|  Illumina, partners make $100 million bet to detect cancer via blood test  | By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) - Gene sequencing company Illumina Inc is going after the next big advance in cancer detection, working to develop a universal blood test to identify early-stage cancers in people with no symptoms of the disease. On Sunday, San Diego-based Illumina said it would form a new company, called Grail, with more than $100 million in Series A financing. Illumina will be the majority owner.
| Read More » Crushed by Ice: Ships from 1871 Whaling Disaster Possibly Found  | Before sea ice formed along Alaska's Arctic coastline this winter, marine archaeologists discovered the wrecks of two 19th-century ships that likely met their demise during a famous whaling disaster. In September 1871, 33 whaling ships became stuck in pack ice off the coast of Wainwright, Alaska. "The loss of the ships was a significant blow to the whaling industry, particularly the New Bedford (Massachusetts) companies, which owned most of the vessels lost," said Brad Barr, an archaeologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
| Read More » Narcissist in Chief? How Trump's Ego Reflects US Culture With less than a month to go before Iowa's Republican primary caucus, Donald Trump remains atop the presidential candidate polls. His popularity appears unblemished despite brash statements, personal insults thrown at his opponents and rampant speculation over his perceived narcissistic tendencies. Read More » First Flower Seeds from Dinosaur Era Discovered  | Recently, researchers discovered tiny Cretaceous flower seeds dating back 110 million to 125 million years, the oldest-known seeds of flowering plants. For the first time, scientists were able to detect seed embryos, the part of the seed where a new plant grows and emerges, and food storage tissues surrounding them. Else Marie Friis, lead author of the study and professor emerita at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, has analyzed some of these fossil remains of angiosperms — flowering plants — preserved in soils in Portugal and North America.
| Read More » 'Kidnapped' Sharks Use Their Noses to Navigate Back to Shore  | Sharks may use their keen sense of smell to navigate the vast ocean, a new study finds. Researchers made the finding after catching leopard sharks (Triakis semifasciata), transporting them about 6 miles (9 kilometers) away from shore and stuffing some of the sharks' noses with Vaseline-soaked cotton. The scientists then released the sharks and tracked whether those with an impaired sense of smell had trouble finding their way back to shore.
| Read More » Ancient Rome Was Infested with Human Parasites, Poop Shows  | In fact, the empire was infested with a greater number of human parasites, such as whipworm, roundworm and Entamoeba histolytica dysentery, than during prior time periods. "I was very surprised to find that compared with the Bronze Age and Iron Age, there was no drop in the kind of parasites that are spread by poor sanitation during the Roman period," said the study's author Piers Mitchell, a lecturer of biological anthropology at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. In spite of such admirable baths and toilets, "neither of those things seemed to have actually increased the health of people in Roman times," although it probably would have helped them smell better, Mitchell told Live Science.
| Read More » How to Teleport Info Out of a Black Hole  | Quantum teleportation of subatomic particles could be used to retrieve information from a black hole, a new algorithm suggests. The information that can be extracted from this hypothetical black hole is quantum information, meaning that instead of existing in either a 0 or 1 state, like a classical bit, the data collected would exist as a superposition of all potential states. "We've demonstrated concretely that it is possible, in principle, to retrieve some quantum information from a black hole," said study co-author Adam Jermyn, a doctoral candidate at the University of Cambridge in England.
| Read More » European scientists make last-ditch attempt to contact comet lander  | By Victoria Bryan BERLIN (Reuters) - European scientists will send a command into space on Sunday to try to move and restore contact with the comet lander Philae that has fallen silent since the summer. After coming to rest in the shadows when it landed on a comet in November, Philae woke up in June as the comet approached the sun, giving scientists hope that the lander could complete some experiments that it had not done before its solar-powered batteries ran out.
| Read More » Don't tell Ahab: scientists find the real great white whale  | Call me "Albicetus." Scientists on Wednesday said fossils unearthed in 1909 in Santa Barbara, California, that had been wrongly categorized for decades as belonging to a group of extinct walruses were the remains of a fearsome sperm whale that swam the Pacific Ocean 15 million years ago during the Miocene Epoch. "Because the fossil specimen is a pale white color, and an ancient sperm whale, it seemed appropriate to honor Melville's infamous whale," said researcher Alex Boersma of the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of Natural History in Washington.
| Read More » No hiatus in global warming, says IPCC chief  | By Nina Chestney PARIS (Reuters) - Global warming has not paused, but more research is needed to understand the level that might cause tipping points, or irreversible damage to the earth's climate system, the chair of the U.N. panel of climate scientists told Reuters on Tuesday. In 2013, the panel reported a slowdown or "hiatus" in warming since about 1998, despite rising man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, heartening sceptics who said the risks of climate change had been exaggerated. "There is no hiatus (in global warming).
| Read More » Counting Steps: Are You Walking More, But Enjoying It Less? Using a fitness tracker or smartwatch to count your steps every day may lead you to boost your activity levels, but you may find that you enjoy your activity less than you would if you weren't tracking yourself, new research suggests. It turns out that all that tracking can turn pleasurable hobbies like walking into chores, which could make people stop doing those once-enjoyable tasks when they feel they're off the clock, the researchers said. "In general, tracking activity can increase how much people do," Jordan Etkin, a marketing professor at the Duke University Fuqua School of Business, said in a statement. Read More » Acupuncture Causes Bacterial Infection in Rare Case In the case, a 67-year-old man in Australia developed a serious bacterial infection after completing a five-week course of acupuncture aimed at relieving the pain and stiffness from his neck arthritis, also known as cervical spondylosis. After feeling feverish and ill for several days and also experiencing worsening neck pain, the man went to the hospital emergency room to find out what was wrong with him, according to the case report, published online Dec.11 in the journal BMJ Case Reports. Read More » The Thanksgiving Sky: The Moon Meets a Bright Star at Dawn  | As the moon moves around the Earth in its monthly orbit, it often passes in front of background stars. Such events are called "lunar occultations" and one will happen Thursday at dawn in a Thanksgiving lunar treat.
| Read More » Tribute to a Starman: David Bowie Mourned by Astronauts, Scientists  | Astronauts, scientists and members of the spaceflight industry are joining people all over the world in mourning the death of music icon David Bowie, who passed away Sunday (Jan. 10) after a battle with cancer.
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