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	(Sponsor this newsletter) 5 Weird Facts About the Oscars The 86th annual Academy Awards are this Sunday, March 2. Ellen DeGeneres will host, stars will schmooze, and large portions of America will tune it to see who wore it best. But whether or not this year's Oscars hold any surprises, the awards ceremony has a strange history. The first person ever presented with an Academy Award was Emil Jannings, a silent-film actor who took the Best Actor award for two films. Read More »
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FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

	Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News
	(Sponsor this newsletter) Barely There? Chinese Company Debuts World's Thinnest Condom A Chinese company has created the world's thinnest latex condom, snagging the Guinness World Record for the barely-there rubber. The ultra-thin condom was manufactured by Guangzhou Daming United Rubber Products, a China-based company that produces roughly 200 million condoms annually. Currently, the Aoni is available only in Asia, but Victor Chan, who led the project, is eventually hoping to introduce the product to North American markets. "It was quite tricky," Chan told The Province. Read More » Storms Bringing Needed Rains to California Seen From Space New satellite images from space reveal the storms bringing much-needed rains to California. Yesterday (Feb. 27), a satellite image captured by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's GOES-West satellite showed one system winding down after showering the California coast, with another big front waiting offshore. That big cyclone was expected to inundate California with heavy rains today (Feb. 28) and through the weekend. The rains should push through the Southwest and the Intermountain region and reach the Rockies by nightfall. Read More » Construction of Giant Telescope in Hawaii Could Begin This Summer Construction of a massive telescope triple the size of the world's largest current optical telescopes is set to begin on Hawaii's Mauna Kea volcano this year. The Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT), which will consist of interlocking, segmented mirrors with a diameter totaling 30 meters (98 feet), has raised 83 percent of its funding, and builders could break ground by this summer, the project's leaders say. "We're really ready to go with this telescope," Dr. Michael Bolte, associate director for the TMT project, said last month at a meeting of the American Astronomical Association in Washington, D.C. [Thirty Meter Telescope: Hawaii's Giant Space Eye (Gallery)] The TMT is closely modeled on technology used by the twin 10-m Keck telescopes in Hawaii, currently some of the world's most powerful optical telescopes.  The TMT will have nine times the light-collecting power of Keck, and 12 times sharper images than the Hubble Space Telescope using the tools of adaptive optics, Bolte said. Read More » Mummies' Milk: World's Oldest Cheese Found in China "Despite being extraordinary simple, it possessed the necessary qualities for supporting the economic expansion of ruminant animal herding into Eastern Eurasia," the authors write in the paper, which was published online Feb. 18 in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter and Google+. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Read More » Year-long Mock Mars Mission Picks Semifinalists for Canadian Arctic Crew An ambitious simulated Mars mission that will take place over a full year in the Canadian Arctic has whittled its pool of potential crewmembers by two-thirds. The nonprofit Mars Society has selected 62 semifinalists from a total of more than 200 applicants for its Mars Arctic 365 mission (MA365), which aims to help prepare humanity for a real manned Red Planet mission down the road. "By conducting this full-scale dress rehearsal of a human expedition to Mars in a realistic habitat and environment for practically the same duration as an actual mission to the Red Planet, we will take a great step forward in learning how humans can work together to effectively explore the new frontier of Mars," Mars Society officials wrote in an update Wednesday (Feb. 26). These teams will travel to the Mars Society's Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) on Canada's Devon Island this summer, where they will undergo two weeks of field testing that will culminate in the selection of the highest-performing crew. Read More » @NASAArmstrong: NASA Begins Process to Rename Center for Neil Armstrong With the flick of a digital switch, NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center has been renamed for the late astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. NASA on Friday (Feb. 28) got off to an early start adopting the new name, updating its website addresses and social media handles, before the name officially goes into effect Saturday (March 1). The redesignation comes two months after President Barack Obama signed legislation enacting the change and 20 years (to the day) after the center's last renaming. Beginning Saturday, the southern California center will be known as the "Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center." The neighboring test range has also been redesignated the "Hugh L. Dryden Aeronautical Test Range." [Neil Armstrong: An American Icon Remembered (Photos)] Read More » Strange State of Matter Found in Chicken's Eye Each type of cone is a different size. Around each cone is a so-called exclusion region that bars other cones of the same variety from getting too close. This means each cone type has its own uniform arrangement, but the five different patterns of the five different cone types are layered on top of each other in a disorderly way, the researchers say. "Because the cones are of different sizes it's not easy for the system to go into a crystal or ordered state," study researcher Salvatore Torquato, a professor of chemistry at Princeton University, explained in a statement. Read More »
