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Wednesday, July 15, 2015

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Pluto Flyby Road Trip: My Path to New Horizons

On Tuesday, July 14, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will make history when it becomes the first probe ever to visit Pluto. This epic Pluto flyby will came a voyage of more than nine years for New Horizons. You can see our full coverage here: New Horizons Probe's July 14 Pluto Flyby: Complete Coverage

Pluto Flyby May Reveal Secrets of Saturn's Moon Titan

The data NASA's New Horizons spacecraft collects during its historic flyby of Pluto today (July 14) may reveal insights into not only the dwarf planet, but also Saturn's huge moon Titan, scientists say. With its nitrogen and methane atmosphere, Pluto bears a strong resemblance to Titan — one of the most potentially habitable bodies in the solar system — or at least how Titan may have been in the past. "New Horizons will help us confirm our photochemical understanding [of] Pluto.

Science Meets Superstition as Nervous Pluto Team Waits

As NASA's New Horizons team members wait in anticipation for the spacecraft to check in with them tonight (July 14) after its historic flyby of Pluto, they'll be making sure not to jinx the mission. "It is science, but we are superstitious," New Horizons mission operations manager Alice Bowman, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, said during a news conference Sunday (July 12). About a year after New Horizons' January 2006 launch, Bowman made such a comment and then said, "Knock on wood," said mission principal investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado.

Pluto, Big Moon Charon Blaze in New Technicolor Images

Flamboyant yellows, purples, blues and greens cover the surfaces of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, in new images from NASA's New Horizons space probe. The flamboyant new photos were captured using three color filters on New Horizons' Ralph imaging instrument.

Festive Pluto Flyby Brings Cheers, Tears, Kids and (Maybe) Some Drama

It feels like the ultimate space party, NASA style. When the New Horizons spacecraft made its historic Pluto flyby today (July 14) after more than nine years in transit, the moment came with the obligatory NASA countdown. Alan Stern, the principal investigator for the mission, led a crowd of nearly 1,200 people in a countdown to 7:49 a.m. EDT (1149 GMT) — the time of closest approach, when New Horizons zoomed within 7,800 miles (12,500 kilometers) of Pluto's surface.

Pluto probe survives encounter, phones home

By Irene Klotz LAUREL, Md. (Reuters) - A U.S. spacecraft sailed past the tiny planet Pluto in the distant reaches of the solar system on Tuesday, capping a journey of 3 billion miles (4.88 billion km) that began nine and a half years ago. The event culminated an initiative to survey the solar system that the space agency embarked upon more than 50 years ago. About 13 hours after its closest approach to Pluto, the last major unexplored body in the solar system, New Horizons phoned home, signaling that it had survived its 31,000 miles per hour(49,000 km per hour) blitz through the Pluto system.

Pluto Flyby Success! NASA Probe Phones Home After Epic Encounter

The first-ever flyby of Pluto was a big success. NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has sent a status update home to its handlers here on Earth, indicating that the probe survived its historic encounter with Pluto this morning (July 14) — and that reams of amazing data should be on the way soon. The message came in to mission control at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, at 8:53 p.m. EDT today (0053 GMT Wednesday), 4.5 hours after New Horizons sent it.

Chimaera device paves way for wireless pain relief

By Matthew Stock A prototype surgical tool that combines preoperative CT data with state-of-the-art sensing technology could put the ability to carry out complex operations in the hands of many more doctors, according to its developers. The hand-held device, called Chimaera, could revolutionize the delivery of miniaturized neurostimulators to specific nerves, and give many more patients access to pioneering new pain management technology. Neurostimulation involves applying an electric impulses to nerves to alter brain activity in a specific area.

Oldest Animal Sperm Lasted 50 Million Years in Antarctica

It's time to call Guinness World Records: Researchers on an Antarctic expedition have uncovered sperm cells dating to a whopping 50 million years ago, making these the oldest known animal sperm cells, a new study finds. Just as amber can entrap and preserve insects, the cocoon preserved the sperm cells while fossilizing over millions of years, the researchers said. "Because sperm cells are so short-lived and fragile, they are vanishingly rare in the fossil record," said lead author Benjamin Bomfleur, a paleontologist at the Swedish Museum of Natural History.

