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Wednesday, April 29, 2015

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Motion capture on a whole new level

By Ben gRUBER PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA, UNITED STATES - Hanbyul Joo is working on his swing. As Joo swings, more than 500 cameras capture his motion on video. Combined and processed, those videos make up the elements for the most advanced 3D reconstruction ever achieved. The two story dome is called the Panoptic Studio and its made up of 20 panels, each of which houses 24 cameras. To handle that data we are using 120 hard drives only for the capture," said Hanbyul Joo, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States. Thousands of cables snake around the dome feeding the video singles to a bank of computers that store the data.

Scientists race to beat mosquito resistance in fight against malaria

By Alex Whiting LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Mosquitoes are rapidly developing resistance to insecticides used in bednets that millions of people rely on to protect them from malaria, experts say. Scientists are racing to develop new insecticides, warning that tens of thousands of people in Africa could die every year if mosquitoes develop full resistance before replacements are found. The issue will be a concern when the World Health Assembly meets in Geneva next month to look at proposals to eliminate malaria in 35 countries by 2030. An estimated 4.3 million deaths have been prevented since 2000, many of them because of the mass distribution of treated bednets in Africa, according to Roll Back Malaria, a partnership including the World Health Organization, UNICEF and World Bank.

Scientists race to beat mosquito resistance in fight against malaria: TRFN

Space Shuttle Enterprise Exhibit in NYC Dedicated to Fallen Astronaut Crews

Three years to day after arriving in New York City for its public display, NASA's prototype space shuttle Enterprise on Monday (April 27) was dedicated to the astronauts who lost their lives in the pursuit of space exploration. Family members of the Apollo 1, Challenger STS-51L and Columbia STS-107 crews joined NASA officials aboard the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum for the dedication. "It is our great privilege to stand alongside the families of the brave crew members of Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia as we dedicate space shuttle Enterprise to their heroism, vision, passion and sacrifice," Susan Marenoff-Zausner, the museum's president, said. Apollo 1 astronauts Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee died Jan. 27, 1967, as a result of a fire engulfing their spacecraft during a test on the launch pad.

Source of Antarctica's Eerie 'Bleeding Glacier' Found

Antarctica's Dry Valleys are the most arid places on Earth, but underneath their icy soils lies a vast and ancient network of salty, liquid water filled with life, a new study finds. For instance, bacteria living under Taylor Glacier stain its snout a deep blood red. The rust-colored brine, called Blood Falls, pours into Lake Bonney in the southernmost of the three largest Dry Valleys. Now, for the first time, scientists have traced the water underneath Taylor Glacier to learn more about the mysterious Blood Falls.

Scientists create 'ghosts' in the lab by tricking the brain

By Matthew Stock Lausanne, SWITZERLAND - Neuroscientists have succeeded in creating 'ghosts' in the laboratory by tricking the brains of test subjects into feeling an unexpected 'presence' in the room. Under normal circumstances the brain is able to form a unified self-perception, but lead researcher Olaf Blanke explained that when this malfunctions the brain creates a second representation of its body. Blanke's team began by analyzing the brains of 12 patients with neurological disorders who have reported having such a secondary representation of their body, in other words a ghost sensation. MRI scans revealed abnormalities with three brain regions involved in self-awareness, movement and the sense of position in space.

Doomed Antarctic Explorer's Last Photos Up for Auction

Photographs taken by explorer Robert Falcon Scott during his ill-fated trip to Antarctica are being auctioned off in London today. The photos depict day-to-day life at the base camp on Antarctica's Ross Island in the months leading up to Scott's trek to the South Pole in 1911 — a journey from which he never returned. As Scott and his team trudged toward the South Pole, Ponting stayed behind at the Ross Island base camp, where a relief party brought Scott's camera before the captain became stranded in the snow. Now, more than 100 years after the Terra Nova expedition, those photos will be up for sale at Christie's Auction House in London today (April 28), where they are expected to fetch at least $30,000 (20,000 British pounds).