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FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

	Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News
	(Sponsor this newsletter) Beautiful Mouse Brain Map Holds Clues to Neurological Disease Glowing new images of the mouse brain represent the most comprehensive mapping yet of the mammalian cortex. The project is important because the mouse brain is structured basically like other mammal brains — including humans', said study leader Hong-Wei Dong, a neuroscientist at the University of Southern California. Read More » Japan Launches Next-Generation NASA Satellite to Track Rain & Snow NASA's newest weather satellite soared into space today (Feb. 27), kicking off a mission to observe rainfall and snowfall around the globe in unprecedented detail. The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory, a joint effort between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), blasted off aboard an H-2A rocket from Japan's Tanegashima Space Center today at 1:37 p.m. EST (1837 GMT; GPM will deliver near real-time observations of precipitation every three hours all over the world, greatly improving scientists' understanding of climate change and the global water cycle, mission officials said.  [NASA's Rain-Watching GPM Satellite Mission in Pictures (Gallery)] "This is going to provide us the most accurate and advanced precipitation measurements to date from NASA satellites," Gail Skofronick-Jackson, GPM project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said during a press briefing last month. Read More » Humans May Have Been Stuck on Bering Strait for 10,000 Years The ancestors of Native Americans may have lived on and around the Bering Strait for about 10,000 years before streaming into the Americas, researchers argue. In the new Perspectives article, published today (Feb. 27) in the journal Science, the researchers compile existing data to support the idea, known as the Beringia standstill hypothesis. Among that evidence is genetic data showing that founding populations of Native Americans diverged from their Asian ancestors more than 25,000 years ago. In addition, land in the region of the Bering Strait teemed with grasses to support big game (for food) and woody shrubs to burn in the cold climate, supporting a hard-scrabble existence for ancient people. Read More » Winds from Black Holes Pack Surprisingly Strong Punch Black holes can blast their surroundings with much stronger winds than previously thought, scientists say. The discovery will help better model the evolution of black holes over time, and help uncover the huge influence they can have on their host galaxies. Black holes are objects with gravitational pulls so powerful, not even light can escape. Black holes grow when gas and dust in space flows or accretes onto them — this matter gets so hot it glows hot with radiation such as X-rays. Read More » Male Goat's 'Goaty' Pheromone Puts Females in the Mood New research has identified a pheromone in the hair of male goats that activates a hormone in female goats called gonadotropin-releasing hormone, which stimulates their reproductive systems. This was our first surprise," study author Yukari Takeuchi, of the University of Tokyo, said in a statement. Researchers knew for a long time that in sheep and goats, the males somehow stimulated the release of reproductive hormones in females, but now the new study has identified the actual compound at work, said John J. McGlone, a Texas Tech University professor, who was not involved in the study. "When there is a pheromone in one species, what we are learning is that it often has effects on other species." Read More » Global warming slowdown likely to be brief: U.S., UK science bodies By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent OSLO (Reuters) - A slowdown in the pace of global warming so far this century is likely to be only a pause in a longer-term trend of rising temperatures, the science academies of the United States and Britain said on Thursday. Since an exceptionally warm 1998, there has been "a short-term slowdown in the warming of Earth's surface," Britain's Royal Society and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences said in a report. But, they said, that "does not invalidate our understanding of long-term changes in global temperature arising from human-induced changes in greenhouse gases." The warming slowdown has emboldened those who question the evidence about climate change and ask whether a shift in investments towards renewable energies such as wind and solar power, advocated by many experts, is really needed. A build-up of greenhouse gases from human activities, mainly the burning of fossil fuels, is warming the atmosphere and the oceans, raising sea levels and melting Arctic ice, the report said, supporting the long-held view of a U.N. panel of climate scientists. Read More » How New Nutrition Labels Could Change Your Food The U.S. government's proposed changes to nutrition labels are an important and positive step, and could even spur food companies to give consumers healthier options, but the changes are only part of what's needed to stem the obesity epidemic, public health experts say. Today (Feb. 27), the Food and Drug Administration announced plans to update nutrition labels to better reflect the latest nutrition science, and the growing understanding of the link between diet and chronic diseases, the agency said. The proposal comes as a growing number of Americans say they read nutrition labels. About 54 percent of U.S. consumers said they read these labels "often" in 2008, up from 44 percent in 2002, according