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Friday, December 4, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Hawaii court revokes permit for telescope project on volcano

Issuing the permit to construct a 180-foot high, $1.4 billion astronomical observatory on the Mauna Kea volcano on Hawaii's Big Island did not comply with case law, statutes or the state constitution, court documents showed. It also violated the protections of native Hawaiian customs and traditions. In November, the court temporarily blocked construction of the telescope, a collaboration between China, India, Canada, Japan and the United States, after a challenge by Native Hawaiians and environmentalists who said the project would damage sacred lands.

Habitat loss seen as rising threat to world's migratory birds

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Habitat destruction along routes taken by the world's migratory birds poses an increasing peril to these long-distance fliers, with a vast majority crossing terrain that nations are inadequately protecting, according to scientists. The researchers said on Thursday they tracked the migratory routes, stopover locations, breeding grounds and wintering locations of 1,451 migratory species and assessed about 450,000 protected areas like national parks and other reserves. "This is important because migratory species cover vast distances and rely on an intact series of habitats in which they can rest and feed on their long journeys," said conservation scientist Richard Fuller of the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED) and the University of Queensland.

Federal Gun Research Still Stalled

Just hours before a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, left 14 dead Wednesday (Dec. 3), the group Doctors for America, which advocates for changes in the health care system, petitioned Congress to end the federal ban on gun violence research. It may have been a confusing request for many Americans — after all, President Barack Obama ordered an immediate end to the ban after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Shouldn't the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) be using federal funds to study the problem by now?

Gene summit organizers urge caution on human gene editing

By Julie Steenhuysen WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists and ethicists gathered at an international summit in Washington said it would be "irresponsible" to use gene editing technology in human embryos for therapeutic purposes, such as to correct genetic diseases, until safety and efficacy issues are resolved. The statement on Thursday comes amid a growing debate over the use of powerful new gene editing tools in human eggs, sperm and embryos, which have the power to change the DNA of unborn children. The group's guidance follows calls for various bans on use of the technology known as CRISPR-Cas9, which has quickly become the preferred method of gene editing in research labs because of its ease of use compared with older techniques.

Risk of Stillbirth Raised by Weight Gain Between Pregnancies

Weight gain between pregnancies may increase the risk of stillbirth or infant death, a new study from Sweden suggests. The researchers analyzed information from more than 450,000 women who had two pregnancies between 1992 and 2012. Women whose body mass index (BMI) increased by more than 4 points between pregnancies were about 50 percent more likely to have stillbirths in their second pregnancies than women whose weight was stable between pregnancies.

Too Much TV Really Is Bad for Your Brain

The people in the study who watched more than 3 hours of TV per day on average over the next 25 years were more likely to perform poorly on certain cognitive tests, compared with people who watched little TV, the researchers found. The results suggest that engaging in physical activity, as opposed to sitting and watching TV, is important for brain health, said study author Tina D. Hoang, of the Northern California Institute for Research and Education at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in San Francisco. In the study, the researchers asked the participants every five years how many hours per day they spent watching TV on average during the past year.

China issues rules banning dishonesty in science publishing

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese regulators overseeing the field of academic publishing for scientific articles have rules explicitly banning dishonest practices.

Hawaii court revokes permit for telescope project on volcano

(Story corrects Thursday to Wednesday in paragraph 5) By Suzannah Gonzales (Reuters) - The Hawaii Supreme Court on Wednesday revoked a permit that would have allowed the controversial construction of one of the world's largest telescopes on a dormant volcano considered an ideal location on Earth to view the stars. Issuing the permit to construct a 180-foot high, $1.4 billion astronomical observatory on the Mauna Kea volcano on Hawaii's Big Island did not comply with case law, statutes or the state constitution, court documents showed. In November, the court temporarily blocked construction of the telescope, a collaboration between China, India, Canada, Japan and the United States, after a challenge by Native Hawaiians and environmentalists who said the project would damage sacred lands.

How Stupid Can You Be? Science Counts the Ways

Forrest Gump once said, "Stupid is as stupid does." Turns out, he was right.

'Spooky Action at a Distance' Author George Musser Talks Physics Loopholes

All of the phenomena are examples of nonlocality, which Albert Einstein famously described as "spooky action at a distance." (The book's subtitle refers to the phenomenon's significance to black holes, the Big Bang and theories of everything.) There are hints of nonlocality in multiple fields of physics, and Musser chronicles the messy struggle to understand how it fits into the theories and assumptions that make up physicists' understanding of the universe. Space.com talked with Musser about his new book and the concept of nonlocality, which he called unsettling, in the sense of something that drives research forward — unsettling but also intriguing.

New Type of Carbon Is Harder and Brighter Than Diamonds

"This new phase is very unique," said study co-author Jagdish Narayan, a materials scientist at North Carolina State University. In this subterranean pressure cooker, carbon dioxide molecules were crushed with pressures of about 725,000 lbs. per square inch (5 million kilopascals) and heated to a sweltering 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit (1,200 degrees Celsius), according to a 2012 study in the journal Nature.

Leonardo da Vinci robot wows Tokyo crowd

The International Robot Exhibition 2015 (iREX) opened its doors to the public on Wednesday (December 2) at the Tokyo Big Sight center for five days of displays and seminars on the latest robot technology. Attracting much attention were disaster response robots created by Japan's NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization). "Most of our jobs, of course, are for human beings, and so we think humanoids can handle these kinds of things," explained Satoshi Kochiyama, Project Manager in the Machine Systems Department.

Lightest Metal Ever Is 99.9 Percent Air

How do you build the world's lightest metal? The material, known as a "microlattice," was developed by scientists at HRL Laboratories in Malibu, California, which is co-owned by Boeing and General Motors. The new microlattice is made up of a network of tiny hollow tubes and is roughly 100 times lighter than Styrofoam.

Map of World's Groundwater Shows Planet's 'Hidden' Reservoirs

The map — the first of its kind — provides a visual representation of Earth's groundwater resources and estimates that the planet's total groundwater supply stands at approximately 5.5 million cubic miles (about 23 million cubic kilometers).

Biblical King's Royal Seal Unearthed Near Temple Mount

The royal seal of an ancient biblical king has been unearthed near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The seal, a clay impression depicting a two-winged sun with two ankh symbols on either side, was once used to seal papyrus documents associated with King Hezekiah, who ruled the kingdom of Judea from 727 B.C. to 698 B.C. The seal was unearthed in a trash heap near the walls of the ancient Temple Mount. "Although seal impressions bearing King Hezekiah's name have already been known from the antiquities market since the middle of the 1990s — some with a winged scarab (dung beetle) symbol and others with a winged sun — this is the first time that a seal impression of an Israelite or Judean king has ever come to light in a scientific archaeological excavation," Eilat Mazar, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who led the excavations, said in a statement.

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