Same-Sex Marriage: 6 Effects of Supreme Court's Decision

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments today (April 28) about the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. "There are literally hundreds and hundreds of rights under state and federal law that are affected by whether you can marry or not," said Jeffrey Trachtman, a partner at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, a law firm with offices in New York City, Silicon Valley and Paris. Here are six ways the Supreme Court's ruling could affect the lives of same-sex couples living in the United States. If you're not married, it's generally more complicated to adopt a child, Trachtman told Live Science.

US Military's Self-Steering Bullets Can Hit Moving Targets

In what some might consider a terrifying development, the U.S. military has passed a key milestone in creating self-steering bullets.

Supply craft cannot dock with space station: Russian space agency

An unmanned cargo ship will not be able to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) because of problems after it launched, the head of the Russian space agency said on Wednesday. Igor Komarov, head of Roscosmos, listed a series of problems that had made the Progress M-27M freighter tumble out of control since early on Tuesday. "Because of this, the craft's continued flight and its docking with the ISS is not possible," he said, speaking at a news conference. The total cost of the failed mission to supply almost 3 tonnes (2,722 kg) of supplies to the ISS was 2.59 billion roubles ($50.7 million), a Roscosmos spokesman told Reuters.

Doomed Russian Space Station Cargo Ship Will Fall Back to Earth Soon

An ailing Russian cargo spacecraft is falling from space and will soon meet a fiery demise in Earth's atmosphere after suffering a serious malfunction on Tuesday (April 28), a NASA astronaut said today. The unmanned Progress 59 spacecraft is doomed to burn up in Earth's atmosphere in the next few days after failing to deliver more than 3 tons of supplies to the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly told reporters in a series of televised interviews. "We were both told recently by both the U.S. and Russian flight control centers that Roscosmos [Russia's space agency] announced that the Progress will not be docking and will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere here some days in the future to be determined," Kelly said from the station as he and crewmate Mikhail Kornienko answered questions. The launch went smoothly, but shortly after the spacecraft separated from its rocket, Russian flight controllers had difficulty receiving telemetry data from the craft.

Dark Knight of the Jurassic? Tiny Dinosaur Had Batlike Wings

The creature is the first known dinosaur with membranous wings, said Xing Xu, a paleontologist at Linyi University in China, and co-author of the study published today (April 29) in the journal Nature. "This is the most unexpected discovery I have ever made, even though I have found a few really bizarre dinosaurs in my career," Xu told Live Science in an email. The fossil comes from the Middle-Upper Jurassic period (about 160 million years ago), and was found by a farmer, in the Tiaojishan Formation of Hebei Province, China.

A pigeon-size dinosaur with bat wings? Strange but true

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists in China on Wednesday described one of the weirdest flying creatures ever discovered, a pigeon-size dinosaur with wings like a bat that lived not long before the first birds. The dinosaur, named Yi qi (meaning "strange wing" in Mandarin and pronounced EE-chee), lived about 160 million years during the Jurassic Period, about 10 million years before the earliest-known bird, Archaeopteryx. It is considered a cousin of birds, but boasted membranous wings made of skin like those of the extinct flying reptiles known as pterosaurs, which lived at the same time, and bats, which appeared more than 100 million years later, instead of the stiff, plume-like feathers of birds. "It's hard to imagine that it could have flapped very effectively, since the rod-like bone was presumably a fairly unwieldy thing to have attached to the wrist," said paleontologist Corwin Sullivan of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing.

See Amazing Photos of Mercury By a Doomed NASA Spacecraft (Video)

A new NASA video celebrates the life and accomplishments of the first probe ever to orbit Mercury, just days before the spacecraft ends its landmark mission with a death plunge onto the planet's many-cratered surface. NASA's MESSENGER probe, which has been orbiting Mercury since March 2011, is nearly out of fuel and will smash into the planet on Thursday (April 30), probably around 3:30 p.m. EDT (1930 GMT), space agency officials say. NASA released the new MESSENGER video on Monday (April 27) as a tribute, and a memorial of sorts. On March 18, 2011, MESSENGER became the first probe ever to circle Mercury and just the second to study the planet up close.

