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Monday, July 20, 2015

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Nix Pic Sizes Up Pluto's Middle Child Moon

The middle child of Pluto's moon family, Nix, has been given its close up by the New Horizons space probe. The first close-up image of Nix snapped by the New Horizons probe seems a little fuzzy compared with the stunning photos of Pluto and Charon, but that's because Nix is only 25 miles (40 kilometers) wide — and, in fact, the measurement of its diameter is one of the major pieces of information that the spacecraft science team has managed to glean from the new portraits of the satellite. While the new image may appear to be rather low resolution, past observations of Nix have shown little more than a speck of light around Pluto.

Russian scientists squeezed by sanctions, Kremlin policies

NOVOSIBIRSK, Russia (AP) — Artur Bilsky's Institute of Thermophysics recently sought to buy equipment from a Japanese company that was a routine purchase a few years ago. The request was turned down "categorically," said Bilsky, a researcher at the institute.

Billionaire Milner pledges $100 million to find intelligent life in space

Add to the list Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, who announced on Monday that he plans to spend $100 million to explore the idea. Using some of the world's largest radio telescopes, a team of scientists handpicked by Milner will oversee an initiative he calls Breakthrough Listen, a 10-year search for radio signals that could indicate the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. "It's the most interesting technological question of our day," Milner said in an interview, noting that he became fascinated by the notion of extra-terrestrial life after reading astrophysicist Carl Sagan's "Intelligent Life in the Universe" as a 10-year-old in Moscow.

Waiting to Tie the Knot? You're Not Alone

Young adults in the United States are waiting longer to get married than they did nearly 50 years ago, according to a new analysis of census data. In fact, marriage rates among 25- to 34-year-olds in 2014 look more similar to marriage rates among 18- to 24-year-olds in 1967— that means what a 23-year-old did in 1967 is similar to what a 30-year-old does now. Shifts in marriage trends are linked to a variety of factors, including a rise in the number of people getting college degrees, according to census data.

Brain Building: Blindness Treatment Affects More Than Eyes

Treating people who are blind with gene therapy can not only restore their vision, it can also strengthen visual pathways in the brain, even in people who have been nearly blind for decades, researchers say. Since 2007, clinical trials using gene therapy have often dramatically restored people's sight. "Seeing how their visual function has improved and how it affects their daily lives has been extraordinarily gratifying," study co-author Dr. Jean Bennett, a gene therapist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, told Live Science.

Planned Parenthood: How Ethical Is Fetal Tissue Donation?

Planned Parenthood denies recent allegations that the organization profits from fetal tissue donation. In the video, the doctor, Deborah Nucatola, the senior director of medical services at Planned Parenthood, says the price for fetal tissue ranges from $30 to $100, or enough to cover related expenses, such as the cost of transporting the tissue.

Astronauts' skin gets thinner in space, scientists say

By Matthew Stock A long-awaited human mission to the Red Planet is still a number of years away, with NASA planning their first manned voyage in the 2030s. Of the multitude of obstacles to overcome, the health of the astronauts during such a long period in space is of chief concern. Scientists in Germany are using advanced imaging technology in a bid to understand one unusual phenomenon - why astronauts' skin gets thinner while in space.

Rare View of Black Hole Caught in 'Bull's-Eye' Eruption (Video)

Rings of X-ray light flare and fade around an active black hole in a stunning new set of observations by NASA's Swift space telescope. The bull's-eye structure around the erupting black hole results from the jostling and reflection of X-ray light by dust, which creates a series of "echoes" that are visible in this video. The black hole orbits in tandem with a sunlike star at the heart of the system V404 Cygni, which lies about 8,000 light-years from Earth.

Comet lander falls silent, scientists fear it has moved

The Philae comet lander has fallen silent, European scientists said on Monday, raising fears that it has moved again on its new home millions of miles from Earth. The fridge-sized robotic lab, which landed on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in November, last made contact on July 9 and efforts to reach it again have so far failed, experts working for the historic European Space Agency project said. The lander - the first mission to land on a comet, this one traveling as fast as 135,000 kph - initially bounced and landed in a position too shadowy to power its solar panels.

