|  Oklahoma scientists say earthquakes linked to oil and gas work Oklahoma geologists have documented strong links between increased seismic activity in the state and the injection into the ground of wastewater from oil and gas production, a state agency said on Tuesday. Currently, Oklahoma is recording 2-1/2 earthquakes daily of a magnitude 3 or greater, a seismicity rate 600 times greater than observed before 2008, the report by the Oklahoma Geological Survey (OGS) said. It is "very likely that the majority of the earthquakes" are triggered by wastewater injection activities tied to the oil and gas industry, the OGS said. Prior to 2008, Oklahoma averaged less than two a year. Read More » Making Sense of Scents: Why Odors Spark Memory (Podcast) Wendy Suzuki is a professor of neural science and psychology in the Center for Neural Science at New York University (NYU). While vision is arguably the sense scientists have studied the longest and most deeply, the human sense of smell is more complicated, more ancient, and more difficult to describe and observe. Read More » Cassiopeia: The Banished Queen Ruling the Night Sky Huw James is a science communicator, fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and guest lecturer at the University of South Wales. Read More » Voices of Rare 'Talking' Turtles May Prevent Their Extinction  | Years ago, in the Brazilian Amazon, I was exposed to a prevalent philosophy for how animals relate to humans, one I did not expect. I made the decision to move to Manaus in the Amazon, and have since devoted myself to working with science colleagues and local communities to conserve wildlife, especially endangered turtles.
| Read More » Will Mobile Labs Finally Halt Killer Frog Fungus? (Op-Ed)  | Tracie Seimon is a molecular scientist for the Zoological Health Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). She is based at the Bronx Zoo in New York City. This article is the first in a series celebrating the contributions of women to the practice of conservation. Seimon contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. The chytrid fungus is a modern-day scourge of toads, salamanders and frogs around the globe, one of the greatest conservation threats amphibians face.
| Read More » Deals in dark helped bitcoin take off, says chief scientist  | By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - Without dealings in the "grey areas" of the global economy, bitcoin might not have grown to be worth the $3 billion (1.99 billion pounds) it is today, according to Gavin Andresen, the closest thing the digital currency has to a CEO. Andresen, a self-confessed "all-around geek", is chief scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation, a non-profit group he helped set up three years ago to support and promote the digital currency. Andresen acknowledged it has been used in the United States for online gambling, which was effectively outlawed there until December 2011, with banks barred from transmitting bets. "Without those uses maybe it would have taken longer (for bitcoin to get to where it is)," he told Reuters over coffee at a conference organised by the Bitcoin Foundation in London, where a push into financial technology is making the city a hub for the virtual currency.. In its early days, "the Internet was for porn.
| Read More » How to Celebrate Earth Day 2015 with NASA  | Today (April 22) is the 45th anniversary of Earth Day, and NASA has a series of activities planned to celebrate the beauty of our home planet. NASA astronauts are given some credit for the origins of Earth Day, as the pictures they take of our planet from space – particularly a famous Earthrise-over-the-moon photo by the Apollo 8 crew in 1968 – showed Earth as a delicate blue marble in space. "NASA uses the vantage point of space to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future," the space agency wrote in a statement. Below is a list of the many ways that NASA is celebrating Earth Day.
| Read More » 'Flawless' 100-Carat Diamond Could Fetch $25 Million  | A 100-carat, nearly flawless diamond is slated to hit the auction block today at Sotheby's in New York City. The gorgeous jewel, which is the largest emerald-cut, flawless diamond to be auctioned off, is the centerpiece of the Sotheby's Magnificent Jewels auction. Diamonds also exhibit something called maximal symmetry, meaning the bonds among the gems' carbon atoms can't be crushed or shifted to produce a more symmetrical shape. "You're talking on the order of 100 kilometers (62 miles) or more down into the Earth," George Harlow, a geologist who specializes in mineralogy and crystallography at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, previously told Live Science.
| Read More » Fading Gems: 10 Places to Visit Before They're Gone  | This Polynesian island nation, located between Hawaii and Australia, may be a tropical paradise, but it risks becoming submerged by rising seas as a warming climate melts ice sheets and causes water to expand. Experts predict that, even with a conservative greenhouse-gas-emissions scenario, sea levels in the region will rise by up to 17.7 inches (45 cm) by 2090, according to a report by Australia's Pacific Climate Change Science Program, and such a rise could make Tuvalu uninhabitable. Few snorkel spots are as well known as Australia's Great Barrier Reef. The increased acidity affects creatures like coral that use calcium carbonate to form their shells, and the Great Barrier Reef could be one of the first casualties.