Scientists find chemical clues on obesity in urine samples

The findings may also help researchers identify people who have a so-called "metabolic signature" for obesity but are not overweight, the scientists said, suggesting ways could be found to prevent them developing obesity and other metabolic diseases. According to World Health Organization (WHO) data, 13 percent of adults worldwide were obese in 2014. Thanks to technologies that can analyze the metabolic content of a urine sample, scientists can extract lots of information reflecting a person's genetic makeup and lifestyle. For this study, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, scientists led by a team at Imperial College London analyzed urine samples from more than 2,000 volunteers in the United States and Britain.

4D Implant Saves Babies with Breathing Problems

Three baby boys with life-threatening breathing problems are alive today thanks to a 4D biomaterial, a medical implant designed to change shape over time, that helped them keep breathing, researchers say. "Today, we see a way to cure a disease that has been killing children for generations," said Dr. Glenn Green, a pediatric otolaryngologist at the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital and the senior author of a new report on the boys' cases. "The possibilities are really limitless," lead study author Dr. Robert Morrison, a research fellow and resident surgeon at the University of Michigan Health System, told Live Science. Advances in 3D printing have enabled the rapid production of medical devices that are customized for individual patients, such as hearing aids, dental implants and prosthetic hands.

People Addicted to Opioids May Benefit from ER Drug Treatment

For people who are addicted to opioid painkillers, getting treated for addiction in the emergency room rather than waiting to see an addiction specialist may be beneficial, a new study suggests. Researchers analyzed information from 329 people with opioid addiction who ended up in the emergency room for any reason, including problems related to their addiction, or other medical conditions. These patients were divided into three groups: One group was referred to local addiction treatment centers, the second group was counseled for 10 minutes about addiction treatment and then referred to a treatment center, and the third group was immediately given a medication called buprenorphine, which helps with opioid withdrawal symptoms, and then given the same 10-minute counseling session and referral for addiction treatment. One month later, 78 percent of patients in the buprenorphine group were enrolled in a formal addiction treatment program, compared with just 37 percent of those who received referral information only, and 45 percent of those who had the counseling session before a referral, according to the study led by Dr. Gail D'Onofrio, of the Yale School of Medicine, in New Haven, Conn.

Having Mom in the Car Changes Teen Driver's Brain

In the study, researchers designed a driving simulation test that actually encouraged risk-taking behavior, and asked 25 teens to complete the simulation as quickly as possible. The findings suggest that distraction alone can't explain why teen drivers are more reckless when they have friends in the car, the researchers said.

Rare Sperm Whale Fossils Shed Light on Mysterious Family Tree

Rare, 7-million-year-old fossils of two extinct pygmy sperm whales are helping researchers learn about the evolution of the ocean's largest toothed whale, a new study finds. It's unclear why the sperm whales' spermaceti organ shrank over time — twice in the evolutionary record, according to an analysis of several fossils — but perhaps at one time, larger spermaceti were used to attract mates, said the study's lead researcher, Jorge Velez-Juarbe, a curator of marine mammals at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. "We really need to test this hypothesis," Velez-Juarbe told Live Science.

Hands free talk with global reach and style

By Ben Gruber San Francisco - Anytime, day or night, no matter which way you look, it seems you'll see someone with a smartphone in their hand. It allows any member, no matter their location or cellular provider to speak with another member or group of members with a simple push of a button. "The range is the Internet.

