GoogleTrends: August 2015

Monday, August 31, 2015

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Kerry, Obama to raise global warming issues in Alaska

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Scientists are "overwhelmingly unified" in concluding that humans are contributing to global climate change, Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday night, and the public is slowly getting the full picture.

Earth's Moving Mantle Leads to Earthquakes in Unusual Places

It has long been a mystery why some earthquakes strike towns in seemingly earthquake-proof regions, but researchers now have a potential explanation for why temblors sometimes rattle where they're not expected. Understanding the underlying source of these quakes could help officials prepare for their associated hazards. Researchers found that intraplate earthquakes — which occur in the middle, instead of at the borders, of tectonic plates — are influenced by convection, or heat-driven movements, of the molten mantle beneath the planet's cold, solid crust.

Parents: Talk About Alcohol When Kids Are 9

Parents should start talking to their children about alcohol at age 9, says a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics aimed at preventing binge drinking in young people. As many as 50 percent of high school students currently drink alcohol, and within that group, up to 60 percent binge drink, the authors wrote in the report, published today (Aug. 31) in the journal Pediatrics. The reason to start talking to kids about alcohol before they even reach middle school is that "kids are starting to develop impressions [about alcohol] as early as 9 years," said Dr. Lorena Siqueira, clinical professor of pediatrics at Florida International University and co-author of the new report.

How to Find 'Strange Life' on Alien Planets

Detecting signs of life very different from that of Earth in the atmospheres of alien planets may be difficult, but it is possible, researchers say. The team, led by Sara Seager of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), did not focus solely on Earth-like life. "What we've been trying to do is move away from that," William Bains, also of MIT, said during the Astrobiology Science Conference in Chicago in June.

NASA Tech Aims for Precise Landings on Mars (Video)

Getting a robotic spacecraft to nail a pinpoint landing is still just a dream for engineers, but a new technology could make it easier to reach distant destinations with better precision. The new Mars landing technology, which is being co-developed by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, and the University of Texas at Austin, compares pictures of the ground below to images already stored in the spacecraft's computer, to figure out how close to get to the landing site. NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, for instance, was targeted to land in a zone that measured 4 miles by 12 miles (7 by 20 kilometers).

Should You Stop Counting Calories?

To better fight obesity and its related diseases, people should stop counting calories and instead focus on eating nutritious foods, several researchers argue in a new editorial. Similar to quitting smoking, people who change their diet can see rapid improvements in their heart disease risk, the researchers wrote. For example, in a study of 2,000 heart attack survivors, those who were advised to eat fish were less likely to die during the study period than those who were not advised to eat fish, with improvements starting within a few months of the diet change, the editorial says.

Sexual Harassment in the Animal Kingdom? How Female Guppies Escape

Animal-behavior scientists discovered that female fish who were most bothered by this type of sexual harassment started to swim in a different, more efficient way. Researchers from the University of Glasgow and the University of Exeter, both in the United Kingdom, tested the effects of this harassment on Poecilia reticulata guppies. "In the wild, especially during the dry season, [guppies] can be trapped together in small pools for months," said study lead author Shaun Killen, a biologist at the University of Glasgow.

Sumatran Rhino Goes Extinct in the Wild in Malaysia

The Sumatran rhino is now considered extinct in the wild in the Southeast Asian country of Malaysia, according to a new study. No wild Sumatran rhinos (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) have been found on the Malaysian peninsula since 2007, and what are thought to be the last two female rhinos in Malaysian Borneo were caught and placed in captive breeding programs in 2011 and 2014. In order to save the Sumatran rhino from extinction, it will be necessary to designate the regions where rhinos breed as protected areas, called intensive management zones (IMZs), and to consolidate other, isolated rhinos into these zones to maximize their chances of reproducing, the researchers said.

Jet of Electric Current Boosts Space Weather at Equator

Solar explosions can threaten power grids even in areas near the equator, places long thought safe from such disruptions from the sun, say researchers who studied a weird flow of electricity pulsing above the equatorial regions.

Life Might Spread Across Universe Like an 'Epidemic' in New Math Theory

As astronomers get closer to finding potential signatures of life on faraway planets, a new mathematical description shows how to understand life's spread — and to determine if it's jumping from star to star. "Life could spread from host star to host star in a pattern similar to the outbreak of an epidemic," study co-author Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) said in a statement.

Human Eye's Blind Spot Can Shrink with Training

The blind spot of the human eye can be shrunk with certain eye-training exercises, thus improving a person's vision slightly, a small new study suggests. In the study of 10 people, researchers found that the blind spot — the tiny region of a person's visual field that matches up with the area in the eye that has no receptors for light, and hence cannot detect any image — can shrink 10 percent, with special training. That amount of change "is quite an improvement, but people wouldn't notice, as we are typically unaware of our blind spots," said study author Paul Miller, of the University of Queensland in Australia.

Elusive Sea Creature with Hairy, Slimy Shell Spotted After 31 Years

The Allonautilus scrobiculatus, a species of mollusk in the same family as the nautilus, was spotted off the coast of Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific in early August, the scientists said. The Allonautilus' shell has been known to science since the 1700s. The Allonautilus is so rare likely because it is completely reliant on scavenging to survive, Ward said.

