|  Crash! How India Slammed into Eurasia at Record Speed  | Two super-fast conveyor belts of sinking crust explain why India set a continental speed record as it crashed into Eurasia, according to a new study. The Indian Plate slammed into Eurasia 40 million years ago, raising the Himalayas and Mount Everest, the study's researchers explained. The new analysis suggests India raced toward the collision starting 80 million years ago because of two short subduction zones, one in front of the other, that emerged between the tectonic plates. "The collision scenario between India and Eurasia is more complex and protracted than most people think," said the study's lead author, Oliver Jagoutz, a geologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
| Read More » Pocket-sized fingerprint scanner could solve healthcare bottleneck British postgraduate students have devised a pocket-sized fingerprint scanner designed to help patients in the developing world get improved access to healthcare. Toby Norman, Daniel Storisteanu, and Alexandra Grigore hooked up with Toby's brother Tristram to create Simprints, a scanner that gives health workers easy access to the medical records of patients in the developing world. Read More » New self-cleaning paint offers stain and damage-free future By Matthew Stock A self-cleaning paint that can withstand contact with substances such as oil, even after being scratched or scuffed with sandpaper, has been developed by British and Chinese researchers. The coating was devised by University College London (UCL) researcher Yao Lu and his supervisor, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry Claire Carmalt, and can be applied to clothes, paper, glass and steel. When combined with adhesives, its self-cleaning properties remain, in spite of attempts to scratch or scuff it. Self-cleaning surfaces work by being extremely repellent to water but are often rendered useless once damaged or exposed to strong substances like oil. Read More » Size of the Milky Way Upgraded, Solving Galaxy Puzzle  | Two ringlike structures of stars wrapping around the Milky Way's outer disk now appear to belong to the disk itself. Roughly 15 years ago, Heidi Newberg, an astronomer at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, and her colleagues found a group of stars beyond the disk's outermost edge. The so-called Monoceros Ring is about 60,000 light-years from the galactic center (just beyond where the disk was thought to end at 50,000 light-years). Over the years, astronomers were divided into two camps regarding the origins of the ring.
| Read More » This Is Your Brain in Deep Space: Could Cosmic Rays Threaten Mars Missions?  | Mice zapped with cosmic rays can incur brain damage, suggesting that astronauts' mental performance could suffer over time on deep-space missions to Mars and beyond, researchers say. "There is now cause for concern that cosmic rays can lead to cognitive deficiencies, and this effect is likely to occur in humans as well as rodents," study co-author Charles Limoli, a radiation biologist and neuroscientist at the University of California, Irvine, told Space.com. As NASA plans for the first manned spaceflight to Mars in two decades or so, scientists want to know what happens to the brains of astronauts exposed to space radiation. "NASA wants to make sure that astronaut minds are up to performing at the best of their capabilities," Limoli said.
| Read More » How Do Tesla's Home Batteries Work?  | Last week, Tesla Motors announced an ambitious new product line: batteries to power homes or businesses. The idea is that homes and businesses powered by solar panels could harvest and store energy during the day that could be used to run homes at night, or be used as a backup during a power outage. Although the exact technology involved in the battery, called Powerwall, is a closely guarded secret, it probably isn't based on revolutionary concepts, said Jordi Cabana, a chemistry professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago who studies new battery materials. Tesla's newly unveiled system includes the $3,500 Powerwall, a home-based battery pack that can store 10 kilowatt-hours of power.
| Read More » Stunning Total Solar Eclipse Observed Over the Arctic (Photos)  | A stark black disc haloed by streaks of light — a team of scientists captured this image of a total solar eclipse over the Arctic in March. The international Solar Wind Sherpas team, led by astronomer Shadia Habbal at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, observed the March 20 solar eclipse from Longyearbyen on the island of Spitsbergen, in the Svalbard archipelago, located northeast of Greenland. The researchers had to contend with constantly changing weather predictions, temperatures of minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 20 degrees Celsius) and the danger of polar bears. At both sites, the team set up six digital SLR cameras fitted with lenses of different focal lengths, and four astrophotography cameras with special filters, to view the different colors of light given off by ionized iron atoms which are found in the hot outer layers of the corona.
| Read More » Eerie 'X-Files' Sounds Recorded from the Edge of Space  | Daniel Bowman, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, designed and built the equipment. "It sounds kind of like 'The X-Files,'" Bowman told Live Science. The infrasound sensors were dangling from a helium balloon that flew above New Mexico and Arizona on Aug. 9, 2014. The experiment was one of 10 payloads flown last year on the High Altitude Student Platform (HASP).
| Read More » Real-life Star Trek 'replicator' prepares meal in 30 seconds It's a revolution in food technology that could deliver your food fantasy to your plate in less than a minute. The Genie, similar in size and appearance to a coffee maker, can produce an unlimited variety of meals using pods, that contain natural dehydrated ingredients. Developed by Israeli entrepreneurs Ayelet Carasso and Doron Marco from White Innovation company, the device uses a mobile app to operate. "We're using only natural ingredients, we're not using any preservatives or anything that people add to their meals," she added. Read More » New Test for Ovarian Cancer Finds More Cases A new screening test for ovarian cancer can detect more women with the disease than previous methods, a new study from the United Kingdom suggests. Overall, the new screening method detected ovarian cancer in 86 percent of the women in the study who had the disease. The researchers created a computer program to assess a woman's risk of ovarian cancer based on a number of factors, including how her levels of CA125 changed over the years. In contrast, current methods used to screen for ovarian cancer involve checking to see whether CA125 levels are above a certain threshold at a single point in time. Read More » Financial Stress Can Take a Toll on Women's Hearts It's well-known that stress and heart attacks are linked, but it's not clear whether any particular kind of stress carries a greater risk for heart health. Using data from the Women's Health Study, a long-term survey that followed participants for an average of nine years, the researchers analyzed the stressful experiences of 267 women, whose average age was 56, who had suffered a heart attack sometime over the study period. For comparison, they also examined 281 women with similar risk factors, like age and smoking habits, who did not experience heart attack. It turned out that financial problems doubled women's risk of having a heart attack, and that women making less than $50,000 per year were especially susceptible to the effects of stressful events across the board. Read More » Amazing Photo Shows SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Just Before Crash  | An amazing new photo shows the first stage of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket just before it hit the deck of a robotic ship in the Atlantic Ocean during a bold landing attempt last month. The near-miss was the second in the span of three months for SpaceX, which also tried to bring a Falcon 9 rocket first stage down on the ship — which is named "Just Read the Instructions," after a sentient colony vessel in the novels of sci-fi writer Iain M. Banks — on Jan. 10. Developing rapidly reusable rockets is a priority for SpaceX and its billionaire founder and CEO, Elon Musk, who has said that such technology could revolutionize spaceflight by dramatically reducing its cost. Ocean landings, however, are just an intermediate step for SpaceX.
| Read More » Cinco de Mayo Meteor Shower Rains Halley's Comet Bits on Earth: Watch It Tonight  | When asked to name a comet, most people will remember Halley's. Tonight (May 5), the Eta Aquarid meteor shower, produced by debris from Halley's Comet, will peak in the night sky, and you can watch live coverage of this Cinco de Mayo meteor shower online. Late tonight (May 5) and during the early morning hours tomorrow (May 6), skywatchers will have a chance of sighting a few pieces of Halley's Comet – "comet litter," if you will – zipping through our atmosphere in the form of meteors.
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