Surprise! Infrared Camera Reveals Black Leopard's Hidden Spots

The black leopards of the Malaysian Peninsula may look like they have uniform dark coats, but hidden cameras with infrared light have revealed a surprise: The black cats sport the characteristic leopard spots within their dark-hued coats. "Understanding how leopards are faring in an increasingly human-dominated world is vital," lead author Laurie Hedges, a zoology graduate at the University of Nottingham in England, said in a statement. Most have a distinctive and immediately recognizable spotting pattern, and for decades, the ubiquitous "leopard print" has shown up on bathing suits, fur coats and countless tacky 1970s-era bedspreads.

It's Raining Spiders! Weirdest Effects of California Drought

Brown lawns, fallow fields and higher water bills are all the predictable outcomes of the California drought. The Golden State is in the midst of its driest period on record. From pipe-eating poop to more roadkill, here are some of the strangest results of the California drought.

Solar-powered plane grounded nine months in Hawaii by battery damage

A solar-powered plane halfway through an attempt to circle the globe will be grounded in Hawaii for at least nine months because of battery damage sustained during its record 118-hour flight to Oahu from Japan, the project team said on Wednesday. The spindly, single-seat experimental aircraft dubbed Solar Impulse is not expected to take off on the next leg of its journey - a planned four-day, four-night flight to Phoenix, Arizona - until late April or early May 2016, the team said. Additional time is needed to repair the plane's four batteries, which store energy from the sun during daylight hours to keep the aircraft powered overnight, allowing it to remain aloft around the clock on extreme long-distance flights.

Amazing Pluto Flyby Images to Be Unveiled Today

The world will get its first up-close looks at Pluto today (July 15). Early this morning, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will beam home the first haul of photos and other data it collected during Tuesday morning's (July 14) historic Pluto flyby. "Included in that dataset will be new imagery at 10 times higher resolution than the spectacular imagery that debuted this morning," New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern said during a press briefing Tuesday night, referring to a gorgeous photo featuring Pluto's huge heart-shaped feature that went viral Tuesday.

5th-Century Mosaic Adorned with Elephants and Cupids

Stunning mosaics have turned up during an archaeological dig of a fifth-century synagogue in northern Israel. "The images in these mosaics — as well as their high level of artistic quality — and the columns painted with vegetal motifs have never been found in any other synagogue," Jodi Magness, the director of the excavation project and professor of early Judaism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said in a statement. The site is located in Huqoq, in the Galilee region of Israel.

See Pluto Live Via Telescope Today in Slooh Webcast

The online Slooh Community Observatory will discuss the latest close-up images of Pluto taken by the New Horizons probe, along with live observations of the dwarf planet by ground-based telescopes, in a live webcast today (July 15), and you can watch it live online. The free webcast will air at 5:30 p.m. EDT (2130 GMT) on the the Slooh website (http://www.slooh.com), and feature analysis of the newest Pluto images from New Horizons. It will also include live views of Pluto taken through Slooh's remotely operated observatory in the Canary Islands, Spain.

'Chasing Pluto': PBS Documentary on Epic New Horizons Flyby Airs Tonight

Anyone wishing to relive the excitement of the New Horizons spacecraft's epic Tuesday (July 14) flyby of Pluto is in luck: A documentary that chronicles the historic event premieres tonight (July 15) on PBS. "Chasing Pluto," a production of PBS' NOVA science series, airs tonight at 9 p.m. EDT/8 p.m. CDT. The documentary provides an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the New Horizons mission, brings viewers up to speed on some of the newest developments in planetary science and investigates why people care so much about Pluto, producers said.

Children with Severe Allergies Susceptible to Rebound Reactions

It's fairly common for children who have a severe allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis to be in danger of having a second, delayed allergic reaction within hours of the first one, a new study suggests. Researchers in Canada found that about 15 percent of children who came to the emergency room for anaphylaxis had a second serious allergic reaction hours after the initial reaction. The study also found that about 75 percent of these second anaphylactic reactions, known as biphasic reactions, occurred within 6 hours of their first anaphylaxis symptoms, and in most cases, the children were still at the ER because of their first reaction.

Hope and Resilience: How Parents Cope with a Child's Cancer

Around the time she was celebrating her first Mother's Day, in May 2009, Merri Hackett and her husband received the news no parents want to hear. Hackett was 23 at the time, married for more than a year to her childhood sweetheart, living in Memphis, Tennessee and trying to get the hang of being a new mother. As a precautionary measure, the pediatrician recommended that Josiah get an ultrasound.

Homeopathic Treatments: Do They Help or Harm?