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Tuesday, April 28, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Launches Turkmenistan's First-Ever Satellite

The private spaceflight company SpaceX launched the first-ever satellite for Turkmenistan into orbit Monday evening (April 27), marking the second space mission in less than two weeks for the firm's Falcon 9 rocket. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 7:03 p.m. EDT (2303 GMT) to deliver the TurkmenÄlem52E/MonacoSat communications satellite into orbit, after a 49-minute delay caused by cloudy conditions. The satellite, which was built by France-based aerospace firm Thales Alenia Space, weighs about 9,920 lbs. (4,500 kilograms) and has a design lifetime of 15 years, according to a mission description. "Once operational in orbit, TurkmenÄlem52E/MonacoSAT will allow Turkmenistan to operate its first national satellite telecommunications system, ensuring enhanced, secure telecommunications for the country," SpaceX representatives wrote in a mission fact sheet.

Melanoma Tumor 'Dissolves' After 1 Dose of New Drug Combo

A large melanoma tumor on a woman's chest disappeared so quickly that it left a gaping hole in its place after she received a new treatment containing two melanoma drugs, a new case report finds. Doctors are still monitoring the 49-year-old woman, but she was free of melanoma — a type of skin cancer that can be deadly — at her last checkup, said the report's lead author, Dr. Paul Chapman, an attending physician and head of the melanoma section at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. For most of the study participants who took these drugs, the combination worked better than one drug alone. But the doctors were surprised by how well the drug combination worked to treat this particular woman's cancer — they had not anticipated that a melanoma tumor could disappear so quickly that it would leave a cavity in the body — and thus wrote the report describing her case. "What was unusual was the magnitude [of recovery], and how quickly it happened," Chapman told Live Science.

Russian Cargo Ship Suffers Glitch After Launching Toward Space Station

Everything went smoothly until the cargo vessel separated from the rocket. Progress 59's solar arrays deployed on schedule, but some of its navigational antennas apparently did not deploy, NASA launch commentators said. Russian flight controllers have also been having trouble uplinking commands to the Progress 59, and there may be issues with the vehicle's propulsion system as well, commentators added. This switch from the fast track, four-orbit route to the International Space Station to a two-day journey that requires 34 orbits to complete is "part of the nominal backup plan for all Soyuz and Progress vehicles" and gives Russian flight controllers time to try to troubleshoot the problems, NASA commentators said.

Bigger Earthquake Coming on Nepal's Terrifying Faults

Nepal faces larger and more deadly earthquakes, even after the magnitude-7.8 temblor that killed more than 4,000 people on Saturday (April 25). Earthquake experts say Saturday's Nepal earthquake did not release all of the pent-up seismic pressure in the region near Kathmandu. According to GPS monitoring and geologic studies, some 33 to 50 feet (10 to 15 meters) of motion may need to be released, said Eric Kirby, a geologist at Oregon State University. "The earthquakes in this region can be much, much larger," said Walter Szeliga, a geophysicist at Central Washington University.

Bruce Jenner's Transition: How Many Americans Are Transgender?

By opening up on national television about identifying as transgender, Bruce Jenner has become one of a small percentage of people who identify with a gender that conflicts with the one they were assigned at birth. The most frequently cited estimate is that 700,000 people in the United States, or about 0.2 to 0.3 percent of the population, are transgender, though some experts say the true number is probably greater than that. "For all intents and purposes, I am a woman," Jenner told ABC News' Diane Sawyer in a much-anticipated interview that aired on "20/20" on Friday (April 24). The 700,000 number comes from Gary Gates, an LGBT (lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender) demographer at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a legal and policy expert on sexual orientation and gender identity. Gates based his estimate on four national surveys and two state-level ones, combining their results using statistical methods, according to his report published in April 2011.

Tinkling Spoons Can Trigger Seizures in Cats

The United Kingdom-based charity International Cat Care reached out to veterinary specialists after receiving surprising complaints from cat owners: Their feline companions were apparently having seizures in response to high-pitched sounds. Louder sounds also seemed to make the seizures more intense.

