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Friday, February 20, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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Monster Black Hole's Mighty Belch Could Transform Entire Galaxy

A ravenous, giant black hole has belched up a bubble of cosmic wind so powerful that it could change the fate of an entire galaxy, according to new observations. The wind could have big implications for the future of the galaxy: It will cut down on the black hole's food supply, and slow star formation in the rest of the galaxy, the researchers said. The supermassive black hole at the center of PDS 456 is currently gobbling up a substantial amount of food: A smorgasbord of gas and dust surrounds the black hole and is falling into the gravitational sinkhole. The black hole at the center of PDS 456 is devouring so much matter, that the resulting radiation outshines every star in the galaxy.

Google Doodle Rings in Chinese Lunar New Year

Today is the start of the Chinese New Year, an event that is determined by the cycles of the moon. The folks at Google decided to celebrate the occasion with a special Google doodle animation. The celebratory Google doodle features an animated ram enjoying a fireworks display. Fireworks are a traditional part of Chinese New Year celebrations, and according to Chinese astrology, 2015 will be the year of the ram — or the goat, sheep the antelope or another horned animal, depending on who you ask.

Sunbathers take heed: skin damage continues hours after exposure

Scientists have found that the skin damage caused by UV rays does not stop once you get out of the sun. Researchers said on Thursday much of the potentially cancer-causing damage wrought by ultraviolet radiation from sunlight or tanning beds occurs up to three to four hours after exposure thanks to chemical changes involving the pigment melanin. Melanoma, closely linked to UV exposure, accounts for most skin cancer deaths. The role of melanin, responsible for our skin, eye and hair color, in promoting DNA damage was a surprise because melanin was previously known to play a protective role by absorbing much of the UV energy before it penetrates the skin.

Great White Sharks Are Late Bloomers

If you thought humans were late bloomers, consider the great white shark. Male great white sharks take 26 years to reach sexual maturity, and females take a whopping 33 years to be ready to have baby sharks, according to a new study.

See the Demon Star Algol 'Wink' in the Night Sky

The so-called "demon star" of Algol is the most prominent eclipsing variable star in the night sky, and if you know when and where to look, you can see the star appear to wink as it is eclipsed by another, dimmer star. The lower arm of the K points at the Pleiades star cluster, but it upper arm ends at the star Algol, which has a long and venerable history.

Why It's So Freakin' Cold: Here's the Science

As if the outdoors weren't harsh enough with Boston buried under ungodly amounts of snow and the rest of the Northeast unable to shake the bitter cold, more winter weather is on the way. Parts of the United States are expected to have historic lows this week, as temperatures in the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic and central Appalachians may drop to the coldest they've been since the mid-1990s, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). "Get ready for an even more impressive surge of Arctic air later this week as another cold front drops south from Canada," the NWS said in a statement. That Arctic air in the form of a polar vortex eddy is dropping temperatures with a burst of bitterly cold air, the NWS said.

U.S. FDA approves 23andMe's genetic screening test for rare disorder

By Toni Clarke WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Google-backed 23andMe won U.S. approval on Thursday to market the first direct-to-consumer genetic test for a mutation that can cause children to inherit Bloom syndrome, a rare disorder that leads to short height, an increased risk of cancer and unusual facial features. The Food and Drug Administration said it plans to issue a notice to exempt this and other carrier screening tests from the need to win FDA review before being sold. "This action creates the least burdensome regulatory path for autosomal recessive carrier screening tests with similar uses to enter the market," the agency said in a statement, referring to genetic mutations carried by two unaffected parents. The FDA previously barred Mountain View, California-based 23andMe from marketing a saliva collection kit and personal genome service designed to identify a range of health risks including cancer and heart disease, saying it had not received marketing clearance.

U.S. FDA approves 23andMe's genetic screening test for rare disorder

NASCAR effort focuses on math, science for kids

WASHINGTON (AP) — It takes a lot of geometry and physics to get a race car to go 200 laps at speeds that can top 200 mph.