to FDA statistics. Read More » NASA oversight led to spacewalker's near drowning, panel finds By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A panel investigating an astronaut's near drowning during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station in July found that his spacesuit leaked during an earlier outing, officials said on Wednesday. NASA misdiagnosed the earlier leak, believing the water found in the helmet of Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano on July 9 was due to a ruptured drink bag, said space station chief engineer Chris Hansen, who chaired an investigation panel appointed by the U.S. space agency. Instead, a week later on July 16, Parmitano and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy put on their spacesuits to continue work outside the space station, a $100 billion research complex that flies about 260 miles above Earth. Read More » Dressed for Success? Harvard Researcher Says You May Doing It Wrong A recent study co-authored by Harvard University doctoral student Silvia Bellezza, suggested that people who go out on a limb with their clothing selections at work or in job interviews have the potential to appear more successful. Business News Daily recently reported on Bellezza's findings. Resistance to conformity pressures can take distinct forms across individuals. Of particular relevance to our work is Tian, Bearden and Hunter's (2001) conceptualization, which suggests that people exhibit three main behavioral manifestations of nonconformity. Read More » NASA Mars Probe Snaps Stunning Photo of Red Planet Sand Dunes NASA'S Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft has sent over 200 terabits of data back to Earth. (1 terabit = 1000 gigabits.) Read More » Top Secret: Boeing Unveils Secure Smartphone That Can 'Self-Destruct' Taking cues from "Mission Impossible," aerospace giant Boeing is developing a highly secure, self-destructing smartphone that can encrypt calls, protect stored information, or, if someone tries to tamper with or open the phone's casing, delete all of the device's data. The so-called Boeing Black is the Chicago-based company's first push into the realm of secure smartphones. Plans were filed this week with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), but Boeing is releasing few details publicly about the device. The Boeing Black measures 5.2 inches (13 centimeters) tall, making it a bit larger and roughly 50 percent heavier than Apple's iPhone 5, reported the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Read More » Stethoscopes More Contaminated Than Doctors' Hands Stethoscopes tend to be more contaminated than the palms of physicians' hands, new research shows. In a recent Swiss study, researchers discovered that more bacteria cover a stethoscope's diaphragm (the part that's held against a patient's body) than all regions of a physician's hands, except the fingertips. There are no official guidelines that tell doctors how often they should clean their stethoscopes, the researchers said. "The more you have bacteria on the fingertips, the more you find bacteria on the membrane of the stethoscope," said study author Dr. Didier Pittet, director of infection control at the University of Geneva Hospitals. Read More » Experimental Psoriasis Treatment Shows Promise The chronic skin condition psoriasis could be treated with a compound that targets a small piece of genetic material in cells, new research in animals suggests. Researchers found that blocking a type of genetic material called micro-RNA lowered the inflammation in mice that were grafted with skin from people with psoriasis. Psoriasis is an autoimmune disease (in which the immune system attacks the body's own tissues), and is one of the most common skin conditions worldwide, affecting about 3 percent of the human population. According to the National Psoriasis Foundation, the condition affects about 7.5 million Americans, including celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and country singer LeAnn Rimes. Read More » High-Tech Exosuit Lets Scientist Divers Explore Underwater Canyons Remember that scene in "Aliens" where Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley dons a Power Loader exoskeleton to do battle with the evil alien queen? Marine biologists and engineers have now developed a massive Exosuit weighing 530 lbs. (240 kilograms) designed for ocean depths down to 1,000 feet (305 meters) — another extreme environment where no one can hear you scream.  The one-of-a-kind Exosuit, on display at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) now through March 5, measures 6.5 feet (2 meters) tall and is made of hard metal and other materials. Read More » Juvenile Seal Returns to the Sea After Month in Rehab (Video) BIDDEFORD, Maine — Bitterly-cold whipping winds and near-freezing water temperatures didn't slow this juvenile harp seal named "Snow" down as he chugged along the beach and back into the Gulf of Maine Wednesday (Feb. 26) after a month-long stay at nearby rehabilitation facilities. Members of the local nonprofit group Marine Mammals of Maine found the critically dehydrated young seal lying on a frozen marsh, and notified staff at the Marine Animal Rehabilitation Center (MARC) at the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine who took him in to be treated on Jan. 28. The animals stay at the center until they regain their strength, which can take anywhere from several weeks to several months depending on their health conditions, Shannon Prendiville, senior animal care technician at MARC, told Live Science. Read More » Medieval Candelabra Hints at Forgotten Sea Routes A 10th-century candelabra found off the coast of the Spanish island of Ibiza may be a clue to long-forgotten shipping routes in that era. Read More »
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