Space station docking with supply ship delayed by technical hitch

Russia was forced to postpone the docking of an unmanned cargo ship with the International Space Station on Tuesday because of a problem receiving data from the supply craft. The Progress M-27M should have docked with the orbiting station about six hours after its launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan early on Tuesday but the Roscosmos space agency said it now expected a delay of at least two days. Space exploration is a subject of national pride in Russia, rooted in the Cold War "space race" with the United States, but the collapse of the Soviet Union starved the space program of funds and it has been beset by problems in recent years. The current crew on the International Space Station is made up of Americans Terry Virts and Scott Kelly, Russians Anton Shkaplerov, Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Korniyenko and Italian Samantha Cristoforetti.

SpaceX rocket blasts off with 1st satellite for Turkmenistan

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla (Reuters) - An unmanned SpaceX rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Monday to put a communications satellite into orbit for the government of Turkmenistan, a first for the Central Asian nation. After waiting almost an hour for cloudy skies to clear, the 22-story Falcon 9 rocket bolted off its seaside launch pad at 7:03 p.m. (2303 GMT). Perched on top of the rocket was a Spacebus 4000 telecommunications satellite, built by Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture of Thales SA and Finmeccanica SpA. Once in orbit, the five-ton (4,500-kg) satellite, known as TurkmenAlem52E, will become Turkmenistan's first telecommunications spacecraft, relaying television broadcasts and other services to more than 1.2 billion people in Central Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, according to Thales Alenia Space.

Nepal Earthquake: Health Threats Loom Over Survivors

The aftermath of the Nepal earthquake brings a risk of disease outbreaks — including measles and diarrheal diseases — among the survivors, and humanitarian agencies are rushing to bring aid to help. The 7.8-magnitude earthquake that hit the region Saturday (April 25) has had a devastating impact, with an estimated 7 million people affected, including 2.8 million children, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). As many as 1.5 million people in the Kathmandu Valley are now spending their nights outdoors, either because their homes have been destroyed or they are afraid to spend the night in their homes, said Christopher Tidey, a UNICEF spokesman. "If you have people living in very close proximity to each other…then diseases can spread much faster," Tidey told Live Science.

Bullying May Leave Worse Mental Scars Than Child Abuse

Being bullied during childhood may have even graver consequences for mental health in adulthood than being neglected or sexually abused, according to the first-ever study to tease out the effects of peer abuse from childhood maltreatment. Children in the study who had been bullied by their peers, but didn't suffer maltreatment from family members, were more likely to have depression and anxiety in adulthood than children who experienced child abuse but weren't bullied, according to researchers from the United States and United Kingdom. One in 3 children worldwide reports being bullied, Dieter Wolke, a professor of psychology at the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, and his colleagues note in their report, published today (April 28) in the journal Lancet Psychology. Studies have shown that victims of bullying have impaired stress responses and high levels of inflammation, as well as worse health and less workplace success as adults, the researchers said. The ill effects of any type of child maltreatment — including sexual abuse, physical abuse and neglect — on mental health and physical health are well-documented.

Russian Spacecraft Spinning Out of Control in Orbit, with Salvage Bid Underway

The Russian space agency Roscosmos is scrambling to regain control of a robotic Progress 59 cargo ship that appears to have suffered a serious malfunction shortly after launching into orbit early today (April 28). Russian flight controllers abandoned plans to attempt to dock the cargo ship with the International Space Station on Thursday (April 30), NASA spokesman Rob Navias said in a NASA TV update. The problems began shortly after Progress 59 launched into space atop a Russian Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. "Almost immediately after spacecraft separation, a series of telemetry problems were detected with the Progress 59," Navias said during a televised broadcast from NASA's Mission Control center at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Why Some Lithium-Ion Batteries Explode

Real-time images have captured the chain reaction that causes lithium-ion batteries to explode. The process can occur in just milliseconds: Overheated battery modules create a domino effect, producing more and more heat, and the battery explodes. "The presence of certain safety features can mitigate against the spread of some of this thermal runaway process," said study co-author Paul Shearing, a chemical engineer at the University College London in the United Kingdom. The results suggest some ways to make rechargeable lithium-ion batteries safer, the researchers wrote in the paper.

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