| Read More » Why Beachgoers Let Sexual Assault Happen Right Before Their Eyes A recent video of a sexual assault — on a crowded Florida beach, in broad daylight — raises a question: Why didn't one of the hundreds of bystanders step in to help the victim? Though perplexing, the phenomenon — known as the "bystander effect" — is common, experts said. "There's this kind of paradoxical relationship, where the more people [there are who] observe an incident, the less likely any single individual is to help," said Peter Ditto, a professor of psychology and social behavior at the University of California, Irvine. Read More » Delaying Pregnancy May Reduce Risk of Ovarian Cancer Women who give birth to their first child in their mid-30s or later may have a lower risk of ovarian cancer compared with those who give birth to their first child earlier than that, a new study suggests. Researchers analyzed information from nearly 1,700 women living in Los Angeles who had ovarian cancer and about 2,380 women living in the same area who did not have ovarian cancer. The researchers found that each five-year increase in a woman's age at the birth of her first child corresponded to a 16 percent lower risk of ovarian cancer. So, for example, women who gave birth to their first child at age 35 or later had a 46 percent decrease in their risk of ovarian cancer compared with women who gave birth to their first child when they were younger than 20. Read More » Breath of Fresh Air: How Smartphones Can Help Asthma Sufferers As smartphones become ubiquitous, several companies are taking advantage of these portable computers to track when and where people with asthma need their medication. The data collected by the smartphones are giving researchers a clearer overall picture of asthma attacks and inhaler use, which, in turn, could allow researchers to map out the areas linked to respiratory disease and even reveal some of the underlying triggers of asthma symptoms. "We're collecting data about daily lives and medications," said Chris Hogg, chief operating officer of Propeller Health, a company in Madison, Wisconsin, that provides both hardware and software for managing asthma. Whenever Propeller's "smart" inhaler is used, the phone's geolocation services log exactly where the patient is when he or she is using it. Read More » Visible Light Spectrum from Alien Planet Measured for 1st Time (Video)  | Astronomers have detected an exoplanet's visible-light spectrum directly for the first time ever, a milestone that could help bring many other alien worlds into clearer focus down the road. The scientists used the HARPS instrument on the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-meter telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile to study the spectrum of visible light reflected off the exoplanet 51 Pegasi b, which lies about 50 light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus. 51 Pegasi b, a "hot Jupiter" gas giant that orbits close to its parent star, was spotted in 1995, when it became the first alien world ever discovered around a sunlike star.
| Read More » Happy Earth Day! 5 Ways to Get Kids to Help the Planet From conserving natural resources to fighting food waste, here are five ways to get kids involved in Earth Day. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental nonprofit advocacy group headquartered in New York, has other tips for green teams, such as encouraging school districts to switch to cleaner, nondiesel buses. Read More » Bullet-proof Bloodhound car aims for 1,000mph record By Matthew Stock Described as "part Formula 1 car, part space rocket and part supersonic jet", the Bloodhound Supersonic Car is aiming to be the world's first 1,000mph car when it attempts to set a new world record in 2016. The car's British designers say they are pushing the limits of science, with the Bloodhound a catalyst for cutting-edge research in fields such as aerodynamics and sustainable high-tech engineering. At their headquarters near Bristol, the Bloodhound team is busy constructing and assembling the vehicle's 3,500 bespoke components ahead of the car's unveiling in August. Bloodhound SSC (supersonic car) will be driven by Wing Commander Andy Green who set the current record of 763mph (1228kmh) at the wheel of ThrustSSC in 1997. Read More » Morphing wings allow drones to keep flying through midair collisions By Ben Gruber Palo Alto, California, United States - Amanda Stowers is beating up on her drone as her professor watches on with glee. No matter how hard or how many times Amanda hits the drones' wing, it always recovers and keeps on flapping. Stowers says that even drones equipped with advanced sensors can't avoid the inevitable. The ability to maneuver in tight and cluttered environments could allow drones to play an important role in search and rescue operations, giving first responders the ability to search for survivors remotely. Read More » Russia cuts space funding as economic crisis bites  | By Jack Stubbs MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is cutting spending on its space program by more than a third over the next 10 years because of the country's economic crisis, forcing it to scrap plans to develop a super-heavy launch rocket. Space exploration is a subject of national pride in Russia, rooted in the Cold War "space race" with the United States that saw Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin become the first man in orbit. The collapse of the Soviet Union starved the program of funds, but President Vladimir Putin has nurtured plans for a revival. Russia is planning to develop its own space station by 2023 but economic constraints are growing.
| Read More » Planet Mercury Shines Near Mars Tonight: When and Where to Look  | Tonight (April 22), about half an hour after sunset, there is a chance to observe the two smallest planets, Mercury and Mars, shining close to each other. Any earlier or later either the background sky is too bright, or Mercury is too close to the horizon. This evening, Mercury will be joined by Mars, which is heading behind the sun towards conjunction on June 14. Because Mars is on the far side of the sun, it is now more than two magnitudes fainter than Mercury.
| Read More » Lyrid Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight: How to See It  | The online Slooh community observatory will air a free Lyrids webcast at 8 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT on April 23) at its website: www.slooh.com. When we pass that part of our orbit, we ram through the dusty debris left behind by the comet.
| Read More » How do you tell a boy dinosaur from a girl dinosaur?  | By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - For extinct creatures like dinosaurs known only from fossils, it is notoriously difficult to differentiate the males from the females of a species because sex distinctions are rarely obvious from the skeletons. Stegosaurus, which roamed the western United States about 150 million years ago, was a large, four-legged plant-eater with two rows of plates along its back, as well as two pairs of spikes at the end of its tail to clobber predators. "Males typically invest more into their ornamentation than do females, so the larger wide plates were likely from males," said Evan Saitta, a 23-year-old paleontology graduate student at Britain's University of Bristol whose study appears in the journal PLOS ONE. Anatomical and other differences between the sexes of a single species, like a male lion's mane or a male deer's antlers, are called sexual dimorphism.
| Read More » Stegosaurus' Bony Plates May Reveal Dino's Sex  | The plates of the Stegosaurus — the large, bony discs that lined the dinosaur's neck, back and tail in two staggered rows — may have differed between males and females, a new study finds. An analysis of the 150-million-year-old remains of the species Stegosaurus mjosi show that some individuals had wide plates, whereas others had tall plates. These anatomical differences may distinguish males and females — a concept known as sexual dimorphism, said the study's author, Evan Saitta, a graduate student of paleobiology at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom who began the study as part of his senior thesis at Princeton University. "It's the most convincing evidence we have so far of sexual dimorphism in a dinosaur," excluding birds, the living descendants of dinosaurs, Saitta told Live Science.
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