Although some people say homeopathy, a type of alternative medicine, is safe and leads to better outcomes when used along with conventional medicine, others say it can be harmful, and it is unethical for doctors to recommend it. In fact, Peter Fisher, director of research at the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine, argues that homeopathic treatments can improve patient outcomes.

Human Hands Are Primitive, New Study Finds

Human hands may be more primitive than those of chimpanzees, more closely resembling the hands of the last common ancestor of humans and chimps, researchers say. These results suggest that since the overall hand proportions of humans are largely primitive, when the first members of the human lineage started to use and produce complex stone tools in a systematic way, "their hands were already pretty much like ours today," said study lead author Sergio Almécija, a paleoanthropologist at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. This ability depends not only on the extraordinarily powerful human brain, but also the dexterity of the human hand.

Elusive New Pentaquark Particle Discovered After 50-Year Hunt

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest atom smasher, have found proof of the existence of the pentaquark, an elusive subatomic particle that was first proposed to exist more than 50 years ago. "The pentaquark is not just any new particle," Guy Wilkinson, a spokesperson for the LHC experiment that discovered the pentaquark, said in a statement. "It represents a way to aggregate quarks, namely the fundamental constituents of ordinary protons and neutrons, in a pattern that has never been observed before in over 50 years of experimental searches.

Scientists use 'therapeutic cloning' to fix mitochondrial genes

By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. researchers have used a controversial cloning technique to make new, healthy, perfectly matched stem cells from the skin of patients with mitochondrial diseases in a first step toward treatment for these incurable, life-threatening conditions. A study on the technique, published in the journal Nature, showcases the latest advance in the use of somatic-cell nuclear transfer to make patient-specific stem cells that could be used to treat genetic diseases. "This work enables the generation of an unlimited – and mutation-free – supply of replacement cells for patients with mitochondrial disease," said Dr. Robert Lanza, Chief Scientific Officer at Advanced Cell Technology, who was not involved in the research.

Scientists use "therapeutic cloning" to fix mitochondrial genes

Huge Brain Scan Database is Revealing Secrets of the Mind

Karen Lazo, multimedia intern at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Researchers are using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scans to watch how blood flows through active areas of the brain in real time. With support from the U.S. National Science Foundation, cognitive neuroscientist Russell Poldrack and a team at Stanford University launched new infrastructure to enable sharing.

Dust Clouds the Future of the South Asian Monsoon (Op-Ed)

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned for more than a decade that rising air pollution levels pose a serious threat to human health worldwide, especially in developing countries, and high levels of pollution in the urban centers of China and India are now responsible for the premature deaths of more than 2 million people every year. As if this news were not bad enough, my colleagues and I have found that pollution and dust particles blanketing that region are responsible for a 20-percent decline in South Asian monsoon rainfall over the past century — findings published June 16 in the journal Nature Communications. The South Asian summer monsoon is a dramatic phenomenon that has inspired prose and poetry for millennia.

Justified Evil: How Wrongdoers Excuse Amoral Acts

Scott Hawkins is an author and computer programmer, and recently published his first novel, "The Library at Mount Char" (Crown, 2015). The American Psychiatric Association, in its DSM-IV-TR, estimated that 3 percent of males and 1 percent of females in the general population are psychopaths. In writing "The Library at Mount Char," I wanted to explore how people with normal emotional equipment, and at least some sense of morality, for one reason or another chose to commit amoral acts.

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Tuesday, July 14, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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Chain of Underwater Volcanoes Discovered During Lobster Hunt

During a recent marine excursion, researchers searching for lobster larva unexpectedly discovered a geologic wonder: a 50-million-year-old cluster of extinct volcanoes submerged in the water off eastern Australia. The four volcanoes are located about 155 miles (250 kilometers) off the coast of Sydney, the researchers found during the mission, which lasted from June 3 to 18. The scientists immediately recognized them as calderas, a cauldronlike structure that forms after a volcano erupts and collapses into itself, creating a crater.

Watch the Pluto Flyby: How to See NASA Make History Online

On Tuesday (July 14), NASA will give Pluto its first close-up since the dwarf planet's discovery 85 years ago, and you can follow it all online. At 7:49 a.m. EDT (1149 GMT) on Tuesday, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will fly by Pluto in what is arguably the planetary event of the year, if not the decade. For the first time since NASA's Voyager mission in 1989, a spacecraft will fly by an unexplored planet.

Testicular Cancer & Cycling: Is There a Link?