Ancient Shrines Used for Predicting the Future Discovered

Three shrines, dating back about 3,300 years, have been discovered within a hilltop fortress at Gegharot, in Armenia. Local rulers at the time likely used the shrines for divination, a practice aimed at predicting the future, the archaeologists involved in the discovery say. "The logic of divination presumes that variable pathways articulate the past, present and future, opening the possibility that the link between a current situation and an eventual outcome might be altered," write Adam Smith and Jeffrey Leon, in an article published recently in the American Journal of Archaeology. The fortress at Gegharot is one of several strongholds built at around this time in Armenia.

Bright and Stormy Night: Clouds Make Cities Lighter

The last time anyone in a big city saw a dark and stormy night was when winds knocked out the power grid. Storm clouds looming over skyscrapers now glow orange with light pollution instead of providing the cover of darkness, a new study confirms.

Out of the Sun? Ultraviolet Rays Can Harm Skin Hours Later

Ultraviolet rays can continue to harm skin even in the dark, inflicting cancer-causing DNA damage hours after people have left the sunshine or tanning bed, researchers say. In experiments on skin cells from mice and humans, the researchers found that the cells experienced a certain type of DNA damage not only immediately after exposure to ultraviolet A rays, but for hours after the UVA lamps were turned off. UVA rays make up about 95 percent of the ultraviolet radiation that penetrates Earth's atmosphere. "The idea of damage occurring to DNA for hours after exposure to UV rays was an urban legend in the field of DNA damage and repair — people saw it occasionally, but no one could reproduce it, so they gave up on it," study co-author Douglas Brash, a biophysicist at the Yale University School of Medicine, told Live Science. To the researchers' surprise, they found that the reason for this continuing damage is that melanin — the pigment that gives skin and hair their color, and is usually thought of as a protective molecule because it blocks the ultraviolet rays that damage DNA — can itself cause damage to DNA.

Hookah Myth Debunked: They Don't Filter Out Toxic Chemicals

There's a common belief that smoking from a hookah is less harmful than smoking tobacco in other ways because the hookah's water-filled pipe filters out toxic chemicals. In the study, researchers at German Jordanian University in Jordan analyzed four tobacco samples purchased at local markets that represented the most popular brands and flavors in the country. They looked at the amount of heavy metals in the tobacco itself, as well as the amount of heavy metals that made their way into hookah smoke.

Hold the Sugar, US Nutrition Panel Recommends

Americans should limit the amount of added sugar they consume to no more than 10 percent of their daily calories, or about 200 calories a day for most people, say new recommendations from a government-appointed panel of nutrition experts. If upcoming federal diet guidelines adopt this recommendation, it would be the first time those guidelines set a strict limit on the amount of added sugar that Americans are advised to consume. Previous versions of the guidelines have advised Americans to cut down on added sugar, but have not set a specific limit. Consuming too much added sugar has been linked with negative health outcomes, such as obesity and death from heart disease.

Fire Ants Hitched Ride Around Globe on 16th-Century Ships

Spanish ships spread tropical fire ants around the globe in the 16th century, according to new research about one of the first worldwide invasive species. Tropical fire ants (Solenopsis geminata) originally hail from the Americas, but are now found almost anywhere with a tropical climate, including Australia, Africa, India and Southeast Asia. The tiny ants defend their nests aggressively, and their stings leave painful white pustules on the skin, according to the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. "A lot of these ships, particularly if they were going somewhere to pick up commerce, would fill their ballast with soil and then they would dump the soil out in a new port and replace it with cargo," study researcher Andrew Suarez, an entomologist at the University of Illinois, said in a statement.

US National Parks Set Attendance Record in 2014

America's national parks offer breathtaking scenery and affordable vacations — two of the reasons why record numbers of people enjoyed the parks in 2014, according to the U.S National Park Service (NPS).

Maya Mural Reveals Ancient 'Photobomb'

An ancient Maya mural found in the Guatemalan rainforest may depict a group portrait of advisers to the Maya royalty, a new study finds. Behind him, an attendant, almost hidden behind the king's massive headdress, adds a unique photobomb to the mural, said Bill Saturno, the study's lead researcher and an assistant professor of archaeology at Boston University. "It's really our first good look at what scholars in the eighth-century Maya lowlands are doing," Saturno said. It's possible the man once lived in the room, which later became his final resting place, Saturno said.