Deep-Diving Dolphins Avoid 'Bends' with Powerful Lungs

When dolphins dive deep below the water's surface, they avoid succumbing to decompression sickness, or "the bends," likely because the massive sea creatures have collapsible lungs, a new study finds. Understanding how dolphins breathe rapidly and maintain lung functionality under immense pressure could help scientists keep humans safe when they are in similarly extreme situations, such as under anesthesia during surgeries, the researchers said. Unlike humans, dolphins do not need to be strapped to an oxygen tank to achieve their impressive diving feats.

New Hybrid Robot Has Soft 'Skin' But Hard 'Guts'

"One wild potential application would be in space — on the moon or Mars or other planets," said study co-lead author Nicholas Bartlett, a roboticist at Harvard University. "These are unpredictable environments, and a soft robot that can bend and adapt to such environments and put up with a lot of punishment could be really useful.

Why Are People So Afraid of Sharks?

People are terrified of sharks because getting eaten by a shark would be a really "crummy" way to die, said David Ropeik, an instructor of risk communication at Harvard University and author of the book "How Risky Is It, Really? "We're not just afraid of things because of the likelihood that they'll happen, but [also] because of the nature of them if they do happen," Ropeik told Live Science. Statistically, you have about a 1 in 3,748,067 chance of dying in a shark attack, according to the International Shark Attack File of the University of Florida's Museum of Natural History.

Ultramarathon Runner Sets Appalachian Trail Record: How He Did It

Scott Jurek, who lives in Colorado when he's not sprinting to new records, persevered through knee pain and a muscle tear, as well as getting just 10 hours of sleep over the final four days of his trek, to claim the record. Successfully running an ultramarathon is a highly scientific process — not only do these athletes need to manage nutrition and energy, but they also need to be able to hold their bodies at the brink of exhaustion and yet remain in their right minds. "I think the biggest reason for me after all these years of running ultramarathons and testing my body was really to, you know, find a new level of adventure," Jurek told NPR in an interview.

28 Million Baby Boomers Will Develop Alzheimer's by 2050

As the baby boomers get older, the rates of Alzheimer's disease among the people of this generation will climb considerably, according to a new study. Between now and 2050, more than 28 million baby boomers in the United States will develop Alzheimer's disease, the study found. About 10 million of them will be living with Alzheimer's disease in 2040, which is double the total number of U.S. adults living with Alzheimer's right now.

After Epic Pluto Flyby, What's Next for NASA's New Horizons?

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has completed its highly anticipated close flyby of Pluto, but the probe's work at the outer reaches of the solar system is far from done. New Horizons will operate in three separate "departure phases" that last until January 2016, when the mission's Pluto encounter officially ends.

Smithsonian Launches Kickstarter to 'Reboot' Neil Armstrong Spacesuit Display

The Smithsonian launched its first-ever crowdfunding campaign on Monday (July 20) in an effort to preserve, conserve and display the spacesuit that Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong wore while becoming the first man to walk on the moon. The Washington, DC institution inaugurated a multi-project partnership with the crowdfunding website Kickstarter with "Reboot the Suit," a campaign to raise $500,000 to digitize and exhibit Armstrong's spacesuit at the National Air and Space Museum in time for the 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing mission in 2019. "This is the crown jewel of our collection," Cathleen Lewis, who as curator oversees the spacesuits at the National Air and Space Museum, told collectSPACE.com.

Alexander the Great's Father Found — Maybe

A decades-old mystery about the body of Alexander the Great's father has been solved, anthropologists claim. This injury matches some historical records of one sustained by Philip II, whose nascent empire Alexander the Great would expand all the way to India. The skeleton in question, however, is not the one initially thought to be Philip II's — instead, it comes from the tomb next door.

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