Cyclist Ivan Basso's announcement today that he has testicular cancer comes decades after Lance Armstrong famously battled the disease. Could two cases of testicular cancer in the world's top cyclists be a coincidence, or does something about competitive cycling increase men's risk of the disease? Basso said at a news conference today (July 13) that he is withdrawing from the Tour de France after being diagnosed with testicular cancer during the race, according to BBC News.

Mushroom Poisoning Caused Woman's Liver to Fail

Eating wild mushrooms is dangerous, as a new report highlights: A woman in Canada recently suffered liver failure and needed a liver transplant after consuming poisonous mushrooms she found in a park. The woman was able to get the transplant at short notice, but if she had not, the outcome of her case could have been much worse, said Dr. Corey M. Stein, of the University of Toronto, who treated the woman and co-authored the new report of her case. "Mushroom poisoning can be fatal," Stein said.

Australian tracking station to get first new images of Pluto

By Pauline Askin SYDNEY (Reuters) - A space tracking station surrounded by cows in an Australian valley will on Tuesday become the first place in the world to get close-up images of Pluto, the most distant planetary body ever explored. After nine-and-half years of traveling 5.3 billion km (3.3 billion miles), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)'s spacecraft New Horizons will get within 12,500 km (7,800 miles) of Pluto on Tuesday evening. The spacecraft has been sent specifically to take pictures of Pluto, a part of the solar system that has been in deep freeze for billions of years.

Google Doodle Celebrates Pluto Flyby by NASA's New Horizons

LAUREL, Md. -- Today, July 14, 2015, NASA will make history when its New Horizons spacecraft becomes the first mission ever to fly by Pluto, and the folks at Google are celebrating with an appropriately celebratory Google doodle.

Pluto Flyby Occurs 50 Years After 1st Mars Encounter

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is winging past Pluto this morning (July 14) exactly 50 years after the first robotic visit to Mars. On July 14, 1965, NASA's Mariner 4 probe flew by the Red Planet, becoming the first spacecraft ever to capture up-close looks at another planet. "You couldn't have written a script that was better," New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, told Space.com.

CERN scientists claim discovery of new particles

BERLIN (AP) — Scientists working at the world's biggest atom smasher say they have discovered a new kind of particle called "pentaquarks."

After 50-year hunt, science finds pentaquarks

By Tom Miles GENEVA (Reuters) - Data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) outside Geneva appears to have proved the existence of particles made of five quarks, solving a 50-year-old puzzle about the building blocks of matter, scientists said on Tuesday. Quarks are the tiny ingredients of sub-atomic particles such as protons and neutrons, which are made of three quarks. A five-quark version, or "pentaquark", has been sought, but never found, ever since Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig theorized the existence of such sub-atomic particles in 1964.

All Aboard! Slug Poop Carries Worms to Destinations

Tiny nematode worms have an unusual way of getting from point A to point B: They travel on the slug poop express. Nematodes are worms that eat the bacteria growing on rotting vegetation. "Our study reveals a previously unknown nematode lifestyle within the guts of slugs," Hinrich Schulenburg, a zoologist at Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Kiel, Germany, said in a statement.

Hello, Pluto! NASA Spacecraft Makes Historic Dwarf Planet Flyby

The first age of solar system exploration is in the books. NASA's New Horizons probe flew by Pluto this morning (July 14), capturing history's first up-close looks at the far-flung world — if all went according to plan. To celebrate, NASA unveiled the latest photo of Pluto, showing a reddish world with a stunning heart-shaped feature on its face.

New Horizons: 5 Things Pluto Flyby Could Reveal About Planet Earth

Nine and a half years after it launched into space, a NASA probe is set to become the first spacecraft to fly by the dwarf planet Pluto. The New Horizons spacecraft is expected to make its closest approach tomorrow (July 14) at 7:49 a.m. EDT (1149 GMT), coming within 7,800 miles (12,500 kilometers) of Pluto's surface. This is because studying other objects in the solar system can provide clues about Earth's history.

U.S. spacecraft flies by Pluto after nine-year, 3 billon mile trip

By Irene Klotz LAUREL, Md. (Reuters) - More than nine years after its launch, a U.S. spacecraft sailed past Pluto on Tuesday, capping a 3 billion mile (4.88 billion km) journey to the solar system's farthest reaches, NASA said. The craft flew by the distant "dwarf" planet at 7:49 a.m. after reaching a region beyond Neptune called the Kuiper Belt that was discovered in 1992. The achievement is the culmination of a 50-year effort to explore the solar system.