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Thursday, February 19, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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U.S. must invest to keep ahead of China in space, hearing told

By David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China's space program is catching up with that of the United States and Washington must invest in military and civilian programs if it is to remain the world's dominant space power, a congressional hearing heard on Wednesday. Experts speaking to Congress's U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said China's fast advances in military and civilian space technology were part of a long-term strategy to shape the international geopolitical system to its interests and achieve strategic dominance in the Asia-Pacific. They also reflect an enthusiasm for space exploration which in the United States has faded since the Apollo Program which landed Americans on the moon in 1969, they said. "China right now is experiencing its Apollo years," Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, told the hearing.

Star Explosions Help Solve Mineral Mystery of the Universe

An explosion on the surface of a dying star has is helping to clear up a mystery behind copious amounts of lithium seen in the universe. By studying Nova Delphini 2013 (V339 Del), astronomers were able to detect a precursor to lithium, making the first direct detection of the third lightest element whose abundance had long remained in the theoretical realm. "There have been no direct observational evidence for lithium production in novae before our result," lead author Akito Tajitsu, of the National Observatory of Japan, told Space.com via email. When V339 Del was spotted by an amateur astronomer on Aug. 14, 2013, it was just beyond the limit of being visible to the naked eye, though it was visible in binoculars and telescopes.

Chinese New Year: How to See the New Moon Live Online Thursday

Whether or not you believe babies born in the Year of the Goat will have a lifetime of bad luck and unhappiness, tomorrow is a day of celestial significance. To mark the beginning of the Chinese New Year, the online Slooh Community Observatory will broadcast real-time views of the new moon on Thursday (Feb. 19). The Chinese zodiac's 12-year cycle — with each year represented by a different animal with its own virtues and flaws — is based on the lunar calendar. "Before this modern era where the moon is scarcely visible against city lights and irrelevant to our everyday lives, moonlight often made a life-or-death difference as to whether we dared venture out at night," Slooh astronomer Bob Berman said in a statement.

Marijuana Munchies May Come from Scrambled Neuron Signals

People who get "the munchies" after smoking marijuana may owe their sudden craving for food to certain neurons in the brain that are normally responsible for suppressing appetite, according to a new study on mice. The researchers also looked to see what was going on with the rest of the brain circuitry involved in appetite regulation in the mice whose hunger was stimulated. Although the investigators anticipated that the neurons that typically suppress appetite would be "turned off" by the process of appetite stimulation, instead, they saw that the appetite-suppressing neurons were being activated. "We found that these neurons, under the influence of cannabinoids, switch the chemicals that they release," study author Dr. Tamas Horvath, a professor of neurobiology at Yale University, told Live Science.

Some Racing Raindrops Break Their 'Speed Limit'

Some radical raindrops are flouting the rules: The wet-weather drips seem to be breaking a physical speed limit, sometimes falling 10 times faster than they should, scientists have found. This terminal velocity is reached when the downward tug of gravity equals the opposing force of air resistance. In 2009, physicists reported that they had discovered small raindrops falling faster than this terminal velocity. In that study, detailed in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Alexander Kostinski and Raymond Shaw of Michigan Technological University, along with Guillermo Montero-Martinez and Fernando Garcia-Garcia of the National University of Mexico, measured 64,000 raindrops, and found clusters of "superterminal" drops falling faster than they should based on their size and weight, especially as the rain became heavier.

Slimy Microbes May Have Carpeted Earth 3.2 Billion Years Ago

Nitrogen fixation involves breaking the powerful chemical bonds that hold nitrogen atoms in pairs in the atmosphere and using the resulting single nitrogen atoms to help create biologically useful molecules. Microbes that live in the roots of legume plants and in soils are key to modern nitrogen fixation. Now, scientists looking at some of the planet's oldest rocks have found evidence that life was already practicing nitrogen fixation about 3.2 billion years ago, nearly three-quarters of the way back to the birth of the planet.

Galaxy Merger Caught in Stunning Hubble Telescope Photo, Video

A spiral galaxy gets twisted out of shape after coming too close to a cosmic neighbor in a gorgeous photo captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Between 100 million and 200 million years ago, NGC 7714 drifted too close to a smaller, neighboring galaxy called NGC 7715. The resulting galaxy merger has been violent and dramatic, changing the structure and shape of both NGC 7714 and NGC 7715, researchers said. "Tell-tale signs of this brutality can be seen in NGC 7714's strangely shaped arms, and in the smoky golden haze that stretches out from the galactic center," European Space Agency (ESA) officials wrote in a description of the new image.