SpaceX rocket grounded for 'couple more months,' company says

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - SpaceX plans to keep its Falcon 9 rocket grounded longer than planned following a launch accident involving the unmanned booster in June, the company president said on Monday. The privately held company is owned and operated by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, who earlier this summer was targeting the Falcon 9's next flight for September. "We're taking more time than we originally envisioned, but I don't think any one of our customers wants us to race to the cliff and fail again," Gwynne Shotwell, president of SpaceX, said at a webcast panel discussion at the AIAA Space 2015 conference in Pasadena, California.

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Sunday, August 30, 2015

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New Math Could Reveal Hidden Sources of Chaos

It's that point when a smooth river turns into a tumultuous swirl of white water, the tornado that unpredictably changes course on a dime or the wild interactions of three planets under one another's gravitational pull. Although most people instinctively know chaos when they see it, there hasn't been one, single, universally agreed-upon mathematical definition of the term. Now, scientists have tried to come up with a mathematical way to describe such chaotic systems.

Global warming carving changes into Alaska in fire and ice

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Global warming is carving measurable changes into Alaska, and President Barack Obama is about to see it.

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Saturday, August 29, 2015

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Beyond Pluto: 2nd Target Chosen for New Horizons Probe

NASA's New Horizons probe, which flew past Pluto last month, now has a second target to aim for. The New Horizons team has selected an object named 2014 MU69, which lies roughly 1 billion miles (1.6 billion kilometers) beyond Pluto, as the next target for up-close study by the spacecraft, NASA announced today (Aug. 28). However, the space agency still must officially approve a New Horizons mission extension for the second flyby to take place in 2019.

The FDA's New Serving Sizes May Backfire — Here's Why

In a new study, just about 20 percent of people answered this question correctly, saying that serving size is how much people typically eat in one sitting. Most people incorrectly said that serving size is a recommendation of how much they could or should consume in one sitting. This lack of understanding could be a problem for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the researchers said. The FDA is planning to change the serving sizes that are listed on nutrition labels because people typically eat larger portions now than they did when the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) was passed, in 1990.

Venus Displays Its Brilliant Morning Finery for the Fall

All through the spring and early summer, the planet Venus dominated the western evening sky. Now, as summer turns into fall, Venus will dominate the eastern sky before sunrise. Venus has erupted into view in the eastern morning sky for the past couple of weeks.

Full Moon Tonight Offers Sneak Preview of September Lunar Eclipse

A full moon will grace the sky tonight (Aug. 29), but it is only a dress rehearsal for next month, when the full moon will undergo a total lunar eclipse. Some Native American fishing tribes referred to the full moon of August as the "Sturgeon Moon," since sturgeon, a large fish of the Great Lakes and other major bodies of water, were most readily caught during this month. A few tribes knew it as the "Full Red Moon" because, as the moon rises, it appears reddish through any sultry haze.

Panda Bros: Twin Cubs Were Fraternal Brothers, Tests Show

Twin pandas born at the Smithsonian's National Zoo would have been fraternal brothers, if the firstborn cub hadn't died just five days after making its debut on Earth. Tests on the pandas' DNA showed that both cubs were male, according to researchers at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute's (SCBI) Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics. Furthermore, a paternity analysis showed that Tian Tian (t-YEN t-YEN) fathered the twins, the zoo said.

Hurricane Katrina's Stark Changes Endure in Images from Space

Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall along the Louisiana-Mississippi border as a Category 3 storm on Aug. 29, 2005, transformed the marshes that buffer New Orleans from the Gulf of Mexico by ripping apart and moving mats of dead grass. The storm stirred up and distributed soft underlying sediments, digging several new channels and depositing sediment and debris in new places, according to NASA. The false-color image was taken earlier this month, on Aug. 2, by the Operational Land Imager on the Landsat 8 satellite.

Psychedelic Swirls Show Algae Bloom from Space

Psychedelic swirls decorate the Baltic Sea in a stunning new satellite image. The Operational Land Imager on the Landsat 8 satellite snapped the image on Aug. 11, according to NASA's Earth Observatory, when land-based observers reported massive blooms of cyanobacteria. The summer Baltic is prime cyanobacteria territory, according to NASA: Sunlight is abundant, and the waters are nutrient rich.

'Science of Mom': Author Sifts Through Childrearing Facts & Fictions

Some new moms might feel as if they need to be scientists to understand what's best for their babies: Vaccinate on schedule or not? Sink $20 into one of those CDs promising to turn my baby into a genius? Alice Callahan, who earned a Ph.D. in nutritional biology and went to do research on fetal physiology before she had her first child in 2010, decided to tackle motherhood in a way that was most natural to her: as a scientist.

Lucy Liu Welcomes a Baby: 4 Reasons Why Couples Use Surrogates

Actress Lucy Liu has announced the arrival of her baby boy, which she had through the help of a surrogate. Although surrogacy is not very common, there are many reasons why women and couples may chose surrogates to be part of their fertility treatment. The 46-year old Liu made the announcement through Instagram, where she posted a photo of herself holding her son.

10 Years After Hurricane Katrina: Have Weather Forecasts Improved?

The fierce Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the Gulf Coast, taking more than 1,800 lives, made landfall 10 years ago. Overall, meteorologists have a much better sense of where hurricanes will go and how strong they will be than they did before Hurricane Katrina, said Chris Davis, the associate director of the Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology Laboratory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. That's because of a host of factors, from more powerful computers, to improved global weather models, to better atmospheric data from satellites, Davis said.

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