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	(Sponsor this newsletter) Chinese AI team plans to challenge Google's AlphaGo: state media A team from China plans to challenge Google's AlphaGo, the artificial intelligence (AI) program that beat a world-class player in the ancient board game Go, the state-owned Shanghai Securities News reported on Thursday. Scientists from the China Computer Go team will issue a challenge to AlphaGo by the end of 2016, said attendees at an event in Beijing organized by the Chinese Go Association and the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence, according to the report. The event was 'The Forum for Understanding the AlphaGo War between Man and Machine and Chinese Artificial Intelligence', Shanghai Securities News reported on its website. Read More » Diminutive 'Hobbit' people vanished earlier than previously known By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The extinct human species dubbed the "Hobbit" vanished from its home on the Indonesian island of Flores far earlier than previously thought, according to scientists who suspect our species may have had a hand in these diminutive people's demise. Researchers on Wednesday said they recalculated the age of bones of the species, named Homo floresiensis, found inside a Flores cave, and determined it disappeared about 50,000 years ago rather than 12,000 years ago as previously estimated. The Hobbit's discovery in 2003 created a scientific sensation. Read More » 305-Million-Year-Old 'Almost Spider' Unlocks Arachnid History The arachnid, locked in iron carbonate for 305 million years, reveals the stepwise evolution of arachnids into spiders. "It's not quite a spider, but it's very close to being one," said study researcher Russell Garwood, a paleontologist at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. Arachnids are an ancient group with murky origins, Garwood told Live Science. Read More » Did Hobbits Live Alongside Modern Humans? The extinct human lineage nicknamed "the hobbit" for its miniature body may have vanished soon before or soon after modern humans arrived on the hobbits' island home, rather than living alongside modern humans for thousands of years as was previously thought, researchers say. By using new techniques to date hobbit skeletons and the sediment where they were buried, researchers determined that the "hobbit" species, Homo floresiensis, likely vanished earlier than prior estimates had suggested. "Homo floresiensis reminds us that human diversity was far greater in the past than it is today," said study co-lead author Matthew Tocheri, a paleoanthropologist at Lakehead University in Ontario. Read More » Headless Bard? Shakespeare's Skull Pilfered by Grave Robbers William Shakespeare — arguably the greatest playwright of all time — is missing his head, scientists have discovered. Archaeologists recently scanned the famed writer's grave with ground-penetrating radar. Instead, Shakespeare's body is wrapped in cloth and buried inside a shallow grave less than 3 feet (1 meter) deep, the researchers said. Read More » Could this megacopter carry people? By Jim Drury Students who have a remote-controlled multicopter drone that set a Guinness World Record for the heaviest payload ever lifted by such a vehicle say they hope to get permission to fly a person in its structure.     The University of Oslo team built the large unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), over an 18 month period. It contains 13 propellers and eight hexacopters powered by a total of 48 motors that reside on a frame built from aluminum and plywood.     Last October it broke the world record by lifting a payload of 61 kilograms (134lb 7.6oz) into the air and holding it there for 37 seconds, elevated to a height of at least one meter at all times.     The record attempt was far from easy, with the drone unable to lift its initial payload of 73 kilograms and having to reduce its weight. Read More » 'Abortion Pill' Gets New Label: 5 Things to Know About Mifepristone The Food and Drug Administration has approved changes to the label for mifepristone, also known as "the abortion pill," the agency said this week. The new label says that the drug (sold under the brand name Mifeprex) can be taken later in pregnancy and at a lower dose than what was recommended on the old label. "These laws compelled health care providers to use an outdated, inferior and less effective regimen," Planned Parenthood said in a statement, weighing in on the FDA's new rule. Read More » Marijuana Addiction Linked to Genetics People with certain genetic markers may be at higher risk for marijuana dependence, a new study suggests. Researchers found a link between three genetic markers and symptoms of marijuana dependence, a condition in which people can't stop using the drug even though it interferes with many aspects of their lives, such as their relationships or their jobs. What's