Funeral Directors May Be at Increased Risk for ALS

People who work as funeral directors may be at a higher risk of developing amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, new research finds. ALS is a progressive disorder of the nervous system that kills the nerve cells that control voluntary movements. Typically, the diagnosis is followed by death within three to five years, according to the ALS Association.

Painter with Parkinson's Switches Hands, Mystifying Doctors

In a case that has mystified doctors, a professional artist who developed Parkinson's disease and then suffered a debilitating arm injury managed to continue to paint with his other arm — just as well as he had painted with his good arm, according to a new report. Doctors diagnosed Juan Mallol Pibernat, a Spanish artist, with Parkinson's disease when he was in his early 70s. One day, Mallol Pibernat lost his balance while carrying one of his works.

Obamacare, Nixoncare: Health Care Debates Are All About Politics

Once upon a time, two health care plans that were far more liberal than "Obamacare" were debated in the halls of Congress. The plans were introduced by none other than President Richard Nixon, a Republican and conservative stalwart. First came Nixon's National Health Strategy in 1971, which the Democrats ridiculed and fought tooth and nail, warning it would hurt the middle class.

This Amazing Photo of Pluto Is Just the Beginning, NASA Says

The new image was the last snapshot taken before New Horizons went quiet in anticipation of its close flyby of Pluto, which was scheduled to take place early this morning (July 14). The photo shows two major features on Pluto's surface that have been coming into view over the last few weeks: a large, bright, heart-shaped feature and the head of a darker region that is unofficially being called "the whale" (lower left). The image was taken on Monday (July 13), when NASA's New Horizons spacecraft was only 476,000 miles (766,000 kilometers) from the surface of Pluto.

New Inhaled Ebola Vaccine Works in Monkeys

A new Ebola vaccine that is designed to be inhaled works to protect monkeys from the virus's deadly effects, according to new research. Although this Ebola vaccine still has to clear many hurdles before it could be used in large numbers of people, it could have advantages over other vaccines in development, said Alexander Bukreyev, a virologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, and co-author of the study published today (July 13) in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. One key advantage is that because the vaccine could ultimately be delivered through a breathing device, the "administration of such a vaccine will not require trained medical personnel," Bukreyev told Live Science.

New, Ultra-Precise Measure Could Help Redefine the Kilogram

A new, extremely precise measure of Avogadro's number, a fundamental constant, could ensure solid footing for a new definition of the kilogram that does not rely on a single hunk of metal sitting in France. Every junior high school chemistry student learned Avogadro's number, or 6.022 X 10 ^23, a huge value that dwarfs the number of stars in the universe. Because Avogadro's number defines how many atoms or molecules are in a mole of matter, each mole of a substance weighs a different amount depending on the substance in question.

'Cursed' Artifacts Returned — 20 Years Later

Two decades after stealing antiquities from a first-century Jewish city in the Golan Heights, on the borders of Israel and Syria, a robber returned the loot to a museum's courtyard, Israeli authorities announced. The returned artifacts included two 2,000-year-old sling stones, also called ballista balls, which would've been used as weapons, and an anonymous typed noted saying, "These are two Roman ballista balls from Gamla, from a residential quarter at the foot of the summit. Although archaeologists "attempted to stow away all the ballista balls as best we could," on site, after wrapping up initial excavations in 1989, "the theft occurred in 1995 when there was no one at the site," Danny Syon an archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said in a statement.

U.S. spacecraft sails by Pluto, capping 9-year journey

By Irene Klotz LAUREL, Md. (Reuters) - A U.S. spacecraft sailed past the tiny planet Pluto in the most distant reaches of the solar system on Tuesday, capping a journey of 3 billion miles (4.88 billion km) that began nine and a half years ago. The event culminated an initiative to explore the solar system that the space agency embarked upon more than 50 years ago. "It's truly a mark in human history," John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science, said from the mission control center at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory outside Baltimore.

After Pluto Flyby, NASA Plays the Waiting Game

Although NASA's New Horizons spacecraft made its closest approach to Pluto this morning (July 14), mission operators won't hear from the probe until tonight, and images of the pass-by won't be released until tomorrow (July 15). The probe's handlers don't expect to hear from New Horizons until 9 p.m. EDT (0100 GMT Wednesday) or so tonight.

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