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Monday, February 8, 2016

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Zika Sexual Transmission in US Prompts Health Warning

After a person in Dallas was confirmed to have contracted the Zika virus through sex, U.S. health officials are warning men who travel to countries where Zika is spreading to take steps to prevent spreading the virus through sex. If a man has a pregnant partner, and has traveled to any of the more than 20 countries where Zika virus is spreading, he should either abstain from sex, or use condoms, until the end of his partner's pregnancy, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today (Feb. 5). The warning comes because health officials are concerned about a strong link between Zika virus infection during pregnancy and a birth defect called microcephaly, in which babies are born with abnormally small heads and face lifelong cognitive impairments.

Super Bowl Teams' Cities See Spike in Flu Deaths

Football fans in Denver and Charlotte might want to be extra vigilant about hand washing during the Big Game this Sunday — a new study finds that cities whose teams play in the Super Bowl have an increase in deaths due to flu that year. It found that counties that had teams advance to the Super Bowl had an 18 percent increase in flu deaths among people over age 65, compared to counties that didn't have a team in the Super Bowl that year. The researchers suspect that Super Bowl parties and other social events that bring people together for the game lead to an increase in flu transmission, particularly for those areas that have teams playing.

Electric Patch Helps Some People with PTSD in Small Study

People suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) could someday be treated with the help of an electric patch worn on their head when they are sleeping, researchers say. In the small new study, 12 people who had been suffering from PTSD and depression for an average of 30 years — and were already being treated with psychotherapy, medication or both — wore the patch each night while sleeping, over an eight-week period. The researchers found that the severity of the participants' PTSD decreased by an average of more than 30 percent, and the severity of their depression dropped by an average of more than 50 percent, over the study period.

Scientists investigate suspected meteorite death in southern India

By Sandhya Ravishankar CHENNAI (Reuters) - Indian scientists are investigating whether a man was killed by a meteorite, which if confirmed would be the first recorded death from falling fragments of space rock in almost 200 years.Jayalalithaa Jayaram, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, has said a bus driver at a college in her state was killed by the meteorite and awarded 100,000 rupees ($1,470) in compensation to his family."A meteorite fell within the college premises," Jayalalithaa said. Jayalalithaa, a former film star, left tight-lipped local officials struggling to explain the mystery blast at the engineering college that left a small crater and broke windows.

New dinosaur species offers evolutionary clues

By Jim Drury Paleontologists say a 201-million-year-old dinosaur fossil found two years ago on a Welsh beach could offer vital clues to understanding the evolution from the late Triassic to the early Jurassic Period. Dracoraptor hanigani has been classified as a new species. It's one of the oldest Jurassic dinosaurs ever found, and among the most complete specimens from the time period. The early Jurassic period is crucial in the evolutionary history of dinosaurs. It followed an extinction event in the late Triassic era that wiped out more than half the species on Earth and may have created the subsequent global dominance of the dinosaurs, led by the likes of Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor. According to Cindy Howells, palaeontology curator at the National Museum of Wales where the fossil is on display, "it's an important find in the early Jurassic because at that time dinosaurs were just starting to diversify.

Scientists investigate suspected meteorite death in southern India

By Sandhya Ravishankar CHENNAI (Reuters) - Indian scientists are investigating whether a man was killed by a meteorite, which if confirmed would be the first recorded death from falling fragments of space rock in almost 200 years. Jayalalithaa Jayaram, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, has said a bus driver at a college in her state was killed by the meteorite and awarded 100,000 rupees ($1,470) in compensation to his family. "A meteorite fell within the college premises," Jayalalithaa said.

Ravens Know When Food-Thieving Rivals Are Watching

Now scientists have found that ravens seem to know when they're being watched by a rival that might steal from them, and then take steps to hide their food. Previous behavior studies with scrub jays, which are raven relatives, showed that they could interpret other bird's thieving intentions — if they spied another jay watching them while they had food, they hid the food away. But the scientists behind the new study wondered — did the jay with the food really know what the rival bird was "thinking?" Maybe it simply followed the other bird's gaze to conclude that it meant to steal from them.

Baby Frogs Dine on Mom's Unfertilized Eggs

Discovered in wet forests in eastern Taiwan, the frogs are dimorphic, with the females having a slight size advantage, measuring 1.6 inches (41 millimeters) in length, compared with the male's 1.37-inch (35 mm) bodies. Follow us @livescience, Facebook& Google+.

