childhood obesity. More than one-third of American children and teens are overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Women's Sexual Readiness Tied to Heart Rate

A woman's heart rate may hold clues to how easy or difficult it is for her to become sexually aroused, as well as her overall sexual function, according to new research. Women in the study with low HRV — that is, whose heart rates were very steady — were significantly more likely to report problems with arousal and overall sexual dysfunction than women with average or above-average HRV — whose heart rates varied more from moment to moment. The findings suggest that "low HRV is likely a risk factor for sexual dysfunction in women," said Amelia Stanton, co-author of the study and a clinical psychology graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin.

Baby's Gaze May Predict Later Hyperactivity

A newborn's gaze may hold clues to how he or she will behave a few years later, new research suggests. In the study, researchers looked at 80 newborns, who were just 1 day to 4 days old, and measured how long the babies focused their gazes on images that were being shown to them. The researchers found that newborns who looked at each image for less time tended to be more hyperactive and impulsive later in childhood than the newborns who looked at the images longer.

Honey Bees' African Ancestors May Hold Cure for Biting Mite Plague

Jessica Arriens, a public affairs specialist for the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), contributed this article to Live Science's& Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. A tiny red beast that attaches, shield-like, to the back of a bee, Varroa feeds on bee hemolymph (bee blood).

'Whispering Gallery' of Light Speaks Loudly on Disease Detection (Op-Ed)

Sarah Bates, a public affairs specialist at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Common health tests, such as pregnancy and blood sugar tests, involve putting a drop of fluid on a test strip infused with a substance that will react with a specific molecule. The strip acts as a simple biosensor, a device that detects chemicals with the help of biological molecules such as proteins or enzymes.

Precious Time: The Challenge of Building a Better Atomic Clock

At the time, sailors had no reliable method for measuring longitude, the coordinates that measure how far east and west one is from the international dateline. Longitude's key was accurate timekeeping, as the English watchmaker John Harrison knew, and clocks just weren't accurate yet. "If you want to measure distances well, you really need an accurate clock," said Clayton Simien, an NSF-funded physicist at the University of Alabama-Birmingham.

The Grand Canyon Star Party: Illuminating Dark Skies

Michael Sainato is a freelancer with credits including the Miami Herald, Huffington Post and The Hill. Sainato contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Back in the late 1970s, the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers began setting up telescopes in the park for public use.

Listening with Lasers: Hybrid Technique Sees Into Human Body

The photons in laser light scatter when they encounter biological tissue. The approach, which combines laser light and ultrasound, is based on the photoacoustic effect, a concept first discovered by Alexander Graham Bell in the 1880s. To produce the photoacoustic effect, Bell focused a beam of light on a selenium block.

Texas Just Banned Sales of Shark Fin, Will Other States Follow?

Amanda Keledjian is a marine scientist working on Oceana U.S.A.'s responsible fishing campaign. Across the globe, sharks are being murdered for a culinary gimmick — shark fin soup, even though shark fins offer virtually no flavor or nutritional value. This weekend, the state of Texas took an important step forward for global shark conservation by becoming the 10th U.S. state to ban the trade of shark fins.

Mice of Mars: Rodents Pave Way to Red Planet

Such experiments began as far back as the late 1940s in initial tests to see if living things could withstand the extreme g-force of a rocket launch. Mice continue to play a critically important part in space experiments, mainly because the animals make excellent test subjects. Finally, because mice are mammals, they share many common characteristics with humans in terms of genetics, biology and behavior.

Real Climate Change as World Does More Than 'Show Up' (Op-Ed)

Lynn Scarlett, managing director of public policy at The Nature Conservancy, contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. The lead-up to this year's climate negotiations in Paris — officially, the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21) — is embodying that truth.

SpaceX Rocket Explosion Shouldn't Affect Commercial Crew Plans, NASA Says

The failure of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket during a cargo launch Sunday shouldn't have a big impact on the company's ability to fly astronauts to orbit and back a few years from now, NASA officials said. The two-stage Falcon 9 exploded Sunday (June 28) shortly after launching SpaceX's unmanned Dragon capsule on an attempted cargo mission to the International Space Station for NASA. The cause of the accident remains unclear at the moment, though SpaceX representatives have said they suspect some sort of issue with the rocket's second stage.

NASA Exhibits Space Shuttles Challenger, Columbia Debris for First Time

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — Artifacts recovered from the wreckages of NASA's Challenger and Columbia space shuttles are for the first time now on public display, part of a powerful new exhibit that is intended to honor the two winged spacecraft and their fallen astronaut crews. NASA officials joined family members of the fallen crews Saturday (June 27) to open "Forever Remembered," a new permanent exhibit installed under the retired space shuttle Atlantis at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. The solemn display, developed in secret over the past several years, serves to memorialize the 14 men and women who lost their lives on Challenger's and Columbia's ill-fated missions, STS-51L in 1986 and STS-107 in 2003, respectively.

Why June 30 Will Be 1 Second Longer

The year 2015 is not a leap year, but it does have a leap second, set to take place on Tuesday (June 30) at 7:59:60 p.m. EDT (23:59:60 GMT). "Earth's rotation is gradually slowing down a bit, so leap seconds are a way to account for that," Daniel MacMillan of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement. This happens because Earth's rotation is slowing down, thanks to a kind of braking force caused by the gravitational tug of war between Earth, the sun and the moon, researchers at NASA said.

Would Astronauts Have Survived the SpaceX Rocket Explosion?

Astronauts likely would have survived the rocket explosion that scuttled SpaceX's unmanned resupply mission to the International Space Station on Sunday, company representatives said. If the mishap had occurred during a crewed launch of the "Dragon V2" capsule variant, it likely would not have caused any fatalities, said SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell. "The escape system slated for the second version of Dragon would have — should certainly have taken the astronauts to a safe place after an anomaly like this," Shotwell said during a news conference following the accident Sunday.

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