World's Largest Atom Smasher Returns: 4 Things It Could Find

The world's largest particle collider is gearing up for another run of smashing particles together at nearly the speed of light. After a two-year hiatus for upgrades, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will restart this year, and is expected to be twice as powerful as it was during its first run. In 2012, the LHC helped to find evidence of the Higgs boson, the particle that is thought to explain how other particles get their mass. The discovery vindicated theoretical calculations made decades ago, and bolstered the Standard Model, the current framework of particle physics.

Chemical in Plastics May Alter Boys' Genitals Before Birth

It confirms earlier findings in humans and animals that exposure to certain types of chemicals called phthalates may lead to changes in the way the male reproductive tract develops, said Dr. Russ Hauser, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health, who was not involved in the new study. Phthalates are a large group of industrial chemicals used in a variety of consumer products, such as food packaging, flooring, perfumes and lotions. The changes seen in the babies in the study were small, said lead author Shanna Swan, a reproductive health scientist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. "There was nothing clinically abnormal or noticeably different about these boys," Swan told Live Science.

This State Is the Nation's Happiest for the First Time

Alaska edged out Hawaii and is now at the top of the rankings of the nation's happiest states for the first time.

Diseases affecting the poorest can be eliminated, scientists say

By Alex Whiting LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - It is a little known disease but it could make medical history if scientists' predictions are correct: yaws could completely disappear by 2020, given the right resources. Guinea worm is nearly there, and polio too could be added to the list. The World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday urged developing countries to invest more in tackling so-called neglected tropical diseases such as yaws, saying more investment would alleviate human misery and free people trapped in poverty. When the WHO launched mass treatment campaigns with penicillin vaccines, the number of cases plummeted by 95 percent by the end of the 1960s, according to David Mabey, an expert in yaws and professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Diseases affecting the poorest can be eliminated, scientists say

Moon, Venus, Mars Meet in Friday Night Sky: How to See It

Mars, Venus and the moon will meet up in a particularly beautiful cosmic display Friday (Feb. 20). If you've been watching the evening twilight sky over the past few weeks, you will have seen the brilliant planet Venus gradually moving away from the sun, setting slightly later every evening. At the same time, the planet Mars has been gradually moving downward toward the sun, setting slightly earlier every evening. The three cosmic bodies will form a triangle only 2 degrees across, small enough to fit into a low-power telescope's field of view.

NASA Spacecraft Spies 2 Tiny Moons of Pluto (Photos, Video)

A NASA spacecraft speeding toward an epic flyby of Pluto on July 14 has beamed home its first good looks at two moons of the dwarf planet. The New Horizons probe captured images of Nix and Hydra, two of Pluto's five known satellites, from Jan. 27 through Feb. 8, at distances ranging from 125 million miles to 115 million miles (201 million to 186 million kilometers), NASA officials said. NASA released the new footage Wednesday (Feb. 18), 85 years to the day after American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. "It's thrilling to watch the details of the Pluto system emerge as we close the distance to the spacecraft's July 14 encounter," New Horizons science team member John Spencer, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, said in a statement.

Diseases affecting the poorest can be eliminated, scientists say

Shrimpy Sharks to Great Whites: Marine Animals Have Gotten Bigger Over Time

Animals tend to evolve toward a larger body size over time, and marine animals are no exception, a study suggests. In fact, the average size of marine animals has increased significantly over the past 542 million years, according to researchers who recently compared the body sizes of ocean-dwelling creatures from five major groups ranging from arthropods to vertebrates. The findings support a theory that biologists call Cope's rule, which holds that animals in a given group tend to grow larger over the course of their evolution, the researchers said. Cope's rule is named after American paleontologist Edward Cope.

Bigger is better: 19th century hypothesis gets fresh endorsement

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Renowned 19th century American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope proposed "Cope's Rule," hypothesizing that animal lineages tend to increase in body size over time. Scientists on Thursday said the most comprehensive test of "Cope's rule" ever conducted, involving 17,208 different marine animal groups spanning the past 542 million years, demonstrated a clear trend toward larger size over time.

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