more, the study showed some overlap between the genetic risk factors for marijuana dependence and the genetic risk factors for depression, suggesting a possible reason why these two conditions often occur together, the researchers said. Read More » Zika Misperceptions: Many in US Unaware of Key Facts Many people in the U.S. are not aware of key facts about the Zika virus, according to the results of a new poll. Researchers found that, for example, in households that included a woman who was either pregnant or considering getting pregnant in the next year, 1 in 4 people were not aware of the link between the Zika virus during pregnancy and microcephaly, a birth defect that causes an abnormally small brain and head. "We have a key window before the mosquito season gears up in communities within the United States mainland to correct misperceptions about Zika virus so that pregnant women and their partners may take appropriate measures to protect their families," Gillian SteelFisher, director of the poll and a health policy research scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said in a statement. Read More » Expedition Unknown: Saving Marine Mammals Is a Daunting Task (Op-Ed) Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Read More »
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FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

	Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News
	(Sponsor this newsletter) Experts Doubt Claims of 'Hidden Chambers' in King Tut's Tomb Radar experts are casting doubt on claims that King Tutankhamun's tomb contains hidden, undiscovered chambers — and they're calling for more data to be released. At a March 17 newsconference, officials at Egypt's antiquities ministry released radar data that they said showed the presence of hidden cavities inside the tomb of King Tut. The scans, carried out by Japanese radar technologist Hirokatsu Watanabe, "suggest the presence of two empty spaces or cavities beyond the decorated North and West walls of the burial chamber," they said in a statement. Read More » 'Unicorns' Lumbered Across Siberia 29,000 Years Ago Large, four-legged beasts, each with a single horn growing from its head, once ambled across part of western Siberia, in what is now Kazakhstan. Sometimes referred to as "unicorns" because of their single horns, these animals were originally thought to have gone extinct 350,000 years ago. A 1923 publication by paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn estimated the creatures to be larger than any of the modern rhino species. Read More »
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	(Sponsor this newsletter) U.S. scientists develop mouse model to test Zika vaccines, drugs By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. scientists have identified a genetically modified strain of mice that develop Zika, an important tool needed for testing vaccines and medicines to treat the virus that is rapidly spreading across the Americas and the Caribbean. "We are going to do experiments to see if we can produce sexual transmission" in these mice, said Scott Weaver, a virologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston who worked on the study published on Monday in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Weaver said the Zika mouse model will provide a critical tool to allow companies and scientists to test vaccines and antiviral drugs against Zika, which has been linked with thousands of cases of microcephaly, a rare birth defect marked by unusually small head size and possible developmental problems. Read More » Arctic Sea Ice Is at Near Record Lows, NASA Says The ice covering the Arctic is at near record lows this year, and this icy deficit may impact weather around the world, NASA reports. Every March, the Arctic's sea ice reaches its maximum cover, both in area and thickness, before it recedes to its yearly minimum in September. Live Science spoke with NASA scientist Walt Meier yesterday (March 25) to learn more about the low sea-ice level and what it means for the rest of the planet. Read More » Sanofi poaches AstraZeneca scientist as new research head French drugmaker Sanofi has poached one of AstraZeneca's top scientists to be its new research head in another high-profile departure for the British drugmaker. Sanofi said on Tuesday that Yong-Jun Liu had been appointed as head of research with effect from April 1, reporting to Elias Zerhouni, the group's president of global research and development. Liu, a specialist in immunology with more than 250 published articles in leading academic journals, currently heads up research at AstraZeneca's MedImmune biotechnology division, a position he has held since 2014. Read More » This Negative Facial Expression Is 'Universal' The facial expression indicating disagreement is universal, researchers say. A furrowed brow, lifted chin and pressed-together lips — a mix of