Samurai Secrets: 1888 Martial Arts Manual for Cops Revealed

A newly translated 19th-century book, written by samurai, describes martial arts techniques designed to help police officers of the time. The book, which contains illustrated instructions, was published in 1888, a time when the samurai class had lost many of its privileges and the formally secretive martial art schools that taught the samurai were willing to divulge their secrets. This book drew on the expertise of 16 martial arts schools operating in Japan in 1888.

Scientists investigate suspected meteorite death in Tamil Nadu

By Sandhya Ravishankar CHENNAI (Reuters) - Indian scientists are investigating whether a man was killed by a meteorite, which if confirmed would be the first recorded death from falling fragments of space rock in almost 200 years. Jayalalithaa Jayaram, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, has said a bus driver at a college in her state was killed by the meteorite and awarded 100,000 rupees ($1,470) in compensation to his family. "A meteorite fell within the college premises," Jayalalithaa said.

Hawking Wants to Power Earth With Mini Black Holes: Crazy or Legit?

If you answered, "Get a mini black hole to orbit Earth," then you and physicist Stephen Hawking may be thinking on the same wavelength. In a lecture on Feb. 2, the famed scientist said tiny black holes, about as massive as the average mountain, could power all of the world's energy needs. "There is nothing technically wrong with this idea, but it is not very practical, at least within the next 10,000 years," said Sabine Hossenfelder, a physicist at the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, who blogs at backreaction.blogspot.com.

Magnetic 'MoonWalker' Shoes Help You Defy Gravity

The shoe, named "20:16 MoonWalker," relies on N45 neodymium magnets, which are among the most powerful permanent magnets known. As permanent magnets, they create their own force field, without an external current, and work like refrigerator magnets. "There are different levels of magnets, like N40, 42 and 45," said Patrick Jreijiri, a mechanical engineer and designer for the 20:16 MoonWalker.

Early Bird or Night Owl? It May Be in Your Genes

According to a new study by the genetics company 23andMe, the preference for being a "morning person" — someone who enjoys waking up early and going to bed early — rather than being an "evening person," who tends to stay up late at night and desperately reaches for the snooze button when the alarm goes off in the morning, is at least partially written in your genes. "I find it interesting to see how genetics influences our preferences and behaviors," said study co-author David Hinds, a statistical geneticist at 23andMe, a privately held genetic testing company headquartered in Mountain View, California. Circadian rhythms are roughly 24-hour cycles of activity controlled by the brain that tell our bodies when to sleep and help regulate other biological processes.

Feline Friends: Leopard Cats Likely Domesticated in Ancient China

Wild leopard cats may have been domesticated by farmers in China more than 5,000 years ago, according to a new study of feline fossils. Today's pet cats (Felis catus) descend from the wildcat (Felis silvestris lybica) native to the Middle East and Southwest Asia. But recent discoveries of cat fossils in China have muddled that narrative.

Antiperspirant May Boost Variety of 'Bugs' Living on Your Armpits

If you're an antiperspirant user, you probably slather on the stuff in order to wipe out odor-causing bacteria. The use of antiperspirants and deodorant alter the skin microbiome, according to a new open-access study published in the journal PeerJ on Tuesday (Feb. 2). Antiperspirants reduce the total number of bacteria dramatically, but seem to leave a more diverse group of survivors than what is seen on the underarms of people who use just deodorant or nothing at all.

Treasures Dug Up by Tomb Robbers Returned to Italy

At least 45 boxes filled with archaeological treasures have been returned to Italy after they were hidden in a Geneva warehouse by a disgraced British art dealer, Swiss authorities said. Swiss investigators suspect that tomb robbers illegally dug up most of these antiquities at ancient cemeteries in central Italy's Umbria and Lazio regions, where the Etruscan civilization thrived 2,500 years ago before the rise of Rome. The Etruscans are particularly famous for producing beautiful sarcophagi, or coffins, carved with reclining life-size human figures.

Whooping Cough Booster Wears Off in Teens

A booster vaccine aimed at protecting teens against whooping cough may wear off over time, a new study suggests. In the study, researchers looked at about 1,200 cases of whooping cough (also called pertussis) that occurred among a population of about 280,000 teens in California between January 2006 and March 2015. Despite high vaccination rates against the disease among teens, there were two major outbreaks in this group in California, in 2010 and 2014.

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