anger, disgust and contempt — are used to show negative moral judgment among speakers of English, Spanish, Mandarin and American Sign Language (ASL), according to a new study published in the May issue of the journal Cognition. In ASL, speakers sometimes use this "not face" alone, without any other negative sign, to indicate disagreement in a sentence. Read More » Women Could Lower Fracture Risk with Mediterranean Diet Older women who eat a diet full of produce, fish and nuts, may have a slightly lower risk of hip fractures, a new study finds. The researchers found that the risk of hip fracture among the women in the study who adhered most closely to this kind of diet, sometimes called the Mediterranean diet, was very slightly reduced. The finding is important mainly because it shows that following the Mediterranean diet and other related diets, which do not emphasize the intake of dairy foods,is not linked with a higher risk of hip fractures, said Dr. Bernhard Haring, who led the study and is a physician at the University of Wu?rzburg in Germany. Read More » Old Vaccine, New Tricks: Revive Early Pertussis Shot, Study Says Newer isn't always better — some researchers are proposing to bring back an older version of the whooping cough vaccine, because multiple studies show that today's version doesn't protect as well as the earlier kind. In a new study, researchers suggest vaccinating children with one dose of the older whooping cough vaccine — called the whole-cell pertussis vaccine — and then giving them four doses of the current whooping cough vaccine in early childhood. Using a mathematical model, the researchers found that this "combined" vaccination strategy could reduce the rate of whooping cough infections by up to 95 percent, and save millions of dollars in health care costs. Read More » Sanofi poaches AstraZeneca scientist as new research head By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) - French drugmaker Sanofi has poached one of AstraZeneca's top scientists to be its new research head in another high-profile departure for the British drugmaker. Sanofi said on Tuesday that Yong-Jun Liu had been appointed as head of research with effect from April 1, reporting to Elias Zerhouni, the group's president of global research and development. Liu, a specialist in immunology with more than 250 published articles in leading academic journals, currently heads up research at AstraZeneca's MedImmune biotechnology division, a position he has held since 2014. Read More » 12 Supereruptions Pockmark Path of Yellowstone Hotspot Up to 12 massive volcanic blasts occurred between 8 million and 12 million years ago in Idaho's Snake River Plain, leading up to today's Yellowstone supervolcano, new research reveals.  Read More » Colon Cancer Found in 18th-Century Hungarian Mummy Tissue samples from a Hungarian mummy have revealed that people in the early 17th and 18th centuries suffered from colon cancer, long before the modern plagues of obesity, physical inactivity and processed food were established as causes of the disease, according to new research. In a new study of 18th-century Hungarian mummies, scientists found that the genetic predisposition to colon cancer predates modern impacts on health. One of the mummies in the study carried a mutation in the adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) gene, which physicians now know raises the risk of colon cancer, said lead study author Michal Feldman, a research assistant formerly at Tel Aviv University in Israel. Read More » U.S. firms target investment in Israeli cannabis R&D By Maayan Lubell TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Already a pioneer in high-tech and cutting-edge agriculture, Israel is starting to attract American companies looking to bring medical marijuana know-how to a booming market back home. Since 2014, U.S. firms have invested about $50 million in licensing Israeli medical marijuana patents, cannabis agro-tech startups and firms developing delivery devices such as inhalers, said Saul Kaye, CEO of iCAN, a private cannabis research hub. "I expect it to grow to $100 million in the coming year," Kaye said at iCAN's CannaTech conference in Tel Aviv this month, one of the largest gatherings of medical marijuana experts. Read More » Man-Made Earthquake Hotspot Revealed: Oklahoma The chances of a damaging earthquake occurring in parts of Oklahoma and some neighboring states are just as likely as they are in temblor-heavy California, according to a report by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Man-made activities related to oil and gas production are creating the shaky conditions in a region of the central and eastern U.S., the USGS seismologists say. USGS scientists just released their first map that includes earthquake risks from both natural and human-induced causes for the coming year. Read More »
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